Final Essays Flashcards
Essay 1
From the beginning, God wanted a harmonious relationship with mankind. Man is made for a relationship with God because God created the Sabbath to renew our relationship with Him, leading Him to make the covenants. A covenant is an unbreakable kinship bond that makes a family. Original solitude is when Adam is lonely in the creation accounts and seeks companionship with a woman, Eve. This Original solitude allows us to know that this mankind is made for a relationship with women and others. The events of the Fall are what damages man’s relationship with God. During the Fall, Adam and Eve turned away from God and chose themselves over sin, committing a sin of pride and disobedience.Their sin is the first time sin entered the world as Original Sin. Adam and Eve used their free will to give in to temptation from the devil and choose themselves over God to make themselves “God,” causing them to no longer live in original holiness and original justice. Some consequences that happened as a result of the Fall are death, concupiscence, suffering, and a need for salvation. To repair the damage, God tells Satan “”I will put enmity between your offspring and hers. They will strike at your head while they strike at your heel.” This is called the Protoevangelium.
Essay 2
When Moses and Aaron asked Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, Pharaoh said “no” despite the plagues God sent. God’s 10th and final plague brings death to the first born of animals and humans. To spare themselves, God told the Israelites to paint their doorsteps with the blood of an unblemished male lamb that was sacrificed. This foreshadows Christ as the Lamb of God because like the sacrificial lamb, He was a spotless victim for our sins. It also foreshadows the Eucharist because Christ is the Lamb of God that we eat during Communion and the Paschal Mystery because a lamb had to die and since Christ is the Lamb of God, he died to save us. This is also called the Passover because God passed over the Israelites in Egypt. Once the Israelites were in the Promised Land, God gave them judges to help Israel remain faithful to the covenant. The sixth and final judge Samuel anoints Saul as king. Saul disobeys God’s command because he is prideful and loses his throne to David. David was the greatest king of Israel who brought the Ark of the Covenant into Israel and wanted to build a Temple for God so He could dwell among His people. He also wrote the Psalms, which gave the people a way to talk to God. Since the prophet Nathan stopped David from building the Temple, David’s son Solomon built the Temple. Despite his wisdom, Solomon was corrupted by sin, and as a result, the kingdom of Israel split into two in an event called the Exile. During the Exile, the Temple was destroyed. As it was a central part of the Israelites’ identity, they began to lose sight of who they were as a result. To call them back to Him, God sent prophets. These prophets told Israel to repent, that there was only one God, and that God was going to send a Messiah to redeem them so they should be ready and free from their sins to make room in their hearts for His arrival.
Essay 3
The first Marian Dogma is Mary: Mother of God. This Marian Dogma means that Jesus must be human because He had a human mom. The second Marian Dogma is Mary: Immaculate Conception. This states that Jesus must be God because otherwise He would not need a perfect place to dwell on Earth in the womb. It also indicates that Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant and that she is the New Eve because she was created without sin like Eve. The third Marian Dogma is Mary: Perpetual Virgin. This Marian Dogma means that Jesus must be God because of His miraculous conception and birth. This also allows Mary to be our Mother too because there is no competition. His miraculous birth also fulfills the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and shall call Him Immanuel.” Justification means that because man was the one who sinned, God had to become man so that he could repair the damage, and because it was a sin against God, he also had to be God. This relates to Jesus because He is both 100% man and 100% God which fulfills the hypostatic union and shows how our sins are justified through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Incarnation is the Word becoming flesh, meaning that the Lord Himself became human to save us from our sins, fulfilling the Protoevangelium. The early life of Christ is called His Hidden Life. From His Hidden Life, we learn that He made the ordinary things that we do everyday extraordinary and that Jesus values family, humility, and obedience.
Essay 4
The Public Ministry of Christ began at the Wedding Feast at Cana when He made His power known with His first miracle by turning water into wine. Christ’s Public Ministry started with His miracle at the Wedding Feast at Cana, and Christ’s baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist was an anointing of the Holy Spirit to prepare Him for great suffering and His mission. Jesus was reluctant to perform His miracle, but Mary advised Him to, working together as the New Eve and the New Adam. At the Wedding at Cana, Jesus calls Mary “Woman,” but it was not meant as disrespectful. When He called her “Woman,” it was meant as a reference to Genesis 3:15 when God said that he would put enmity between her seed and Satan’s seed. He also does this to ask her if she was ready to fulfill Isaiah and Simeon’s prophecies that prophesied that she will suffer along with Jesus. Mark 1:!5 is the Mission Statement of Jesus’ ministry, which begins at the Wedding at Cana. His mission is for us to have union with God.
Essay 5
Christ’s Paschal Mystery began with His Passion. During this, He went through the worst torture known to man in the crucifixion. He had no broken bones in order to fulfill the prophecies from the Psalms and because He is the New Covenant and Lamb of God. Jesus also offered us His own mother the moment before His death out of love for us so that we could come to know Him more fully through His aid. After His Passion comes His Death in which Jesus gave us His gift of life. Christ’s gift of life involves kenosis as He demonstrated it throughout His entire life as He gave Himself to mankind for our sake. The Resurrection of Christ occurs 3 days after He is buried in the tomb. If Jesus hadn’t died and rose from the dead, there would be no point in having any faith at all because we would still be enslaved to sin. This would cause His mission to save us to be incomplete. However, because of the Resurrection, we can see that God has power over death. Christ’s Paschal Mystery ends with His Ascension into Heaven. Before He ascends into Heaven, however, Jesus commissions the Apostles to go tell all the nations about what He has done for man so that He could send the Holy Spirit to help even more. Christ’s mission is to share the Good News with everyone. Apostolic Succession relates to this because the keys to the kingdom are first given to St. Peter as he is the first pope, so he appointed bishops who appointed priests who today still help carry on Christ’s mission. Apostolic Succession relates to the Paschal Mystery because it fulfills what Jesus commissioned the Apostles to do before His Ascension. Evangelization is sharing the Good News of salvation with the world, which helps fulfill the mission of Jesus. The Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 says “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” It is our task to fulfill what was said through evangelization because it carries on the Mission of Jesus.
