Hajja Salesjana November December 2017

25 home oratories and how we think that we are doing Don Bosco’s work in our homes. We had breakfast at the Castelnuovo Oratory, then made our way to San Andrea church, where it is said that Don Bosco was baptized, to renew our baptismal rites. We then headed back to Colle, passing through Morialdo and stopping briefly at Domenico Savio’s home. After lunch, we had Eucharistic celebration together with the group from the UK in the Sanctuary of Mary Help of Christians. The next part of our day was a dialogue with the Rector Major and Mother General, where we asked them collective questions brought forward by our international groups. This dialogue was extremely informative, and we got to know both Don Ángel and Sr. Yvonne much better as persons. After dinner, we had a cultural evening in the Confronto tent, where each country made a short presentation. The Maltese group danced to this year’s Bosco Summer School theme song “One Family”, which was very well received by the other participants. We ended our final night with the evening prayers and adoration, which went on throughout the night, and where we were all free to go and pray until the next morning. Day 9 – 16 th August 2017 On our final morning, we concluded the adoration together then headed down for breakfast. We then had our final evaluations in our national groups, where we shared together our thoughts on the experience from start to finish, and what we could take with us from the experience to carry on to our work with Salesian Youth Movement Malta. We were then given the final message and goodbye from the Small Team, and ended the Confronto with the Eucharistic celebration, during which Don Bosco’s relic was returned to Colle. It was a great way to celebrate the birthday of our founder, and to end our fantastic experience at Confronto! Final thoughts I feel extremely blessed to have been given the opportunity to take part in Confronto 2017, and through all the things we went through together during those 9 days, I feel like I made many new friendships, as well as strengthening old ones. I also feel renewed in my faith, and my Salesian spirit has been strengthened by witnessing how much good the Salesian community is doing in Europe. We are truly blessed to have been given two such brilliant examples as Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, and experiences like Confronto are extremely useful in reminding us not to take our Salesian background for granted! Thank you again to the SYM Europe Small Team (Anne Florence, Blažka, Carina, Renato, Sr. Lolia and Fr. Patrick) for all their hard work during Confronto, and thanks to all my fellow Animators (especially Jeanine and Mohamed) for being such great and encouraging friends during Confronto! The Maltese group in Valdocco