CLE A_Module 1_CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.pdf

CHRISTIAN LIVING EDUCATION A Grade 11 | First Quarter (Midterm) Week 1-2 Unit 1: Rea...

CHRISTIAN LIVING EDUCATION A Grade 11 | First Quarter (Midterm) Week 1-2 Unit 1: Reading the Signs of the Times Topic: Christian Social Responsibility Learning module ________________________________ Name of Student __________________________________________________ Grade and Section _________________________________ Class Number __________________________________________ Class Schedule Prepared & Edited by: JEROME R. BERJA, LPT CLE-Subject Area Coordinator  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Module 1 Unit 1: Reading the Signs of the Times Topic: Christian Social Responsibility Learning Targets: At the end of this lesson, you will be able to: 1. Understand that God wills nothing but our good, our welfare, and our authentic joy. Suffering does not come from God but from the world. (D) 2. Reflect on their own suffering and discover a Christian response to suffering. (M) 3. Find meaning in social responsibility and its link to our own faith and prayer life. (D) 4. Show integrity and harmony a life of community and be socially responsible. (CV) Module Components: S – Start up - Introduction to the topic W – Work it out - Discussion of the topic I – Integrate - Integration with other principles T – Try These! - Self-assessment C – Challenge - Evaluation of Learning H – High Five! - Enduring Learning from the lesson This module is solely intended for educational purposes of SAINT JOSEPH SCHOOL. No part of this module should be reproduced, distributed, posted in online discussions, shared in social media sites without the knowledge, approval, and consent of the designer. -SJS Academic Team CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |2  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY We are persons-in-community. We are born to relate with one another and with society. Society, with all its members, institutions, systems, and structures, affects us, and we affect it because we are part of it. This truth calls us to be responsible members of society. A few years from now, we will be facing the so-called “real-world”. We will assume a particular role in society with our chosen career and vocation. Part of measuring up to this challenge is to widen our horizon and to be sensitive to our surroundings. We are part of Philippine society. Whether we like it or not, we are affected by it. What are the pressing issues/problems our country is facing today? What do these problems tell us about the condition of our country? As a Christian, what can you say about this condition? Take a look at some of these photos. Figure 2.War on drugs. Reprinted fromdailymail.co.uk, retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article- Figure 1.Philippines Child Labor. Reprinted from RedFlag.org, retrieved 3710940/Harrowing-pictures-brutal-truth-Philippines-war- from https://redflag.org/magazine/issue-2/sorting-through-the-mess-of- drugs-s-seen-300-killed-just-one-month-president-ordered- child-labor/ police-bars-ground.html CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |3  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Figure 3.Corona Virus. Reprinted fromaa.com, retrieved from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia- pacific/philippines-tops-covid-19-cases-in-southeast-asia/1805656 Many Filipinos today are tempted to see very little hope for our country. With all the corruption, violence, war on drugs, Covid19, poverty and natural calamities besetting our people, we cannot blame them for their pessimism. But as Christians, we cannot afford to lose hope. We can give realistic portrayal of our present social landscape but without any tone of despair, because we know God’s intention for the world and believe that He is constantly at Figure 4.Corona Virus Pandemic. Reprinted arabnews.com, retrieved from work in charge even amidst human suffering. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1659171/world That is why a Christian cannot be indifferent to suffering and to poverty, injustice and division. We know that suffering cannot be completely rooted out while we are on this earth. But it can be diminished. – PCP II 83 CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |4  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY God’s Plan for Us Why do people suffer? Why does God allow suffering? In the Genesis stories of creation and the fall of the first humans (Gn 1-3), we read that God created the world out of love. God made the world a place of harmony, peace, and gave everything necessary for human being to live fully in this kind of world. Scripture also says that God crated human beings in His image and likeness. This means that God created us to be relational and capable of loving. We are born in the company of other human beings to take care of one another and the rest of creation. God gave us intellect and free will to be able to recognize, understand, choose, and appreciate truth and goodness. The way we are created reveals that God’s plan is nothing less than to share His divine life with us. “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11 Sadly, the first human beings abused their