SEPTEMBER 2 MODULE 3 SEPTEMBER 3 QUIZ V CHALLENGE SEPTEMBER 9 PRELIM TEST

AND CIP PRELIMS CIP FINALS 20-

MINUTE REPORT ON THE VIRTUES
MODULE THREE
Tao Po, Theo po!
Re-connecting with the Jesus of the
Gospels
This module explains:

 the four Gospels and answers to the Christological question: Who

do you say I am?

 the strength and limitation of the two Filipino images of Christ as

Hesus Entierro and Santo Nino.

 the relation between two branches of Theology: Christology and

Morality;
Introduction

Christology is a branch of theology that deals with the person, words, deeds, and life of Jesus
of Nazareth. It seeks to answer the question Jesus asked his followers, "Whom do people say
that I am?" (Mark 8:27-30).
•This question has been given
the most diverse answers
through the centuries: the
answers of faith, critical
science, philosophy,
psychology, sociology, and
turbulent youth in search of a
radical meaning for life. One
cannot be neutral about Jesus
of either you liked him
{positive Christology) or hated
him (negative Christology),
depending on which side of his
complex personality you saw
or experienced.
The question resounds through the
centuries as when it was first posed in
Caesarea, Philippi. Anyone who at
some time has become interested in
Christ cannot avoid similar
questioning.
Each generation must answer
within the context of its
understanding of the human
person, God, and the world.
Suggested Webinars: Go to youtube
 Bishop Barron on Who Jesus Truly Is @
•https://youtu.be/UG77k-xLpz8

 The Quest for the Historical Jesus @

•https://youtu.be/CS8nQruSHHI

 The Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith @

•https://youtu.be/TlKcsB78X7Q
4,880,000 Christology

1,050,000 PDF Christology

1,160,000 Doctrine on
Jesus

1, 300.000 Types of

Christology

336,000,000 Jesus Christ

1,520,000,000 Jesus

711,000,000 Christ
• The world’s most committed Christians live in Africa, Latin
America – and the U.S.

• Pew Research Center

The Philippines proudly boasts to be the
only Christian nation in Asia. More than 86
percent of the population is Roman
Catholic, 6 percent belong to various
nationalized Christian cults, and another 2
percent belong to well over 100 Protestant
denominations.
Suggested reading:
Noel G. Asiones, “Looking Forward, Looking Back:
Framing the Interventions of the CBCP from the
Perspective of Opinion Editorial,” MST-Review ,
Vol. 24, 1, (June 2022).
Suggested Reading:
What does it mean to say that Jesus is
the only begotten Son of God?
https://www.gotquestions.org/only-be
gotten-son.html
Suggested reading:
What is the doctrine of
eternal Sonship and is it
biblical?
@
https://www.gotquestions.or
g/only-begotten-son.html
Our most significant source of information
about Jesus Christ comes from Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament.
Yet the four gospel accounts should not be
taken as an exhaustive narrative of the life
and work of Jesus. John, for example,
explicitly states that his account does not
contain everything Jesus did (John 21:25).
The four writers had a specific audience in mind to
address a defined issue. To that end, each one selected
and arranged the factual historical data of Jesus's life in a
way best suited for their chosen aim. Chronology and
exhaustive coverage of specific events was secondary.
However, this does not negate the guiding hand of the
Holy Spirit in shaping and directing the writers of the
gospels through divine inspiration.
With faith in Jesus, the early Christians gave
some one hundred titles to Jesus to answer
the question, "Who is Jesus of Nazareth?”
After a lengthy process of faith-based
reflection on the person (identity) deeds,
and words of Jesus of history , the first
Christians, realized that "He is God Himself
(Heb 1:8, Jan 1:10; 1:18 Tit 2:13; 1 Jn 5:20.)
He is God incarnate
simultaneously, God and Man.
Only by using the divine name
and attributing divinity itself to
Jesus can an adequate answer
be given to the question: "And
you, who do say that I am?" (Mt
16:15).
The Second Vatican Council
taught that Jesus Christ
reveals our human nature
to us as the “New Man.”
The answers also reveal
how Christ is essential to
human life.
•Gaudium et Spes: 22.
•the Lord calls us to a fullness of life we would not otherwise have known,
revealing to us even the deepest secrets about ourselves. As Vatican II
teaches, “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does
the mystery of man take on light.” Jesus’ teaching carries us through the
shadows of suffering, death, questions of meaning and value, leading us to
abundant life!
However, for this course, we will focus on the
answers or names given by Jesus' disciples
since they are the most rooted in their own
eyewitness experiences. They are the original
and experiential answers of faith and,
therefore, the one's closest and best answers
to the question of who Jesus of Nazareth was.
Let us call them "the Jesus of the Gospels.”
From the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we
have looked at and our
hands have touched--
this we proclaim concerning the
Word of life. (1 John: 1:1).
This module will answer the question about what he did and said
that made his contemporaries, notably his disciples, see and
hear him as the promised Messiah or the Christ, believe him,
follow his way, and live the way he lived.

