An African proverb says: “If you dream alone, it’s only a dream. If you dream with others, it’s a reality that begins”.

Eurocamp began on 1985 as a “dream” of some blessed sacrament religious people who wanted to propose a meeting in friendship and fraternity for European young people, eager to reflect, to pray and to research on the great themes of faith, but also of solidarity, collaboration and integration among different cultures.

Thanks to the interest of the blessed sacrament religious in the world, this proposal has been opened also to participants coming outside the European borders, in particular in occasion of the World Youth Day in Colonia in 2005. Throughout the years, different people participated and/or collaborated to the development of the camp:

• Father Andres Taborda from Argentina;
• Father Hernaldo Pinto Farias, father Renivaldo Bruno da Cruz, father Alex Moreira and Luciana Ferreira Gomes from Brazil;
• Father Vergel Dalangin from Philippines;
• João Batista Sabino, Karla Ferreira Madivadua and Abristo Inlabe Zalale from Mozambique;
• Father Martin Boucar Tine from Senegal;
• Father Roger Johnson Fernando and father Herald Thamel from Sri Lanka;
• Father Joseph Vu Quoc Binh from Vietnam.

The pandemic situation of 2020 and 2021 forced us to interrupt this meeting, but this did not stop out desire of meeting again together, to walk side by side, together, because we have understood that, only in this way, we can overcome this difficult situation and reach purposes that can be good for each of us and all of those who share our lives.

Therefore, our research continued, as animators but also with some moments of exchange with young people and adults, in order to find ways and themes that could sustain us. With his Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”, Pope Francis offered us a dream that could help us to answer to the need of reopening, of restarting, to answer to the necessity to re-elaborate what we lived and suffered in order to be engaged and participate to the Church in a new way.

So here below the theme of Eurocamp 2022 that will be in Morlupo (Rome) from the 7^th to the 14^th of August 2022: “A dream to restart: fraternity”. Below the itinerary and practical information.

The experience of “distant” meetings imposed by Covid and the continuous solicitations of the General Father and of his Council in seeking collaborations among different laic movements of the Eymardian Family encouraged us to formulate a different proposal with respect to the previous experiences, a proposal that can allow us to arrive to those who cannot come to Italy. We desire to be in union with all those young people and adults that, close to the blessed sacrament Parishes and communities in the world, want to share, even if for some moments, what we will do during the Eurocamp.

For this reason, the texts we will use for the Eurocamp will be available before the beginning of the camp and we will realise three video conference in order to be able to meet all together online:

• on Monday, to meet and to present to each other
• on Thursday, day of the Eucharist, for a meditation on the World
• on Saturday, for a moment of reflection/sharing

Here we are, ready for this new dream, maybe ambitious, surely fed by the passion of engaging young people and adults in the eucharistic spirituality because, as Father Eymard did before us, we are convinced of the force of the Eucharist that builds fraternity and unity: “around Eucharist, we are all brothers, together with our elder brother [Jesus Christ]” (PP 43,2)¹.

27/01/2022

Mrs Daniela Baggi

For more information you can contact:

• Fathers Milos and Maurizio (Bolsena)
• Daniela Baggi (Ponteranica)

¹ Father Manuel Barbiero – Eucharist and the challenge of Fraternity – Meeting of the blessed sacrament religious and the lays of the Eymard Family, 01/05/2021.