|
ENTER TO LEARN, LEAVE TO SERVE
– Solidarity Through Education –
First of all, I want to offer you
my fraternal greetings and to welcome you most cordially to the
Fourth Congress of the World Union of Lasallian Former Students. And
through you, I would like to greet the millions of former students
who are not present here today in Panama but who feel that they are
represented by you and united to you in this important event. I am
especially grateful to your President, José Ramón Batiste Peñaranda,
to the Executive Board and to the Panamanian committee who, with
such dedication, have prepared this meeting during which we will try
to take another step in the line of service and solidarity in the
educational field. Special greetings as well to the Panamanian
authorities who are with us as we begin our meeting.
As you will recall, the slogan
chosen for the last Congress in Mexico was also an invitation to
service: Lasallian Former Students Called to Serve. Four
years later, it would not be a bad idea to assess the response which
former students gave to the call at that time and which I remind you
of now. The call to serve children by defending their rights; to
serve young people by helping them to find meaning in their lives;
to serve the poor and excluded by promoting their active
participation in the benefits of globalization; to serve the world
by creating bonds of fraternity; to serve peace and to be builders
of peace in a divided world; to serve the unity of the human family
through ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. It seems to me
that these calls continue to be a challenge for all members of the
Lasallian Family and in a special way for our former students. I
believe that this is also what the slogan is all about for the
present Congress: Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve.
The first time that I heard this
slogan, which I believe was popularized by the District of San
Francisco in the schools there, was in Sydney, Australia at the
Seventh Meeting for Young Lasallians in the Asia-Pacific region in
the year 2000. I can report that the young people there were
strongly motivated and, at the end of the meeting, the question most
often heard was: What can we do for others when we return to our
various countries? At this meeting there were young people from
different faiths and cultures but they were all united in the same
Lasallian ideal of service. Some years later, during my pastoral
visit to India in 2003, I saw this slogan engraved on the door of
one of our schools that takes care of poor children as do all our
schools in this immense country.
Certainly, when you enter a
Lasallian school you do enter it in order to learn. That seems
obvious. However, the question that comes up is: to learn WHAT? The
slogan for your Congress gives us the answer: in order to serve.
As Father Pedro Arrupe, former Superior General of the Jesuits,
expressed it so well many years ago, the goal of Catholic
educational institutions can be none other. Today, our principal
educational objective – he said – is to form men and women for
others...people who cannot conceive of loving God without loving the
least of the brethren; men and woman who are totally convinced that
love of God that does not manifest itself in justice for others is a
farce. This type of education goes directly against the educational
trend that is prevalent practically throughout the world (Pedro
Arrupe, SJ).
Today, in many countries,
education in general is undergoing a profound crisis and everywhere
to some degree there are unsettling phenomena of juvenile violence
within many schools. Educational concern that boils down only to
instruction in computer skills and English, important as they
may be, they are not enough. As Lasallian schools, we cannot fall
into the trap of managing education exclusively with criteria of the
market place. Our criteria should be based above all in the Gospel
and in its values such as love, commitment, forgiveness, fraternity,
and service.
We can summarize the service of a
Lasallian school in some lines of its educational process, which I
hope you will recognize in the Lasallian schools, high schools, and
universities where you pursued your studies. Today there is much
talk in many places about the character proper to a Lasallian
school, that which distinguishes it from others, that for which you
certainly feel satisfied in being former students of one of our
schools.
�
The Lasallian educational process is centered around the person of
each student in such a way that one is treated as an individual,
unique and unrepeatable and attention is paid to the person of each
young person in a holistic manner.
�
The Lasallian educational process comes from a unique reality so
that it can respond to the characteristics, needs, aspirations and
cultural values of each population which it serves. But this is not
about only taking on one reality, it is also about contributing the
instruments needed to transform it and open it up to inter-cultural
dialogue.
�
The Lasallian educational process deeply values the quality of
relationships and it promotes working together in different
communities: educational communities, faith communities...Fraternity
is one of its distinctive traits. Each Lasallian should feel that he
or she is a brother or sister, with a heart that is open and without
borders.
�
The Lasallian educational process should be one that is
participatory and democratic. Since the beginning, the Founder in
the Conduct of Schools promoted a type of education that favored
horizontal communication more and shied away from coercion and
paternalism.
�
The Lasallian educational process grows in creativity, giving less
emphasis to repetition and keeping in mind that fact that what is
most important is the that students learn to give original, personal
responses.