This brief but radical reflection on Jesus' deeds and words will
hopefully made us wonder and provoke us to give our PERSONAL
answer to his question, "And you, whom do you say that I am?

Your answer is the first step towards hopefully a CLOSER and

more extraordinary personal friendship and intimacy with him,
thereby contributing to an increase of faith in his presence and
activity in our lives and search for meaning and happiness.
2.2 The Jesus of the Gospels

We shall sketch the deeds (dabar) of the

historical Jesus as experienced by his
contemporaries under four themes or titles:
 Jesus as Prophet,

 Liberator,

 “Ang Taong May Mabuting Kalooban,"

 and Man of God/ Man of faith.

Jesus: A Prophet
The vocation of a biblical prophet often
embraces three typical tasks:

 to proclaim the Word of God with

authority,

 to accompany this Word with signs and

wonders (dynamism), and

 to suffer martyr's death.

We find the pattern of Jesus' life and

ministry as a prophet in the Gospel of Mark.
Jesus is a "prophet equal to any other
prophets" (Mk 8:11). He was put to death for
being a false prophet (Mk 14:65).
Jesus: A Prophet

Jesus claimed to be higher than any figure that had preceded him in
the salvation history of Israel- higher than the prophets and more
significant even than Moses Jesus Himself spoke of His own
experience in terms of a prophet's rejection by his people(Mk 6:4)
and compared his fate to a prophet's death in Jerusalem (Lk 13:33).
But most of all, Jesus lived a prophetic mission and life because He
possessed the Spirit (Lk 4:18). When asked by John's disciples, "Are
you He who is to come?" Jesus responds by citing his works (Mt
11:5).
Jesus: A Liberator
The liberation, which Jesus brings, is two-fold: it is a liberation from the hunger of
the heart and freedom for God and others. As a liberator, Jesus freed the people
from the hunger of the human heart (wealth, fame, and power) so that they would
be free and open to others and the Great Other, God.

Jesus freed his disciples from hunger for possessions and riches, from which Jesus
himself was free. He lived his life in solidarity with the poor. His life is of such
privation that he can say: "The foxes have dens, the birds have nests, but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lay his head."(Mt 8:20). Jesus expects his disciples to share
in his condition of poverty (Mk 10:17-22).
•In other words, they, too, must break with
the economy of private property (Mk 10:17-
22) and embrace an economy of giving. In
response to Jesus' invitation, the disciples
left their nets, boats, and families and
followed Him (Mk 1:18-20). Jesus freed his
disciples from the hunger for prestige and
fame.
•Jesus enters in solidarity with those without prestige or
status: the poor, the illiterate, the women, the blind, the
lepers, and the insane. He steps out of his social class and
willingly forfeits even his ritual purity. Honor and prestige
are anathemas to him. In response to the quest for
greatness, he proposes the child (Mt 18:1-4). Women are
regarded as "the lowest of the low" in their society. Jesus
treats them with respect and as equals. He has women
among his disciples (Mk 14:9), which scandalizes his
contemporaries. For himself, Jesus never sought the
limelight, advertised nor sought attention, never loved
the place of honor at the feast and the best seats in the
synagogues…never sought popularity and admiration in
man's eyes.
Finally, the disciples must renounce their hunger for power.

The desire for power breeds conflicts, hatred, violence, and

revenge. It destroys both the oppressors and the oppressed.

Disciples are to live in conscious opposition to the tyranny of

power (Mk 10:42-45).

•Suggested reading
Noel Asiones, (Rappler, 20
February 2022), ”Would
Jesus of Nazareth have
run for president”? @
https://www.rappler.com/
voices/thought-leaders/op
inion-would-jesus-run-pre
sident/
Hesus: Ang Taong May Magandang
Kalooban (A man for others)
The reflection of "what Jesus did" from the perspective of "ginhawa"
can help us to arrive at meaningful insights regarding the person of
Christ as Mabuting Tao or Taong may Magandang Kalooban. Seen
from the effects of His deeds in the life of people, Jesus is the
ginhawa-bringer. He graciously and unconditionally offers and brings
about a ginhawa, not for what he can get off it but only for the sake of
others. Jesus went "out doing good and healing all that were
possessed by evil" (Acts 10:38).
In the Philippines, he would have been regarded as a person

with "Magandang-kalooban," not, of course immediately but

gradually in the whole course of his life and ministry.

"Kagandahang loob" is not something that would casually be

attributed to a person one does not know well. Kagandahang

loob connotes all that is good in someone. It is the quality of

being that has its roots in a person's very heart and is given

expression in the totality of one's life inter-relationship. Jesus

can indeed be regarded as a man with a Magandang kalooban.

