SAINTS, NOT PERFECT: THE NIGHT OF THE SAINTS FOR ANYONE FEELING OUT OF PLACE
The 31 October Night of the Saints in Milan and Pavia has ended. This article keeps the announced programme for teenagers—conversation, music and prayer—without claiming undocumented outcomes.
The word saint can suggest someone impossibly distant: always patient, always making the right choice, with an answer ready even on difficult days. It is easy to count ourselves out. Me? With that unanswered message, yesterday's anger and everything I cannot seem to put right?
The title of one of the 31 October meetings in Pavia, “Saints, not perfect”, opens a door precisely there: in the gap between the person we want to be and the one we find ourselves becoming when we are tired, confused or ungenerous. A gap worth crossing, rather than turning into a permanent sentence.
The Night of the Saints comes to Sant'Ambrogio
On Saturday 31 October 2026, the eve of All Saints' Day, Fom is holding Milan's Night of the Saints at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. Teenagers from parish youth centres are invited to explore the joy of the Gospel and how it takes shape in everyday relationships.
The route includes a workshop, prayer with the Archbishop or an auxiliary bishop, and a celebration at the parish youth centre. Groups have starting slots at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm; the experience lasts about two hours. For availability and participation arrangements, contact your youth centre or the youth ministry team.
The basilica provides a real place to meet. Perhaps that is the first lovely thing: leaving your room, arriving with your questions and discovering other young people willing to ask them, too. There is no need to prove that your faith is already tidy and free of hesitation.
In Pavia, the evening begins with Augustine
The programme published by the Diocese of Pavia sets the meeting point at 7pm outside San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. Father Matteo Zambuto introduces the teenagers to Saint Augustine through words and music. The route continues at San Francesco with Father Claudio Burgio, chaplain of the Beccaria juvenile detention centre, for a meeting about vulnerability, mistakes and the possibility of starting again.
Prayer with Bishop Corrado Sanguineti follows, then a light buffet supper at the Oratorio del Carmine at 9.15pm. The initiative is intended for teenage groups: contact the organisers or your parish group before travelling if you would like to join.
Music, listening and something to eat together. These familiar gestures can make room for conversations that are harder to start elsewhere. What do I do with my mistakes? How do I ask for help? How do I learn to trust again after a disappointment?
“Not perfect” can help adults, too
It does not mean that every choice is harmless, or that feeling fine about ourselves is enough. Mistakes can hurt people and sometimes call for practical repair. Acknowledging them, however, is different from deciding that we are beyond hope. Change needs someone who continues to see us as capable of it.
This is a question for adults accompanying teenagers, too. When a young person makes a mistake, do we leave room for their story? Can we correct them without reducing them to their worst action? Taking these questions seriously does not require easy answers. It takes time and a presence that stays when a relationship becomes difficult.
One evening cannot solve everything. It can offer an encounter to return to, a sentence that stays with you or the name of someone to contact. Sometimes that is how a community becomes recognisable: you know whom to message when things go wrong.
An evening without a battle over pumpkins
There is no need to turn every Halloween party into an opponent to explain this invitation. We can describe what is being offered and leave readers free to approach. The eve of All Saints' Day is a chance to give a human face to a word that might otherwise stay inside a catechism book.
The Church celebrates All Saints on 1 November. The gatherings planned for the evening before brought the saints’ stories into shared spaces. This edition’s dates have now passed.
What if nothing is organised in your town?
You can ask your parish about its plans, or choose a small, possible gesture. Read the story of a saint whose name is all you know. Pray for someone you find difficult. Phone a person you have left waiting too long.
These are not tests to pass so that you can feel better than other people at the end of the day. They are ways to give direction to a wish to do good, even when you are unsure where to begin. Reconciliation has a first message; prayer can begin with “I don't know what to say to you”.
We like “Saints, not perfect” because it leaves the door open. There is room for those searching with conviction and those arriving full of doubt. For people with a story to tell and for anyone who, that evening, would rather listen.