gifts. Instead of using their freedom and intellect to love, they hurt themselves. They became strangers to each other and even to the world God intended them to live in. and with that abuse came all the moral evil and human suffering that we experience today. Suffering entered the world because of the sin of human beings. God certainly does not approve of sin and the suffering it causes. He dos not want us to sin and hurt ourselves. But He allows it to Figure 5.The Fall of Man. Reprinted dacapofoundation.com, retrieved happen because of the greater good of from http://www.dacapofoundation.com/SpecialInterest/DialTheCatholicFai creating us free so we can love and receive th/Faith&LifeIndex/Level01-5/OKLevelOne5-06.htm CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |5  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY love. Had He not created us with freedom and intellect, we would not have the capacity to share in His divine goodness. God’s Mysterious Ways JOB In the Old Testament, an upright and God-fearing man named Job suffered all kinds of disasters at the prompting of Satan. His suffering forced him to question why God had allowed such evil to befall him. His friends tried to offer the pious answer that Job’s suffering must be due to some evil he had done in the past. But Job adamantly rejected such an explanation. To his knowledge, he had not done anything to deserve his suffering. Such a pious asnwer is not foreign to us. We often tend to judge like Job’s friends. We conveniently blame God for the unexplained cause of our suffering and accuse Him of punishing us. We miss what Job leaned from his experience –that God is always in control. He learned to question God no more and settle with the truth that God’s ways are not like human ways. Figure 6.The Suffering of Job. Reprinted jw.org, retrieved from https://www.jw.org/kri/buk-%C9%9Bn-%C9%94da-tin-d%C9%9Bn/jw-mitin- buk/epril-2016-mwb/mitin-pat-apr25-may1/ilayu-job-gud-advays/ “Who is this those obscure divine plans with words of ignorance?… Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its size, do you know”-Job 38:2, 4-5 “Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place…?” -Job 38:12 “Will we have arguing with the Almighty by the critic? Let him who would correct God give answer!” –Job 40:2 “Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again; though twice, I will do so no more. –Job 40:4-5 CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |6  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY We are aware that we are living in a worl that has not yet attained the fullness of peace and justice. We see many suffering around us. What is suffering? What is your idea of suffering? We suffer in many different ways. Since we are embodied spirits, we experince two kinds of suffering –physical and spiritual suffering. Physical suffering is present when “the body is hurting” in some way, whereas moral suffering is “opain of the soul”. “It can be said that man in a special fashion becomes the way for the Church when suffering enters his life. This happens, as we know, at different moments in life, it takes place in different ways, it assumes different dimensions; nevertheless, in whatever form, suffering seems to be, and is, almost inseparable from man’s earthly existence.” –Pope John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris 9 Why do people suffer? Why does God allow suffering? The questions posed earlier are difficult to answer because perhaps we are asking the wrong question or we are addressing the question to the wrong person –God. Suffering does not come from God, but from the world. God allows suffering but He does not will it. Both questions are difficult, when an individual puts them to other individual, when people put them to toher people, as also when man puts them to God. For man does not put his question to the world, even though it is from the world that suffering often comes to him, but he puts it to God as the Creator and Lord of the world. It is well known that concerning this question there not only arise many frustrations and conflicts in the relations of man with God, but it also happens that people reach the point of actually denying God. (Salvifici Doloris 9) For, whereas the existence of the world opens as it were the eyes of the human soul to the exixtence of God, to His wisdom, power, and greatness, evil and suffering seem to obscure this image, sometimes in a radical way, especially in the daily drama of so many cases of undeserved suffering and so many faults without proper punishment. So this circumstances shows –perhaps more than any other –the importance of the questino of the meaning of suffering. It also shows how much care must be taken both in dealing with the question itself and with all possible asnwers to it. ( Salvifici Doloris 9) CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |7  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY “I have witnessed the affliction of my people… and have heard their cry… I know well that they are suffering. Therefore, I have come down to rescue them.” – Exodus 3:7-8 What is the Christian perspective on human suffering? ❖ In his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, John Paul II addressed these questions and offered