Madagascar - Toliara

Christianus Educandus

In the twilight of the fourth century AD. between the land of saints Cappadocia, and the land of philosophers Athens, rises the greatest of personalities, the crown of theologians and an exemplar of ascetics, the truly Great amongst the humble, Basil. Lover of Christ and of fervent prayer, spectator of the uncreated light, and at the same time, philosopher, philologist, jurist, orator, naturalist, possessing profound knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and medicine, a man who had mastered all the available disciplines at the time.

At one point in his writings, where he talks about his studies, regretting that he was kept away from prayer, that is, away from his relationship to the Person of Jesus Christ, he decides to write the famous exhortation «To the youth», a Christian pedagogical textbook on how the young should approach knowledge and faith. In it, there is a beautiful analogy: «the young must move on the journey of knowledge like the bee, which avoids thorns to find nectar”, that is, to escape the thorny pluralism, the selfish gathering of information and to be initiated into the mystery of education which offers the whole horizon of expression for the experience of a Christian.

Unfortunately, sixteen centuries later, on the one hand, in the developed world, St. Basil the Great seems to have said nothing since we all gather knowledge simply to increase our selfishness, and on the other, in the developing world, education is something unknown. Africa, for example, is a continent of laborers working hard like slaves for the white ones, second-rate people, who in practice have no right to knowledge, to medical care, to real life. Africa is a land that asks a father of five, who only earns one euro per day, to pay twenty euro a month to send to school one of his children. Africa, even today, is still an incubator of inequalities.

It is this humanitarian crisis that my humbleness, as the least of the bishops of our missionary Patriarchate, comes to share and ask for the love of all of you, members of the Church, so that we can make a brilliant difference here in Southern Madagascar. To create from scratch an equal opportunity for everyone. To build schools, temples of knowledge, and where they already exist, to make them worthy of the images of God. To decongest the overcrowded classrooms of sixty and seventy children in groups of five at desks for two. To make the young people of the Black Continent role models of the fourth- century Christians.

Dear brethren, my fellow Cyraeneans, in the capacity of father, bishop, missionary, monk and above all, world beggar, I ask again and again for the widow’s mite mentioned in the Gospel, your contribution from the little you have but at the same time from the surplus of your love, which for the last two years has become a special occasion of feasting and celebration for the poor children of God in Southern Madagascar.

Beggar eternal,

† Prodromos of Southern Madagascar