Religious Education

Year 7 Initiation and Belonging

With the commencement of a new year, much emphasis has been placed on ensuring our new students in Year 7 are inducted into all aspects of daily life at Kildare from the rhythm of the timetable to the values that keep our community together. In the RE classroom students have been introduced to many distinctive features of the heritage and history of the college and the people who have inspired its very foundation. They have explored the lives and values of our house patrons; Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, St Oscar Romero, St Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker). Our college crest and the cross of Saint Bridgid as well as the intrepid and courageous efforts of Nano Nagle and the founding sisters of Mount Erin have been a focus in our classrooms.

Catechesis on the Christian Claim: Friendship with God

Another important focus has been a catechesis on the point of Christianity. 

Can I take a bit more of your time to introduce a way, though not new, that can help to understand our faith in Christ?

Riddle: What is something everyone, everywhere and always values above all things that can only be obtained as a gift? 

Answer: Life, love, friendship etc. You might be able to think of some other things.

Friendship:

Let's consider friendship: How do we know we are loved or have a true friendship?

Can we measure the value of our friendships? Could we say a person is 70% a friend?

Let me suggest that friendship is a thing we all value above everything else. We can give it but only obtain it as a gift from another person. Friendship is a spiritual reality, it can’t be measured, we just know when we have a friend. The quality of our relationships with other people requires discernment and wisdom rather than a purely empirical measurement to determine. 

Tension of friendship: 

Friendships are formed often around shared interests or shared circumstances. Friendships are often based on some usefulness or pleasure that unites two persons. But usefulness and pleasure are not enough for a true and perfect friendship. Nobody likes to be used or abandoned when they are unpleasant. We tend to be disappointed when this happens. This disappointment is interesting because when it comes to a friendship, as we said before, it's a gift. On top of the thing we value above everything else, we expect it to be perfect despite the fact it can only be given by another person who we know in this life is not perfect. 

Religious Sense: 

This tension in our need for friendship can lead us towards two possible conclusions. The first is the cynical idea that there is no such thing as perfection and that we cannot expect loyalty or true love from our friends or anyone. On the other hand we can come to the conclusion that beyond this life there is a Person who can offer us true friendship. This is the Religious Sense. So how would a world receive such a Person and what would this Person do that would show us that they are perfectly our Friend?

Concept of True Friendship:

Every student in my Year 7 classes has been able to think about scenarios where friendship does not meet the true standard required. They can also think of solutions to the worst experiences of friendship. In every case, to lead a bad friendship towards a concept of truth, all the person’s involved have to make themselves vulnerable and offer some sacrifice. Kindness means we overlook or excuse the uselessness or the unpleasantness of our friends, loyalty means we stick out the friendship even at some great cost. It must be said however, the gift of friendship can lead us to unimaginable happiness even when we make ourselves vulnerable and let go of our own preferences.

The Christian Claim:

The Christian claim is this: The God we believe in is a Personal God. So Personal is He that He becomes one with us. Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the perfect Person we are all desiring and this is what He teaches us in the course of His life. “He was in the world, which He made, and the world knew Him not. He came to His friends who He freed from slavery and led to the promised land. They received Him not.” (See John 1:10) And yet, this God of ours does not come in revenge, instead, He makes Himself utterly vulnerable and sacrificed on the cross He calls on our deepest humanity, our compassion. His body on the cross shows us what we really look like when we destroy the bonds of true friendship. He also shows us the way to true happiness and true friendship with Himself and our neighbour because He rises from the dead. 

David Chaston | Religious Education Coordinator