It is a letter that presents features that are deeply Salesian and seems to echo the spirit of the letters that Don Bosco wrote to his beloved young people. "I have one single desire; to see you happy in time and in eternity. This thought, this desire brought me to write you this letter." (Don Bosco, Letter from Rome, 1884).
In fact, Pope Francis invites young people to reflect on the reality wherein the new generations live, on their life of faith and on the way in which the fundamental options that shape their future and that of humanity mature, exhorting them to look at the figure of Mary as a model of concrete answers.
"Do not be afraid," the Pope repeats several times. Mary trembled at the mystery of God's call. And the archangel Gabriel, reading in the depths of her heart, said to her: "Do not be afraid, Mary!" God reads in the hearts. And many times young people feel fear before life, before the future, in facing important decisions. "And you young people, what fears do you have?," asks the Pope, who in the letter speaks to them with the clarity of a Pastor who knows his children. "In moments when doubts and fears crowd our hearts, discernment becomes necessary ... Discernment becomes indispensable when it comes to the search for one's own vocation."
In the message, the Pope invites young people to live some fundamental values for their lives. "Eminently Salesian values?," a reader with a Salesian heart might ask. Here they are:
- Be happy.
- Feel loved.
- Feel yourself accompanied. (You are not alone.)
- Be authentic and true.
- Rejoice of friendship and of dreaming together.
- Get excited, be enthusiastic.
- Face challenges with serenity.
- Believe in the goodness of God.
- Look for what God asks of you.
The Pope insists: "Dear young people, do not let the brightness of youth go out and dim in the darkness of a closed room in which the only window to look at the world is that of the computer and the smartphone. Open the doors of your life!"
