More than six thousand students participated in Rimini in the GS Easter Triduum, which was preached by Father Julián Carrón and Father Giorgio Pontiggia. At the beginning of this event, Pope John Paul II's message resounded: "Don't be afraid of youth, that is, of those deep desires you feel for happiness, truth, beauty, lasting love," as an appeal to view Christ's death and resurrection as part of His profound embrace of the path of young people.The reality of youth today is determined by a culture that has fear as its horizon: if everything goes toward nothingness, as the prevailing mentality preaches, is it possible to look at life opening up in a positive way, expecting something true for oneself? If everything is destined to fall into nothingness, then existence has no future and the only thing that remains is to grab desperately at the fleeting moment. Some momentary pleasure, characterized by flight or dreams, is what seems to be left for today's young people; a scrap of happiness, a surrogate for what the heart desires. Julián Carrón described this position as one of desperation, in which "you don't expect anything," and which is expressed in the "superficiality with which man grasps his time." Silencing the demand for happiness that resonates powerfully through young people is the task to which the powers that be have diligently set themselves and which they pursue with lucid violence.

A knapsack for the road
Within this limited horizon youth is, then, a dark shadow in which the human being begins to destroy himself instead of happily taking up his knapsack and setting out on the road toward self-fulfillment. The six thousand young people at Rimini were a sign of a contradiction to this culture of nothingness and fear; they have shown that a world exists not only of discontented and desperate youth, but also of young people who are aware of the desire for the infinite which characterizes them, and they witness this through their commitment to a hypothesis for response which has been proposed by reality. What these young people lived was not an exceptional moment, marked by a new form of escape-sentimental and religious-from reality, but they experienced the encounter and relationship with Christ who, through His death and resurrection, fulfills humankind's desire for happiness. This is an experience whose center is the living and present God, so concrete as to take on man's ills in the greatest gesture of love, so true that man finds in the sacrifice of Good Friday His human face. On Holy Thursday Carrón emphasized that without a presence capable of embracing it, "man's desire is corrupted;" in fact, Holy Thursday is the miracle of Christ's presence, "Destiny which offers itself up in order to help man along his path to happiness." No one has taken man's desire seriously, "except God, who became man to help every human being achieve his destiny, self fulfillment, happiness." For this reason, Christ's declaration, "I have called you friends," means: "I have eliminated the distance between you and destiny." On Good Friday Carrón highlighted the mystery of Christ's love, who by taking up the cross "makes a compromise with the miserable condition of humankind." And the fact that this is a mystery is proven by the fact that "man does not really realize to what extent of pain God bent Himself to pull him out of nothingness."

An abyss of tenderness
Love lies completely in this total submission to evil, so that the cross becomes the mystery of an infinite love, "an abyss of pity and tenderness" for the salvation of every human being. On Holy Saturday Father Giorgio Pontiggia pointed out that "resurrection" means the certainty that "Another shapes man's life" and "through the various circumstances directs the path of every person like a river toward its fulfillment." The resurrection is thus the keeping of His promise of a life in which desperation no longer dominates and the demand for happiness is fully answered. Within this simple path, vividly set forth, the young people at Rimini witnessed to a generation in love with life. This was done in the simplicity of their listening and attention, the profundity of their dialogue, their silent following of the cross as it wound its way through the hills around the fortress of San Leo, rejoicing in the new life being affirmed within the normal conditions of their existence. The Easter gesture made by GS is thus a small but real sign that today's youth are not suffering from a sickness of living that makes them tired and passive, but that there is an openness and willingness in these new generations, because their hearts resonate and wait for something or someone who will finally grant them an attention and embrace that are fully human. For this reason, just as at Rimini there were many young people who, faced with a proposal whose end point was reason, responded with passion, so in the context of daily life freedom goes into action if it is aroused. A challenge emerges from the GS Easter Triduum for all the adult world: not to complain about today's youth, but to be in their midst as a living sign that an ideal involvement with existence makes it worth living; and this happens where an adult communicates in a simple, elementary way his life and the reasons that fulfill it.

