The prayer of the "Via Lucis" is an intuition from 1988 by the Salesian Fr Sabino Palumbieri, Founder of the Ecclesial Movement "Witnesses of the Risen Lord 2000", the 20th group of the Salesian Family, seeking to meditate on14 stations, mirroring the Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross, but as the moments of the life of Jesus starting from the resurrection until Pentecost.
Since 2019, at the initiative of some young people, including Giandonato Salvia, a lay collaborator at Salesian Headquarters, the Via Lucis has been held in an itinerant way between the cities of Italy, moving from day to day to entertain the poorest, praying, and presenting a young witness of the faith born or lived in that territory.
Accepting the invitation of Pope Francis who has indicated 2024 as the year of prayer, the theme of this 6th edition of the Via Lucis is on the "blessing": "‘You are blessed’ recalls that every living being is desired, willed and loved by God and for this reason it is a blessing, a gift for everyone" underlines Salvia, economist and one of the main promoters of the think tank to rethink the world economy in the "Economy of Francis".
The pilgrimage, which started from Foggia on 5 September with the Sending Mass presided over by Archbishop Giorgio Ferretti, Archbishop of the diocese of Foggia-Bovino, then touched on Rome, Terni (where the group met the local Ordinary, Bishop Francesco Antonio Soddu), Perugia, Siena (with a visit to Cardinal Augusto Paolo Lojudice, Archbishop of the city) and Turin.
The group made a significant step in passing between Terni and Perugia, stopping in Assisi, to pay tribute to the figure of the Blessed and soon to be, hopefully, Saint Carlo Acutis, a reference figure for the group, as he was a young man full of faith and charity, very active with new technologies. This is why Giandonato Salvia himself, together with his brother, has created the "A.P.P. Acutis" social enterprise – which behind a significant play on words (Acuti Pro Pauperibus: Clearly For The Poor, in Latin) – has created the Tucum App that allows you to donate to the most needy people and to support local economies (more info on app.tucum.it).
During their journey, the young people and the people participating in the initiative followed a program that provided for each day: the morning Mass, the bus ride between the scheduled cities, lunch together, the rosary, the "proximity workshops" during which attention and service was given to the poor in the suburbs or in the stations, Eucharistic adoration and the Via Lucis with the presentation of the witness of faith associated with the locality visited.
A distinctive – and very significant – feature of this edition of the itinerant Via Lucis was the collaboration established with the multinational bus transport company "Flixbus": precisely in order to indicate that another economy is possible, and to support the charitable action of the participants with the poor, the company has granted the free use of its vehicles to the participants of the journey.
