
On the 7th, 8th and 9th of July, the ninth graders and the newcomers from tenth year made the customary spiritual retreat at the City of Children, directed by the Augustinian Recollects, with the aim that each of them could have an encounter with a young Christ in a propitious environment, with the inspiration of the Augustinian charism.
This year’s retreat, organized for a total of 91 young people, was called: Get to know yourself, accept yourself, improve yourself.
The main structure of the retreat was an adaptation for young people carried out by the team of coordination of the retreat, on the scheme of interiority of the Order of Augustinians Recollects, which seeks that each of the young people can know themselves and live with others, and try to understand how you can live in the world without being of the world; that each of the young people can value the sacrifice that God made for our salvation, that we may live in him. At the retreat, an attempt was made to convey the young that, just as Saint Augustine directed his heart towards God, they too can go towards He and they can assume a missionary attitude with the people who need him.
Just as the motto of the Order of Augustinian Recollects this year is: “Together”, so They also wanted to give the retreat a motto: “Together in a life project”, taken from the spiritual exercises of the Order, which are based on the comments that Saint Augustine makes about the beatitudes (Matthew 5, 1-12).
In these three days, the youngsters experienced each of the outlined objectives, with help of the thirty “servants”, of which five are twelfth-year youth, who have carried out the catechetical process and are currently also part of the team of catechists from the pastoral area of the institution.
This group of thirty was in charge of exposing different topics and organizing some activities, such as plays and the long-awaited rally that, as in the years previous ones, it was a complete success, in which both the young people and the “servants” of the retreat put their physical and mental gifts to the test.