Theo Faith

Prepared by: Richard G. Pazcoguin

FAITH

“Believing in God.”

CHRISTIAN FAITH

“Believing in the God revealed by Jesus Christ.”

CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITH

“Believing that Christ reveals God to us in and through the Catholic Church, the body of Christ, united in the Holy Spirit.”

Faith is our personal response as “disciples of Christ” of accepting him “as Lord and Savior.” “It is our ‘Please come in!’ to Christ who stands at the door and knocks (Rv 3:20)” (PCP II 64).

FAITH IN HUMAN RELATIONS: •We show our faith when we accept the words of others. (PANINIWALA) •We show faith when we readily obey the directions of those over us. (PAGSUNOD) •We show our faith when we entrust our welfare to others, even to strangers . (PAGTITIWALA)

It is impossible to live without faith! Faith, as a human reality, is central to our lives.

FAITH IN GOD: •As our total response to God’s revelation: “It is to know, to love, to follow Christ in the Church he founded” (PCP II 36) •As a Theological virtue: Faith is our personal knowledge of God in Christ, expressed in particular beliefs in specific truths by which we adhere to Christ.

FAITH IS PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST, WHO IS OUR TRUTH. FAITH IS OUR WHOLE LIFE IN CHRIST.

TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE Already the Old Testament contrasted faith “in man in whom there is no salvation” with faith in “the Lord who made heaven and earth . . . who shall reign forever” (cf. Ps 146:3,5-6,10; Jer 17:5-8). Only Faith in God calls for a total and absolute adherence (cf. CCC 150). Christ himself provides, especially in his Passion, Death and Resurrection, the best example of this total and absolute commitment to God.

TRINITARIAN For us Christians, Faith is our adherence to the Triune God revealed through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is our friendship with Christ and through Christ with the Father, in their Holy Spirit. Through Christ’s witness to his Father in his teaching, preaching, miracles, and especially in his Passion, Death and Resurrection, we come to believe in Christ our Savior, in the Father, and in the Holy Spirit sent into our hearts. Our Faith as Catholics, then, consists in our personal conviction and belief in God our Father, revealed by Jesus Christ, His own divine Son-made-man, and their presence to us through the Holy Spirit, in the Church (cf. PCP II 64; CCC 151-52).

LOVING, MATURING, AND MISSIONARY Our Christian Faith is truly life-giving and mature only through love, for “the man without love has known nothing of God, for God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). And to be Christian, this love must be inseparably love of God and love of neighbor, like Christ’s. It thus impels us to mission, to evangelize, by bringing others the Good News (cf. 1 Cor 9:16). Such a missionary spirit is the test of authentic Faith because it is unthinkable that a person should believe in Christ’s Word and Kingdom without bearing witness and proclaiming it in his turn (cf. EN 24; PCP II 67-71, 402). This means we are all called to share in Christ’s own three-fold mission as priest, prophet and king (cf. PCP II 116-21; LG 10-13).

INFORMED AND COMMUNITARIAN PCP II insists that Catholic Faith must be “informed,” that is “believing Jesus’ words, and accepting his teachings, trusting that he has “the words of eternal life” (cf. Jn 6:68; NCDP 147). It must be “communitarian” since it is the Church that transmits to us Christ’s revelation through Sacred Scripture and its living Tradition, and alone makes possible for us an adequate faith-response (cf. PCP II 65).

INCULTURATED This Catholic faith in God and in Jesus Christ is never separated from the typical Filipino faith in family and friends. On the one hand, we live out our faith in God precisely in our daily relationships with family, friends, fellow workers, etc. On the other hand, each of these is radically affected by our Catholic Faith in God our Father, in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Savior, and in their Holy Spirit dwelling within us in grace. “This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one another” (Jn 13:35; cf. PCP II 72-73, 162, 202-11).

MIND What can I know?

We can know God as Our Father and Christ as Our Lord. “Know that we belong to God . . . that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to recognize the One who is true” (1 Jn 5:19-20). Pagkilala sa Ama, sa Anak at sa Espiritu Santo.

DOCTRINE

“Keep His commandments” (1 Jn 2:3), which means to “love in deed and truth and not merely talk about it” (1 Jn 3:18). This demands acting on the credibility of God’s teachings in Christ as true and dependable.

MORALS

WILL What should I do?

HEART What can I hope for?

“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers; neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39)

WORSHIP

Faith is knowing, but not mere “head knowledge” of some abstract truths. It is like the deep knowledge we have of our parents, or of anyone we love dearly. Christian Faith, then, is personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as “my Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). Christ solemnly assures each of us: “Here I stand knocking at the door. If anyone hears me calling and opens the door, I will enter his house, and have supper with him, and he with me” (Rv 3:20). Faith is a commitment to follow (obey) God’s will for us. This we see exemplified in Mary’s “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say” (Lk 1:38). PCP II brings out this “doing” dimension of faith as “witnessing” through “loving service” of our needy neighbors. In our concrete situation, particularly urgent is the call for: 1) deeds of justice and love; and 2) for protecting and caring for our endangered earth’s environment (cf. PCP II 78-80). Faith is from the heart __ the loving, trusting, and hoping in the Lord that comes from God’s own love flooding our hearts. This trusting Faith “lives and grows through prayer and worship” __ personal heartfelt conversation with God that is the opposite of mindless, mechanical repetition of memorized formulas. Genuine personal prayer and group prayer find both their inspirational source and summit of perfection in the Liturgy, the Catholic community’s official public Trinitarian worship of the Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the Holy Spirit (cf. PCP II 74-77).

•certain enough to die for, yet a “mystery” because like love, there is always more to understand; •a free personal response to God, yet morally binding in conscience; •reasonable, yet beyond our natural ways of knowing; •an individual act of our graced reason, yet also a life-long process; •a gift of God through both Revelation and interior inspiration, yet something we do nobody can “believe” for us; •a personal individual response, yet only possible as a member of the Christian community, the Church.

Faith in Jesus Christ: • helps us to grow into adult persons who can relate to others responsibly and maturely; • liberates us from being enslaved by sin; and • opens us to deep joy and happiness in the Lord.

Faith is something like the loving knowledge we have of our family and friends. We are “sure” of their love and we try to respond to them. Likewise, through God’s Revelation in Christ, we are absolutely sure of His love for us, and try to respond through the gift of faith.

CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE OF THE PHILIPPINES ECCCE

CHAPTER 3 OUR RESPONSE: WE BELIEVE