The Gift of Faith Insights for the Year of Faith 2012 – 2013
by Barbara Reed Mason
All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY publishers to the holy see
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Contents What is Faith? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Why Faith in Jesus? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The difference between Faith and belief . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Raymond S. Reed, a testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Faith and reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Faith and repentance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Kristina Cooper, Catholic writer, a testimony . . . . . . . . . . 30 Faith and works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Jodie D’Angiolillo, Director of Evangelization, a testimony . 36 The fruit of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Faith, Hope and Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 The freedom of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Prayer for the gift of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
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What is Faith? “When the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” Lk 18:8 The faith we want to explain in this booklet is the kind of faith Jesus spoke about in the Scripture verse above not natural human faith, such as confidence that when the traffic light turns red the cars will stop, or the certitude that morning follows night. Instead, we wish to explore supernatural faith, as taught by the Catholic Church. We’ll begin with a few definitions found in a variety of Church writings. They may surprise you! • “Faith is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, making oneself a disciple of him.” General Directory for Catechesis, 53 • “Faith is a gift from God.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 153 • “Faith, in its deepest essence, is the openness of the human heart to the gift: to God’s self-revelation in the Holy Spirit.” Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, 51 • “Faith is already the beginning of eternal life.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 163
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It is interesting that none of these definitions describe faith as a moral code or a set of beliefs! And yet, isn’t that the usual understanding of faith? Many think that faith is merely an intellectual assent to certain doctrines, but do the above statements limit faith to that dimension? Let’s briefly go through each of the above definitions to see why Holy Mother Church describes faith as she does. Faith is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ Pope Benedict XVI says that, “Christianity is not a new philosophy or a new morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ.”(General Audience, 03.09.08) Most people probably think that, unless we are exceptionally holy, we cannot meet the Risen Jesus while on earth; that, for the majority of us, such an encounter must wait until we die and (hopefully!) go to heaven. But Pope Benedict says otherwise: “Faith does not just mean accepting a certain number of abstract truths about the mysteries of God, of man, of life and death, of future realities. Faith consists in an intimate relationship with Christ, a relationship based on love of him who loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:11).” (26.05.06, homily in Poland) Blessed Pope John Paul II made similar declarations: “Faith... is neither an abstract discourse nor a vague religious sentiment, but a personal encounter with
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Christ who gives new meaning to life” (L’Oss Rom, 20.02.03, p.7). “Without the vibrance of this encounter, Christianity becomes a soulless religious traditionalism...” (L’Oss Rom, 27.09.99, p.8). Faith is a gift from God The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives this explanation: “When St Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come ‘from flesh and blood’, but from ‘my Father who is in heaven.’ Faith is a gift from God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. ‘Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’”(153) Faith is the openness of the heart to the Holy Spirit “This knowledge of faith,” says the Catechism, “is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us... which is to ‘know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ’.” (683, 684) The ‘heart’, according to the Catechism, is “the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God”
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(368). It is our heart, the depth of our being, which we must open to God’s Spirit. Faith involves the entire person, not just his mind. Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Saint Luke teaches us that knowing the content to be believed is not sufficient unless the heart, the authentic sacred space within the person, is opened by grace that allows the eyes to see below the surface and to understand that what has been proclaimed is the word of God.” (Porta Fidei, 10) When we open ourselves to the Living God, we allow Love Himself to enter: “God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” (Cathechism 221) In the words of Pope Benedict: “The response the Lord ardently desires of us is above all that we welcome his love – allow ourselves to be drawn to him.” Faith is already the beginning of eternal life “And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” (Jn 17:3) Blessed Pope John Paul II proclaimed: “Revelation teaches us that heaven is not an abstraction or a place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity.” (L’Oss Rom 28.07.99)
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Pope Benedict XVI expanded on his predecessor’s teaching: “This word heaven does not indicate a place above the stars but something far more daring and sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine person who welcomes humanity fully and forever, the One in whom God and man are inseparably united forever. Man’s being in God, this is heaven. And we draw close to heaven, indeed, we enter heaven to the extent that we draw close to Jesus and enter into communion with him.” (Ascension homily at Monte Casino, 2009) “Heaven,” the Church teaches, “is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ. This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond understanding or description.” (Catechism, 1026, 1027) “In the glory of heaven the blessed continue joyfully to fulfil God’s will in relation to other men and to all creation.” (Catechism 1029)
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Why Faith in Jesus? The name Jesus means “God saves”. Saves? From what or from whom, and why? Let’s start at the beginning. God reveals to us through his word and his chosen prophets that in the beginning of time he created all things: heaven and earth and all creatures. (In fact, time is a creation of God: there was a beginning of time and there will be an end of time.) The crown of God’s creation is Man (human beings, “male and female”), “‘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.” (Catechism 356) God formed Man in his own image and likeness and gave him dominion over all the earth: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves’...” (Gn 1:26). Scripture adds: “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” (Gn 1:27). God gives us a hint in these two verses who he is: somehow he is more than one (using the words ‘us’ and ‘our’, v26) and yet one (‘his’ and ‘he’, v27). In the fulness of time
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we have come to know – again by God’s revelation – that he is in fact three Persons in one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a communion of Love. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and this Love is in fact a Person, the Holy Spirit. It is difficult for us to understand that three Persons can be one God, that these three distinct Persons have always existed. That is because we live in time: for us there is past, present and future, so when we think of the three Persons of God, we think the Father must have come first, then the Son, then the Holy Spirit, who is the Love between them. But God is Eternal, and eternity is the everlasting now. God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – has always been, and always will be. Since we are made in God’s image, we are also three-inone: spirit, soul and body. Pope Benedict XVI explains: “‘May the God of peace’, St Paul writes, ‘make you perfect and holy; and may you all be kept safe and blameless, spirit, soul and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’” (1 Th 5:23). We are, therefore, spirit, soul and body. We are part of this world, tied to the possibilities of our material condition, while at the same time we are open to an infinite horizon, able to converse with God and to welcome him within us.” (Vespers homily 27.11.10). When the first human beings were created (Adam, meaning ‘the man’ and Eve, ‘mother of all the living’), God, (who
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is Spirit) dwelt in the spirit of Man. God and Man were in intimate relationship: Man knew God personally. In this state of original holiness, Man was in right relationship with God, with himself, with others and with creation. He knew the Truth, because he knew God who is Truth. He was full of love because God is Love. He did not experience sickness or death, “Yet God did make man imperishable, he made him in the image of his own nature” (Ws 2:23). Man lived in union with Eternal Life Himself. He had no fear of death. Does this describe what we know about human beings, about ourselves? A document from the Second Vatican Council explains what happened to Man, who was created “very good” by God (cf. Gn 1:31): “Although set by God in a state of rectitude, man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to attain his goal apart from him. Although they had known God, they did not glorify him as God, but their senseless hearts were darkened, and they served the creature rather than the Creator. What revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good Creator. Often, refusing to acknowledge God as his Source, man has also upset the relationship which