Planting Flowers to Put Down Roots in Jaca

This week we gathered around the monument restored by our young people from the Calasanz Movement to perform a simple yet deeply symbolic act: planting flowers. It may seem like a small, almost everyday gesture, but in reality it encapsulates the very essence of what we are celebrating this year: 25 years of putting down roots from Itaka-Escolapios.

Over this quarter-century, thousands of people have dedicated their time, energy, and hearts to a shared mission: to accompany, educate, and transform. And they have done so just as roots grow: in silence, with perseverance, always seeking the depth that sustains life.

This year, at the Pious Schools, we are walking under a motto that invites us to look inward: “Your Root.” Because each of us has a root that sustains us, a root that gives us identity, a root that drives us to grow. And when those roots intertwine—yours, mine, those of the entire community—something stronger, more alive, and more capable of transforming the world is born.

That is why we plant flowers.

Because flowers only exist when there were roots before.

Because they represent the beauty that blossoms when many hands tend the same soil.

Because they are a reminder that what we sow together, blooms.

This monument that will stand with us in the playground is memory, gratitude, and commitment. Memory of those who began this journey. Gratitude for those who have sustained it for 25 years. And commitment to those who will continue to spread their roots over the next 25.

It has been a moment of gratitude, especially toward two groups who joined us and who give meaning to this event:

• To the young people of Cielos de Ascara (Atades’ Inclusive Project), thank you for your presence, your joy, and the way you engage with the world. You are a living reminder that every person is a unique, valuable, and necessary root. Thank you for teaching us to look at life with simplicity, authenticity, and hope.
• And to the young people of the Calasanz Movement, thank you for your energy, your willingness, and your desire to build community. You represent the future that is already sprouting. May these flowers that have been planted also be a symbol of your own growth, of your roots that are strengthening, and of all that is about to blossom within you.

May these flowers be a symbol of hope.

May they remind us that every gesture, no matter how small it may seem, can become life.

And may we continue, as a Piarist family, to spread roots that make possible a more just, more fraternal, and more humane world.

Thank you for being part of this story that continues to grow.