In recent days I had the unexpected but pleasant surprise of an invitation from the management of NPG to contribute to a new column: YM from the peripheries. They thought that the experience I am going through (and the ecclesial community, and the young people with me) can be significant and perhaps a challenge for young people and educators who live in "luckier" parts of the world. I also understand that they consider area covered by my church to be a "periphery", both because on the eastern edges of Europe (where the Centre is obviously well distinguished, including with elaborate pastoral ministry) and even in an invaded or "occupied" area or at risk of invasion and total occupation: what area, therefore, could be more peripheral than this?
However, I must say, by the way, in order not to be too disturbing, that we feel we are at the "centre". Because where we are is always the centre, since wherever there are young people and adults who take care of them is always the centre; wherever God lives (even if it is said that he prefers the peripheries) is always the centre. What I anticipate is what gives us strength and hope. So, here is a voice from a "periphery-centre", to a "centre" that opens to the periphery.
I also very willingly accept this invitation because it comes from the institutional and "charismatic" world of which I am a part, the Salesian one, and from the Note di Pastorale Giovanile magazine that I have known and respected since the time of my formation in Italy, and that has accompanied many of my pastoral steps. I therefore return some of what I have received.
I would like to express my answer to the question "How is youth ministry done in the peripheries and what can you say to the Italian YM?" as a "return" of gifts. So far we have received so much from the Italian ecclesial communities (and not only them) and from young people: not only the Salesian charismatic formation that has opened a vast field of service to us in Ukraine, but in recent years of war in terms of material and economic aid (medicine, food, tents, furnishings, the acceptance of many refugees...), and spiritual help with closeness and prayer. Here, I would like to somehow "give back" the gift of our experience, which for us is becoming the treasure that remains for us in a time of rubble and ruin, which is like the gospel treasure that is not consumed by rust and worms.
What then are the gifts of experience that we can offer to our Italian friends (and perhaps to various friends from other countries) What are our our treasures?
The gift of a God who is here
God is here, he is always here, at any time and under any circumstances. He becomes our strength of resistance even in the most dramatic moments, if we can but notice his presence. And here I want to borrow the words (beautiful words) of a friend of young people, a young woman, who has experienced in an even more dramatic way a situation similar to ours: Etty Hillesum.
She writes in her Diary on 12 July 1942, in a "morning prayer", still in the heart of the world war, and in the darkness of the Westerbork concentration camp, before the final stage of death in Auschwitz:
"One thing, however, becomes increasingly evident to me, and that is that You cannot help us, but that we must help You, and in this way we help ourselves. The only thing we can save in these times, and also the only thing that really counts, is a small piece of You in ourselves, my God. And perhaps we can also help unearth You from the devastated hearts of other men. Yes, my God, it seems that You cannot do much to change the current circumstances, but they are also part of this life. I do not call your responsibility into question, later you will be the one to declare us responsible. And almost with every beat of my heart, my certainty grows: You cannot help us, but it is up to us to help you, to defend your home in us to the last."
This is the experience that we are unfortunately going through, of a God buried in the rubble and devastation together with those who are buried and devastated. This is, therefore, the experience of many people, many Christians, many children and young people. But God resists in the hearts, we do not allow him to be buried, because otherwise everything would really be over.
God is in all this. Not because he wanted it, but because it gives us the strength to continue to keep him alive, the strength to resist, hope, and in the meantime live our Christian life.
It is there in spite of everything. It is in the signs of the prayers that have become much more meaningful to us, it is in his Word that is proclaimed (perhaps with the sounds of warning sirens or the roar of falling missiles or air defences trying to prevent it) with greater meaning, in the gesture of charity of a helping hand to someone in need, a word of comfort, a caress to a child or an elderly person... and in so many other ways. We don't need so many words of apologetics. God "imposes" himself on faith and life because otherwise we would be desperate.
In Bonhoeffer's words, God remains that gushing fountain of the village that allows you to quench your thirst and feel like a community; and he is so both in the joyful life and in the dangerous one. I notice this every time I celebrate Mass or spend time among the people in parishes and oratories. “At the bombing, everything exploded around me. And I – just a splinter under my nose. God is here ”. How many stories of this kind ensure that we are not left alone. He is here.
Well, this is the first "gift" I feel like giving, from the well of our village fountain. God is here; in a mysterious but real way and always questioning and comforting, he is present. No dramatic situation can convince us that he has abandoned us or stopped loving us.
