Christianity for Leaving Cert

Religion For Leaving Certificate

Section B: Christianity – Origins And Contemporary Expressions

Part 1: The Return To Origins

Chapter 1: The Pattern Of Return

By studying the past, we can learn more about ourselves as individuals, as members of a family, a nation, a religious group, and this in turn helps us to evaluate the present and try to imagine our future.

Founding Vision

The Christian Church Returning To Origins

Christian churches have a founding vision which is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Through study and prayer they seek to reflect on how these scriptures speak to them today. This may lead to seeing things in a new way, or to challenging their church from within.
Christian throughout the world are drawn to living in small communities in an effort to live as the early Christians lived.
Some of the essential qualities are:
It is a living ‘cell’.
It calls for sharing all aspects of people’s lives.
It fits into the vision of church as people of God.
Justice, i.e. right relationships with God.
Priority is given to promoting the kingdom of God – harmony rooted deeply in justice.
The effect these communities have is to breathe new life into the wider community, through living in a small Christian community, people may challenge the way things are and how people live.

The Ceili De

In the mid 8th Century a reform movement began in Ireland, the leaders of which called themselves ‘ Ceili De ‘ ( servants of God ).
They wanted to bring about renewal of the Monastic life in Ireland.
The Ceili De was a movement of people who felt a strong calling to put God first in their lives and make themselves true servants of God.
It was important to choose God as their ‘ All ‘ in life.
Maelruain Of Tallaght is the one most associated with the beginnings of this current of renewal.
The spirituality and way of life of the Ceili De is best known to us from 3 related texts:
TheMonastery of Tallaght text
The rule of Tallaght
The rule of Ceili De
The Ceili De’s spirituality attributed great importance to the word of God. Gospels were read at meal times.
The Ceili De set to work to reform the Monastic movement from within.
The Ceili De were interested in the general pastoral mission of the Monasteries.
They brought a new spirit rather than new structures.
The Ceili De underlined the importance of following the guidance of one’s ‘Anam Chara ‘ or ‘ soul friend ‘.
It was through the context of soul friendship that private confession took root in the Irish church and later spread throughout WesternChristendom.

Exam Questions

Outline how returning to the founding vision of Christianity was central to the purpose of one of the following: Ceili De, the Evangelical Movement in early 19th Century, Protestantism, Liberation Theology, Luther’s Reform, The Mendicant Orders, The Second Vatican Council.
How is the founding vision of Christianity seen in the ways Christian worship today ?
Discuss the relationship between the founding vision of Christianity and the search for Christian Unity today.

The Mendicant Orders

The Mendicant orders developed an urban form of Monastic life, which was close to the lifestyle of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels. They had three common characteristics:

As individuals they held no possessions and they had the right to beg.
All members were united, regardless of location.
Pastoral care was the focus of their training.

St. Francis Of Assisi – Founder Of The Franciscan Order

Francis came from a wealthy family in Assisi.
A number of events prepared him for the discovery of his vocation in the church:
He was injured in a battle between rival cities.
One day he met a leper and he gave him all the money he had.
He made a pilgrimage to Rome.
He gave all the money he had away and he exchanged his fine clothes for those of a tattered beggar man.
Not long after Francisreturned from Rome, he was praying and he heard a voice saying ‘ go Francis and repair my house, which as you can see is falling into ruin ‘.
After hearing the words from the Gospel at mass one day ‘ go, possess neither silver nor gold etc. and announce the kingdom of God ‘, his life began to change.
Francis took these words very seriously and so began to live out his vocation.
The feature of this Franciscan Spirituality was to live the whole Gospel from the perspective of poverty.
Poverty was their window into the Gospel.

Martin Luther

After having a near death experience Martin Luther went through a very dry period where he struggled with the issues of his own Salvation.
His basic question was, how can I find a merciful God ?
This dark experience arose from that deep contradiction in all of us that St. Paul describes in the letter to the Romans : ‘ I do not do good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do ‘. ( Rom. 7 :19 )
What Luther saw was that instead of doing the good only out of love and with absolute selflessness, even when we do good, there’s ultimately always a secret tendency in us to do what we’re doing for our own good.
At a certain point Luther realised that God is not only a judge but that when you’re at zero point and don’t know what to do, God does not reject you forever, as you might think, but bends down towards your weakness and nothingness and recreates you.
He does have this one condition : that you believe, that is, that you abandon yourself to him with complete trust. This was Luther’s great and liberating discovery.
Luther went on to emphasise the individual freedom that comes through Faith.
For Luther, the Christian is the most free of all creatures and so the most dutiful of all by helping others to become ‘ Christ to one another ‘.
Rooted in Christ, the Christian has to become ‘ Christ for his neighbour ‘.
There are 3 principles associated with Luther :
Sola Scriptura
Sola Fide
Sola Gratia
In 1517 Luther nailed 95 theses or arguments against indulgences and pilgrimages to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg. His intention was not to rebel against the church but merely to open this issue for the theological debate.
Luther’s desire was to reform the church.
He hoped for a general council to resolve the issues.
He outlined the foundations of his new Theology in 5 treatise:

