Frequenting the sacraments and doctrinal formation

The first fruit of this apostolate with young people is that they begin, generally right from the start, to frequent the sacraments with suitable regularity. And by making good use of the means offered in the St Raphael work, they receive a solid doctrinal formation, they learn to be souls of prayer, to live in the presence of God in the midst of their everyday duties, to give to their work (whether intellectual or manual) a Christian meaning, and to have a spirit of sacrifice.

A life of deep piety; unity of life

In short, they are taught to cultivate a strong and deep piety and to have a very special love for the Blessed Trinity, Our Lady, the holy Church, the Pope, and the Work. They are asked to show by their conduct that they seek a unity of life, by striving to make their deeds conform to their faith and making use of their work as a means and opportunity for apostolate.

Improving young people

When we see in young people a false spirit of self-sufficiency and a lack of respect for parents and teachers – the old folks, as they say – we begin to understand and love the St Raphael work more. As St John Chrysostom puts it: “Infancy and childhood are followed by adolescence, in which blow those impetuous winds, like in the Aegean, as concupiscence begins to grow.

“It is the age at which correction is least easily borne, not only because passions are stronger, but because sins are less rebuked, because teachers and instructors have disappeared. When the winds are stronger and the pilot is weaker and there is nobody to help, consider how great must be the shipwreck.”³