YOUTH" "
“Many signals of hope are being transmitted by youth today, and everything seems to indicate that it is still possible to give birth to a strong message of faith amid the anonymity of a big city”, says Monsignor Severino Pagani, delegate for youth ministry of the archdiocese of Milan. He has long been active in preparing the 28th meeting of European youth, promoted by the Taizé Community, which is traditionally held between 28 December and 1st January in a different city of the continent each year. This year’s meeting, the first after the tragic death (last August) of the founder of the ecumenical community, frère Roger, will be held in Milan. To help prepare the event, which is expected to attract at least 50,000 youth to the city of St. Ambrose, a group of ten or so friars from Taizé in France, 3 sisters of the Community of St. Andrew and 15 volunteers have been active over the last four months. An ad hoc diocesan council and special parish committees have also been created to help in the preparations. The visiting youth will in fact be given hospitality in families and in church structures throughout the archdiocese before coming together (for common prayer, dialogue and getting to know each other) in the old trade fair centre of the city. Frère João of Taizè, a 38-year-old friar from Portugal, with a degree of economics behind him, explains to SIR the meaning of this meeting. What is it that inspires youth to participate in your year-end meetings, wished by frère Roger himself as “pilgrimages of faith on earth”? “I think that the reasons that urge girls and boys of various nationality to take to the road and share five days of silence, prayer, dialogue and celebration together are innumerable. But I am convinced having participated in many of these rallies that the primary reasons is the wish to seek the profound meaning of life. And one way of seeking it is that of faith. Many of these youth are familiar with the way of praying that is characteristic of Taizè. They appreciate the contemplative dimension of life and wish to experience it together with many of their contemporaries”. Other reasons? “In the second place I would recall the internationalism of these meetings, which is undoubtedly highly appreciated by those aged 18, 20 or 30. They get to know others of their own age from very different situations. Friendships are born from these encounters that endure in time. I would also recall the dimension of festivity, which forms an integral part of this experience and which is palpable, both in the main events, and in the places where the youth are given hospitality: in parishes, in youth clubs, in families. Many people have already shared this experience, which was held in my city, Lisbon, last year. Many are keen to return, because they have remained caught by its fascination, and bring with them other of their friends!”. Is there not a risk that an atmosphere of a great international jamboree might distract the individual from prayer? “Yes there is a danger of that. In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many youngsters from Eastern Europe came to this spiritual and religious event also out of purely cultural or tourist interests. They wanted to see countries that hitherto had remained unknown to them. In recent years this aspect has gradually been disappearing. Now the atmosphere is calmer and more meditative”. But are youngsters from the countries of Eastern Europe still enrolled? “Yes, and in large numbers. Many Polish youths, a large group of Ukrainians and also Romanians and other nationalities will be present in Milan. We are also expecting 300 Russians”. The European meeting has a tradition of ecumenism, as indeed has your Community, just as wished by frère Roger… “That’s an essential element of the legacy left us by our founder, in whose footsteps we wish to pursue the pilgrimage of faith. Confessional diversity is the characteristic of the event. It is an element of self-giving, of mutual understanding, that enriches the meeting. For that reason we always try to arrange a simple programme of prayers, founded on the Word and meditation. Differences, both of confession and of nationality, are given every opportunity to be expressed and are well received. On the evening of 31 December, among other things, prayer vigils will be held in the parishes, followed by a ‘Feast of Nations’ that also has this purpose. What we propose, however, is a concrete ecumenism, experienced in praying to God together”. Can the youth who attend this annual meeting promoted by the Taizè Community be called European-minded? “I have known many who can be so described, both in our community in France and in my travels through Europe. What I find in them is an attention to others, an acceptance of diversities, and an open and engaging spirit. Personally at Taizè I am responsible for welcoming Romanian pilgrims. It seems to me that their attitude has changed over the last 15 years. Before, they only had the mirage of leaving home and reaching a Western country to find work and live in peace. Today I see that the wish to travel, to get to know others has remained, but at the same time there is a growing wish to return to their own country to live, help it grow, and improve the life of the people. That too is a form of Europeanism”.
