Three to five hundred university students connected with Ignatian Spirituality, by invitation of the Jesuits, gather each year at a beautiful baroque shrine, dedicated to Our Lady, in the east of Poland to spend 8 days in prayer, sharing, joy and various activities. RSCJ are there with the young people from the beginning of the event, ten years ago, to share our passion, discovering the love of Jesus' Heart, " to walk with them, to be present with them all in their search for God, meaning and the value of life ", as the General Chapter says.

The students live in very simple accommodation; in very big rooms or in tents, eat in the gallery around the church. They enjoy community life and the simplicity very much. The young adults can choose and attend various activities such as prayer, often with meaningful symbols, conferences, sharing groups and a huge variety of workshops (drama, dance, spiritual or psychological issues, mission, history, pottery, crafts and even first aid and self-defence).There are always 20 to 30 suggestions on offer. 

This year I suggested a workshop on discernment of one's way of life. Each afternoon we discovered our deepest desires, learnt about spiritual discernment, did some exercises and plays on being together. The young adults listened to the witness of a married couple, a priest and my own as a sister, about choosing and living each particular way of life. It was a good opportunity for the students to ask, discuss and think about their own vocation, to look for the answers to such questions as: What has God put in the depths of their hearts? How would they really like to spend their lives and for whom? In the course of the week we managed to form a very well integrated group where deep sharing and joy became quite natural.

On the last day there was time for each of this year's 23 workshops to make a presentation of some of their work on a forum. Our group gave a performance showing what they had found most important and amazing, what they had discovered in the course of the workshop. There were issues such as freedom from the fear that God's will for them might be different from what they really wanted for their lives and joy that they did not need to search somewhere outside to know God's will because it was very close to them, in their own hearts. They had come to realise that God wants to fulfil their deepest desires, make them really happy and ready to be there for others.

I was moved by their spontaneous, simple joy which came from an encounter with God in the depths of their hearts, happiness that Jesus is very much interested in making them really happy in their vocation because only in this way can their lives be a message of His love for everybody. This week spent with the young people was a blessed time for me. I experienced the truth of the last General Chapter conviction, which, speaking about young people, says "we can learn from each other". I certainly learnt a lot from them.

Renata Ryszkowska rscj
Province of Poland