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From 20 August to 3 September, the itinerant route proposed to young people returns including moments of prayer, reflection and service to the poor. From Turin to Bari, passing through Milan, Genoa, Piacenza, Assisi to get to know the figure of "Saints next door" such as Carlo Acutis, Sandra Sabattini, Carlotta Nobile, Matteo Farina, Maria Orsola Bussone, Santa Scorese and many others

Roberta Barbi – Vatican City

Three thousand kilometers in fourteen days, accompanied by fourteen smiles that stand out on as many faces flooded with the light of Jesus: those of the witnesses who were chosen as spiritual guides of the 2022 edition of the Via Lucis, organized by the Tucum Odv association in collaboration with Terra e Aps Mission and with the Mission Festival. Every day, in 14 different cities, participants will meet the poorest who live in railway stations to experience a moment of prayer and service together, they will listen to testimonies, take part in field workshops and fully experience Eucharistic Adoration, accompanied by figures linked to the territory, young people who, despite the very short spaces of their lives, have left an indelible mark on others, simply letting themselves be shaped by the Lord in their daily existence.

Illness as an experience to offer to the Lord

Many of the young witnesses chosen as examples for today's edition of the Via Lucis suffered during their physical lives, but were able to channel the pain into energy, driven by the engine of faith. In addition to the exemplary figure of Carlo Acutis who needs no introduction and whose testimony will take place in Milan in the church of Santa Maria Segreta which he frequented and which today preserves a relic of him, there are other less well-known but equally shining characters. It begins in Rome with David Buggi, the "soldier of Christ" who, not yet eighteen, does not rebel against the illness that afflicts him, but on the contrary accepts it knowing that he has not said yes to suffering, but to God. In Naples it continues with the promising violinist Carlotta Nobile who from the Chamber Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Sofia which she directs, becomes a "music donor" in the oncology departments where she is hospitalized and testifies how cancer has healed her soul. In Taranto Pierangelo Capuzzimati who, at not even 18 years old, knows how to recognize God's plan for himself in the evil that oppresses him and becomes the father of his parents, bringing them closer to the faith and making their conversion mature in them. And then, again, in Brindisi Matteo Farina who at just 19 years old speaks of his illness as a "spiritual re-flowering" and in the hospital, forgetful of himself, he dedicates himself to the comfort and spiritual health of others. In Parma, however, the Sicilian Sarah Calvano is proposed in whose diary, published with the title “Sarah's Magnificat” gives the shocking testimony of how happy one can be in a hospital bed. Finally, in Piacenza, it is the turn of Giulia Gabrieli, a fourteen-year-old from Bergamo who knows how to experience her illness as an adventure which will however have a beautiful ending, be it recovery or an encounter with the Lord.

Giving yourself to others is the greatest joy

Among the fourteen witnesses there are also young people who spent all their time for others, like Mario Giuseppe Restivo, who died in an accident at just 19 years old. Always involved in Catholic scouting, it is in this fertile ground that his vocation towards serving young people took root, so much so that he brought scouting to the peripheral parishes of his Palermo. Marianna Boccolini will be remembered in Assisi, an eighteen-year-old originally from Narni who, until her death in a road accident, had the dream of becoming a doctor to treat the poor and the suffering, enlightened as she was by her gaze of wonder towards others. Sandra Sabattini, from Ravenna, a disciple of Don Benzi, will also die in an accident at the age of 23. After an experience among disabled people and drug addicts, she decides that she can no longer do without them because by choosing them she has chosen God. In Genoa it will be Marco's turn instead. Gallo, 17 years old and the courage to abandon "normal things" to search for a superior, different happiness that can only come from faith and heaven. In the same vein also the witness of the Turin stage, Maria Orsola Bussone, of the Focolare Movement, who at just 16 years old wrote to the founder Chiara Lubich that she had understood the value of the Cross, then living it on herself with a premature death during a camp for children in which she participates as an entertainer.

Love the Lord until death

Continuing in no particular order, there are two other very significant figures that the participants in the Via Lucis will be asked to get to know, united by violence in death which is almost a martyrdom. In Bari we will reflect on Santa Scorese, the first victim of femicide when stalking was not yet a crime, killed in defense of her chastity at just 23 years old in 1991 and for this reason remembered as "the saint of the persecuted". She, permeated by the spirituality of the Salesians, of Catholic Action and of the Focolare Movement - the most important meetings of her life - before her death she had developed the intention of consecrating herself to the Missionaries of the Immaculate of Father Kolbe but she did not in time. Last but not least, Don Ezechiele Ramin, known as "Lele", from Padua but also from the world, because he joined the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus. With them he will go among the indigenous Americans, to Mexico, and return to his homeland in time to help the earthquake victims of Irpinia and then again in Brazil, where he will be killed because of his commitment to improving the living and working conditions of farmers oppressed by landowners.