Once again I am delighted with the initiative of the International Lasallian Youth Movement for its invitation to all of us who make up this great family to pray for peace in a special way on October 21 and to be men and women of peace, building it day by day in our actions and options.

Unfortunately, in today's world war and its subsequent suffering of so many innocent people is on the increase. Some of these conflicts are highly publicized while others remain hidden. The sad thing is that the principal victims are children and young people, who again become the most fragile link in our society.

Recently some horrifying statistics have been made public concerning child soldiers. It is estimated that there are some 300,000 of these in the world. According to Amnesty International these children have been kidnapped right off the street, or taken from classrooms or refugee camps. Many others are forced to leave their homes at gunpoint, while they are playing near their home or while walking along the road. Some children have joined in a "voluntary" way in light of the disintegration of their families because of conflict, the conditions of poverty, and the collapse of basic social services. As one senior official from the National Army in Chad said: Child soldiers are ideal because they do not complain, they do not hope to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill. In no way can we Lasallians be indifferent to this reality. We need to keep boys and girls in the center of our hearts and interests, especially the abandoned and the poor.

I invite you to keep these children and young people in your prayers for peace in a special way. Let us make our own the message that Benedict XVI offered us this year on the occasion of the World Day for Peace this past January 1: We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters. Consequently, it is essential that we should all be committed to living our lives in an attitude of responsibility before God, acknowledging him as the deepest source of our own existence and that of others. By going back to this supreme principle we are able to perceive the unconditional worth of each human being, and thus to lay the premises for building a humanity at peace. Without this transcendent foundation, society is a mere aggregation of neighbors, not a community of brothers and sisters called to form one great family.

Fraternally in De La Salle,

                                                                                          Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría
                                                                                                       Superior General