At first, I thought of changing the title. I asked myself: can I, at seventy-six years of age, still have something meaningful to say to today's young people? They are experts in communication technologies that I scarcely understand, they live in a world I can hardly imagine, and they possess knowledge that is unfamiliar to me. Yet I would like to offer them a perspective shaped by this stage of life.

I was young during the turbulent years around 1968, a time marked by a growing awareness of human rights, an openness to the wider world, and a deep confidence that society could be transformed. We sang, *"Put flowers in your cannons!"*, convinced that peace could become a reality throughout the world.

I remember how the longing for justice welled up within us like a fresh spring, together with our indignation at every form of oppression and the exhilarating feeling that life could unfold in any direction: becoming a pilot or a teacher, a politician or a monk, living in our own country or at the ends of the earth. What an extraordinary sense of freedom it was! And what enthusiasm we had for discovering how we wanted to live our lives.

I believe that the desire for truth and justice is a pure and living spring that God places within every human person. At a certain point we become aware of it, and it leads us to see reality in new ways, to make choices that often go against the current, and to dream of a different world—a world that is both possible and within our reach, thanks also to our own contribution.

I do not know whether the overwhelming power of those devoted to wealth, power, and violence has succeeded today in paralyzing dreams, making people believe that another world is impossible, that things simply have to be this way, and that what truly reeks can somehow be made to smell sweet.

But that is not the case. Today's young people, perhaps more than ever before, know the hidden depths of our world, where those who pay the price for the prosperity of others continue to suffer. They no longer need to enter a religious congregation to reach these places. They go, they see, and they offer their help.

This has been the greatest treasure of my life: to have reached those hidden places. It has been a grace given to me by God and sustained by fraternity, because the sisters who shared the same dream made it possible for me to leave, to remain, to return, and to set out once again.

In my hometown, visible from my kitchen window, there is still a pine tree rising above the rooftops, behind which the sun sets each evening. That small corner of earth and sky spoke to me of unknown horizons and of a fraternity meant to be lived beyond every barrier. I tried to respond to that call. From the age of thirty onward, I spent most of my life in Africa, first in the Congo, then called Zaire, and later in Cameroon.

There is no personal merit in this, nor any reason for glory. It has all been grace—the grace of seeing the world from its roots, of standing close to those who bear the heaviest burden of human greed. I cannot honestly say that I fully shared their lives, because in truth I shared very little. Countless securities continue to separate us from the poor, even when we live only a few steps away from them.

Yet I received the priceless gift of simply being there and of receiving the friendship of so many people. I will never forget the young man who drove a bicycle taxi along the steep road that crosses Uvira, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. His friends, surprised that a *mzungu* (a white woman) had asked him for a ride, jokingly urged him:

"Ask her for a thousand dollars!"

He simply replied:

"No. She is my sister."

Sitting on the small bicycle seat, I looked at his worn-out shirt, watched the effort behind every turn of the pedals, and realized that I had received an immense and undeserved gift: to be honored by a poor man with the name of "sister."

Dear young friends, dare. Dare to dream. Dare to step beyond your comfort zone. Dare to encounter others. Dare to allow yourselves to be challenged and shaped by those who are different from you. Above all, dare to draw close to those who are the least among us.

There is no better place in the world.

They will teach you what it means to place constant trust in God, and they will lead you to know the One who chose to stand at their side—not to humiliate them, but to proclaim that they are the truly great.