Ideas for formation

Teach the young people that the Church is a living thing and that they themselves are the Church. Tell them that we are God’s creatures, but not animals; rather we are children of God. Make them appreciate that you achieve little with violence, but much more with prayer and study.

Mandatum novum

In the first Centre I had a placard made which we now have in all the St Raphael centres. It had some words from Scripture which remind us that there is a new commandment, the commandment of charity: love one another. Remove from them any sort of distrust. Tell them that the truth doesn’t need any secrets or secrecy. Let them see that life is short and that there is little time to love.

Those who don’t have a vocation

My sons, you will meet young men – you, my daughters, will meet young women – who are capable of all sorts of enthusiasm and sacrifice, but who have some overriding defect that makes it impossible for them, if not to continue in the St Raphael work, at least to receive the divine calling in any of the forms I have spoken about.

Pray for them, with humility

We have to pray for them, think about ourselves, and recall the words of the psalmist: pauper sum ego et in laboribus a iuventute mea (Ps 88[87]:15), I am a poor man, involved in labours and errors since my youth. If that is how I am, then I should not be surprised that they are that way too.

We can go to our prayer, and in the presence of God call to mind those fellows or those girls. Our Lord will be pleased to hear us singing softly, silently, the words of that Andalusian couplet: That peasant maid / was cast again / like a bell remade.¹⁰ And Our Lord will listen to us.