Misericordia e perdono

Education is openness to what is real, an attitude which enable us to look in a merciful perspective to what is our personal reality and at what is around us. In front of a deeply wounded humanity, any educational institution must be like a field hospital: inclusive (in principle, no one is refused), close (to where the wounded are), flexible (to move where new emergencies occur), decentralized (each unity is able to take an initiative). Speaking of education is speaking of humanity and education as a whole must be aimed to humanizing. In this sense, a key role is played by informal education, while formal education may risk to be too much based on intellectualism. So, university students must avoid to fall victims of knowledge idols: works of mercy are a valid way to get rid of them. Starting from the verbs used by Pope Francis to describe the merciful action of God in the Message for the World Peace Day 2016, it is possible to draft the basis of a pedagogy of mercy: observe (stop and look at the real as it is); listen (the wounded humanity crying: simple observation is not enough to move mercy, compassion is needed); know (not by making a laboratory research, but by going outside, to take personal contact with reality); lower (where the man is not able to arrive, God lowers down to meet him); free (by recognising beauty and truth germs in the present and therefore orientating towards something that is greater). To follow the path of this pedagogy of mercy, educators must be ready to risk in view of a creative change according to the Spirit: the need of a continuous change must be felt, to be faithful to the real circumstances in which the Gospel has to be announced.