Excursions

To make sure they don’t lose touch with the centre they frequented during the year, you can organise some excursions as a means of being able to see them. Or a number of you can agree on meeting at a place more or less equidistant for everyone. Where a number of people are spending the summer in locations near one another, each one of them should make an effort to maintain contact with the others. In any case, it is always possible to write to them frequently, or have their older companions join with you in writing to them.

Letter-writing apostolate

How much “letter-writing apostolate” have I done with my St Raphael boys when I didn’t have them nearby! At times, it would be three or four letters in a row before receiving an answer. If I could not write to them at length, I would at least send them a couple of lines, something that would awaken them, encourage them, and also remind them of their resolutions.

The Holy Spirit moved the Apostle St John to do the same: scribo vobis, iuvenes, quoniam fortes estis, et verbum Dei manet in vobis, et vicistis malignum (1 John 2:14); I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Apostolate during the summer

Also during the summer, everyone in contact with the St Raphael centres, in order to improve in our spirit, needs to maintain a minimum plan of life, and needs to carry out apostolate and proselytism. They carry out this apostolate with their friends and companions who are “greener”, less well prepared, so that afterwards they can bring the more deserving ones to the centre. It would be a great pity if, under the pretext of “not complicating their lives”, we were to contribute to their spending the holidays like pagans.