Your Life in Christ: Foundations in Catholic Morality introduces students to a traditional understanding of morality, encouraging them to undergo a deep and regular examination of conscience while making daily decisions to live a moral life.
Catholic morality draws on three sources of knowledge to help a person discern between right and wrong:
- human reason (using our God-given intellects);
- human experience (learning from the collective wisdom of others who have gone before us); and
- Divine Revelation (learning from God whose truth can be found in the Bible and in the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church).
Written and designed in the popular and field-tested Encountering Jesus series format, Your Life in Christ: Foundations in Catholic Morality centers each chapter in a student-directed focus question. The ensuing chapter material clues teens in to concrete ways to answer the question and apply it to their lives in the present as well as consider how their personal answer will have an impact in their lives many years down the road.
Chapter assignments are a hallmark of the Encountering Jesus series. There are three chapter assignment options in every chapter. Each is pitched to a different learning style (defined in the Teacher’s Wraparound Edition) and created principally so that the students can complete their work on the assignment within a two-week period.
There are several other new features in this edition of Your Life in Christ to help students learn and retain key course topics:
- Contemporary News Openers: Helping to balance the informative and formative aspects of the text, each chapter begins with a current example that connects with the chapter material while also helping students to personalize their responses to the main focus question.
- Note Taking Graphic Organizers: How do you encourage your students to complete their assigned reading? How do you assess that they have done so? Each of the five sections (including the introduction) of the ten chapters of the text includes a different note-taking prompt to help students highlight, outline, and remember what they have read. Questions geared specifically to the note taking are included with each section assessment
- Infographics and Photo Essays: Teens today read and communicate using digital devices. The text is designed with several infographic presentations of key concepts to resemble the type of presentation they view in an interactive online platform. Infographic features are both incorporated into the main text sections and in separate, pull-out material.
As with other texts in the Encountering Jesus series, Your Life in Christ: Foundations in Catholic Morality is available in several different platforms, including in the popular enhanced i-text version with several supporting embedded videos from sources such as Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, Catholic Relief Services, and expert teaching lessons tailored to the text by well-known educator Katie Prejean McGrady and bestselling and award-winning author and speaker Brandon Vogt. Also included are interactive charts and maps and online references for all Scripture and Catechism citations. Many ancillary online resources are available to accompany all forms of the text: directed reading worksheets, crossword puzzles, PowerPoint slides, YouTube writing and discussion assignments, chapter tests, handouts, and more.
Founded in 1865 by Fr. Edward Sorin, CSC, Ave Maria Press is an apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers. Ave is a nonprofit Catholic publishing ministry that serves the spiritual and formative needs of the Church and its schools, institutions, and ministers; Christian individuals and families; and others seeking spiritual nourishment.
Ave remains one of the oldest continually operating Catholic publishing houses in the country and a leader in publishing Catholic high school religion textbooks, ministry resources, and books on prayer and spirituality.
In the tradition of Holy Cross, Ave is committed, as an educator in the faith, to help people know, love, and serve God and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through books and other resources.
Ave Maria Press perpetuates Fr. Sorin's vision to honor Mary and provide an important outlet for good Catholic writing.
