Unit 1: To Be Human Is...?

Anthropology: the science that studies the origin, development and customs of human beings.
Human: noun-a person; adjective – of a characteristic of a person or persons; having the nature
or forum of a person.
Person: the basic right of personhood is given in creation. Our society has recognized that men
women and children, healthy or infirm, are persons, an had granted them legal status
Vocation: where God calls people to live. In the spirit, if we accept we are committing ourselves
to believe.
Goodness: God is the source of all that is good. Human beings by their nature and vocation are
directed toward the good.
Culture: a set of meaningful beliefs. It is important in real life situations because it affects our
actions, our sense of belonging, and our meanings beliefs and values.
Catechism of the Catholic Church: The vocation of humanity is to show forth the image of
God. It is a calling to be transformed into the image of Christ. This vocation takes a personal
form, since each of us is called to enter into the divine beatitude.
Jean Vanier’s 5 principles:
1. All humans are sacred, whatever their culture, race, or religion, whatever their
capacities or incapacities, and whatever their weaknesses or strengths may be.
2. Our world and our individual lives are in the process of evolving. It is a question of
loving all the essential value of the past and reflecting on how they are to be lived in the new.
3. Maturity comes through working with others, through dialogues, and through a sense
of belonging and a searching together.
4. Human beings need to be encouraged to make choices, and to become responsible for
their own lives and for the lives of others.
5. In order to make such choices, we need to reflect and to seek truth and meaning. To be
human means to remain connected to our humanness and to reality, to choose to move toward
connectedness.
Sin: the breach of the relationship that God established with creation. It means to bring a fault or
disorder into creation, maiming the work of God.
Human Freedom: God created us as intelligent beings, conferring on us the dignity of persons
who can initiate and control our own actions.
Encyclicals: are official pastoral letters written by the Pope for the entire people of God.
Mother Teresa: preaches and loves the poor, always providing help to those in need.
Jean Vanier: the son of a former governor general of Canada, made his home with adults with
intellectual disabilities, and so began the first L’Arche community.
The Human Vocation:
1. Humans are created in the image and likeness of God
2. Humans are called to happiness and holiness
3. Humans are rational and free
4. Humans are moral beings
5. Humans have blessed with a conscience
6. Humans are blessed with a conscience
7. Humans are able to sin
Adam & Eve: fell into temptation by eating the fruit off the forbidden tree after they were told
not to.
Community: God created us as male & female to exist for another, living with others prevents
us from others
“No man is an island”: no one is isolated, everyone affect each other
Fall of Man: sin
Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Unit 2: Who Has Culture?

Culture: is the set of meanings, beliefs, values, and rules for living shared by groups and
societies as the source of their identity.
Sign: are objects or gestures that express one specific message or meaning.
Institution: ways of doing things linked together to form a “system”.
Tradition: sum of total beliefs, values, practices that culture inherited
Symbol: connects us with realities that are beyond our direct grasp & beyond our ability to
speak.
Ritual: bodily action surrounded by language that makes symbols effective within culture
Liturgy: church’s official act of worship
Religion: system of symbol and rituals. We form powerful beliefs, values, and meanings and
practices around symbols and rituals about who we are in relationship to God.
Religious Symbols: represent immensity, power, growth, birth, cleansing, and communion. They
manifest the sacred when accompanied by rituals and words.
Religious Rituals: have power to open up new ways of living and communicating with a power
and energy that is higher or deeper than our own.
Transcendence: our relationship with God whom we cannot, see, hear, taste, smell and touch.
Therefore God is beyond our physical experience. We must BELIEVE without seeing.
Media: important to culture  defines who we are, informs us, and entertains us.
1. Components of culture:
1. culture had to do with human actions
2. culture is a set of meanings, beliefs, values, and practices of a society.
3. culture identifies me as belonging to a particular group.
2. Christian Symbols:
-water
-touch
-oil
-bread & wine
- Rings
- Burial
3. Sacraments & Ritual:
- Baptism  immersion in water
- Confirmation  being part of the Eucharistic community
- Marriage  exchange of promise
4. Media:
-T.V.
-magazines
-radio
-advertisements
Unit 3: The God Question

