In the parish of Santa Giulia in Turin, until the end of last year, there was only one group which young people of middle school age could join to prepare for their Confirmation. From the final year of middle school, in fact, they would already begin to attend the high school group. As time went on, however, we saw that the gap between 8th graders and high schoolers had become too great. For this reason, we decided to push Confirmations up a few months and so give life to a second group. Since last September, then, there has been a group that prepares for Confirmation, which gathers 5th and 6th graders, and a Post-Confirmation group that reunites the 7th and 8th graders.
The proposal that we make to the older ones is in continual evolution and is born, above all, from the direct relationship with them. Besides games and studying together, we have proposed meetings in which we sing some songs, listen to a short lesson that engages some theme that emerges from the dialogue with them, a moment of silence in which the kids are invited to reflect on certain questions that are relevant to daily life. And finally, discussion in small groups. From the very first weeks, however, we realized that, somehow, something was missing in the way we were staying together.
The oratory is truly becoming my home because I built a piece of it
And so, after a few months, speaking with those of the house but also speaking with the kids, the idea of a moment of “open” oratory came out. Not a particular proposal but a companionship that we priests and a few teachers could offer to the young people, simply welcoming them, playing basketball, soccer or making up some group game. Some kids said to me: “Fr. Dennis, now we need a game room!” And so it happened: we chose a room from the oratory and began to work. We set up a cupboard where we could store board games, a foosball table and an air-hockey table. We painted the room, and deep cleaned the floor and the walls. Once the work was finished, we were all quite proud of the final product and, above all, happy to have contributed to the construction of a place where all -children, teenagers and adults- could enjoy themselves.
Some days later, we gathered with the kids for our usual moment of reflection: this week speaking about the experience of working the few weeks before. One girl said: “The oratory of Santa Giulia is truly becoming my home because I built a piece of it.” A friend of hers added: “It was difficult and often I didn’t want to, but I can say that for the first time in my life, I felt truly useful.” Another spoke of the birth of a new relationship: “I had never gotten along with Pietro but as we were building the cabinet for the games, we became friends.” This is the piece of the puzzle that was missing in the “older” middle school group: a hands-on work in which the kids could discover their talents and build together a small outpost of the kingdom of Heaven. Carrying out together an activity that was significant and important for them, the kids felt valued and treated as adults, they contributed to the construction of the oratory and they became better friends with each other. Today, together with the liturgical proposal and the common life, work, which helps them to take seriously their desire to be useful to the world, relationships with friends and friendship with God, became the third load-bearing column of our proposal to the kids.