When school started again after Easter vacation, a teacher-whom I had told last year about the experience of the three days in Rimini and in particular about the Via Crucis at San Leo-stopped at my name while she was calling the roll in class and asked, "Did you go to San Leo this year too?" "Certainly," I said. Going on, the teacher said: "Were you glad, did you like it?" A little timid in the face of such precise questions, I said, "Yes," and to my great surprise she said, "I was there too! I saw that the things you told me about last year are really true." I would never have imagined that those few words I said last year would have remained so vivid for her.
Caterina from Udine

I never believed that the Rimini Exercises could bring so much concreteness into my life! The words hounded and pursued me until yesterday in school Christ presented Himself concretely in front of me, when I was being examined during history class, and my friend Vanessa with her looks and constant words asked me to judge what I was about to say from the standpoint of my experience, that is, that Christ is the answer to my happiness. At first I thought to myself that she was dreaming, but then looking at her again I realized that she was saying it because she really cared about what happened to me. So I decided to take the leap, and speaking about the situation of the papacy at Avignon, I explained that in that society every single person had the desire to live the relationship with Christ in a concrete way, and this was made possible only through the Church and some outstanding figures like Saint Catherine of Siena. Even if my presentation was not one of the best, I know for certain that it was Christ making me say His name in front of the class, something that I would never have done! Now the most wonderful thing is that answering this question made me and makes me happy, and this does not end with a little number in a grade book, but in an infinite Thank You to Christ.
Laura from Milan

The Triduum made me reflect mainly on one thing. You can't just sit there and say nothing in front of something that really happened, an event that became flesh and is present so that no one can pull back when faced with it: Christ in our midst. I don't think anything can be clearer than this. And the thing that makes this fact most beautiful is the Mystery that saves us. Right after the Triduum I went to Mass on Easter Sunday and when, after the priest consecrated the body and blood of Christ and said as always "mystery of faith," I stopped to dwell two seconds more on that phrase and my thoughts went right back to the Triduum. Thinking about it, I realized that that phrase is beautiful; for me it shows that the Mystery is so great that our faith accepts it as an indispensable sign for our life. Now, what I say is not a contradiction, because Christ's presence is not just a dream, but truly is there, and it is not a dream that He existed because it is revealed to us by this concrete companionship.
Gloria from Abbiategrasso

Dear Father Giorgio, You certainly don't know me because I am just one of the 6,000 young people who participated in the three days in Rimini. My name is Carla, I live in Catania, and go to classical high school. I should tell you that on March 12, 1999, my father died of a brain tumor.
Already some time earlier a friend of mine from GS, Agata, had asked me to go to Rimini with her, but I told her no, because I had my world, my certainties, my ideals, and, apparently, I didn't need anything else. Then when my father left us and everything melted like snow in the sunshine, I discovered that I was surrounded by nothingess. I saw the families of the other patients in the critical care unit in utter desperation, and I realized that this was not what I wanted for myself. So I decided to follow another road, the one proposed to me by Agata. From the very first assembly in Rimini it was as though they were talking about me, as though they were answering my doubts. But the thing that struck me most was the atmosphere that was lived everywhere, which allowed you to view everybody as though they were your closest friends, because we were all brought together by something bigger, by our common desire to pull ourselves out of nothingness. And thus, even if at times I complained about being tired, or about the food or the heat or other such silly things, I would never have wanted to be anywhere else! In those three days I certainly did not find an answer to all my questions, but I finally understood the greatness of my desire, and I learned to be happy, not because I forgot my pain, but because now I offer it to Him who makes me moment by moment; I offer it to the Mystery that, thanks to this companionship, assumed, for me, arms to embrace me and eyes to look at me.
Carla from Catania

The week after the Easter Triduum was a very difficult time for me, but in the end it showed itself to be of fundamental importance for my life. It helped me to understand all the truths that were said in those three days, which I had thought I already possessed. Everything happened in bad circumstances, difficult moments, which I would have undergone as a victim, if Vanessa at School of Community had not repeated insistently and wonderingly the words we heard at the Triduum: "We are not our state of mind, but He who makes us."
Nothing is taken for granted, because if you are not open, you don't make anything your own. I thought that the first encounter with the community was enough to open my horizon and that afterwards I wouldn't need any more help to go forward. Instead, you always have to ask someone to open your eyes for you. In these moments you understand that you are not alone-from family to friends, everyone helped me. Even if only for their presence you ought to be thankful to God. You become aware of God through little things. Everything depends on your attitude, which if it is not humble and doesn't recognize reality, that is, God's presence, it makes your life superficial and does not let you get to the bottom of things.
Pietro from Bologna