us many insights about suffering. ❖ A Christianviews suffering in relation to Jesus Christ. A Christian understands suffering and the “why” of suffering by looking at the revelation of God’s love, Jesus. ❖ Love is also the richest source of the meaning of suffering, which always remains a mystery: we are conscious of the insufficiency and inadequacy of our explanations. Christ causes us to eneter into the mystery and to discover the “why” of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists. ( Salvifici Doloris 13) ❖ We believe that although we still suffer, Jesus’ victory over sin and death “throws a new light upon us this dimension and upon every suggering: the light of salvation”. ( Salvifici Doloris 15) ❖ Precisely by means of His Cross. He must strike at the roots of evil, planted in the history of man and in human souls. Precisely by means of His Cross, He must accomplish the works of salvation ( Salvifici Doloris 16) ❖ Saint John Paul II said Jesus has given us the answer to the questino about the meaning of suffering not only by His teaching, but above all by His suffering ( Salvifici Doloris 18). In the Passion of Jesus, something new has been added to our understanding of suffering –“it has been linked to love” ( Salvifici Doloris 18). Because of the Passion of Jesus, there is a new situation for all human suffering just as Job was able to say in hins suffering, “I know that my Redeemer lives” ( Salvifici Doloris 19) ❖ Therefore we suffer, we can also become sharers in the redemptive suffering of Christ. When we share our sufferings with Christ, we suffer for the Kingdom and grow in virtue and “complete… Christ’s afflictions… for the sake of the Church” (Salvifici Doloris 20). CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |8  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY What is the Christian perspective on human suffering? 1. By Worshiping God: “Then Job said, ‘Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall go back again. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job did not sin, nor did he say anything disrespectful of God” – Job 1:20-22 2. By examining our hearts; “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves” -2 Cor 13:5 3. By offering our suffering up to God: “Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. – Jas 5:13) 4. By giving thanks: “In all ciscumstances give thanks, for this it the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” -1 Thes 5:18 5. By rejoicing that we have been counted worthy to suffer for Christ: 6. By Looking to Christ’s example, who suffered for us, to demonstrate to us both the magnitude of our sin and the greater magnitude of His infinite love for us. 7. By Looking to Christ’s return and the life to come: “Set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” -1Pt 1:13. CLE A: Christian Social Responsibility |9  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TRUSTING IN GOD’S LOVE Read the story “Footprints in the Sand” One night I dreamed a dream. As I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, One belonging to me and one to my Lord. After the last scene of my life flashed before me, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints. This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it. "Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints. I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me." He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testing. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you." What is the message of the story? What does it tell us about suffering or the lowest point in our lives? Christ promised that He will be with us always, especially when we are at the lowest point of our lives. It tells us to trust God, to trust that He will never abandon us especially at the most difficult part of our lives. C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 10  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY God’s Love ❖ God hears the cry of the poor and suffering. He is not indefferent to the pains that we are experiencing because of sin in the world. ❖ He send people to alleviate our suffering. He sends us to console those who are lonely and in pain. ❖ God acted upon the suffering of His people by sending His only Son, Jesus Christ. Figure 7. Interview with God. Reprinted excellencereporter.com, retrieved from https://excellencereporter.com/2018/09/18/interview-with-god-a- parable/ ❖ God is not a God who is just up avobe watching over us. He is a God who wants to be with us. God sent His son, Jesus, to be one like us and suffer with us to bring us to God’s Kingdom. ❖ Jesus frees us from enslaving sins to bring us to holistic liberation. FREEDOM FROM FREEDOM FROM ENSLAVING SINS HOLISTIC CELEBRATION Reflecting on our Social Responsibility Socail responsibility is an obligation of an individual or group of people to act to benefit the members of the society at large. It is a duty every person or organization has to perform to maintain and sustain a balance between the economy and the ecosystem. Some of the Common Filipino reasons for Helping Others ❖ Reward and Punishment ❖ Pity ❖ Moral Obligation ❖ Christian faith Social Responsibility and Faith ❖ Reason and Meaning ✓ Our love for God flows out o desiring to love our