433. Religious Education in time to rock, text messages and www ...

Mass End of school year 2015  RE lessons

The new scholastic year approaches and with it the teaching of religion- and even if no-one says it out loud, many think it- why teach religion? It will be only an hour a week in many schools, but in the mind of a youngster an hour is a tremendously long period, just think what could be done in an hour! play football, do video games, go for a bike run, watch TV or simply flop on the couch and sleep!

But then what are these R.E. teachers to do? One can prepare in the best of ways a lesson but if the pupils have no desire to get involved and frankly couldn’t care less, all is in vain. At most they sit there quietly, fantasizing about what to do "after" but usually make the lesson more bearable by animating it with a bit of liveliness, otherwise known as “messing about” in fact anything is better than having to listen. Unfortunately this is how it is in our modern world of rock, text messages and Internet.

But in everything and everywhere there is always a lifeline, in this case it comes to us in the leadership of our Pope Francis. Before becoming Pope, George Bergoglio was a complete unknown to us so we had no interest in him, let alone be involved. But right from the start, from his first appearance when he silenced the people in St. Peter's Square and asked to pray with and for him, there at that time, in that place he did a very simple thing, but which had however never been done before- with this we sensed that something different was going to take place- a Pope who would involve, in everything and everywhere; both the lukewarm, the ardent or even the non believers was about to come to us- and in fact it was so because it wasn’t long before Pope Francis overwhelmed the whole world.

Because we have seen Pope Francis go down on his knees to wash the feet of prisoners or take off his skullcap to give it to a kid, and because we have heard him talk to us open heartedly we have also learned to love him. With Jesus too, if we get to know him, he becomes more familiar, more approachable and makes us feel even more, not only his nearness to us, but also ours to him- because by knowing Jesus we come to know not only his stupendous holiness but also his intense humanity as we have learned to do with Pope Francis. So the religious lessons serve for this- to know Jesus.

But our relationship with Jesus cannot take place in a vacuum... it cannot be a thing apart and cut off from our classmate, or that "odious" lady who never stops meddling in everything and everywhere, or that “tawdry” gentleman... No sir, you cannot separate Jesus from the rest of humanity. And this is the tendency of the religious, and traditionalist laity- to live in a world where there is only "purity" and there is no danger of being contaminated by the dirt of others.

But then the words of the Holy Father as an unexpected bolt of lightning, thunders: "You have to pull up your sleeves and get your hands dirty!" He urges us. And this is what we should do; touch the "lepers" of society and get our hands dirty if we want to understand what, how, we can ensure our words can touch the hearts of others.

There is also the question: but why do the words of the Holy Father touch so many "common" people and "embitter" those religious and laity of “refined” ideas? The answer comes from Pope Francis himself- because these people having lived a "starched" or "white-washed" life have no experience of the “dirty” world and so cannot be touched by the words of he who has lived in the polluted fields of malice as Pope Francis has done. And you can tell that he has done so, that he has got his hands dirty because his words are fresh and gathered from a world of humanity lived, for better or for worse and therefore centres the human heart. If George Bergoglio had lived only in a starched world, his words would be starched and would touch only starched hearts.

And it is this concept which is at the basis of teaching religion- You can teach it in a way that is starched; or in a way that can touch the heart- that is, not to separate the divine from the human- Jesus didn’t do it, George Bergoglio doesn’t do it- and neither should we.

However to know Pope Francis alone, is not enough. We must ask ourselves if we really care for him... do we really love him? Before answering that question, perhaps we should ask: what is "love", what is "loving"? Is it a feeling? Yes, it is also a feeling but it is always accompanied by an action that we make spontaneously and are happy to do so on behalf of the loved one. Love without doing, is basically an empty feeling, an infatuation, without credibility to exist.

Mass with the RE Class participants

So as with Pope Francis, once we have met Jesus there should rise in each of us the desire to do something that is pleasing to Jesus- as a thought dedicated to him, or at what he has left of him- the Holy Spirit- or to a messenger of his Father and our Father, that is, to our Guardian Angel who never abandons us and who watches over us more effectively than the best bodyguard. But also taking active part in religious lessons should not weigh heavily upon us because we know that it is a privilege to know Jesus, just like the apostles whom Jesus wanted to keep close to him so they could understand and know who in fact he really was and therefore love him. But going to Mass, I think, is the thing that pleases Jesus most, because it is indeed here that we can be with Jesus face to face.

To participate in the Holy Mass is not a trivial matter or of little consequence. But to do so with pleasure, and let us say, even with joy, we have to love Jesus and to love someone we must first get to know that someone and we can do this by taking part in religious lessons with the smile of someone who knows they are about to go to a very important meeting and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by Jesus voluntarily and spontaneously- nobody forces us to do it but we go to meet Jesus because we realize that we want to do so ourselves.