Covenant: relationship between God and chosen people

Law or Torah: God’s instruction about covenant: how to live in mutually agreed upon
relationship with God.
Moses: prophet/leader of Hebrew people
Prophets: holy persons of Israel  leaders communicate between God and people (Moses).
Messengers of God among chosen people.
Revelation: God communicated God’s self to human kind in stages.
YHWH: name is so sacred that the Hebrew Bible gives us only its four consonants. In Jewish
services the Holy Name is never pronounced because of the danger of misusing it.
Kingdom of God: a symbol used by Jesus to speak about God and God’s actions among us.
Jesus said the kingdom is among us.
Metaphor: a figure of speech used in poetic language. In a metaphor the writer illustrates
something about the nature of one thing by relating it to another thing.
Incarnation: God became human and dwelt personally – in the flesh – among us in Jesus of
Nazareth.
Parable: a story that compares something we don’t know with something that we do know. A
parable usually has a surprise twist that helps us see things in a new way.
New Covenant: through Jesus, God’s original covenant with Israel became even more intimate,
more personal.
Grace: describes God’s kind, merciful and absolutely and absolutely generous love for us. Grace
shows itself in God’s gifts of creation but particularly in the person of Jesus Christ.
Chosen People: God called the Hebrews out of Egypt through Moses, God chose them, the
Bible says, “our of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
5 Characteristics of a Parable:
1. A parable is a story
2. A parable is a comparison
3. A parable contains a crisis
4. A parable has an ending
5. A parable is a story about God’s kingdom, that is to say, God’s way of acting among
us.
Culture Identified by Richard Niebuhr:
1. Some Christians say that Jesus is against culture.
2. Some Christians think that Jesus is perfectly at ease in culture.
3. Others feel that because Jesus is the incarnate God, he was both in and above culture.
4. Others say that Jesus and culture will always be at loggerheads.
5. Jesus is also seen as one who transforms culture.
5 Ways of how Jesus is still present:
1. Jesus acts through people.
2. Jesus acts though people who choose to be in communion with him
3. Jesus acts through the word of scripture
4. Jesus acts in the liturgy
5. Jesus acts in the witness of people
Unit 4: Relating to Oneself: Who Am I?

Atheism: people throughout the ages have said that there is no God. But only in the West has
atheism, the denial of God’s existence, become such a strong part of culture.
Agnosticism: Agnostics say they don’t know if God exists. They prefer to remain indifferent.
Love of Self: the gospels assume that we love ourselves. They ass, however, that this love of self
must equal our love for others.
St. Therese of Lisieux: teaches that to be holy, one does not need to do great deeds. One does
not need to make a big splash in the world to be a full person. She finds God in all the little
things.
1. According to Mother Teresa the greatest disease in the West today is being unwanted,
unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for
loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.

Unit 5: Relating to the Other: The Voice of the Other in Me

The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you”
Sexuality: the force and energy to be creative in response to life.
Marriage: God unites two people in such a way that, by forming ‘one flesh’, they can transmit
human life.
Companionship-Hetaireia: the love that one has for an associate, a classmate, or a comrade in
an adventure.
Sexual Love-Eros: love in the sexual sense is a passionate love, pleasurable, spontaneous, and
even instinctive.
Family Love-Storge: the love children have for their parents, and parents have for their children.
Friendship-Philia: the love that Jesus had for Lazarus. The warm and tender affection felt
between two friends.
Charity-Agape: wish others well when they do not do anything in return. It is an unconditional
love, a love that is willing to sacrifice.

Unit 6: Relating to the Civil Society: Living Together in Solidarity

Justice: is based on the distribution of goods in society and the equality of all its citizens.
Distributive Justice: when we use the word justice, we usually mean distributive justice.
Distributive justice is the equitable and fair distribution of the goods of society.
Common Good: refers to all the social conditions that allow us to reach our fulfillment more
fully and more easily.
Social Encyclicals: they help us as a society to put the golden rule into practice, both in our
economy and our social life.
Peace: the absence of war or conflict.
Violence: the aggressive or unjust use of power or force to hurt others.
Power: the ability of human beings to act.
Authority: adds something to, or complements, power.
State: is one of many institutions that wield power in society.
Service: using our power for the benefit and wellbeing for others.
Six Duties of a Catholic to the State:
1. Obey civil authority.
2. Vote
3. Participate in public life.
4. Pay taxes.
5. Welcome immigrants and refugees.
6. Defend our country.

Unit 7: Relating to the Church: We Are the Church

Sacraments: effective signs of grace. They have been instituted by Christ and entrusted to the
Church.
Salvation: The Church proclaims that we are made whole through faith in God. The church
believes that through our devotion to and trust in God, particularly through our faith in Jesus,
Christ, human beings are set on the path of fullness of life.
One: the church is one because it is the sacrament of the risen Christ.
Holy: the church is holy because it embodies the love of God that Jesus revealed in his life, death
and resurrection.
Apostolic: means that the church is founded on the apostles and their mission.
Grace: describes God’s kinds, merciful and absolutely generous love for us.
Eucharist: the centre of Christian life. “In the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual
good of the Church, namely Christ himself...”