What are today's educational priorities? How can we transmit today, especially among young men and women, the meaning of life as a "mission"?
As the next Jubilee, in 2025, approaches, the Pope has referred in recent weeks to the great themes of the evangelizing mission: faith and its transmission, mercy as the principal manifestation of charity, hope as the force that sustains us on our journey.
The formative and educational task
On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the archiepiscopal seminary of NaplesThe Pope had a meeting with the authorities and seminarians. With regard to formation, Francis noted, the Church is like a "a work in continuous construction"..
"And this is also what he asks of you: to be servants-this means ministers-who know how to adopt a style of pastoral discernment in every situation, knowing that all of us, priests and laity, are on the way to fullness and are workers in a work under construction. We cannot offer monolithic and ready-made answers to today's complex reality, but must invest our energies in proclaiming what is essential, which is the mercy of God, manifesting it through closeness, paternity and gentleness, perfecting the art of discernment.".
He stressed the need for a priestly formation that is rooted in commitment, passion and creativity, together with charity, spiritual life and fraternity.
On a more general level, that of Catholic-inspired education, the Pope wrote a message for the Congress promoted by the Spanish bishops and held in Spain during the month of February, with the title "....The Church in Education. Presence and Commitment"(cfr. Message of 20-II-2024). The previous congress of similar characteristics had been held one hundred years earlier.
Francis writes: "The Church's educational mission has continued down through the centuries. Then and now, we are driven by the same great hope that springs from the Gospel, with which we look to all, beginning with the smallest and most vulnerable.". He adds that education is first and foremost "an act of hopeThe "new" in the face of people, the horizons of their lives, their possibilities of change and of contributing to the renewal of society.
"Today -continues the Pope- the educational mission has a particular urgency, which is why I have insisted on aglobal education pact (cf. Francis, Message launching the Global Education Pact, 2019 and Working Paper, 2020), whose priority is to know how to put the person in the center".
He goes on to evoke some fundamental principles for a Catholic-inspired education.
First, the right to education, for no one should be excluded, considering that there are still so many children and young people without access to education in so many parts of the world, suffering from oppression, war and violence.
For this reason, Francis exhorts the congress participants (on the final day there were about 1200 educators from all over the country, gathered in Madrid), to work first and foremost for the needs of Spain, but without forgetting anyone.
"Be sensitive to the new exclusions generated by the throwaway culture. And never lose sight of the fact that the generation of relationships of justice among peoples, the capacity for solidarity with those in need, and the care of the common home will pass through the hearts, minds and hands of those who are educated today.".
Thirdly, it stresses that "what is proper to Catholic education in all areas is true humanization, a humanization that springs from faith and generates culture.".
This is supported by the reality that Christ lives and is among us: "Christ is alive and is among us.Christ always dwells in the midst of our homes, speaks our language, accompanies our families and our people".
Finally, he thanked the commitment of so many people in favor of Catholic education in Spain who, at the same time, contribute to the cultural identity of our society; bearing in mind that "education is a choral work, which always calls for collaboration and networking."social friendship, culture of encounter and craftsmanship of peace.
Man-woman, image of God
In the context of a speech to Congress "Man-woman image of God. For an anthropology of vocations"(1-III-2024), Francis pronounced himself on the "uglinessThe "gender ideology, insofar as it tends to annul the differences between men and women and, therefore, to cancel humanity.
First and foremost, he pointed out, it is necessary to rediscover that ".the path of the human being is vocation"because man himself is a vocation. "Each one of us discovers and expresses himself as a call, as a person who fulfills himself in listening and responding, sharing his being and his gifts with others for the common good.".
This is reflected in our behavior: "This discovery brings us out of the isolation of a self-referential self and makes us look at ourselves as an identity in relationship: I exist and live in relationship with the one who engendered me, with the reality that transcends me, with others and the world around me, in relation to which I am called to embrace with joy and responsibility a specific and personal mission.".
The Pope explained that today there is a tendency to forget this reality, reducing the person to his material needs or primary demands, as if he were an object without conscience or will, dragged through life as part of a mechanical cog.
"On the other hand -he remarked- men and women are created by God and are the image of the Creator; that is, they carry within them a desire for eternity and happiness that God himself has sown in their hearts and that they are called to fulfill through a specific vocation.". It is an inner tension that we must not extinguish, for we are called to happiness.
