Young missionaries of hope among the nations

Rome (Italy). In the particular context of the Jubilee Year of Hope, of the 150th anniversary of the first Missionary Expedition of the Salesian Congregation (1875), of the Triennium of Preparation tofor the 150^th anniversary of the First Missionary Expedition of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (1877), and in view of the Canonization of Sister Maria Troncatti, missionary in Ecuador, young people from the European Provinces are going to live the summer missionary experiences in the style of da mihi animas coetera tolle.

Accompanied by FMA or SDB, starting from Europe, they will reach different places, to be a bridge of light, joy, hope for other peers, children who will meet in the different mission realities to which they are destined.

They are young people who have followed a course of formation and preparation during the year. In several Provinces, these paths are proposed in collaboration between SDB and FMA, within the itineraries of  the Province Youth Pastoral or by the VIDES Association  present in several European Countries and by the Madreselva Foundation of Spain.

From the Provinces of Europe there will be about 45 groups – for a total of 280 young people, with 20 FMA accompanying the groups – who will live a missionary experience of 1 month, 3 months or 1 year in:

Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cammarata (Sicily), Calais (northern France), Egypt, Ethiopia, El Salvador; Guînes (northern France), Embu (Kenya), India, Lixeira (Angola); Madagascar (3 groups), Mongolia (2 groups), Moldova, Romania, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Slovakia, Tampa (USA), Tanzania, Tunisia ( 2 groups), Hungary, Zambia.

The young who are leaving will be welcomed by the FMA or SDB communities of the places where they will travel and, through the activities of reception of migrants, Salesian animation of summer children or grest, school support, visits to war sites and poor people, of food distribution, will bring vitality and concrete support to these realities.

At a time when the world is “burning” with new conflicts that add to those already existing,  FMA and SDB educators dare to propose ways for young people not to remain indifferent, to let themselves be touched and take part in what they are living. Through small concrete gestures, the young people experience themselves in feeling in their own skin the problems of the people, in noticing the other, and taking care of it, like the good Samaritan who does not pass by, but stops, recognizes, and helps.

The wish for each of them is that in these experiences they can, like the Samaritan, stop to give something of themselves and then continue the way towards their destination, enriched in humanity and trust in their neighbor.

These are small concrete gestures of a love as evident as that of the missionary Annalena Tonelli. Three months before being murdered in Borama, Somalia (5 October 2003), after almost thirty-five years of service among “the shreds of a wounded humanity” in the Horn of Africa, she had spoken to Forlì, her hometown. On that occasion, she who did not like the notoriety and interviews and called herself “nobody”, when asked for a message to leave to the young people, she said:

“Tell them that life is beautiful and life is worth living to the full. (…) Do not be afraid and give yourselves to the end, because only then is life beautiful… There is nothing more passionate and overwhelming in the world than true love, that with which one forgets of oneself to remember exclusively the brother/sister… Yes, because they are really ALL our brothers and sisters… and these are neither theories, nor utopias, nor outpourings, nor sublimation.”

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