(ANS – Rome) – Just one month to go until one of the most eagerly awaited appointments of this Holy Year of Hope: the Youth Jubilee (July 28-August 3, 2025). Thousands of boys and girls from all over the world, summoned by Pope Francis, are preparing to experience their Jubilee pilgrimage around Leo XIV, to rediscover together the reasons for their hope and to become sentinels of charity among their peers. There will be great involvement of the young people from the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM), who also on this occasion, as has been the case for years for the World Youth Days, will have the opportunity to share both the times of the general programme with the Holy Father, and specific moments for those who share the charism of Don Bosco. In total, around 5,000 young people from some 90 countries are expected.

Youth Jubilee 2025: In Rome, the beating heart of faith

From July 28 to August 3, 2025, Rome is preparing to welcome hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the world for the Youth Jubilee, one of the great events of the Jubilee calendar desired by Pope Francis on the occasion of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025. Among the most eagerly awaited protagonists is the Salesian Youth Movement, which has organized a packed program of meetings, prayers, and community moments in perfect harmony with the spirit of St. John Bosco.

“The programme designed for the SYM and all the young people of the Jubilee is not intended to be just an agenda of events, but a spiritual journey marked by welcome, celebration, reconciliation, and mission. As Pope Francis told the boys and girls at WYD Panama 2019: “You are God’s present, not just the future”. The 2025 Jubilee is therefore a call to get up, to move, to set out with confidence and courage,’ commented Fr Rafael Bejarano, General Councillor for Youth Ministry of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who together with Fr Joebeth Vivo, from the same Sector, is accompanying the entire process of preparation for the event.

The Salesian programme: a week of spirituality, culture and communion

Monday, July 28, will mark the start of the experience for the SYM participants. From 9:00 am to 9:00 pm there will be arrivals and accommodation, mainly in the area of the ‘Don Bosco’ work in Rome, in the neighbourhood that the Salesian basilica took its name from (in a strategic position, moreover, because it is close to the underground). To welcome the young people, there will be a colourful ‘SYM Fair’ in Piazza Don Bosco, a moment of celebration, meeting and sharing among delegations from all over the world, which will continue also in the following days of the event.

On Tuesday, July 29, at 6pm, the SYM will participate in the Holy Mass of Welcome of the Church of Rome in St Peter’s Square. This will be the first official common moment with all the young people of the Jubilee.

Wednesday, July 30, will be the so-called ‘SYM DAY’, i.e., the day entirely dedicated to the Salesian Youth Movement. From 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., the so-called ‘Dialogue with the City’ will be held in various urban areas: cultural, artistic, and spiritual activities to encourage the meeting between young pilgrims and the living reality of Rome. At the same time, the ‘SYM Jubilee Festival’ will also take place, which will see SYM youth from all over the world gathered around the Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Fabio Attard, and the Mother General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola. From 6pm onward, there will also be artistic performances from the various regions of the world, followed by fraternal agape, an evening show, and a vigil with adoration.

On Thursday, July 31, the ‘Dialogue with the city’ will resume, with widespread proposals to continue living the dimension of encounter and witness. It will be an opportunity for groups to get to know significant places in Rome, Christian spirituality, and the Salesian experience.

Friday 1 August will be Penitential Day: at the Circus Maximus, from 10.30 am to 6 pm, young people will be invited to live the experience of forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. A powerful moment, personal and communitarian, of return to God and reconciliation with the Creator, with oneself and with others.

The climax of the event will be the weekend at Tor Vergata, the same place that hosted the final phase of World Youth Day in 2000 with St John Paul II. On Saturday, August 2, at 7 a.m., the SYM will receive the mandate from the Rector Major and the Mother General. Then, in pilgrimage, the young people will go to the esplanade designated for the meeting, and from 3pm to 8pm, they will take part in the planned animation activities, with music, testimonies, and entertainment, while waiting for the Pope’s arrival. At 8:30, the vigil with the Holy Father will begin, followed by an overnight stay in a sleeping bag under the stars: an experience that will remain unforgettable for all the young people who will participate – just as it has been for the generations of young people who have had similar experiences at past WYDs.

Finally, on Sunday, August 3, at 9.30 a.m., again at Tor Vergata, the Holy Mass presided over by the Pope will be celebrated, the concluding act and spiritual culmination of the Youth Jubilee. A solemn but also festive moment, which will reinforce the experiences lived during the week in a community celebration of faith.

A profound proposal, a path for renewal

‘The general theme of the Holy Year, “Pilgrims of Hope”, finds full expression in this Roman and Salesian week: young people will not be mere spectators, but protagonists of a renewal of faith, of the Church and of society,’ said Fr. Elio Cesari, Director of the National Centre for Salesian Works (CNOS), one of the coordinators of the SYM event at the Jubilee. In a world torn by conflicts, fears, and loneliness, young Christians and our young people in particular are called to be bridge-builders, credible witnesses of a love that gives itself, like that of the Good Shepherd.’

The Social Communication Sector of the Salesians is also actively participating in all phases of organisation and coordination, in order to give maximum coverage to the event: “We will do everything possible to give maximum prominence to this historic event, to which young people from all over the world will converge. They will be the ambassadors of the good news in the world, and we want to accompany them throughout their journey,” said the General Councillor for Social Communication, Fr. Fidel Maria Orendain.

With its articulated program and with the lively participation of so many boys and girls of every language, people, culture and nation, the Youth Jubilee promises to be not only an ecclesial event of enormous magnitude and certainly the most attended Jubilee appointment, but also a true collective pilgrimage of dreams and possibilities: an opportunity for thousands of boys and girls to recognise themselves as a living part of the universal Church and to commit themselves, starting from the roots of their faith and their hopes, to build more peaceful, just and fraternal societies.