One only must go through the characteristics of this attribute
to discover how they apply to Jesus. The man from Nazareth
was known through his relationship with others. To them, he
was a "man for others" who brought people out of "hirap" so
that they could experience "ginhawa sa Buhay." In other
words, the ginhawa-bringing deeds of Jesus revealed or
disclosed His "kagandahang loob."
• THY 2 : I and Thou in Marriage
and Family
• THY 3: I and human society
• THY 4: I and the human family
in the world
•Jesus: A Man of God, a Man of Faith

"What is the secret of Jesus of Nazareth? What makes him so

surprisingly new to some of his contemporaries? Jesus was a
man of faith; a faith won in constant search and struggle.
Jesus' faith is trust in God amid the conflicts found in real-life
existence. "Faith for the OT and the NT is the power to say
yes and Amen to God as God is discovered through life by
existing with and basing oneself on God as the absolute
meaning of all things, a continuous returning to and grasping
on to God.
According to this definition, Jesus was an extraordinary
believer and had faith. "Faith was Jesus' way of life. He always
allowed himself to be determined by God and the other and
never simply took the day's religious norms and social
conventions as his point of departure." Thus, his faith in God
becomes a fidelity lived in through tests and suffering. It is a
fidelity to God's will, which he discovered through critical
sensitivity to the new person, events, and insights as they
emerged. Because he was a man of faith, Jesus was a man of
God who experienced God as his loving Father, his Abba, and
his Daddy.
•Jesus' relationship to the one Israel calls God is so uniquely close
that his followers had to find titles different from those used for
previous actors/agents in God's plan of salvation. "We have seen
how Jesus offered salvation, liberation, and ginhawa to human
beings through his deeds and words. To say that the life of Jesus
was an expression of his love for others is not wrong, yet we
should not overlook the very heart and driving force of his love
for others: his experience of God's filial love for him throughout
his life of prayer that made him what he is. Jesus was a man of prayer.
 1. Our Father who is in
Jesus said, “When you Heaven hallowed is your 2. Your Kingdom come:
pray to the Father, pray name:
like this” Hope
Faith

5. And forgive us our

3. Your will be done on 4. Give us this day our offenses as we forgive
earth as it is in heaven: daily bread: those that have offended
Love Prudence us:
Justice

6. Lead us not into

temptation: 7. Deliver us from evil:
Fortitude
Temperance
Suggested Activity: One week Prayer- Journey with the
Jesus of the Gospels to get to know of him a little bit
more.
 Jesus and Peter Mt 14: 22-32 First day
 Jesus and the 12 Apostles Mk 4:35-41 Second
day
 Jesus and the Adulterous woman Jn 8:1-11 Third
day
 Jesus and Mary Magdalene Lk 7:36-50 Fourth day
 Jesus and the Good Thief Lk 23:39-43 Fifth day
 Jesus and the Blind Man Mk 10:46-52 Sixth day
 Jesus and the Rich Young Man Mt. 19:1 Seventh
day
Corollary: This module will not be

complete without a brief reflection on

our indigenous answers to the

Christological question, “And you,

Filipino= Catholics, who do you, say

that I am?”
•Who is Jesus for the Filipino Catholics?

The Child Jesus (or the Sto. Niño) images

the innocence, simplicity, and child-like
Wonder of Jesus. While expressing and
responding to the Filipinos' natural love
for children, the child image of Christ can
foster a one-sided focus which may
neglect the other equally essential images
of Christ the mature-adult Christ, the
disconcerting, demanding Christ, who
invites, “Come follow me.”
A second typical image is Jesus Nazareno or
the Sto. Entierro (or the Suffering and Dead
Christ). As we have witnessed during the feast
day of Hesus Nazareno in Quiapo, this image is
very consoling and endearing to the
numberless Filipinos majority of whom live in
dire poverty and hardship. However, unless it
is balanced by the image of the Risen Christ,
the Risen Lord who overcame death, it can
foster a confident self-centered, passive,
fatalistic attitude that impedes free, creative,
responsible discipleship.
•Three Levels of Proclamation of the Word
of God: or God speaks
2.3 Christology and Morality

It must also be affirmed that calling Jesus names or giving him title
is not enough. “Not everyone who calls me. Lord, Lord, will enter
the Kingdom of God,” Jesus said. Following Jesus is more important
than knowing him.”

All Christology (reflection on Jesus) should be united with Morality

(following Jesus). Life is more important than reflection—love than
knowledge. (1 Jn. 2:6; Mt. 7:21-23).

To know Jesus means being committed to following him and

imitating him as his disciple. There is no authentic way of "knowing
Jesus Christ" outside the personal commitment to his teaching and
way of life. Knowing Jesus must have influence in our lives. It must
accompany the loving service of others in living faith.
However, we still cannot belittle reflection and Christology
since our commitment and following Jesus depends to a
considerable extent on our knowledge of Him. The more we
know who he is personally/experientially, the more we are
enabled to follow him, who is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life, who has come that we may have abundantly (Jn 10:10).
One week with the Jesus of the Gospels

Day 1: Jesus and Peter Mt 14: 22-32

Day 2: Jesus and the 12 Apostles Mk 4:35-41
Day 3: Jesus and the Adulterous woman Jn 8:1-11
Day 4: Jesus and Mary Magdalene Lk 7:36-50
Day 5: Jesus and the Good Thief Lk 23:39-43
Day 6: Jesus and the Blind Man Mk 10:46-52
Day 7: Jesus and the Rich Young Man Mt. 19:1