Dear young people of Catholic Action,
In these times of trial, we are called to gather in prayer, a concrete instrument that now more than ever makes us overcome distances and unites us as brothers.
As IFCA Youth Coordination we would like to propose to live together a moment of prayer during Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020 (for the Byzantine rite on Sunday, April 12, 2020), in which we also celebrate World Youth Day.

The invitation to be together in prayer will also help us to strengthen ourselves to continue to live our daily life in faith and to “get up” after this difficult period.

Thus the idea of praying together with all the young people of the world was born, with the desire to join together and feel close to each other, like the great family that we are and that we have always been. After praying together we take the commitment to share our reflection through an image, a photo, a sentence, a song and to make a post or a story on social media, tagging IFCA’s facebook and instagram profiles.

Furthermore, we also take the opportunity to launch the “EASTER CORNER” initiative: the invitation to create during Holy Week, in our homes and/or in our rooms, a place for prayer, together with the objects that are accompanying our spiritual life (such as the Bible, a crucifix and/or an icon, a candle, a small globe, the image of a witness accompanying us…). Let’s photograph it and share it with our friends.

A hug to each of you and Happy Easter

Luisa, Michele and all the friends of the IFCA Youth Coordination

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XXXV WORLD YOUTH DAY 2020
“Young man, I say to you, arise!” (cf. Lk 7:14)

After a moment of prayer together in which we entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary, we read the message that Pope Francis gave us for the XXXV World Youth Day. Let us take time to reflect.

To help the reflection:
– the Pope has decided that the verb that will accompany the journey to WYD in Lisbon is “to rise”, also taking on the meaning of rising, awakening to life.

How do we want to live this time of ours as young people, standing up on our feet?
Our planet is facing a great health battle, which is affecting all countries in different ways. We continue to pray and reflect by helping ourselves with the words that Pope Francis gave us on March 27, during the extraordinary moment of prayer in time of epidemic.

Let’s read the episode of the sedated storm (Mk 4, 35-41)
On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, “Let us cross to the other side. “Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still! “The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2020/documents/papa-francesco_20200327_omelia-epidemia.html 

Let’s go over the Pope’s commentary again:
“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35)
The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening.(…) Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. (…) On this boat… are all of us. (…)It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story.

QUESTION: How are you living this storm?
What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. (…) this is the only time in the Gospels we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (v. 40). Let us try to understand. (…) once they have called on him, he saves his disciples from their discouragement.

QUESTION: Are you turning to Jesus? Do you care about your spiritual life? How is prayer helping you?
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. (…)In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.

QUESTION: These days are you managing to think about the consequences and causes of this storm? What do you think the “after” will be like when this health emergency ends?
In this prayer we are accompanied by a dear friend of ours, the young Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati.

We ask for his intercession in the memory of his birth, which took place on April 6, 1901, and we pray him for all the young people of the world:

Holy Father, source of love,
we thank you for your testimony
of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
From his example let us learn
to know and love your Son Jesus,
to feed on his Body, bread of the soul,
to follow him in the service of the poor,
and thus embody the spirit of the Beatitudes.
From Pier Giorgio, let us learn to have
a heart open to life, welcoming,
generous and full of joy.
Help us, Lord
to choose “upwardly” paths,
not to settle for compromise
to follow your Son down the path of the cross,
that leads us to eternal salvation.
Holy Father, hear our prayer
and through the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio
grant us the grace we ask of you,
through Christ our Lord.

Hail Mary, Glory and
a work of mercy.

TOGETHER WE WALK TOWARDS EASTER
The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith.
We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved.
We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed.
We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. Amen.

Let us sing the Our Father.