Year 9 Revision notes for January Assessment
Topic 1: Vocation
Use the information in your exercise books and the points below to make flash cards on the topic ‘Vocation’
and the ‘Church in Britain’
Vocation
Calling from God
Laity
The vast majority of the church- baptised
people who have not received ordination.
Ordained
Those who have received the sacrament of
holt orders
Religious
A community of men or women who have taken
Order
religious vows and follow particular inspiration
and ministry
Discernment
The prayerful process of discovering God’s will
for your life
Discernment
A Christian gradually comes to understand the path that God planned for them. This is what
is meant by discernment. It is a process of reflection and rejection.
Reflection = you need to reflect about possible life choices. This will mean prayer, listening
to God. It will also mean listening to good advice from others such as your family.
Rejection = as you reflect, you may find there are dreams in your mind that are false, dreams
that aren’t really you. They may come from outside, from TV, magazines, and so on. They may
also come from inside, from the fact that you don’t know yourself well.
True discernment should lead to…
Know yourself = means discovering what is truly you. Your character and talents.
Love yourself = means accepting your life, your character and your talents as a gift from God.
Give yourself = means offering your life back to God in service.
Lay MinistriesSome Christians also volunteer to offer service in their parish or beyond. This is lay ministry. Lay ministry means
Christian service in the Parish and wider community such as;
Co-ordinating parish links in England to parishes overseas.
Becoming a Confirmation catechist
Helping out at Children’s Liturgy
Giving out Holy Communion (Eucharistic Minister
Altar Server
Reading at Mass
Christian Vocations- The Ordained
The Sacrament by which a man is made a deacon, priest or bishop is called Holy Orders or Ordination. The priest
to be, is prostrate, completely down on the ground to symbolise that he accepts the call to serve in a special
way .
Later the Bishop will lay on hands over the priest in an ancient sign of calling down the Spirit of God. This silent
moment is the actual sacrament.
The candidate receives a special charism that makes him
A preacher of God’s word
A leader in worship and minister of the sacraments
A shepherd for God’s people.
A person will train to become a priest in a Seminary, a place where his vocation is tested and developed. It takes
about 6 years to become a priest.
Typical life of a priest:
Pray in the morning
Celebrate the Eucharist
Baptisms, weddings and funerals
Visit the sick
Visit the local prison and offer Mass and chat to the inmates
Hear confessions
Help run Confirmation classes
Christian Vocations- The Religious
Carmelite Nuns
Carmelite Nuns are a Contemplative Order = a religious order whose members spend their lives enclosed in
prayer, worship and work
They pray about 12 hours every day
They are a religious order who clearly show love of God
Evangelical Counsels = vows of poverty, chastity, obedience
Religious Community = Nuns/ Monks
Missionaries of Charity
Religious Community = referred to as brothers/ sisters
Founded by Mother Teresa
They take the evangelical vows of poverty, chastity, obedience BUT also vow to Serve Others
They help others for about 12 hours every day
They have centres for the poor and homeless
Missionaries of Charity are an Apostolic Order = a religious order, from the word apostle which means ‘sent
out’.
Topic 2: The Church in Britain
Key words
Reformation – the period in European history during which the Protestant Churches broke away from the
Catholic Church- 16th Century
Protestant – A person who rejects (protests against) certain practices and beliefs in the Catholic Church
Priest holes – hiding places where priests were concealed to avoid arrest.
Persecute- to hunt down and punish people for their beliefs; to cause trouble and hurt other people.
Oath of Supremacy – solemn acceptance that the King or Queen is the Head of the Church of England
Martyrs- someone who is willing to stand up for their faith even if it means death
Emancipation- being freed from rules; freed to carry on without restrictions or fear. Freedom from bondage
or slavery
Martin Luther
Some people were getting upset with the Church, they thought it was becoming corrupt.
As they PROTESTED. We call them PROTESTANTS.
One important Protestant was Martin Luther.
He could read Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Whilst comparing the Latin Catholic Bible with the original Greek & Hebrew he found that certain parts were
incorrectly translated.
Luther hung his research on the local Church door in Wittenburg in 1517.
He disagreed with the Pope and began the protestant religion.
He had 95 complaints in total! Here are the main ones-
You Don’t have to go to Church to get your soul cleaned.
The Church is wrong to sell indulgencies which buy time out of Purgatory.
Read the Bible in your own language and not Latin.
It’s wrong to make an image of God.
The Church is too rich.
All Saints Eve 1517 he nailed a notice to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in protest.
As printing had now been invented, it only took a fortnight for printed copies of his words to circulate
throughout Germany.
Within a few years Luther’s writings began to gain a lot of attention and he was accused by the Church of
being a heretic. In 1520 the Pope issued an order saying Luther had to submit within 60 days or he would be
punished.
In December 1520 Luther replied by dropping the Popes order into a bonfire.
With that action, the break from Rome began to spread throughout Europe.
Luther drops the Pope’s order into a bonfire
Henry VIII
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What did Henry do in 1533?
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Henry began to break away from the Catholic church by a series of Acts of Parliament
•
What was the Act of Supremacy?
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It declared Henry to be ‘the Supreme Head of the Church of England
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What happened to those people who refused to take the oath of supremacy?
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They were thrown into prison, were tortured and were even killed.
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What happened to Thomas Moore and John Fisher?
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Thomas Moore = beheaded for treason
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John Fisher = beheaded for treason
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What happened between 1536- 1539?
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All monasteries and hospitals run by religious orders were closed down. The land was taken into the
hands of the state.
Edward
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When did Henry’s son, Edward become king?
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In 1547
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How old was he when he became king?
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9 years old
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What happened in 1549?
