Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In the evening of Monday 11 June Pope Benedict XVI went to the cathedral of Rome the Basilica di San Giovanni in Lateran to inaugurate the Annual Assembly of the diocese of Rome on the theme: "Jesus is Lord. Education to the faith, discipleship and witness". We give some of the main passages of the Holy Father's intervention.
“The theme of this Assembly is " Jesus is Lord. Education to the faith, discipleship and witness": a theme which concerns us all because every disciple who confesses that Jesus is the Lord is called to grow in faith in Him giving and receiving help from the great company of brothers and sisters in the faith.”
"It is important to dwell first of all on the initial statement which gives the tone and the sense of our Assembly: "Jesus is the Lord"… from the beginning the disciples recognised in the Risen Lord the One who is our brother in humanity but One who is truly God; the One who with his coming into the world, w his life, his death and resurrection brought God to us, made God present in the world in a new and unique way, the One who gives meaning and hope to our life: in Him we encounter in fact the true face of God, which is what we need in order to live.”
“To educate to the faith, discipleship and witness means helping our brothers, or helping one another to enter into a living relationship with Christ and with the Father. This, since the beginning, has been the essential task of the Church as the community of the believers, the disciples, the friends of Jesus. The Church body of Christ and temple of the Holy Spirit is the trustworthy company in which we are generated and educated to become in Christ, children and heirs of God”.
“Daily experience tells us- as we all know well - that today it is no easy task to educate in the faith. Today, to be honest, every sort of education seems more arduous and precarious. We speak of a serious "education emergency", increasing difficulties encountered in handing on the basic values of life and of upright behaviour to the new generations, difficulties which involve the school, the family and, we can say, every other body with educational goals.”
“Education tends generally to be reduced to the transmission of certain abilities, or capacities for acting, while striving to meet the desire for happiness of the new generations by filling them with consumer goods and ephemeral gratification. Thus both parents and teachers are easily tempted to abdicate from their duty to educate and no longer understand the role, or better the mission with which they are entrusted”.
“However this situation does not satisfy, it cannot satisfy because it overlooks the essential goal of education, that is the formation of the person to render him or her able to live to the fill and to make his or her contribution to the common good. And so we see on many sides a demand for authentic education and the rediscovery of the need for educators who are truly such…in a similar context the Church's commitment to educate to faith, discipleship and witness to the Lord Jesus is more than ever the value of a contribution to help the society in which we live in order to overcome the education crisis with which it is afflicted”.
“Precisely this decisive challenge for the future of the faith, of the Church and of Christianity is therefore an essential priority in our pastoral work: to bring closer to Christ and the Father the new generation which lives in a world to a great extent far from God … For Christian education and formation, what is decisive is first of all prayer and our personal friendship with Jesus: only people who know and love Jesus Christ can lead others to a vital relationship with Him.”
“Furthermore, education, Christian education particularly, education to shape life according to the plan of God who is love (cfr 1Jn 4,8.16), needs that closeness which is proper to love… The whole Christian community in all its many different articulations and components is challenged by this great task to lead the new generations to the encounter with Christ.”
“In education and formation to the faith, the family has a proper and fundamental mission and a primary responsibility. Through its parents in fact the child who is starting life has the first and decisive experience of love, of a love which is in reality not only human, it is a reflection of God's love for every human person”.
“Many families certainly are unprepared for such a task and many seem uninterested if not contrary to the Christian education of their children … This is an area for commitment and service for our parishes, our youth communities, and first of all for Christian families themselves, called to be neighbourly with other families to support them and help them educate their children, helping them in this way to rediscover the meaning and purpose of married life. Now we will look at other agents of education to the faith.”
“Of special importance is the closeness which can be guaranteed by a priest, a religious sister, a catechist or some other educator capable of making concrete for the young person the face of the Church and the love of Christ. To achieve lasting positive effects, our closeness must be conscious that the educational relationship is an encounter of freedom and that Christian education itself, is formation to authentic freedom”.
“The work of education passes by way of freedom but it also needs authoritativeness. Therefore especially with education to the faith, the figure of the witness and the role of witness is central. Witnesses of Christ do not simply hand on information, they are personally involved with the truth they propose and with a consistent style of life they become a reliable point of reference. They point not to themselves but to the One who is infinitely greater, whose goodness and trustworthiness they have experienced. The authentic Christian educator is therefore a witness whose model is Jesus Christ”.
“In education to the faith a most important task is entrusted to the Catholic school. The school fulfils its mission basing itself on a project of education centred on the Gospel which is the decisive reference point for the formation of the person and for the whole cultural proposal... state school too, in different ways and modes, can be sustained in their work of education by the presence of teachers who are believers - primarily, but not exclusively, teachers of Catholic Religious Instruction,- and pupils with a Christian formation, and with collaboration from many families and the Christian community itself.”
“Today more than in the past, a person's education and formation are influenced by the messages and climate put across by the media and which are inspired by a mentality and culture marked by relativism, consumerism and a false and destructive exaltation, or better, profanation, of the body and human sexuality.”
“There is one past point to which I would draw your attention: it is of utmost importance for the mission of the Church and demands commitment and first of all prayer on our part. I refer to vocations to follow the Lord Jesus more closely in the priestly ministry and the consecrated life … Gently and respectfully but also with clarity and courage we must suggest to young men and women who seem most attracted and fascinated by friendship with Him that they could follow Christ more closely… We know that decisive in this field are prayer and the quality of our Christian witness, the example of the life of priests, of consecrated persons, the generosity of the persons called and the families from whom they come.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/6/2007; righe 91, parole 1289)