�
The Lasallian education process is characterized by being
academically challenging as expressed by one of our most important
congregational documents. It is important that Brothers' schools
at every level be characterized by quality education, a truly
professional spirit and genuine service to students and to
society(Declaration 45.2).
�
The Lasallian educational process educates for life and for work
that is socially productive. From the beginning, pragmatism was one
of its traits since it attempts to respond to the concrete needs of
the young. Today it is fundamental to help in the integration of
intellectual and manual work, theory and practice, education and
life, in order to give each person the tools that will allow them to
be agents for personal, community, and social development.
�
The Lasallian educational process educates in ecological commitment
and defense of the environment, aware that the earth is the unique
place where mankind can be fulfilled, where one can love others, and
where one meets God; aware also of the common responsibility for
leaving behind a habitable world for those who will come later.
�
The Lasallian educational process makes a clear option for the
educational service of the poor, trying to make our schools
accessible to them and that in our schools they feel at home. I
think here that scholarships offered by several of our unions of
former students make this possible for a significant number of needy
youth.
�
The Lasallian educational process fosters growth in faith though
explicit catechesis, Christian life groups, and in the case of
students of other religions, through interreligious and ecumenical
dialogue. In both cases, Lasallian education tries to see to it that
students live an operational faith in the practice of love, that
will prepare them to be creators of relationships that are more just
among peoples, who commit themselves to action in favor of justice
and peace, who are interested by the globalization of solidarity.
The principles that I just listed
are not theoretical ones. In many places, we have concrete examples
of how they are lived out. I would like to highlight for you some
invitations and some examples.
!
In October 2006 we had in Rome the first International Assembly on
the Education Mission and Association. Brothers and lay persons
participated. One of the commitments that came from this Assembly
was as follows: This Assembly wishes to remind all Lasallians
that the vitality of our Mission
depends on how we respond today, associated together, to the needs
of the poor. We value the efforts that we Lasallians make to
liberate the poor from the different forms of poverty and we ask
that the service of the poor and the promotion of justice be
considered as the heart and the cause of the strengthening of the
Lasallian Mission throughout the world.
I am sure that our Former Students will not be insensitive to this
call.
!
On September 8, 2000, 189 nations adopted the United Nations
Millennium Declaration, which was signed by 147 heads of state and
government, stating that their collective responsibility of
respecting and defending the principles of human dignity, equality
and equity on the world level, and their due respect for all
inhabitants of the planet, especially the most vulnerable and for
the world's children in particular, to whom the future belongs.
(www.un.org/millenniumgoals)
For this purpose, 8 objectives to be achieved by the year 2015 were
established. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and
former High Commissioner for Human Rights for the United Nations,
invited us at our 44th General Chapter, held just a few
months ago, to collaborate in achieving these eight objectives. I
would like to recall them here:
1. To eradicate extreme poverty
and hunger.
2. To achieve universal primary
education.
3. To promote gender equality and
empower women.
4. To reduce child mortality.
5. To improve maternal health.
6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria,
and other diseases.
7. To ensure environmental
sustainability.
8. To develop a global partnership
for development.
!
Panama offers us a very valid concrete response to the principles
and invitations which I just highlighted. After the 43rd
General Chapter in 2000 and in the context of association for the
Lasallian educational mission, Brothers and Former Students have
devoted themselves to searching for the adequate tool to serve poor
children and young people in Panama. As a result of this effort, the
NGO "PROA-PANAMA" (Promoting Agents in Panama) was created which, in
turn, led to an agreement with the Ministry of Education which saw
the creation of the San Miguel School in Los Lagos, Colón, and then
the San Miguel Tocumen School Center, in the capital. You will have
the opportunity to visit these schools and to get first-hand
information. I would just like to add that the Institute looks upon
these initiatives very positively just as it does other similar ones
for the service of the needy that are underway in other Districts.
Today I ask myself and I ask you if this might not be a specific
area where the synergy between Former Students and Brothers can be
realized.
CONCLUSION
I would like to conclude with a
short poem from Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias, winner of
the Nobel Prize for Literature, who encourages us to give life and
to serve others, which is the secret of a fulfilled life. If this is
what you learned in the Lasallian schools you attended, then I
believe that we can be very satisfied, because what has been learned
has been translated, is being translated, and will be translated
into service.
To give is to love
To give prodigiously
Through each drop of water
To give back a torrent.
We were made that way,
Made to throw
Seeds into the flowerbed
And stars into the sea,
And oh! One never tires,
Lord, of what you provide.
And upon returning, he tells
you:
My heart is like
An empty backpack.
Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría
Superior General
|
