Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Living in a shared apartment with the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. This is the experience of twenty or so university students – boys and girls – in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, at St. John Bosco Community of the FMA of Our Lady of the Nations Province (FRB).
The Belgian Catholic portal Cathobel has produced a video-documentary on the student residence:
“I really liked the project proposed by the Sisters,” explains Amélie, a student. “Once a week, we help the children of the school next to us to do their homework and I thought it would be an enriching experience.”
In this Christian “kot” (= house), located in a former Benedictine monastery in the Hocaille district, the young people share their daily life with Sister Michèle Decoster, Sister Isabelle Batantou, and Sister Anny Thomas.
“Being Salesian Sisters, for us Christ is present in the hearts of young people. They are at a time of life when their future is at stake. Accompanying them is a daily joy,” says Sister Michèle who, like the other Salesian women, has dedicated her life to Christ and to the young, in the wake of Don Bosco, priest and educator. Meals together, sharing, fraternal moments… the Sisters are present to help the young people and answer their questions. These moments of sharing allow everyone to flourish, because “we are Christians in this life together”, recalls Sister Michèle.
A presence and accompaniment that looks at the integrality of the person, in the typically Salesian family spirit, to support what they receive in their academic formation.
Pope Francis, meeting the university students and teachers in the Aula Magna of the Université Catholique de Louvain on 27 September 2024, during his apostolic trip to Belgium, recalled:
“This is the first task of the University: to offer an integral formation, so that people receive the necessary tools to interpret the present and plan for the future. Cultural education is never an end in itself. Universities must not run the risk of becoming cathedrals in the desert. They are, by their nature, propelling places of ideas and new stimuli for human life and thought, for the challenges of society, that is, generative spaces.”
On the FMA’s student residences in Belgium website, it says: “The aim is to provide a comfortable living space where students can study. It is a community project. It is a time to advance one’s studies, humanity, and spiritual life. The closeness of the religious community can provide a regular accompaniment and prayer.”
