Education is one of today's most pressing challenges, which engages the Christian and civil community. We are called to think together, aspiring to the formation of a new humanity, knowing that the future is linked to the choices in education’s field. The Holy Father has spoken several times with words full of education passion: "We all have at heart the welfare of the people we love, especially our children, adolescents and young people. We know that the future of our city’s up them. Thus we have to be solicitous for the training of new generations, for their ability to orient themselves in life and to discern good from evil, for their health, not only physical but also moral. Educating however, has never been easy, and today it seems to become more and more difficult [...]. So we speak of a great "educational emergency", which was confirmed by the failures too often we encounter despite all our efforts to form solid people, able to collaborate with others and to give meaning to their lives "(Benedict XVI, Letter to the Diocese and the city of Rome, January 21, 2008).

Educating to the good life of the Gospel

Constitutive dimensions of the Church have in them a great educational-training value: the assiduous listening and loving the Word, the celebration of the liturgy and communion in life make the believer able to share spiritual and material goods. The Church is a place and a sign of permanence of Jesus Christ in history. In its missionary task, education becomes constitutive and permanent needs of the Church's life and an integral part of her mission. A mission, that of the Church, developed through her being a disciple, mother and teacher.

"Learn from me" (Mt 11:29). The Church teaches and shapes because first of all is a disciple of the Lord. Humbly brings to follow him, learning over time the service’s way, of the discernment of the signs of the times and of charity in truth.

In addition, the Church teaches and forms as mother. She is a community of believers who educates every day with her whole life. In fact, the economy of salvation is called to be a whole of education.

Finally, the Church teaches and forms because is teacher. She is a collection of education which takes the effort of searching for the truth to serve the development of the person because lives the charity, the love in the truth.

But what the Church teaches? Passionate Church teaches, that can not be cut the legs from delusions, that does not dismount never  from her presence’s turn, that in the face of indifference will never say arrange! Educates a Church that always knows combine together project, proposal and freedom to respond. Educates a Church that knows how to accept the desert, poverty, failure and at the same time do not want that others have the experience of poverty and the desert, to discover the importance of an  essential life, sober and responsible to God. Educates a Church that knows to stay in a thousand of contradictions, struggles and weaknesses of our history. Educates a Church full of meeting, listening, relationship, taking care, guidance, forgiveness, mercy, love. A Church that educates with her life, with her style, with her choices every day, through a full testimony.

Giving shape to life

When we talk of help and service to give to the poors, it is important to note that they not only have the right to bread, to relish, to dress, to housing, work, health ... but also: to Word’s bread, to Eucharist’s bread, the Charity bread. That is, they have the right to meet Jesus Christ in all his fullness. "The bread of the word of God and the bread of charity, like the bread of the Eucharist, are no different breads: they are the very person of Jesus who gives himself to men and involves the disciples in his act of love for the Father and brothers (Evangelism and testimony of charity 1). The pedagogy of the facts committed to making the transition from the words’ charity to charity of works. A passage that calls for the implementation, in everyday life, of constant action of discernment and choices to promote the community and in the area the witness of charity.

Charity of communion

Christians are called every day to build living together as brothers to be leaven in society in its various expressions: "They know that you are my disciples if you love one another." It is in the treatment of particular expressions of our think, feel, speak and act that plays the role of the Christian community to be a sign of communion and co-responsibility among brothers in the faith on a personal and family level, in the building and in the context of everyday relationships, between groups of pastoral workers involved in the various areas of ordinary pastoral: catechesis, liturgy and charity services.

Charity of people

It is often assumed that to have a Christian community serving man we should build works, creating and starting up and volunteer groups in response to specific needs, starting organized initiatives to sustain over time with increasingly onerous commitments. Of course, all this should be done, when necessary. But the vast majority of believers will never have the ability and will never be asked to do these things. And they'll need to delegate to others? The exercise of charity can not be delegated because essential to the Christian life, as well as eating and breathing is not delegable because it is essential to life.