Treatise of good works
The papacy of Rome
Address to the German nobility
Babylonian captivity of the church
Freedom of a Christian man

In June 1520 Pope Leo X condemned Luther’s views and ordered that his books be burned, and he gave him two months to retract his theories or be guilty of heresy.
At the Diet of Worms in 1521 Luther refused to retract and was excommunicated.
Luther stood firm, and in 1521 he was named a heretic. He fled to the castle of Wartburg in Saxony and there remained under the protection of Frederick the Wise. Thus began the split between the Roman Catholic Church and Luther and his supporters, which gave rise to the Reformation.

The Evangelical Movement In The Early 19th Century

There are key characteristics of the Evangelical Movements:

Scripture is the ultimate guide for spirituality and ethics.
There is an emphasis on the saving death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Personal conversion is important.
A concern for sharing of the Christian Faith is extremely important.

John Wesley ( Founder Of The MethodistChurch )

John Wesley was the founder of the MethodistChurch in close association with his brother Charles.
John Wesley became convinced of the need to develop a ‘ living faith ‘ and he emphasised the role of experience in the Christian life.
The members of the group promised to observe regular private devotions, daily scripture reading and prayer.
With its emphasis on the experiential side of the Christian life and the need for personal conversion, Methodism became part of a religious revival in England in the 19th Century.
The need for personal holiness was its most characterised feature.
Methodism places a very strong emphasis on the action. This comes from its understanding of the Gospel as involving both the personal and the social.
Another one of it’ main features is a strong emphasis on the role of the laity in its church.

The Second Vatican Council

There have been two major events in the 20th Century that have influenced radical reform within the Roman Catholic Church:
The second Vatican Council, 1962 – 65.
The Council of Latin American bishops in Medellin, 1968.
Pope John XXIII called this Council in 1962.
This decade saw the birth of the civil rights movement worldwide.
Vatican II produced 16 documents.
Lumen Gentium was very important as it encouraged the Catholic Church to understand itself more as a community of believers than a hierarchically ordered institution.
Vatican II called for more active involvement of the laity in the life of the church.
It also considered relations between Christians and those of other religions.
The council stressed the importance of the social aspect of the Christian Faith and called for Christians to be active in the areas of human rights, race relations and social justice in general.
Mass, traditionally said in Latin, would now be celebrated in the language of the country in question, with the priest facing the congregation during the celebration.
Rules about religious dress were relaxed.
The laity was invited to become more involved in the celebration of the sacraments.

Liberation Theology

In the document Gaudium Et Spes, Christian were challenged to look at the world around them and work to correct situations of injustice.
Liberation Theology was launched in 1968 at a Congress of Latin American Bishops in Medellin in Columbia.
They declared that from this point on the Church World would be on the side of the poor. They would work to transform the society so that all people could live in dignity and freedom. They called this a ‘ preferential option for the poor ‘.
The supporters of liberation theology believed that the message of the Gospel is one of Liberation and that Jesus is the great Liberator.
By engaging in a process of working for justice, Christians are truly following the example of Jesus Christ.
Some activist suffered torture and others were killed in their struggle to speak out for the poor. Perhaps the most famous of these was Oscar Romero, who was murdered in March 1980.

Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero spoke the truth in a country torn apart by social injustice. He stood for human rights during an era of shocking violence and torture. But the brutal dictatorship chose not to listen and he was assassinated for his beliefs.
Oscar Romero was born on August 15, 1918.
On April 4th 1942 Romero was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome.
Romero worked for 20 years in San Miguel.
He promoted various apostolic groups, started an alcoholic anonymous group, helped in the construction of San Miguel’s Cathedral and supported devotion to the Virgin of the Peace.
He was later appointed rector of the inter-diocese seminary in San Salvador.
In 1966, he began his public life when chosen to be the secretary of the Episcopal conference for El Salvador.
In 1970 he was appointed auxiliary bishop to San Salvador, a move not welcomed by the more progressive members of his priesthood in El Salvador.
On the 23rd of February, 1977, he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador.
His appointment was met with surprise and dismay as the Marxist priests feared that his conservative reputation would negatively affect liberation theology’s commitment to the poor.
Romero’s spiritual journey included the following characteristics:

Love for the Church of Rome.
Examination of conscience.
Sincere piety
Mortification and penance through his duties
Providing protection for his chastity
Spiritual direction
Fidelity to the will of God
Self – ordering to Jesus Christ.

