“Thank you for letting me celebrate Easter with you”: with these words, Chiara, one of the girls who took part in the Easter Triduum in San Vittore prison, expresses her gratitude for an experience that the other participants also described as “intense,” “profound,” and “unforgettable.”
Accompanied by the Sisters of Charity, a group of young people from different parts of Italy chose to spend Holy Week serving and animating the liturgies inside the San Vittore prison in Milan, from Holy Thursday to Holy Saturday 2025.
“Why decide to spend the Triduum in prison?”
“Because in those hugs,” says Caterina, ”in those spontaneous smiles, in those looks, in those gestures, in those shared words, you can meet the Lord. Because you are not afraid or embarrassed to let your feet be washed. Because with the looks, the hugs, the greetings, the handshakes of the inmates during Mass, you forget you are inside a prison and you feel like you are at a beautiful celebration in any parish, one of those that is spontaneous, perhaps a little chaotic, that feels like a party and that moves you, perhaps without even understanding why. Because when you sing at the top of your lungs together in the streets of Milan or during dinner, you don’t worry about singing out of tune, you just feel pure happiness.
During the day, the young people prayed, held night adoration, organized an original Way of the Cross— “it lasted longer than any procession I’ve ever been to, but the time flew by,” commented Antonio—and shared their daily lives with the sisters.
Receiving seeds to germinate
An experience that has left an indelible mark: “In recent days, there are those who have received answers, there are those who have received questions; there are those who have received peace and there are those who have received silence. Everyone, like a seed, has received something. Now, as if driven by a blowing wind, we each return to our daily lives, but with an extra gift to sprout where we are,” Paolo pointed out.
There was no lack of amazement at the fraternity that was born in just a few days: “Those people you have known for only a short time seem like lifelong friends. You immediately love them, as if you have always loved them. You feel welcomed, listened to, carried on their shoulders.” An improvised community, yet deeply united. “You have become the hands of Christ, his eyes, his caresses, silences perfumed with his love.”
In prison, a glance is medicine
Some have described prison as a place of glances: “I began to perceive it as a place of glances independent of norms, unfiltered. Glances that recall beloved faces, stories lived or missed. If those glances bring back something familiar, they become a medicine against indifference.”
Good Friday with the prisoners
Good Friday was the deepest point of this immersion in the Paschal mystery. “I did not run alone to the tomb,” writes one girl. “Because like angels you announced to me the true joy that passes through pain and pierces the darkness like a ray of light.”
A joy that, even though it blossomed in the silence of the prison, continues to resonate: “Our ears and hearts are filled with melodies and words, our eyes with gestures we have just experienced. The only thing we can do is share it, because such great joy cannot remain ours alone.”
The fragrance of Christ
Brothers, sisters, friends. That is how we felt, that is what we called each other. And so we returned home, changed: like the nard with which our wrists were anointed, “we now smell of Him.”