neigbors. ✓ An expereince of faith is an experience of being loved by God through Christ. ✓ This love has the power to move us to love others in return. ❖ Norm ✓ Jesus is our moral norm, our moral standard. C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 11  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ✓ We look upon Jesus as our example. We follow Him and the way He served others, too. ❖ Power ✓ We are called to serve others and work for peace and justice. Jesus gives us the grace to be able to do so. He sends us the Holy Spirit, for without the grace of God we will not be able to sustain our work for the coming of the Kingdom here on earth. EXPAND YOUR IDEA: Read the following related literature. Figure 8.SALIGAN. Reprinted Facebook.com, retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/saligan.alac/photos/a.1668522543405958/1668522533405959 Roberto “Bobby” Arevalo Gana received a thoroughly Jesuit education. He entered Ateneo de Manila as a prep student in 1967 and never left. He was a consistent member of the honors class. In 1982, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. He went to Ateneo Law School, where every semester he was on the Dean’s List. Graduating fifth in his class in 1986, it was to nobody’s surprise that he also placed fifth in the Philippine Bar Examinations of 1986. Bobby’s knowledge of the law was masterful. As a member of the select Ateneo Law School Faculty, he was widely respected for his scholarship and expertise in labor and agrarian reform law. As a legal practitioner, his pleadings were crisp and lucid, forceful and direct. But perhaps his most profound gift was his ability to grasp the vast and complicated themes of law and explain them clearly, simply, and completely to people utterly unfamiliar with the law, a talent for which he was chosen by C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 12  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY the students as one of the school’s Ten Best Teachers and which he used to help the marginalized sectors realize their rights. As a Bar topnotcher, Bobby could choose from among the best corporate firms in the country, but he opted instead for the post of Political Education Officer of the Ateneo Center for Social Policy (ACSP) in order to devote his talents to the service of laborers. He worked for the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center, litigating on behalf of the poor laborers, conducting seminars on basic legal literacy, and helping organize labor desk in every parish of the Archdiocese of Manila. In November 1987, Bobby and several other lawyer friends founded the Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panlegal (SALIGAN), a legal resource NGO that advocates for the marginalized sector through litigation, education, and policy formation. Up to now SALIGAN exists. Bobby was killed in a tragic accident while in the middle of his advocacy for the Mapalad farmers in Bukidnon. On February 2, 1998, Bobby and another SALIGAN lawyer were aboard the Cebu Pacific flight for Cagayan de Oro when it crashed on the mountains of Cagayan de Oro. They were on their way to attend a consultation with the farmers. (Taken from the Ateneo de Manila Class ’98 Graduation Programme) What Bobby did was an expression of the love that Jesus commanded. “Love one another as I love you.” – Jn 15:12 It is grounded in a kind of love different from the love we experience with people dear and familiar to us, and persons with whom we say we “fall in love”. Bobby’s motivation must have come from an experience of profound love that is none other than God’s. Love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Were it not for his deep relationship with Christ, Bobby would not have been able to do what he did. His faith in Christ is what made him loving. It is the experience of being loved by God that inspired him to respond in love. For sure Bobby was not a perfect human being –he had his own share of human weaknesses and limitations. But he did not let these dominate his life. Rather, it was his sense of being blest that inspired him. He felt so blest that out of gratitude for all he had received from God, he chose to follow Christ by offering himself to others. Bobby’s generosity surely stemmed from a love that was awakened by God’s greater love. C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 13  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Love of God is the First Commandment, but because we do not see God, we must first love our neighbor whom we do see. However, we do not stand still in love of neighbor, but get on the road to God together with our neigbor. By loving our neighbor and offering them help, we travel with them towards God. This is especially clear to the Chrristinas, for by loving one’s neighbor, one loves Christ, because all are members of Chrsit’s Body. -Catechism for Filipino Catholics 945 I. DEFINITION OF TERMS. What is the meaning of the following terminologies? 1. Social Responsibility - 2. Suffering- 3. Physical Suffering- 4. Moral Suffering- 5. Common Reasons for Helping- II. CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE. Write your answers in the space provided. 6-10. What forms of suffering Job experienced? How did it strengthen his faith to God? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 11-15. How did Job’s friends try to explain his suffering to him? What did Job learn from his whole experience of human suffering? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 14  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 16-20. Is it possible for a person to experience suffering but at the same time feel happy about it? Explain your answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Read this short story. There is this story about a man who was angry about the human suffering he saw around him. He complained to God, “Why do you allow this to happen? If you love us, why don’t you do something?” Later on, while the man was still nursing his anger, the Lord replied, “I created you. I called you.” Reflect on the story above and answer the following questions. 21-22. What does the story tell us? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 23-24. Who does the man in the story represent? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 25-26. How does God make His saving love present in our lives? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 15  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY With the extensive discussion about the human suffering and social responsibility, incorporate your learnings by reflecting on the following questions: 1. Do you also blame God every time you experience pain and suffering in your life? What is the right attitude of a Christian about human suffering? 2. As a teenager of the 21st Century, how should you practice social responsibility? 3. Why should you be a responsible member of our society? How can you participate now in Risen Christ’s work for human freedom and social transformation? Explain thoroughly. RUBRIC 5 points Student was able to give an excellent answer which went beyond expectation. 4 points Student was able to comprehend and respond to the question and the answer is highly satisfactory. 3 points Student was able to comprehend and respond to the question well and the answer is clear. 2 points Student fairly grasped and fairly answered the question. 1 point Student had difficulty understanding the question and answer is not stated well. C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 16  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Write down 5 enduring learnings/realizations you got from this topic. These may be in the form of a statement or question. C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 17  MODULE 1: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REFERENCES: Books = Ducepec, D. and Dango, J. (2014). Called to Grow in Christian Social Responsibility. Sibs Publishing House, Inc. = Oscar, C. (2004). Catechism for Filipino Catholics. Manila: ECCCE. = Schwarz, J. (2004). A Handbook of the Christian Faith. Van Haren Publishing. = Vaticana, L. E., & U. (2019). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed.). United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. = Oxford University Press. (2005). Catholic Bible: Revised Standard Version, Compact Edition (Compact ed.). Oxford University Press. Sites X Adamczyk, D. (2018). The meaning of human suffering: participation with hope - in the light of apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris by Pope John Paul II. Colloquia Theologica Ottoniana, 2, 7–22. https://doi.org/10.18276/cto.2018.2-01 Images  Child Labor (photo). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://redflag.org/magazine/issue- 2/sorting-through-the-mess-of-child-labor/ X War on Drugs (photo). (2016). Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3710940/Harrowing-pictures-brutal-truth- Philippines-war-drugs-s-seen-300-killed-just-one-month-president-ordered-police- bars-ground.html X Corona Virus (image).(2020). Retrieved from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia- pacific/philippines-tops-covid-19-cases-in-southeast-asia/1805656 X Corona Virus Pandemic (image).(2020). Retrieved from https://www.arabnews.com/node/1659171/world X The Fall of Man (art).(1995). Retrieved from http://www.dacapofoundation.com/SpecialInterest/DialTheCatholicFaith/Faith&LifeI ndex/Level01-5/OKLevelOne5-06.htm X The Suffering of Job (image). (2016). Retrieved from https://www.jw.org/kri/buk- %C9%9Bn-%C9%94da-tin-d%C9%9Bn/jw-mitin-buk/epril-2016-mwb/mitin-pat- apr25-may1/ilayu-job-gud-advays/ X Interview with God (image).(2018). Retrieved from https://excellencereporter.com/2018/09/18/interview-with-god-a-parable/ X SALIGAN (image).(2016). Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/saligan.alac/photos/a.1668522543405958 C L E A : C h r i s t i a n S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y | 18  KEY TO CORRECTION 1. Social Responsibility- is an obligation of an individual or group of people to act to benefit the members of the society at large. It is a duty every person or organization has to perform to maintain and sustain a balance between the economy and the ecosystem. 2. Suffering- the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. 3. Physical Suffering- present when “the body is hurting” in some way, whereas 4. Moral suffering - “pain of the soul”. 5. Common Reasons for Helping- Reward and Punishment, Pity, MOrabl Obligations, Christian faith