On March 12th, a progressive Jesuit priest and personal friend Rutilio Grande was assassinated.
His death had a profound impact on Romero who later stated, “ when I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought it they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path “.
In response to Fr. Rutilio’s murder, Romero revealed a radicalism that had not been evident earlier.
He spoke against poverty, social injustice, assignations and torture.
Romero was killed by a shot to the heart on March 24 1980, while celebrating Mass in a small chapel located in a hospital, one day after a sermon where he had called on Salvadorian soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights.
During the funeral, a smoke bomb exploded on the Cathedral square and many people were killed by gunfire.
As the gunfire continued, the body was buried in a crypt beneath the sanctuary. Even after the burial, people continued to line up to pay homage to their martyred prelate.

Chapter 2: Jesus And His Message In Contemporary Culture

Contemporary culture is characterised by a frenzy of images of how to imagine one’s life.
People are bombarded and seduced by a variety of messages about what gives meaning to life.
We live in a society that is dominated by consumerism. For many, the shopping centre has become the place of worship.
In today’s world choosing Gospel values is a demanding choice.

Image Of Jesus In Film

Passion Of The Christ

The film focuses on the final twelve hours of the life of Jesus.
Gibson made the film after 18 years of neglecting his Catholic Faith.
He was suddenly struck with a strong sense that he was personally saved by Jesus Christ.
The image of Jesus that Gibson presents is that of the suffering Saviour; Jesus has taken away our sins through his suffering on the cross. It was this conviction that inspired him to present the redemptive, passionate love of Jesus laying down his life for us.

Exam Questions

2007: O.L (a) Different images of Jesus can be found in today’s culture – music, Art, Film, Literature. Describe one image of Jesus presented on one of the above stated. (b) Explain how the image of Jesus you have described above may affect Christians today. (c) Compare the understanding of Jesus presented in the gospels with the understanding of him presented in an image today.
2007: H.L. (a) Describe one image of Jesus that is expressed in Modern Culture. (b) Examine the understanding of Jesus expressed in the image described above and discuss its relevance for society today.

Part 2: The Vision Of Jesus In Context

Chapter 3: The Impact Of Rome Political System

Rome stood for political order in Palestine at the time of Jesus.
It was a foreign power and most people felt helpless in the face of this power, with inevitable feelings of hatred.
Jesus refers to one incident when there was a clash in the temple in which some Galileans were slaughtered by the Roman soldiery ( Lk.13:1-5 )
Political Trial: This took place on Good Friday Morning. Jesus was put in chains and brought before Pilate. The Jewish leaders informed Pilate ‘ we caught this man misleading our people, telling them not to pay their taxes to the Emperor and claiming that he himself is the Messiah, a king ‘. When they had finished, Pilate asked Jesus ‘ Are you the king of the Jews ? Jesus answered, ‘ so you say ‘. Pilate did not want to get involved in the religious affairs of the Jews, so he sent Jesus to Herod. Herod only mocked Jesus and sent him back to Pilate. Pilate could find no reason to condemn Jesus to death and told this to the Jewish leaders. Every year it was custom for the Roman Governor to release a prisoner on the feast of the Passover. Pilate offered the people a choice of releasing Jesus or a violent criminal named Barabbas. But the crowd shout ‘ kill him, set Barabbas free ‘. Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified. Jesus was scourged and condemned to death.

Exam Question

2006 O.L : (a) Outline the main features of either the Roman Political System or the Jewish Religious System in Palestine at the time of Jesus. (b) Describe one example of a situation where Jesus was in conflict with either the Political or the Religious Leaders in Palestine at his time. (c) Explain why Jesus was seen as a threat to either the Political or the Religious leaders in Palestine at his time.

2010: Outline two ways in which the Jewish Religious Authorities at the time of Jesus were threatened by his teachings.

2011 O.L. : Compare the way in which the Zealots and the Sadducees reacted to Roman Rule in Palestine at the time of Jesus.

Ancient Judaism

Social System

The Herodian dynasty had been very unpopular.
There was a lot of corruption among the Roman administration.
Taxes were a source of contention.
All of this led to much social unrest in Palestine at the end of the time of Jesus.
The people of Israel resented being ruled by others when they believed they were God’s chosen people.

Religious System