Module for Lent

At the seminar-workshop on “Preparing for the New General Education Curriculum” held at the University of Makati last Friday, I gave a general lecture on the history and nature of CMO 20, s. 2013, and facilitated the break-out group on Purposive Communication and Art Appreciation.

(The other facilitators handling the other core subjects in the curriculum were Fidel R. Nemenzo, Maria Luisa T. Camagay, Benigno P. Beltran SVD, Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr., Queena N. Lee-Chua, and Victor Emmanuel Carmelo “Vim” D. Nadera Jr. The event was sponsored by De La Salle University College of Education, The Manila Times College, and the University of Makati, with Roberto T. Borromeo, Dalisay G. Brawner, and myself as convenors, Tomas B. Lopez Jr. and Maria Cynthia Rose B. Bautista as keynote speakers, and Rochelle Irene G. Lucas as Secretariat Head.)

For the break-out group, I decided to do a demonstration class using the theme of the Naked Christ. The idea was to show the teachers who attended the seminar-workshop how to stimulate the critical and creative abilities of college students.

I first flashed the Latin adage “nudus nudum Christum sequi” on the screen. Attributed to St. Jerome but more popularly known to be the mantra of St. Francis (the idol of our current Pope), the adage was followed on screen by the New International Version translation of John 19:23-24, which says that the soldiers at the crucifixion removed the “undergarment” of Jesus. (Other English translations use a different word.) I reminded the teachers that the Franciscans came to the Philippines in the 16th century.

I then quoted various scholarly articles describing the way Romans crucified rebels, rebellion being the charge against Jesus of Nazareth, who was ridiculed by the soldiers as the King of the Jews. (Notably, Pilate found the charge baseless and washed his hands off the whole thing, but nevertheless did not stop the execution.)

“Crucifixion was designed as the ultimate in slow, painful and humiliating deaths,” goes one such article. “Prisoners were crucified completely naked [so] that they would undoubtedly empty their bladder and bowels over themselves in front of the crowd who came to watch.”

Speaking in Filipino, I drew the implication for those in the audience who were Christians. “Binaboy nila si Hesus,” I said, thus getting a more visceral reaction than the English “They humiliated him.” Those that believe that Jesus was divine, then, got a better idea of how much he humbled himself, allowing himself to be treated more inhumanly than most human beings.

I followed that up with a recent article (Dec. 17, 2013) from The New Yorker, entitled “Pope Francis and the Naked Christ.” That article tried to draw the connection between Pope Francis’s devotion to the poor and his devotion to St. Francis. It used as its evidence a 1983 (2nd edition in 1997) book entitled “The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion.”

I then showed a series of paintings and sculptures downloaded from various websites showing Jesus naked on the cross, highlighted by Michelangelo’s naked Christ crucifix, made for the Church of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito in Florence, Italy.

Having shown all that (interspersed with what are known as “display questions” or questions to which I knew the answer), I then asked the teachers to form small groups to answer three non-display questions (questions I did not know the answer to), namely, (a) Is it necessary for art to be true to life (given that paintings and sculptures of the crucifixion nowadays rarely show Jesus naked, even if in real life he was)?; (b) Why are the genitals of Jesus hidden from view in most modern paintings and sculptures?; and (c) How can we communicate that Jesus became truly and completely a male human being without showing his genitals?

I meant the teaching module to be an example of what should happen in a General Education class. The module was clearly interdisciplinary and research-based. I began with linguistics (a grammar lesson about Latin), continued with translation studies, Church history, and Philippine history, followed up with the history of civilization, jumped to modern printed media, used visuals, then left the teachers (pretending to be students) to think critically (why, indeed, is modern art afraid of depicting the truth about the crucifixion?) and creatively (how should modern communicators communicate that Jesus was a biological male?).

In my main presentation, I used the CMO, as well as the slide presentation used by the CHED Technical Panel on General Education, to show the goals of the new curriculum, among which is “laying the groundwork for the development of a professionally competent, humane, and moral person.” My teaching module, if properly handled, should help students become competent (in linguistics, history, art history, aesthetics, not to mention public speaking – since they have to discuss and argue in their small groups), humane (by making torture repulsive to them), and moral (by realizing that Jesus suffered so much just to save us human beings from sin).

I know that non-Christians do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but on the other hand, many Christians do not really believe in his humanity. The new interdisciplinary curriculum will make both Christian and non-Christian students question their unexamined beliefs. After all, as Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”