Receiving a gift for Christmas may seem to us as a sparkless, normal event! However, a gift is never a normal thing.
Today I received a gift from a school. It was an email that started like this: “Good morning. First of all, I want to apologize for not meeting deadlines…” And it continued: “It has been a very complicated first trimester…” And almost at the end: “I am working these days… Thank you for your patience. Best regards.” I was so happy that I called on the phone and nobody answered. Sure, they’re celebrating Christmas vacations in this place, I thought as I cut the call. However, my gift was dated December 29.
I needed to say that I didn’t have to apologize for anything because WE CAN ALWAYS DO SOMETHING TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. There is always time to join the Global Education Pact AND TO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER AND STRENGTHEN EACH OTHER. So, I wanted to correct my interlocutor with immense affection: “you are meeting the deadlines!”.
I needed to thank the commitment and strength of this vocation because, after a complicated trimester, I find her working in the middle of the vacations. Congratulations, Juan Nepomuceno Rojas School, Seville, Spain!
A week earlier I received another letter. It was the first Christmas gift: “By means of this letter, the Management Team of St. Mary’s School of Granada (Spain) wishes to communicate its Adhesion to the GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL PACT, as a response to the Call of GC XVIII: “To promote the union and articulation, at a universal level, of the educators of the schools that follow the educational way of M. Candida, in order to reflect on the educational challenges of today’s world and to project ways for the future”. Candida, to reflect on the educational challenges of today’s world and to project ways for the future”. A simple gift, a brief and deep message that connects with the roots. Thank you…
The Inmaculada Ikastetxea, Bilbao, announced on December 20 that they had presented the Global Pact to the faculty and reflected on the aspects they saw as most successful and those in which they needed to deepen. It is clear that they have already started THE SECOND STAGE, I thought, as they ANALYZE WHICH ASPECTS OF THEIR LIFE ARE IN CONSONANCE WITH THE COVENANT AND WHICH HAVE TO GAIN IN CONSISTENCY. Positive self-criticism leads us to mature, to rectify, it is a wise thing to do.
I end by posting your Christmas greeting because it makes us look beyond:
“May the tenderness of Christmas fill your hearts with peace.
and may 2024 be a year of Light and Hope for all”.
“They didn’t set out because they had seen a star,
but they saw the star because they were on their way”.
A school is a world… And the Pact seeks to make the world a good school. It is not easy…, nor are we going to achieve it in a few terms.
But today we have three more schools that have signed up to this wonderfully humanizing utopia. Their communiqués have been three gifts received at Christmas.
Maria Teresa Pinto, FI
