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Session 1Who Am I?
• We form our identity from external: belonging to groups,physical appearance, qualities etc. and from internal: manand woman created in the image and likeness of God
• We are created man and woman with different genitals,genetic make-up and dominant traits. We are created as Giftto each other as expressed by our bodies.
• To be happy, I must understand that I am made by love, forlove, to love. I must first accept who I am and that I amloved by God and people around me.
Who Am I?Key concepts
• External & internalfactors that define us
• We are created for love &by love; this truth isexpressed in our bodies
• Unconditional love &acceptance – a healthyidentity that leads tohappiness
Who Am I?Session Objectives
How would people in these different settings describe you?List down 2 things in each setting.
Who Am I?Exercise
Homelazyquiet
Schoolsmartfunny
Friendsfunny
caring
Parish / Youth groupwildPopular
Discuss how you feel aboutthose descriptions.
• Which ones do you like?
• Why do people from differentsettings see you differently?
• Does this mean that youridentity changes all the time?
Who Am I?Exercise
Is that all that I am? A sad,
pathetic burger?
Expectations vs RealityAm I merely the sum of expectations?
What happens if I FAIL to live up to expectations?
• If you don’t score in your exams, don’t call yourself my son.
• I can’t seem to do anything right, why am I still workinghere?
• I don’t know my faith enough, I don’t deserve to be a youthleader.
• I am not pretty enough, nobody will ever be attracted to me.
• Work harder, dress better, act tougher..... Loss of a truesense of identity
Who Am I?Expectations and our beliefs about identity
• We all want to be accepted
• We all want to be loved
• Love and acceptance affirms our sense of identity
• False belief: I am loved and accepted IF I meet expectations
• Expectations are not always met. If identity is defined byexpectations, it will be unstable. Our life will be a continuousjourney of satisfying expectations.
Who Am I?Expectations and our beliefs about identity
Perception of love &
acceptance
Expectations
Mistaken Identity
Living the lie…
• Am I…
the sum total of expectations?
deliberately trying to go against the norms because I need to be different?
deriving a sense of acceptance by being different?
• Our sense of identity must be built on something deeper;our self-worth does not lie on people’s expectation of us
• Ask the Creator....
Who Am I?
Man is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake", and he alone is called to share, by
knowledge and love, in God's own life.
It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity.
Who Am I?CCC 356
Who Am I?CCC 356
• willed for my own sake – I was notcreated to fulfill expectations
• called to share in God's own life –God is not alien from me, I am calledto share in His love
• This is the fundamental reason formy dignity – not because of mylooks, or my skin colour, or my caste,or my intelligence…
Who Am I?I am loved because I am…
• External & internalfactors that define us
• We are created for love& by love; this truth isexpressed in our bodies
• Unconditional love &acceptance – a healthyidentity that leads tohappiness
Who Am I?Session Objectives
Let’s start at the very beginning…
26. God said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves ...'
27. God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them
28. God blessed them
31. God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good
Who Am I?It all began in Genesis…
“God has revealed his innermost secret:
God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and
he has destined us to share in that exchange”
- CCC 221
Who Am I?Who is God?
Who Am I?Created by love, for love…
Image & likeness
18. The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.
19. Man’s first test….
23. “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one
has been taken.”
Who Am I?It all began in Genesis…
Self-Knowledge
• Man knows he is not like the animals
• He realizes he is alone
• Adam comes to the realization that he is the only one who possesses freedom.
• Freedom frees man to
Self-Determination
• Man has the choice between life and death, to till and subdue the land
• Man has the freedom to choose his actions, albeit with consequences
Who Am I?It all began in Genesis…
• Self knowledge (Intellect) –the ability to know the difference between good and evil
• Self determination (Free-will) –the ability to choose, to love
• Both are present to enable Man to respond to Love
Who Am I?What does it mean to be human?
• Unexplained by itself
• Explained in relation to the other
• “My body does not make sense by itself”
Who Am I?Created as Male and Female
God wanted this eternal plan of love and communion to be so obvious to us that he stamped an image of it in our very
being by creating us as male and female
Who Am I?Why Male and Female?
Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself
except through a sincere gift of himself
– Gaudium et Spes 24
Who Am I?Created to be a GIFT
The human body, with its masculinityand femininity .… is not only a source offruitfulness and of procreation .… butcontains “from the beginning” the“spousal” attribute, that is, the power toexpress love: precisely that love in whichthe human person becomes a gift and.… fulfils the very meaning of his beingand existence.
(TOB 15: 1)
Who Am I?Created to be a GIFT
• External & internalfactors that define us
• We are created for love &by love; this truth isexpressed in our bodies
• Unconditional love &acceptance – a healthyidentity that leads tohappiness
Who Am I?Session Objectives
From the day you were conceived, you were already loved. This is your identity.
Who Am I?Unconditional love
You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know.
My bones are not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me unformed; in your book all are written down;my days were shaped, before one came to be.
Who Am I?Psalm 139: 13 – 16
The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the
image and likeness of God and is fulfilled in his vocation to
divine beatitude.
Living a moral life bears witness to the dignity of the person.
Who Am I?CCC 1700
• Man & Woman He Created Them – John Paul II
• Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)
• Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope)
Resources
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