Castelnuovo Don Bosco (Italy). On 14 September 2025, around a hundred families belonging to the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA) met at Colle Don Bosco to start the annual monthly retreats. Present at the meeting was the World Spiritual Animator, Sister Lucrecia Uribe, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians.
After the prayer of praise, Fr. Roberto Carelli, Salesian of Don Bosco, spiritual animator of the Primary ADMA, presented the formation proposal to offer in 8 stages, spiritual ideas and educational ideas on faith, with the clear intention of: growing in the faith and educating in the faith. Hence the title: “Our faith, the faith of our children”.
Catechesis and monthly retreats will therefore have the intention, on the one hand, of consolidating the faith of adults, and on the other, of accompanying young people in the faith, all in the company of Mary, “the perfect believer, the icon of faith, the one who is blessed because she believed, the woman to whom Jesus made make the highest, the most beautiful, the most demanding journey of faith.”
The catechesis was followed by a personal time of Eucharistic adoration. After the lunch shared with family and friends, together with the animators, the children and young people prayed the Rosary in the courtyard with their parents.
The prayer to Mary prepared and favored the moment of sharing in small groups in which, spontaneously, the adults took up some passages from Fr. Roberto’s catechesis:
“The Christian faith is not a leap in the dark, but in the light. It is not the opposite of reason and freedom, but it is reason and freedom enhanced in the encounter with Jesus”;
“Believing is leaning on the word and testimony of others, overcoming the illusory claim of finding security only in the evidence of facts and reasoning.”
Each family brought to the community Eucharistic Celebration the desire and decision to safeguard and promote the symbolic predisposition of children, which makes them capable of discovering the presence of God in the things of the world, and of awakening the sense of the Mystery in adolescents, inviting them to keep open the “question of God” as a question of life and death, of truth and justice.
