«I saw that Jesus Christ is not a moral, a speech, but a person, a fact»
by Michele Gatta
«In the current cultural climate, permeated by atheism and relativism, teaching religion in high school is a great challenge. Every day I come across the objections and ironic judgments of colleagues and students, for whom believing seems unreasonable.
Thus I learned not to take defensive positions, but to listen to them deeply, recovering the positive that is in their questions and provocations. Ultimately, these people force me to look at the reasons for my belief, they invite me to explain my faith within my daily experience. I have found that in this way a fruitful dialogue is often established and that what persuades is not the strength of knowledge, but the wisdom that shines through the lived Word."
This time, Sister Marina, a religion teacher in an Italian high school, tells her experience. «For the whole year a student has been pestering me with questions and doubts about Jesus and faith, dragging the whole class along with him. I understood that these were questions raised by the deepening of philosophy. Starting again from the historical, biblical, anthropological data, and therefore from the experience of the twelve apostles, from the pedagogy of Jesus and the measure of his love, I began a journey, sharing with the students the concrete fruits of the Word and testifying how Christ was present in the my life and in many other people."
A pedagogical and educational methodology that seems to respond well to the new "pact" that must support intergenerationality for the coming decades. In fact, children need the opportunity to express themselves and be listened to "due to the fact that adults do not always understand what is best for them". It's about finding new forms of active participation in which boys and girls can become "subjects" of a large educational community.
«On the last day of school I gave that student a text he had asked for. Surprised that I had remembered it, he said to me: "Do you know that I have rediscovered the desire to experiment with what you are saying?". And he tells me that he has reconnected with the Church. Things have changed with colleagues too. By discussing with the students of the last year of high school the religious sense in contemporary authors, Montale, Buzzati... the students, discovering a new perspective on the authors studied, talk about them to the other teachers. These, surprised and curious, begin to look for me. Little by little a friendship was born, which became sharing the same educational passion. I communicate to them my life, my faith. “I feel closer to the Church now, thanks to you. I want to meet her. I saw that Jesus Christ is not a moral, a speech, but he is a person, a fact ”».