300 students from Don Bosco's school in Nomadelfia

At the end of March, about 300 boys from the Salesian Pius XI Institute spent a few hours in the morning in the family group of Nomadelfia in Rome. Three days dedicated to high school students (respectively the two-year period, the 3rd, 4th and 5th high school) and a day of knowledge for teachers: a beautiful opportunity to live together a moment of reflection and prayer near Easter.

Among the topics explored, vocation, sharing, fraternity . The leitmotif of the reflection is the Resurrection. Those who believed looked to a fixed point, the risen Jesus; began to share life – as the first Christian communities testify – and to plan a possible future: "Go and make disciples of all nations".

Following Pope Francis' invitation, we left with a simple impetus and a concrete commitment: to be immersed in life and not to look at it from the balcony. When you look at things from above, in fact, they always seem beautiful – like seeing a big city from the plane – but when you get down and get closer you see all the problems and contradictions. It is precisely at that moment that you must accept the challenge without letting your enthusiasm be stolen. "Don't look at life from the balcony, please: don't put yourselves in the tail end of history. Be protagonists!"

We live in a society that would like to make young people "silent and invisible", that finds a thousand ways to "anesthetize them and put them to sleep so that they do not make 'noise', so that they do not ask questions and do not question themselves". Pope Francis' wish for Holy Week is addressed in particular "to you, dear young people, the joy that Jesus arouses in you is for some a source of annoyance and even irritation, because a joyful young person is difficult to manipulate." So let us cultivate this joy and do not remain silent, even if "the world is silent and loses joy".

"Dear young people, are you capable of saying no? – is the question asked by Don Zeno to young people in 1979 – It is a bad moment, and it is good because you could do a lot. What do you want to do? Look at each other: how many are you who can give the wave, give life? But to give one's life! Say no! We don't want this civilization, We want a new life and it must be redone. And young people can do it".