"The joy of the Gospel fills the heart and the whole life of those who encounter Jesus". With the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium (November 24, 2013), Pope Francis brought the Year of Faith to a close, bringing together the work of the Synod on the new evangelization and providing precise orientations, elaborated in a lively way staff from his rich experience of pastoral work , and giving this document a programmatic sense.

The text follows in the footsteps of the great documents that have given impetus to evangelization, such as Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), Redemptoris Missio (1990) and the Document of Apparition (2007), and is set against the background of the joy and mercy that evangelization entails. The Pope wishes to dwell on seven questions, which he enunciates as follows: the reform of the Church in missionary outreach; the temptations of pastoral agents; the Church understood as the totality of the People of God that evangelizes; the homily and its preparation; the social inclusion of the poor; peace and social dialogue; and the spiritual motivations for the missionary task (cf. n. 17).

In fact, the successive passages of the Exhortation can be read as preparation, development or implications of each of these questions.

It consists of an introduction and five chapters. The introduction presents the joy of evangelization, especially when it is carried out with the youthfulness of spirit proper to the Christian, which brings "an eternal newness". The first chapter proposes that the renewal of the Church today is a missionary transformation. This transformation encounters some obstacles and challenges, which constitute a crisis of the evangelizing or missionary commitment among Christians; and this is dealt with in the second chapter.

From there, the third chapter goes on to explain what the advertisement of the Gospel consists of, to whom it corresponds (to all Christians) and some of its fundamental forms (preaching and catechesis or, more broadly, Education in the faith). The fourth chapter underlines that evangelization has essentially a social dimension, and therefore implies a commitment staff and community with the poor, with the common good and with social dialogue at all levels, as an effective way to achieve peace. Finally, the fifth chapter indicates the spirituality that must continually underlie the evangelizing impulse, and the pre-eminent place of Mary as Mother of evangelization.

These orientations provide powerful lights for the Education of the faith, either in the modality of catechesis (family, parish, etc.), or in the modality of teaching school or academic of religion.

Some texts, chosen now by way of example, can show the interest of this document for all those who are concerned with educating in the Christian faith.

 The fact that we live in an information society that saturates us indiscriminately with data makes us superficial and hinders moral evaluations. "Consequently, there is a need for a Education that teaches us to think critically and offers a path of maturing in values" (n. 64).

Together with this anthropological and ethical basis, the Education given in Catholic schools must try to "combine the educational task with the explicit advertisement of the Gospel" and therefore constitutes "a very valuable contribution to the evangelization of culture, even in countries and cities where an adverse status stimulates us to use our creativity to find the right paths" (n. 134).

Essential to the Education of faith is the progressive initiation into the liturgical signs. To this end, "an adequate setting and attractive motivation, the use of eloquent symbols, their insertion in a broad process of growth and the integration of all the dimensions of the person in a communitarian journey of listening and response" (n. 166) are required.

Special attention should be given to the way of beauty: "To proclaim Christ means to show that believing in him and following him is not only true and just, but also beautiful, capable of filling life with new radiance and deep joy, even in the midst of trials" (n. 167).

The text proposes that, without falling into an aesthetic relativism, "we must dare to encounter the new signs, the new symbols, a new flesh for the transmission of the Word, the various forms of beauty that are valued in different cultural settings, and even those unconventional modes of beauty, which may be of little significance to evangelizers, but which have become particularly attractive to others" (ibid.).

Pope Francis exhorts, from the Gospel, to listen to the cry of the poor. This is particularly necessary today in the Education of faith, which should teach us to open our eyes to reality: "The conceptual apparatuses are there to favor the contact with the reality that they seek to explain, and not to distance us from it. This is especially true for the biblical exhortations that invite us with such forcefulness to fraternal love, to humble and generous service, to justice, to mercy towards the poor. Jesus taught us this way of recognizing the other with his words and gestures. Why obscure what is so clear? Let us not only take care not to fall into doctrinal errors, but also to be faithful to this luminous path of life and wisdom" (n. 194).

This orientation finds its framework in the appeal to the criterion that "reality is more important than the idea," a vaccine against all rationalism educational. It is not only a philosophical criterion, one might say, but it is at the heart of Christianity, because the Son of God became flesh and entered human history in a specific place and through a specific culture:

"The criterion of reality, of a Word already incarnated and always seeking to become incarnate, is essential to evangelization. It leads us, on the one hand, to value the history of the Church as the history of salvation, to remember our saints who inculturated the Gospel in the life of our peoples, to gather the rich two thousand year old tradition of the Church, without pretending to elaborate a thought disconnected from this treasure, as if we wanted to invent the Gospel. On the other hand, this criterion urges us to put the Word on internship , to carry out works of justice and charity in which the Word is fruitful. Not to put the Word on internship, not to bring the Word to reality, is to build on sand, to remain in the pure idea and to degenerate into intimisms and gnosticisms that do not bear fruit, that sterilize its dynamism" (n. 233).

Education based on a solid anthropology and on an ethical proposal . Education that, at the same time, assumes the advertisement of faith and collaborates, with creativity, in the evangelization of culture. Attention to the symbolic language of the liturgy and to the "way of beauty". Attention to the reality and needs of the most vulnerable. These are clues to discover the proposals of Pope Francis for the new evangelization, and how these proposals affect the field of Christian Education .

See the article in Religion Confidential