Fidelity to man and his time

11.  The first criterion---fidelity to the person and his time--- focuses on the person, set in his

historical-cultural context. This means, knowing our young people and helping them to know themselves; caring for their human formation and interior harmony. It also means, to help them to examine their own historical roots and their cultural identity…in continual evolution under the pressure of mass media, as is every reality today---, not to estrange himself from the journey that society, rather all humanity, is making.

Fidelity to man and fidelity to the laws of the psyche as well as of the body, of relational dynamics, of cultural and spiritual life.  They are goals, but also paths that enter into the education plans of the community and of individuals. One matures, in fact, traveling these paths, with the baggage of one’s own weaknesses, the force of convictions, and the invigorating experience that one is growing. The fruit is an ever more balanced, motivated, interiorly peaceful personality, able to discern good and bad (cf Wis 8:1-21), capable of critical judgement and free decisions, stimulating, open to others and listening, oriented toward a long-range “beyond”.

            Fidelity to one’s time requires a duel commitment to which we need to be initiated.  The first: “to inhabit” the present. One cannot build a future without having “taken up residence” in the present. He would interpret it conditioned by defense mechanisms, he would not live it; therefore, the weight of problems could escape him, their influence on persons and groups, and especially, the seeds and expressions of human, family, social and spiritual life that the present holds.  The second: to learn how to learn, therefore to read passionately “the book” made up of the “concrete existence of each man” and the challenges that it holds. ²²

            Formation needs spaces of silence and serenity; but this does not mean to create “islands” where the calls of today’s humanity and the cry of the poor do not reach. Our life is, after all, for them! It is a question of rhythms and modality.

12.  I wish to give an example.  I thought it interesting to draw it not from our religious world,

but to look for it in the lay environment. With this objective, I decided to re-read the “Report to UNESCO of the Commission on Education in the XXIst century.  It is known as the Jacques Delors Report, named after the chair of the Commission and is published with the title “Education: the Treasure Within”. I saw expressed in it a fidelity to man and to our time, open to the transcendent. The thesis is that the new planetary situation requires overcoming the "traditional distinction between initial and ongoing education” in order to develop the “concept of learning all through life”, as “key for entering into the XXIst century”.  “The profound changes in traditional models of existence impose on us a better understanding of others and of the world in general; these changes require mutual understanding, peaceful relationships and true harmony: that is, precisely those things that are most lacking in our contemporary world”.

Education must be built---is the proposal of the commission---on four pillars:

-         learn to know: “create in the individual the enjoyment, but also the foundations, to learn during the entire course of one’s life” and in situations in continual and profound transformation;

-         learn to do:  understood as “the acquisition of a competency that can permit the individual to face a variety of situations, often unforeseeable, and to work in a group”;

-         learn to live together: is the pillar on which the Commission placed most emphasis; “Learn to live together, developing an understanding of others and their history, their traditions and their spiritual values, and creating on this basis a new spirit, which guided by the recognition of our growing interdependence and by a common analysis of the risks and challenges of the future, will be able to lead people to carry out common projects and/or face inevitable conflicts in an intelligent and peaceful manner”;

-         learn to be: “In the XXIst century all will have to know how to act with a greater autonomy and capacity for judgement, together with a stronger sense of personal responsibility for the pursuit of common objectives…None of the talents that are hidden like a treasure buried in each person may be left unutilized...” ²³