What is it like doing the experience of being Regional Councillor, of visiting the over 400 Salesian houses of the Mediterranean Region?
It is a beautiful experience, something I would indeed wish everybody could make, because, through the encounter with people, it offers the concrete, daily possibility of getting acquainted with the beauty and complexity of the world – in all its beautiful parts and also in its most terrible places, the poor countries, the ones at war…
And one can also see the preciousness of Salesian education in all these Salesian houses, with thousands and thousands of teenagers and youths, with lay people who are corresponsible in the mission, my confrères …
Besides, when one is continuously on the move as I am, one has the opportunity of touching with one’s own hand the heart of God and the action of God in the hearts of people: in the end, one has a wider and more beautiful experience of humanity, of the Church, which opens up to see the world in a different way.
What is the most important thing you learned from Don Bosco?
The most beautiful thing is having the wisdom and strength to experience hope, even if it is hard. Hope means believing in persons, in the youth, and consequently working so that the youth – who are the present and not the future – may have a good life, a worthy life.
And along with them, the families also follow. Because when a Salesian house hosts one thousand youths, it actually involves one thousand families. All this is a simple, concrete way to practice hope and to walk so that the good life of the Gospel may open its way in many people.
The video-interview, done by Lorenzo Paussa, is available in Italian on the YouTube channel of the “Bearzi” Salesian Institute.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwhUARqaBnM
