Attachment eng 14 dicembre 2018

1. ATTACHMENT
Here is the path taken from January 2018 to today, regarding the project "For a common home in the
diversity of peoples". We can all feel we are an active part of this project and really commit ourselves to a
world "home of all", "home for all".
We focused on four other verbs indicated by Pope Francis in the message for the World Day of Migrants and
Refugees: "Accept, protect, promote, and integrate".
With the beginning of Lent, we proposed making a practical exercise: to change our gaze regarding migrants.
Change our gaze inside and outside the community! Remove from our eyes every prejudice, every attitude of
condemnation, rejection or indifference.
With purified gaze toward our migrant brothers and sisters and the commitment of true and sincere listening to
their sufferings and difficulties, we took a further step: the purification of our vocabulary!
In the Easter atmosphere, the invitation was to restore hope to a migrant or migrant family and transform
their experience of darkness and uncertainty into a moment of grace, blessing, resurrection.
Month dedicated to Mary Help of Christians; open to the action of the Holy Spirit, we desired to set out once
again, and we went to migrant people (or with stories of migration) who work in our places.
On the 150th anniversary of the consecration of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, which made us hear
the voice of Our Lady: "This is my house, from here my glory!", we committed ourselves to think about
homeless people without a roof , but also without another house called a school: our children, teenagers,
girls and boys.
We let ourselves be guided by a video clip by Fiorella Mannoia, a song to listen to, to "watch", to "read", to
meditate ... entitled "It's not a movie". I hope that all the FMA were able to know the content of this song and
live a moment of prayer with eyes focused on those who are forced to migrate, on those who die in the desert

2. or the sea, on those who are rejected or find the ports closed, on those who see hope beyond a barbed wire
but cannot cross it, to those who find walls not bridges, to those born on the "wrong side" of the planet!
We wanted to encourage everyone to focus on young migrants. From the ‘Memoirs of the Oratory’ we grasped
the feelings that flowed from the heart of Don Bosco towards the young migrants, who for lack of
opportunities, had no other end but that of the prisons. In addition, we inaugurated the 50th anniversary of the
birth to Heaven of Sr. Maria Troncatti (1969 – 2019).
With the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we let ourselves be guided by Jesus' invitation: “Come ... I
was a stranger and you welcomed me”. We wrote on the cross the names of some migrant people we
know, and also the names of the nations where the migratory flow is greatest, that is, from where more
people flee, where more people land. “Jesus, you are still a stranger today and we want to welcome you into
our heart. You are truly present in the face of every migrant and we wish to welcome you into our heart.”
Missionary month, realization of the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops - Youth, faith and
vocational discernment and the canonization of Pope Paul VI, a Pope with a missionary heart, open to the
new frontiers of his time, a lover of young people!
We are committed to growing in the culture of listening. The proposal was to listen to at least one young
migrant. The answer was very personal: “I will do what I can”.
We let ourselves be challenged by what is said in the Final Document of the Synod of Bishops on Youth, Faith
and Vocational Discernment, in numbers 25 - 28 and 147 which speak precisely on the theme of migration.
The concrete gesture which we were invited to make had the flavor of Eucharist: that is, we opened the door
of our house to a migrant person or family, and we shared a meal with them. Sharing ‘bread’ with a
migrant person is the evangelical way to “go out, meet, and be close”, which is the horizon of the project “For a
common home in the diversity of peoples”.
We looked with hope at the ‘yes’ of the global community regarding the Global Compact on Migrants for a
safe, orderly, and regular migration. It is the great opportunity for the world to overcome fear and the
building of walls and to promote dialogue and the culture of encounter. The Holy Family is the archetype of
every refugee family; it is the point of reference for families uprooted from their environment. Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph in exile in Egypt are the example and protectors of every migrant, foreigner, and refugee.
Rome – 14.12.2018