Module #1 Flashcards
What Are Some Significant Life Events?
Birth
Development Into Adulthood
Marriage
Death
What are Significant Life Events?
They are occasions/events which people experience throughout their age and across cultures which triggers and stirs a range of important questions which prompt an individual to discover more about them; Meaning of life and purpose.
What questions do these events prompt people to ask about the meaning and purpose of life?
Birth
- unborn life
- struggles
- depth of personal joy
- parenthood
- responsibility
- family relationships
- belonging
Development into adulthood
- responsibility
- vocation and work
- identity within society
- how influence to make a difference
Marriage
- personal priorities
- commitment
- future life journey
- parenthood
- sharing
- trust
- relationships
Death
- nature of death
- suffering
- illness
- Heaven vs Hell
- forgiveness for past guilt
- personal values and priorities
How does these life events prompt these questions
With theses important life events comes CHANGE - this change is a new experience so it very much like a MYSTERY building up curiosity and questions the human mind, and even in the human heart.
Experiences have the power to change a persons and to prompt them to ask important questions about the purpose of life and meaning.
What answers do people find to their questions
- They find answers in religion; whatever religion it is
- They might begin a belief in an divine energy or god which was the cause of creation and the protection of humans.
- They can find answers in science
- And going through with the personal experiences and learning from them.
What does being Religious mean?
When people seek, search and think about the meaning of life and the reality if God they are being religious. How a person responds to this search and where they find support and answers to their questioning may lead a person it accept and follow a particular religion.
What are True Experiences?
True experiences of God are Mystery experiences.
Explain an mystery experience.
Eucharist
Catholics are invited to prepare themselves to ‘celebrate the sacred mysteries’ and to ‘proclaim the mystery of faith’. The experiences Christ offers through the Eucharist are deeply personal.
The believers need to express them, but cannot express then in words alone. As a result they need a ritual, signs and symbols.
What are Genuine Religious experiences?
It is a divine stirring where an individual may be called by God, and their whole meaning and purpose of life may be altered and changed. Only the conscience itself is able to identify a genuine religious experience.
It can convert people’s perception of life and their meaning, convert them into religion. Conversion stories
In order for a conversion or a genuine religious experience to have happened, what are the three effects of it?
- They are not short term changes. They tend to have long term effects in people. The immediate experience may be strong, but if it’s is truly religious, it will then lead people thinking more about their lives and behaviour.
- Religious experiences cannot be kept inside. They do not lead people to alienate or exclude themselves deliberately from other people of good will. They incline people to be open to others, drawing together people who also relate to God. They need to be expressed with others such as in worship.
- True religious experiences also relate to issues of daily life and do not lead to an escape from reality.
What does meaning of ones life mean?
A spiritual or ‘soul’ need for an individual to be fulfil on why they TRULY was created for, or for the reason of their existence. By finding the true meaning of an individual’s life, he/she the is able to satisfy or make their soul happy.
Some may see that we are all part of God, he sent us to earth to complete his will, and in order to go back to him, the individual needs to find out their meaning of life and fulfil its purpose.
Service
What does the purpose of life mean
The purpose of life is the ‘action’ or ‘role’ the individual will have to fulfil their meaning of life and satisfy their soul or spirit, and understand the value of human life. In order to complete the purpose the individual will have to use their abilities and table step showered by God as gifts and use them as their instruments to complete their purpose.
When does one go in search for their meaning of life?
A person’s Meaning of life often occurs with experience of important life events which have the capacity to prompt a person to question the meaning and purpose of their life.
Such questioning can lead them to god or bring them on their own religious journey.
What are the three broad categories of life experience a person can encounter?
- experiences in the created world/ creation
- experiences in goodness of people
- personal mystery
What may lead an individual to encounter experiences of creation.
The WONDER and AWE; beauty, power, grandeur, co-living of creation may lead people to ask important questions about Meaning and life.
This type of questioning may lead people to begin thinking about the existence of a Being (beings) greater than themselves.
