Johannesburg (South Africa). On 4th September 2021, a group of 20 young people from the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM) of Gauteng and Bosco Youth Center in Walkerville, young people from the Parish of All Saints of Ennerdale, SDB, FMA, and Salesian Cooperators, celebrated the Season of Creation with an excursion into nature.
The walk was an opportunity to contemplate nature, pray, and thank the Lord for the beauty of creation and reflect on the theme of the Season of Creation 2021, begun on 1 September, “A home for everyone? Renew the Oikos of God.” The reflection was led by Sr. Maria Nguyen, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians of Blessed Laura Vicuña Community of Johannesburg, of Our Lady of Peace Province (AFM) and by a Salesian Cooperator Aspirant.
The group went up the hill to reach the Glorious Cross, where the young people had time to write their reflections on the experience of creation lived along the way, brought to the offertory in the Holy Mass celebrated by Fr. Lingoane Tlaile, Salesian of Don Bosco, Delegate for Youth Ministry of Blessed Michael Rua Vice Province (AFM).
The young people lived the day with intensity, sharing how they live the relationship with creation and take care of it, both individually and as a community, in the family or in the group. Each returned to their own reality with the commitment to put into practice the ‘3 R’s’ in everyday life in favor of the ecosystem: Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle, to take care of the common home and ensure that Creation becomes everyone’s home.
“God is gloriously and mysteriously present in creation, since He is the Lord who reigns over it. To find out, we need to be silent, listen, contemplate” (Tweet by Pope Francis – 6 September 2021).
