We are called to be salt and light in our present world, however complex it may be. We must care for our brothers and fight with all our strength for the regeneration of our society. We have not chosen it, but this is the time that God has given us to live among our brothers and sisters, to walk at their side. As Gandalf said to Frodo Baggins: "We cannot choose the times we live in, the only thing we can do is decide what to do with the time we have been given." God has given us this time, and we are responsible for opening new paths, as well as keeping our heritage alive. But then, if we want to create a new Christian culture to serve as an alternative to the one that is already emerging in our world today, what are the steps we should take?
In my life I have had many teachers, as Gandalf was for Bilbo. Fernando Sebastián, Archbishop of Pamplona and Bishop of Tudela, with whom I had the privilege of working side by side as delegate for education in the diocese of Navarre.
I once heard an idea from him that helped me to situate myself in this point we are discussing. He was giving a lecture in which he precisely analyzed our world and pointed out three circles of action on which a society should be reformed.
The first, said the Aragonese cardinal, was that of personal conversion. Everything must start from there. Otherwise, any reform or change will be built on sand. At a time when people are clamoring for the reform of socio-political structures, in reality what is most urgent is the transformation of persons, of each person, beginning with my own conversion.
The second part of Augustine's sentence brings us back to this initial point: "Nos sumus tempora; quales sumus, talia sunt tempora."(We are the times; as we are, so will be the times). Perhaps, if we look at the times in which we live, we will realize how we are. Simply by turning the phrase around, it reflects the degree of vitality of Christians living in these times, as a mirror would. It is undoubtedly a spur. And at the same time it shows us the only way to start again. To begin with our conversion.
This first circle seems to me to be particularly important today. Conscience is the last redoubt of freedom in a society in which there is the possibility of directing our impulses by knowing every last corner of our life thanks to the big data (data intelligence). They know what we like, they serve us appropriate content, personalized for us, according to our age, place where we live, preferences, etc.
And they have the ability to guide our behaviors and shape our thinking. Never has the capacity to manipulate people been so powerful. That is why the authentic cultural resistance, the true barrier against the most radical alienation, is a man configured by Christ.
The second circle is that of close relationships. Starting with one's own family, which is undoubtedly the first and foremost social nucleus. D. Fernando called us to take care of our family and to live as Christians, as a domestic church, our ordinary life. How many resonances also came to me when I heard these words! And how we have had to live it in the times of confinement by COVID-19! The domestic church has become a tangible reality in that time when we were locked up in our homes; it was not a simple theological idea.
That family circle, that first social instance, is the most important and fundamental when it comes to generating a new society, radically alternative to the one offered by today's world. Never before has the witness of a united, fruitful family, with faithful spouses who love each other in any situation, been so striking. Today, this type of relationship is radically countercultural, but it lays the solid foundation for a new way of understanding life.
Giving our children the gift of faith is the best gift we can give them, but it is also a way of building the society of tomorrow. Transmitting the faith, passing the witness from generation to generation, is the best evangelization that the Church can do.
We must transmit a faith that is alive, that teaches our children to live in the midst of this world and to be committed Christians themselves. Many times I hear parents who live in fear of the world they are going to leave their children. I like to remember the phrase of Abilio de Gregorio: "Do not worry about the world you are going to leave to your children, but about the children you are going to leave to this world". The education of children is a great contribution to the creation of a new Christian culture.
In this second circle of social relations, Father Fernando encouraged Christian families to create bonds and community with other families that have the same criteria, the same values that emanate from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the next step to be taken, the one we have to take in order to build a new society. We have to create bonds, establish relationships between families that have the same vision of the world in order to create a small community in which being a Christian is something natural.
Fernando invited us to participate, together as Christians, in the civil society closest to our lives, the reality in which we are immersed: the community of neighbors, our children's school council, the neighborhood parties, our work in the office... How much life we can give in all these environments, creating a true current that is born from the Good News of the Lord! Everything is transformed when Christians live it.
And neighborhood communities can truly be community and not constant quarrels; neighborhood festivals can be celebration and unity, creative and joyful; work can become a nucleus of friendship, with close ties that go beyond the merely economic.
This second circle has always been vital in confronting totalitarian regimes. It was the cultural struggle that St. John Paul II maintained, for example, with his theater group in communist Poland. Small nuclei of identity that, by various means, keep their roots alive and transmit them to others.
The third circle is that of political life. When a new culture, new relationships, a new vision of life in civil society is born, then naturally a new politics will be born. The great institutional relationships, the unions, the political parties, the media... all of this will be Christianized, in truth, when the previous circles have vitality.
Because, as we know, the great temptation is to think that when a supposedly Christian political party wins the elections, when there are powerful means of communication that can carry the Gospel as others spread its messages, then everything will be solved. But experience tells us that, in the best of cases, this would be a giant with feet of clay that would end up crumbling.
This is the way forward: to build from the bottom up, to lay the foundations of the building, to dream, perhaps, of great projects for the future, doing the small actions that we can and must do in the present.
Teaching Delegate in the Diocese of Getafe since the 2010-2011 academic year, he has previously exercised this service in the Archbishopric of Pamplona and Tudela, for seven years (2003-2009). He currently combines this work with his dedication to youth ministry directing the Public Association of the Faithful 'Milicia de Santa Maria' and the educational association 'VEN Y VERÁS. EDUCATION', of which he is President.
