Young people. In the stop in Prepo for the meeting with the young people of the diocese (on this busy day, before the episcopal ordination which will be this afternoon, after a moment of prayer, Fr Ivan Maffeis talks with the young people who have asked them questions to which the Bishop he gave some answers.
Don Riccardo Pascolini introduced the dialogue with young people.
Here are the questions and a quick summary of Don Ivan’s answers
YOUNG FAMILY: Excellency, we are a young family: our names are Giacomo and Lucia, we are both twenty-six years old, we are workers and we live our being Church on a journey of faith. The testimony of the families who accompanied us in the engagement has persuaded us that, if Jesus Christ is the backbone of family daily life, one can live “forever”, cultivating marriage in Love as a nucleus of evangelization, “building one’s own home on the rock “. Faced with the difficulties that many families experience over time in “remaining anchored to the rock” and in being able to live the sacraments and community moments. In your opinion, what more can be done to support families from this point of view? (Giacomo and Lucia Zausa)
YOUNG WORKER: Your Excellency, in the apostolic letter Patris Corde, Pope Francis writes: “Saint Joseph was a carpenter who worked honestly to ensure the sustenance of his family. From him Jesus learned the value, the dignity and the joy of what it means to eat the bread that is the fruit of one’s work ”. Work cannot be alienation but self-realization, improvement of the world and a place of mutual solidarity in which young people could live as protagonists, without being condemned to beg for undignified jobs or to emigrate. Your Excellency, the hands, minds and skills of the many young people of our diocese are a precious heritage for the community: how can we help and support them in being protagonists of today and of our future? (Elisa Calzuola)
YOUNG DISABLED: Hello Excellency, welcome. My name is Anna, I am a girl in a wheelchair with a serious and rare disease that cannot be cured. I have always been educated not to feel sorry for myself, to face everything with a smile and the Joy of Christ. For my parents they are a gift from God. Even the parish helps me believe it. I can talk to him! The parish is my second home. My friends prefer the disco, the entertainment, my days instead are empty without the Church. But sometimes it happens that sadness comes to disturb my joie de vivre. What I would like to ask you is: what is Joy for you? What, if any, is a prayer that brings you joy? (Anna Martinelli)
Answer from Don Ivan
The most important thing is not the answers but the questions. In life I have learned that the important thing are not the answers but the questions and the answers to look for together.
I must say that I am struck by your freshness.
I don’t think I can answer everyone but I believe that in our hearts there is a question of infinity. And there is an answer to listen to. The family: You are a testimony, and this is important.
Elisa: work. We also die of work. it also happened to my brother.
I would like to tell you try to activate your dreams, not to be satisfied. There are times when we will have to do it but even at work dreams become a vocation, they become a call, because when we find our place, work becomes the place where we give the best of ourselves.
Anna: I think you gave the best answer with your being there, with your parents. We live in a world where running has become an idol but the more we run the less we meet. It is hard to be still, but you are not still. You provoked me to seek a prayer. I will look for it, so we will have the opportunity to meet again.
YOUNG TEENAGER: The commitment and life of us adolescents often passes through the service lived in the Scout Group, in the Oratory, in missionary experiences, and serves to nourish our dreams and our desires for good, beauty and fullness. We know that there is only one Way, but then, in everyday life, we struggle to recognize it as ours, beyond strong opportunities and experiences. What advice do you give to our need for certainties and references? (giovascout)
YOUNG UNIVERSITY: A new academic year is about to begin and even in the University the liquid society described by Bauman at the end of the last century seems to be alive. The space for dialogue and relationship between students and teachers of which the University was the forge is now reduced to a quick stop in life in which to acquire knowledge and skills in the shortest possible time to become “someone”. It seems impossible to speak of spirituality, of human needs and even of ourselves, let alone God. Yet in many of us there remains a strong desire to share without fear that hard work, study, the achievement of great goals acquire meaning thanks to meeting with an Other. How is it possible for us to be present in the University in this way? How to share one’s human need for meaning, in a society that does not seem to need it or at least not care for it? (Emanuele Salera)
Don Ivan Maffeis
We learn to look with the eyes of the heart and we will see that there are many answers.
Alessandro: I believe that the answer is already in the question. What to do: I believe you are already doing it. Make an appointment, learn to open the day with a moment together and you will see those who share your faith but also those who do not believe share your research.
At the end of the meeting Fr Ivan invites us to pray together to the Our Father for life, for work, for the sick so that no one is ever left behind. And it concludes with the blessing and a short prayer in front of the effigy of the Madonna delle Grazie which reproduces that of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo.
The dialogue between Fr Ivan Maffeis and young people – LaVoce