 The Word of Jesus shows us in a clear, simple and in every moment and opportunity of our daily lives and at what specifically is testified. The Lord warned us that at the end of our lives he will say to us, "I was hungry ... I was thirsty ..." he says, "Every time you have done this to the least of my brothers you did it to me "(Mt 25:40). It should stop serious attention on that time adverb every time. These passages of the Lord near us are not planned and organized works, they are not even programmable: they are moments-opportunities of life, uncomfortable,  disturbing, provocative our quiet life. It is to these presence of the Lord that we should say yes, every time. In a society highly indented, where the hectic everyday life does not facilitate the encounter between person and person, you need to recover and intensify this multiplicity of small actions: only through them it is possible to build the solidarity of the daily, basic, solidarity of short relations, and can be formed full our life of charity and then make it visible language, living for others, solidarity and lifestyle choice.

Political charity

In front of the feared risk of developing of a laity ad intra, sometimes more inclined to liturgy’s animation than to the presence and commitment typically lay in the family, in the workplace, in politics, a correct deepening theological-pastoral - especially the pedagogy perception of the facts and of the intimate connection between charity and justice - would be an incentive for many to develop to the "form of charity that is political action." We can say that today is a dangerous lack that of passion for the construction of the polis as a city where everyone finds in harmony his size in building solidarity citizenship and so real policy. The Church with her presence, just because of the commitment to be closer to the people, offers many opportunities and tools for concrete and constructive knowledge of the situation as a precondition for those who are called to be formed to govern the common good.

Being religious citizens the witness of charity is expressed through some dutiful life choices that combine with charity and justice. I mention only three. The first form of sharing and solidarity is to do his duty in each profession, work, study. The second is to pay taxes, is to do justice, to build justice. A third form of concrete solidarity is especially connected with the first and particularly aimed at young people: the choice of professions.

Volunteering as a school of life

The territory and the Christian community have to deal every day with a variety of needs: they must be in a continuous manner, with proper preparation and as much as possible in forms and services in order to ensure properly services to people experiencing particular needs. Forms of volunteering, in groups and associations already in the territory and in the parish, are suitable places to learn and to make available, not just something, but also their time, habits, attitudes and feelings, friendships and relationships.

Charity that gives 'form'

To be worthy of the poor should be the focal point in the renewed impetus to education. It can not be apart from promoting a holistic education - spiritual and professional - able to support all of our leaders-operators in the hard daily work. This is a proposal of integral growth towards a witness of charity, that is not satisfied with a casual gesture, but seeks to promote ties, alliances, life orientations. We need to cultivate with passion our 'genetic inheritance': the choice of education, a pedagogy of the facts which has as its objective the development of every person and the whole Christian community through educational experiences: concrete, meaningful, participated and shared. It is a hard work and a style of presence to continue, promoting training programs combining the content with the method, within a growth process design capable of seeing beyond the immediate problem and the immediate need and that, in addition to transmit content, enable people and communities to read the signs of the times, to reflect on the causes of poverty, affect lifestyles and behaviors renewed on a daily basis.

Charity as an accompaniment

Another choice to make is that of the education of young people for peace, justice and charity. Reflection, the comparison being conducted, focuses on three key words: planning, training, coordination. They are great and unprecedented anxieties that today are crossing throughout the world of youth. If there are people to watch, listen to, to which know how to operate discernment, they are definitely young. The civil service in Caritas is a genuine area of ​​freedom in which young people can acquire those of observation, listening and discernment tools to build their own future and that of the community, rich in a service in which peace, solidarity, nonviolence, globality are not just recited, but practiced.

This formation process goes properly placed inside a double concern: to care for the poor, to reveal the face of God who is love; and of the development of the three ecclesiastical functions. Indeed, the Church evangelizes, educates, formed through what she is (signs - celebrating the love of God); says (words - announcing the love of God); does (works – being witness of the love of God).