"GET UP, I MAKE YOU A WITNESS TO WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN!"
Responding to Pope Francis’ invitation to live the diocesan stages of the World Youth Day (WYD) which will be celebrated in Lisbon in 2023, the young people of the Diocese of Rome set out and with them we too, some young sisters of the “Mary Immaculate” community of Centocelle. We joined two Capuchin Friars from our parish of San Felice da Cantalice. The group was varied and numerous: some young people and young scouts, some volunteers and others who follow the formative journey of the parish. The appointment to meet was in Saint John in Laterano. We then joined the other young people of the Diocese of Rome, making the synodal journey more concrete through a simple pilgrimage walking through the streets of Rome, the very same roads that the Popes traveled to reach the Vatican, when they still lived in the Lateran. We reached the Colosseum, Piazza Venezia, Via Vittorio Emanuele II and we arrived in Via della Conciliazione which led us to Piazza San Pietro where the imposing Basilica of Saint Peter stands with its colonnade that welcomes and embraces. On these historic roads, the great saints lived an intense youth ministry, one of them St. Philip Neri, the saint of young people par excellence.
By walking together with other young people, the enthusiasm is revived, by becoming closer to them we open up to friendship, starting with a simple greeting and above all listening to them in their life story with their various activities.
Once in Saint Peter some young volunteers who animated the participants, distributed breakfast to us. After having breakfast, with the tickets they had given us in St. John in Laterano before leaving, we entered the Basilica to await the meeting with the Holy Father Francis, our Bishop who concluded the meeting with the Eucharistic celebration. The Pope invited us to reflect on the Word of God taken from the Apocalypse of St. John and the Book of the Prophet Daniel, contemplating Jesus, King of the universe who has the last word on our existence, which gives us hope, illuminating the night.
The darkness of life that we are suffering in our time, needs bright eyes to give light to the darkness of our heart and around us and to have the courage to look up to overcome the temptation to remain in our fears. This is the invitation "Raise your gaze, get up!", that the Pope launched to accompany young people on their way to the Lisbon WYD in 2023. He invited us to be able of dreaming, and capable of carrying on with courage our dreams, so as not to allow the great ideals of this world to be suffocated. The Holy Father was very grateful for the presence and contribution of young people in the Church who carry on their dreams with enthusiasm and courage.
He repeated to us: "Thank you, thank you for how you are able to carry on dreams with courage, how much you do not stop believing in the light even within the nights of life, however much you are committed with passion to make our world more beautiful and human. and be witnesses of God by attracting us to contemplate Jesus as king! "
He said to us: “Thank you for all those times when you work courageously to make your dreams come true, when you keep believing in the light even in dark moments, when you commit yourselves passionately to making our world more beautiful and humane. Thank you for all those times when you cultivate the dream of fraternity, work to heal the wounds of God’s creation, fight to ensure respect for the dignity of the vulnerable and spread the spirit of solidarity and sharing. Thank you above all, because in a world that thinks only of present gain, that tends to stifle grand ideals, you have not lost the ability to dream in this world! Do not live your lives numbly or asleep. Instead, dream and live. This helps us adults, and the Church as well. Yes, as a Church too, we need to dream, we need youthful enthusiasm in order to be witnesses of the God who is always young!”
Sr. Annabel Alera