A vocation to the "we
This has important consequences: "The life of each one of us, without excluding anyone, is not an accident of the road; our being in the world is not a mere fruit of chance, but we are part of a plan of love and we are invited to go out of ourselves and to realize it, for ourselves and for others.".
The successor of Peter pointed out that this is not a task that is external to our lives, but rather "a dimension that involves our very nature, the structure of our being a man-woman in the image and likeness of God.".
And he insisted: "Not only have we been entrusted with a mission, but each and every one of us is a mission.". Here he took up again some words he had said earlier: "I am always a mission; you are always a mission; every baptized person is a mission. Whoever loves sets himself in motion, goes out of himself, is attracted and attracts, gives himself to the other and weaves relationships that generate life. For the love of God no one is useless and insignificant." (World Mission Day, 2019).
He evoked, in this regard, the illuminating words of the saintly Cardinal Newman: "I have been created to do and to be what no other has been created to do. (...) I have my own mission. Somehow I am necessary for their intentions". And also: "[God] has not created me uselessly. I will do good, I will do his work. I will be an angel of peace, a preacher of the truth in the place he has appointed me and even if I do not know it, to follow his commandments and serve him in my vocation." (Meditations and questionsMilano 2002, 38-39).
Francis pointed out the need and importance of deepening these topics, in order to disseminate "awareness of the vocation to which every human being is called by God, in the different states of life and thanks to his or her multiple charismas". Also to question the current challenges in relation to the anthropological crisis and the necessary promotion of human and Christian vocations.
The importance, in this regard, of developing "an ever more effective circularity among the various vocations, so that the works that flow from the lay state of life at the service of society and the Church, together with the gift of the ordained ministry and the consecrated life, may contribute to generate hope in a world over which heavy experiences of death are looming.".
Three themes on the horizon of the 2025 jubilee
Finally, it is worth noting the Pope's address to the dicastery for evangelization (15-III-2024), in connection with the preparation of the 2025 Jubilee.
In outlining the framework of contemporary challenges, he underscored the secularism (living as if God did not exist) of recent decades, the loss of a sense of belonging in the Christian community and indifference to the faith. These challenges need adequate responses, also taking into account the digital culture in which we find ourselves: to know how to situate the legitimacy of today's much-claimed autonomy of the person, but not on the margins of God.
After this introduction the Pope pointed out three important themes at this time and in view of the Jubilee of 2025.
The transmission of faith
First of all, the rupture in the transmission of the faith. In this regard, he pointed out the urgency of recovering the relationship with families and formation centers. And he pointed out that faith is transmitted above all by the witness of life. A testimony that has a center: "Faith in the Risen Lord, which is the heart of evangelization, to be transmitted requires a meaningful experience, lived in the family and in the Christian community as a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ".
In this context, he stressed the importance of catechesis. In this context, he also emphasized the ministry of the catechist, especially in the field of youth, at the service of evangelization.
A third call for attention, in the same context, was addressed by the Pope to the Catechism of the Catholic ChurchThe "The Church is a fundamental reference for the education of the faith. "In this sense, I encourage you to find ways in which the Catechism of the Catholic Church can continue to be known, studied and appreciated, so that it can provide answers to the new needs that have emerged over the decades.".
The spirituality of mercy
Second theme: mercy, as "fundamental content of the work of evangelization"We have to circulate through the veins of the body of the Church. "God is mercy"as St. John Paul II had already announced at the beginning of the third millennium.
In relation to mercy, Francis pointed out the role of the pastoral care of shrines and also that of the missionaries of mercy, as witnesses of that divine mercy in the sacrament of the Confession of sins. "When evangelization is carried out with the anointing and the style of mercy, it finds greater listening, and the heart is more open to conversion.".
The strength of hope
Finally, the Bishop of Rome referred to the preparation for the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025 under the sign of the power of hope, and announced that in a few weeks the apostolic letter for its launch will be published. Hope will occupy a central place, as a "smaller" virtue that seems to be carried by its two sisters, Faith and Charity, but it is also the one that sustains them (Francis often evokes this passage from Paul Claudel's works in The Portico of the Mystery of the Second Virtuein 1911).
