Lives as ensigns
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
They say that, on one occasion, became a missionary to an indigenous people. The villagers received the missionary with great attention and set out to listen to him.
-I'm here to bring you the news of a Dios Padre, which wants us all and you want to live as true brothers, serving us and helping each other. Are they going to accept the news that I bring and receive in their hearts that Dios the Padre who loves us all as real children?
Paused the missionary and indigenous people remained silent.
-They accept it or not accept it?-insisted baffled the missionary.
After a while, the voice of the Chief saying arose serene:
-Stay and live with us a few days and if really live what you teach, then again to listen to you.
Hatuey was a native Chief who fled harassment of the Christian conquerors in Haiti. He took refuge in the caves and mountains of Cuba. There he pointed out a basket of gold and said:
-This is the God of the Christians. By it we pursue. Our parents and our brothers and sisters have died by it. We dance for him. If our dance pleases him, this God will send that we do not.
A few months later he was trapped and tied to a stick. They tell him that if he does not accept the new religion and recognizes the God of the Christians as the one true God, they will burn your body and your soul will burn eternally. If you accept it, they will forgive you life and your soul will enjoy forever in paradise.
-In this paradise, will be also Christians? -question Hatuey.
-Yes.
Hatuey chooses hell and the wood begins to Crackle.
Monsignor Pedro Casaldáliga, Bishop of Brazil, puts the consistent testimony, among the fundamental features that need to be new men and women: "being what we are. Talk about what is believed. Live what is proclaimed. Until the ultimate consequences and in the daily minutia».
The lack of coherence between words and life frequently made message Christian something that justified the most cruel exploitation and injustice. Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas denounced this inconsistency in his repeated letters to the Council of the Indies: «had more valid them Indians - says - go to hell with his infidelity, his little by little and solo, to be saved by the Christians. " «Already reach the sky the screaming of so much spilled human blood: the living, roasted burnt on grills, cast to brave dogs...».
The lack of coherence is also still one of the most serious problems in our current education. Frequently, the practice denies desires and proclamations of our philosophies and statements. When the school or family environment is contradictory, i.e. that is predicated on one thing and adults make another, young skeptics, rebels and frequently anarchic become. The issue occurs because confusion is formed inside, they don't know how to act and end up rebelling, disregarding the authority of the teacher or parent.
Children want to please adults with their behaviors. But this is only possible if in school and at home there is clarity about the good that is expected of them and if children see adults acting like they asked them to do it.
Do not forget what he repeated that great Cuban educator José Martí: «the best way to tell is to make».
Sage is not so much who knows many things, but he who lives what he knows. Let us not so much for finding the truth in life, but to live life in truth.