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Parliament issued and made compulsory, the Book of Common Prayer’ which replaced the Catholic
Missal and changed the Liturgy.
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What language was the bible translated into?
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English from Latin
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What changes were made to the churches?
•
Protestants felt it was to have statues and pictures. Churches were plain and services were in English
so people could understand them.
•
Did Protestants follow the teachings of the Pope?
•
No they reject the Pope. The King was head of the Church
Mary
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Mary Succeeded Edward. She was a devout Catholic
Catholic bishops were re-instated and the doctrines of the Catholic Church were taught once more.
Protestants who did not wish to live under Catholic rule were free to leave the country.
Those who objected were burned at the stake. Mary executed around 300 men and women in this
way.
Many more were imprisoned.
Elizabeth
When Mary died, her half-sister, Elizabeth I became Queen.
She formulated an Anglican Settlement and fashioned the legal basis of the Church of England.
She took the title ‘Supreme Governor of the Realm in Matters Spiritual and Temporal’.
She passed 2 acts called the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity.
Punishments for those refusing to give up their Catholic faith included;
If they spoke out against the new faith they would be fined
Everyone was expected to attend the Sunday Service- they were fined a day’s wages if they did not.
Parliament introduced the death penalty for anyone convicted a second time for refusing to accept the Queen
as the Supreme Governor of the Church.
Margaret Clitherow
Margaret Clitherow was born towards the end of the rule of "Bloody Mary" Tudor and raised as a Protestant under
Queen Elizabeth.
Margaret was both ordinary and extraordinary. As was the custom in those days she married young, at 15, becoming
the wife of John Clitherow, a widower with two small children. They lived in the Shambles in York, where she looked
after the house and family, and served in her husband’s butchers shop. A year after her marriage something was to
happen which was to change the course of her life.
Earl Thomas Percy was brutally and publically put to death for his Catholic faith. Margaret was so struck by his
courage and bravery that she became wanted to become a catholic. Her husband remained a Protestant, but did not
object to what his wife wanted to do. In fact he even paid her fines for not attending Protestant church services .
The Clitherow home soon became one of the main places of refuge for fugitive
priests in England. Margaret had a secret cupboard with vestments, wine and bread
for Mass, as well as a "priest's hole" to hide the priest himself. Margaret was
arrested in 1577 and for the next few years was in and out of prison. By this time she
had three children of her own. One of them wanted to become a priest and went
abroad to begin his studies.
In 1586, there was a crackdown on remnants of Catholicism in the North. John
Clitherow was summoned and asked about the whereabouts of his son, who was
studying abroad to become a Catholic priest. He angrily refused to give any
information. The Clitherow home was searched, but, as usual, the priest had left
through a window and the authorities found only a small group of children at
ordinary lessons.
Unfortunately, however, among the group was a Flemish child whose fear of the
authorities showed on his face. They seized him and threatened him with a flogging;
he immediately told them everything he knew about Mrs. Clitherow's Catholic
activities and even showed them the secret cupboard.
Margaret was imprisoned and shared a cell with a friend who had been arrested for going to Mass. Her children
were taken to live with a Protestant family and she did not see them again. Her husband was allowed to visit her
once, in the presence of a jailer.
On March 14, 1586, Margaret Clitherow's case came before the court. As a large crowd gathered outside, she was
asked for her plea. She replied, "I know of no offense whereof I should confess myself guilty. Having made no
offense, I need no trial." The penalty for refusing to plea was extremely harsh and many begged her to change her
mind, but she refused to allow a trial at which her children would be forced to testify against her.
The judge pronounced Margaret guilty of having "harboured and maintained Jesuits and seminary priests, traitors to
the Queen's majesty and her laws." Because she refused to stand trial, the penalty was death by crushing. She was
told,
You will be stripped naked, laid down, your back on the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able
to bear, and so to continue for three days without meat or drink, and on the third day to be pressed to death, your
hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back.
She was taken, surrounded by huge crowds to the Toll Booth, where she knelt down to pray. She was surprisingly
cheerful. The sheriff gave her one last chance. ‘ Mrs Clitherow, you must remember and confess that you die for
treason.’
‘No, Master Sheriff,’ she replied, ‘ I die for the love of my Lord Jesus’ She then lay down and covered her face with a
handkerchief so that no one would see her face. A door was laid upon her, but so reluctant were the authorities to
impose the full sentence, that after hearing her first cries, they put a sharp stone, the size of a man’s fist, under her
back, and laid 7 to 8 hundredweight on her. 15 minutes later, Margaret Clitherow, beautiful loving wife and mother
and full of life, died for her unswerving love of God.
In 1970, Margaret was made a saint by Pope Paul VI, who called her "the Pearl of York." She was one of 40 new
saints of England and Wales canonized in that year. St. Margaret is the patron saint of the Catholic Women's League,
who provided the plaque that tells her life story in the shrine.
Emancipation
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It was over 200 years before Catholics in Britain were able to practice their faith freely again without fear of
persecution.
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By the end of the 18th century, there were few brave Catholics left and no longer seen as a threat.
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John Henry Newman became a Roman Catholic in 1845 and went on to be made a Cardinal. He described what
it was like to be a catholic at the time. ‘No longer the Catholic church is in the country…but a few people,
moving silently and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had been’
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An end of Catholic persecution and unrest in Britain under the reign of Elizabeth came to an end with the
passing of 3 very important acts.
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1) The Relief Acts in 1778 and 1791
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2) Emancipation Act 1829 allowed Catholics almost total freedom.
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It was no longer illegal to be a Catholic. They did not need to fear arrest or punishment
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Catholics were allowed to build churches and worship in them.
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They were allowed to vote
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They were allowed to stand as members of parliament.
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The Roman Catholic Church could run its own affairs without interference from the State.