Theology Curriculum

This is a foundational course designed to create a basic theological understanding among all 9th Grader Students. Focusing on Jesus Christ: God’s Revelation to the World, students will grow in faith as they reflect on their relationship with God through reading and learning about Sacred Scripture. This course is intended to help students clearly understand the stages of Divine Revelation, culminating in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew Scriptures provide a study of Judaism and the Hebrew Scriptures in order to gain a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Students read and analyze the Hebrew Scriptures and learn to relate them to their lives and Christianity.

Study of the tradition continues with an examination of the nature, content, structure, and themes of Christian Scriptures. The historical and cultural background will be examined, with a particular focus on the Christian Scriptures as a Book of Faith.

Emphasis is placed on ascertaining the background of the audience and the author to help students gain a better understanding of how to apply the message today. The course will present the essential teachings of the faith as they are defined by Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Foundations of Catholic Morality focuses on the essential message of Christ's moral teaching, the importance of love of God and neighbor. The course covers the major points from the "Life in Christ" section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pulling together these elements by developing nine essential steps for living a Christian moral life in the Catholic tradition. These steps include:

1. Understanding the nature of being human.
2. Guiding moral decision-making with intellect.
3. Understanding the law's relationship to freedom and being responsible for transgressions.
4. Imitating Jesus and living the Beatitudes.
5. Forming the conscience and strengthening resistance to peer pressure.
6. Repenting and forgiving others.
7. Thanking God for life by loving God above all else.
8. Loving yourself.
9. Loving your neighbors.

Students deepen their understanding of Jesus Christ, the fullness of God’s Revelation, as they encounter him in the living Body of Christ, the Catholic Church. As the students encounter “Jesus and the Church”, they will begin to recognize Christ present and active in their lives through the visible and vibrant mission of the Church, defined by four characteristics—one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

While Jesus and the Church places the foundations of the Church in their historical and scriptural context, the course goes further by guiding students to recognize the sacred nature of the Church and engaging them to more actively participate in the living Body of Christ and serve as witnesses to the sacred Gospel in the world today. Simply put, the goal of this class is to change the lives of students by making real-life connections between what they are learning about the Church and how they encounter Jesus in the contemporary world.

Understanding the Faith Journey of the African-American Community is an essential part of being a Purple Knight. Our people have walked a Journey of Faith that has led them from the land of our Fathers to these United States of America.

Along this journey, we have encountered the pains of Slavery and Segregation as well as the Joys and Freedom of Liberation in Jesus Christ. This course focuses on the paths that lead our ancestors from the shackles of Slavery to a Freedom that can only be known through the Death and Resurrection of our Lord.

James Cone, a Black Theologian, argued that theology is relevant only when it is drawn from the experiences of the people whom it addresses and when it can speak positively to those experiences. The primary objective of this course is to make our Christian Faith relevant to the African-American Men of St. Augustine High School.