“It’s more than just doing the service,” said Fraino, 25, a Salesian young adult and service co-ordinator. “(It’s) growing in relationship with Christ and also growing as a human person.”
This growth was most evident for the group when it returned to the Salesian House in South Orange, N.J., the group’s home during the trip, to reflect on the experience that night.
Participants arrived at the station scared, most of them admitted, but left seeing Jesus in the people they served.
“No other experience in this world can simulate the feeling you receive when you give food and love to someone who is hungry for both,” said John Rugosi, one of two Canadian participants.
“Looking into the eyes of a homeless person,” he said, “you can literally see the soul of that person, and with the right lens, I saw Jesus several times.”
Such was the case for most of the service sites that the young people on GR Newark visited during the week, whether it was a soup kitchen, summer camp or youth centre.
Each day of service began with a Mass and concluded with a reflection. Together, these aspects of the trip accounted for the three elements of a GR trip: community, service and prayer.
These elements, said Fraino, are often one in the same.
“The community on this program was really, really good,” she said, adding she was impressed by the young people’s “ability to be very open even outside the structured discussion.”
She cited a few specific examples, including an unlikely discussion on marriage at 8 a.m. outside a service site, and a heated debate about the Theology of the Body that took place on the floor of the hallway outside the young adults’ rooms at two in the morning.
“My favourite part of the retreat was definitely the community aspect,” said Rugosi, 18. “I felt like I’ve known these people my whole life, and even though I was there for a week, it felt like no less than a month.”
It’s the same type of community that attracted Fraino to the Salesians as a college student.
“I think the thing that struck a chord in me initially was the family atmosphere,” she said of the Salesians. “They were friendly and outgoing, and it was just a lot of fun.”
Fraino remained involved with the Salesians after her first service trip to New Orleans in 2005 and was eventually invited to organize one. She began to work in the Salesians’ office of youth ministry in 2009, organizing Gospel Roads and other youth programs.
In late July, about a dozen more Torontonians will travel to Stony Point, N.Y., for Gospel Roads I, with hopes of bringing the program back to Toronto in the summer of 2012. St. Benedict’s parish in Toronto’s west end will host the program.
Like the participants of GR Newark, many will probably return to Toronto with a new outlook on their faith and service. “Some of them walk home and say ‘I wish I could do this forever,’ ” said Fraino.
What many of them don’t realize, she added, is that they can.
The Salesians — founded by Don Bosco, an Italian priest who had a charism for working with the young — also organize programs for domestic volunteers and lay missionaries who can spend a year in service abroad.
“You think that you’re going out to serve and give something,” said Fraino. “In every Gospel Roads, I think I’ve received more than I’ve given.”