01-03-2007 - Traces, n. 3 Within Reality Education The educational relationship is delicate by nature. In fact, it calls into question the freedom of the other who, however gently, is always led to make a decision. Neither parents nor priests nor catechists, nor any other educators, can take the place of the freedom of the child, adolescent, or young adult whom they are addressing. The proposal of Christianity in particular challenges the very essence of freedom and calls it to faith and conversion. Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of educating is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own “ego.” With such a relativistic horizon, therefore, real education is not possible without the light of the truth; sooner or later, every person is in fact condemned to doubting in the goodness of his or her own life, and the relationships of which it consists, the validity of his or her commitment to build with others something in common. (Address to the Participants in the Ecclesial Diocesan Convention of Rome, June 6, 2005) Eugenio Borgna (Emeritus Head of the Psychiatry Department of the Maggiore Hospital of Novara) As recently underlined by the Pope, education, the great challenge of education, starts already during infancy, and can’t be generated and develop except within the heart of the family founded on marriage. Here is where the father and the mother, with their different and complementary psychologies, come to terms with the educational needs of the children in a circular and reciprocal love and self-giving, both witnessed by words as well as by agreement and homogeneity of behaviors. Education, at first within the family and later in school, can be achieved only in the context of a dialogue acknowledging the inner being, the dignity, the freedom, and the responsibility of the other. It is impossible to educate, to make the human and spiritual resources present in every person spring forth, if not by opening up to the passion for truth (as Saint Augustine said, “In interiore homine habitat veritas”) and to the search for the unquenchable desire for the Infinite, and by making out the traces of the mystery that, while incommensurable, is nonetheless something palpitating in the human and Christian conscience of man.