It was chosen for its openness to the world and for its being a place of arrivals and departures. So this year Cagliari welcomed with open arms the joy and enthusiasm of the thousand young people of Salesian Youth Movement. In the city, from 25 to 27 April, the VII Central Italy SYM Forum. Today – as scheduled – the grand finale, with the appointment in the churchyard of the Basilica of Bonaria, in the name of prayer and faith. For more than a century the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians have been working in Sardinia at the service of young people through a qualified educational commitment inspired by the «preventive method». Oratories, Parishes, Professional Training Centers and Schools are the educational outposts in which consecrated people, families, lay professionals, pastoral workers and volunteers dedicate themselves with passion, convinced that education is the best investment in the future.
Precisely for this reason the Movement (also present in Liguria, Tuscany, Marche, Abruzzo, Umbria, Lazio, Molise) wanted the forum, the largest Salesian youth convocation in Central Italy, to land on the island for its 2024 edition. It is an event that harmonizes spirituality, celebration, personal and social training, inclusion in the local Church, dialogue with the territory and attention to local traditions in its program.
There first day it took place in the splendid green setting of the Monte Claro Park: welcomed by music and dance, the young people gathered in the event area prepared for them, listening to the testimonies of some guests about moments of darkness. They were thus able to listen to the experience of Mariachiara Vaccarella, director of the Gerini Professional Training center in Rome, who as a young teacher found herself faced with the anger of Alessandro, a teenager abandoned by her mother. But not only that: they experienced the fatigue and blockage experienced as a young student by Paolo Casale, today principal of the Don Bosco Salesian Institute in Cagliari and the psychological darkness experienced by Andrea, a young guest of a socio-occupational community, handed over to Sister Ester Muller, a young nun from Modena. At the end of the day the park lawn was transformed into an immense table, set up by around 100 families. With the setting of the sun the grassy surface was transformed into a natural cathedral which welcomed the prayer vigil before the Lord.
Yesterday the boys instead “invaded” Cagliari for listen to the testimonies of hope present in the city. Today the final act of the three days, with the meeting this morning in the churchyard of the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria, with the pilgrimage of young people to the simulacrum of the Patroness of Sardinia and the Mass celebrated in front of the sea by the archbishop, Monsignor Giuseppe Baturi.
(Unioneonline/vf)
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