(Due to formatting limitations, the numbers below don't correspond to the numbers on the linked test.)
- Jesus' first appearance after His Resurrection was to a woman. Name her.
- There is a phrase in common usage — even today — that contains the name of one of the Apostles. Fill in the blank: "Doubting ________." What did this Apostle doubt?
- Who is called "the Prince of the Apostles"?
- The last appearance of Jesus to His Apostles after His Resurrection is commemorated annually by a Holy Day of Obligation 40 days after Easter (or on the seventh Sunday of Easter). It is called "the Solemnity of the __________.
- Fifty days after the Passover, Jews celebrate God's giving the Ten Commandments to Moses; fifty days after Easter, Christians celebrate God's giving the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and Mary. What is the name of this Christian feast?
- Before he became a great missionary, St. Paul was a great persecutor of the early Church. He guarded the cloaks of the men who stoned to death the man we call the first martyr. Name this first martyr.
- St. Paul wrote many letters (the Greek word for letters is Epistles) to early Christians and their communities in the Mediterranean world. In a letter to those at Corinth, a city in Greece, he described what we call "the Three Theological Virtues." The third of these, which is "charity" or "love," Paul called "the greatest." What are the other two?
- St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred during the reign of the emperor Nero about thirty years after the Crucifixion. They were martyred in the capital city of the empire over which Nero ruled. Name this city.
- For much of the first three centuries of her history, the Church suffered persecution. Many Christians were martyred and often Christians couldn't worship in public. Then, in the early part of the fourth century, an emperor ended the persecutions. Name him. (Hint: He named the eastern capital of the empire after himself, it was formerly called Byzantium and is called Istanbul today.)
- Name the Seven Sacraments.
- Which sacrament does every Christian receive?
- Name the Corporal Works of Mercy (there are seven).
- Pick one of the Six Precepts of the Church and tell why you think it is especially important.
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7 comments:
Should make it a national requirement for Catholic 8th graders to evaluate schools, and the student's learning of the faith.
~Dr. K
Dear Rich,
As one who did not go to a Catholic school, I can tell you that I would struggle with 12 and 13. The rest have come from the lectionary that I have heard much later than when I was in 8th grade.
This will be no easy task for the eighth graders at my parish school. By the eighth grade their minds have been filled with so much social justice rubbish it is a wonder if they can make a 50% on such a test. Their strong suit, after eight years of leftist clap trap, is Dorothy Stang, Rosa Parks and Al Gore.
- Blue Ribbon School
Well, it's an interesting test, but be careful about taking it too seriously. For example, Question #1, which asks to which woman Jesus first appeared after the Resurrection, would seem to be pointing to Mary Magdalene (and that's what the Answer Key says). However, well-read Catholic kids might pause at this. St. Ambrose, in his "De Virginibus," teaches explicitly that it was the Virgin Mary who first saw our resurrected Lord, and St. Vincent Ferrer (whose feast day we celebrated this week) expands upon this view in his Sermon #2 (Easter sermon), giving three convincing reasons why the Virgin Mary _had to have been_ the first to have seen Him, and why this does not, in fact, contradict the Gospel account.
The Catholic faith and tradition are far too rich and complex to be boiled down into simplistic "SAT tests" or "Idiot's Guides." All the more reason why good, solid, catechism will always be required.
So, I visited the Six Precepts and realized that, although I did not know them as such, I could have listed some of them.
The graduates of our local Catholic high schools could not pass this test. Seriously. When DH & I checked them out at an information night at the local parish, all the high schools had staff and students on hand to answer questions. My husband shamelessly approached the high school juniors and seniors and asked them, "How many persons are in God?" The kids were baffled.
I was doing pretty well until I got to questions 12 and 13. But I know one of the Six Precepts, so I would have written the essay about that one.
It's not what you know, it's how you know to take tests.
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