BREL313
Choosing Role Models.
All throughout the history of Christianity, saints were always given a very important status in the Catholic Church, due to the likeness or closeness to God that they had during their lifetime, and their readiness to let their faith in God shine through their good deeds and fully dedicated lives to God and others. This module will help learners explore how different saints lived so many Christian virtues that were and will always be so important in one’s personal life, as well as to the society we live in. For example, St. Clare of Assisi lived the Christian virtues of courage and poverty, St. George Preca is mostly remembered for his virtues of obedience and pastoral initiative, and St. Thomas More and St. Maximillian were examples of the beauty of the values of integrity, honesty, faithfulness to God and faithfulness towards one’s belief and conscience. All such values and virtues will be researched and explored by the learners after they would have read through and reflected on the life of these saints. Learners will also be given the opportunity to realize and explore how through reflection on the lives of these saints, they can learn to grow in certain virtues and values, such as justice, honesty, forgiveness. These are so important and crucial for every person and for society in general. In this module, learners will also have the opportunity of researching the lives of other saints like St. Theresa d’Avila, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), who shaped modern Christianity through their lives and teachings, and most importantly through the way they gave witness of the Gospel.
By the end of this programme, participants should be able to:
a. Create opportunities for students to explore the life of various saints in the history of the Catholic Church;
b. Ensure that students reflect upon the virtues that were manifested in the lives of the saints of the Church, and also of people of good faith in other Christian Churches and religious traditions;
c. Guide students to reflect on how they could put into practice the virtues of the saints in their everyday life, and how these can enhance one’s life and contribute to a better society;
d. Create spaces for students to carry out research about great people who gave a significant contribution to society both in the past and in modern and present times;
e. Ensure that students would have reflected upon the positive values that shone through the lives of such people, and produced ideas as to how they could also apply them in their own lives;
f. Advise the SMT and collaborate with its members on how the students’ works and projects on saints and great people past and present could be celebrated in the school and be part of its physical environment.
a. Define sainthood as understood in Christian traditions, especially that of the Catholic Church;
b. List some of the saints of the Catholic Church and other great people, past and present, some of whom had a significant impact on the shaping of modern Christianity;
c. Define the word ‘virtues’ as actions that show high moral standards and that have their source in the person of Jesus Christ and the Gospel;
d. List and define different virtues possessed by various saints, like courage, poverty, obedience, integrity, honesty and faithfulness to God and to one’s beliefs and conscience;
e. Describe how these virtues were manifested in the life of saints and other great people who made significant contributions to society and to the Church;
f. Recall the most significant episodes in the lives of some of the Catholic saints and other great Christian figures that reveal their virtues and their contribution to society and the Church.
a. Demonstrate in various and creative ways knowledge of the lives of various saints and other great figures that made contributions to society and the Church;
b. Apply this knowledge to their own lives and let it transform their actions in different social contexts, as well as their own personal lives in its various dimensions.
c. Show how, when and where the virtues of the saints could be lived in a way that gives witness to the Gospel in particular cultural contexts of the world today, and especially in local (Maltese) contexts;
d. Exercise critical and independent thinking through discussion of how the saintly virtues could take different forms in the present secular cultural context;
e. Use knowledge of the lives of saints and other great contributors of society as a source of inspiration for the interpretation of personal life events from the perspective of faith.
This module adopts a blended approach to teaching and learning. Information related to the structure and delivery of the module may be accessed through the IfE Portal. For further details, kindly refer to the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy and Procedures found on the Institute for Education’s website.
This programme adopts continuous and summative methods of assessment including assignments, online tasks, reflective journals, projects and video presentations. For further details, kindly refer to the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy and Procedures.
The Institute for Education is a Further and Higher Education Institution with Licence number 2016-006
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