Repent And Be Saved
Test and temptation are part and parcel of life and whether we like it or not these are two things in life that we cannot run away from. We will always be tested and temptation is something that we have to live with. But how we manage and conduct ourselves when we are tested and when we face temptation will define who we are.
Our Lord Jesus himself was put to the test at the beginning of his public ministry. What comes as a surprise was that it was the Holy Spirit who actually led him to the desert where he spent 40 days dealing with Satan.
The word tempt is defined as “to entice to sin.” In the desert Jesus was tempted by the devil meaning that he was put “to a test.” When applied to present-day realities, being put to a test is a way of proving if someone is ready for a particular task at hand. To be tempted, on the other hand, describes a situation when someone is being moved to commit a sin.
Pilots pass through a rigorous discipline and testing to see if they are fit to fly. This is the same with driving a motor vehicle. We have to undergo training and need to pass testing to get our driver’s license. And God tests his servants to see if they are fit to be used by him. God tested Abraham to prove his faith.
Just so we will have a sense of what testing and temptation is, Jesus himself was subjected to it and you will see in the Gospel readings during this Lenten Season that Satan will try his best to induce us to choose our will over God's will. If he cannot induce us to apostasize or to sin mortally, he will then try to get us to make choices that will lead us away from what God wants for us.
We can, however, draw inspiration from Jesus in the way he confronted temptation because it would be next to impossible for us to avoid being tempted and we should disabuse our minds that temptations only refer to sexual pleasures. Temptation comes in many different ways and we need a discerning spirit to qualify the kind of temptation that is before us. There is the urge to buy a new pair of shoe when we have dozens of pairs that we rarely use. The same is true for expensive bags that could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars or pesos and you are tempted to buy because the Joneses have it.
In a public, corporate or even religious setting there is that temptation to try and acquire more power and authority than what has been prescribed and it is when we don’t deal with this temptation in the way of God’s Grace that human wisdom sets in and we begin to subscribe to what Satan has intended and that is to become channels of disunity instead of harmony.
But temptations are not supposed to make us fall as these periods of testing that happen in our lives are designed to strengthen and fortify the defenses of our minds, hearts and souls. Temptations are not intended to ruin our lives but to make us better spiritual warriors.
Hence, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness not only to test him but to prove and purify him to make sure that he was ready for the task that he was to pursue. As Satan tried his best to entice Jesus to sin and despite his lack of food for 40 days Jesus remained steadfast in rejecting Satan's temptations.
In the three times that he was tempted Jesus responded by using the Word of God and remaining faithful to God’s Will. What was Jesus telling us? He was simply saying that the devil will try its best to tempt us as we embark in our journey of faith. He will deceive us into believing that discipleship stand in the way of our lives.
Satan will deceive us into thinking that we are better than others. The devil will try to draw us away from God and will present before us situations and conditions that will lead us to make us compromise in our decision to follow God’s Will. Through all these, we will emerge victorious by our reliance on the Word of God.
And in proclaiming the Kingdom of God, Jesus outlined at least two great truths that has become the foundation of the Christian faith. Jesus wants us to believe in the Good News that he came to bring for the world to hear. The Good News that is founded on truth that would bring hope, peace and salvation (Eph 1:13). Our Lord also wants us to believe that God loves us so much that he gave his only begotten Son to ransom us from our sins and restore our wretched nature unto himself.
What we should know is that Jesus himself will give us the Grace and power of the Holy Spirit to allow us to resist all occasions of sin, lead us to repentance, inspire us to believe in the Gospel and allow us to live a new life as citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom. It is all there written for us to be our compass and it is sad when Christians especially leaders do not listen to what the Word of God says. Worst is when the Word of God is removed as the core in the conduct of our lives.
Just as Jesus spent 40 days being subjected to temptation by the devil in the desert, we can also spend the 40-day Lenten Season reflecting on our lives especially in assessing the state of our relationship with God. As St. Paul says in 2 Cor 6:2 “Now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation.”
The Lenten Season is a time when the special graces of the Holy Spirit that are necessary for our salvation are poured out upon us. There is, however, a need for us to cooperate so that we can merit such actual graces by repenting of our sins, spending time in prayer and fasting, giving alms, regular attendance in the Holy Mass and sermons and, worthy reception of the sacraments. As St. Augustine said: “God Who created us without our cooperation will not save us without our cooperation.”
What happens when actual graces are conferred upon us is that the Holy Spirit enters our souls and confers on it a brightness and beauty which claim the friendship of God. This indwelling beauty of the soul is due to the presence of the Holy Spirit and is called ‘sanctifying grace’ and that is the beginning of our salvation.
Test and temptation are part and parcel of life and whether we like it or not these are two things in life that we cannot run away from. We will always be tested and temptation is something that we have to live with. But how we manage and conduct ourselves when we are tested and when we face temptation will define who we are.
Our Lord Jesus himself was put to the test at the beginning of his public ministry. What comes as a surprise was that it was the Holy Spirit who actually led him to the desert where he spent 40 days dealing with Satan.
The word tempt is defined as “to entice to sin.” In the desert Jesus was tempted by the devil meaning that he was put “to a test.” When applied to present-day realities, being put to a test is a way of proving if someone is ready for a particular task at hand. To be tempted, on the other hand, describes a situation when someone is being moved to commit a sin.
Pilots pass through a rigorous discipline and testing to see if they are fit to fly. This is the same with driving a motor vehicle. We have to undergo training and need to pass testing to get our driver’s license. And God tests his servants to see if they are fit to be used by him. God tested Abraham to prove his faith.
Just so we will have a sense of what testing and temptation is, Jesus himself was subjected to it and you will see in the Gospel readings during this Lenten Season that Satan will try his best to induce us to choose our will over God's will. If he cannot induce us to apostasize or to sin mortally, he will then try to get us to make choices that will lead us away from what God wants for us.
We can, however, draw inspiration from Jesus in the way he confronted temptation because it would be next to impossible for us to avoid being tempted and we should disabuse our minds that temptations only refer to sexual pleasures. Temptation comes in many different ways and we need a discerning spirit to qualify the kind of temptation that is before us. There is the urge to buy a new pair of shoe when we have dozens of pairs that we rarely use. The same is true for expensive bags that could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars or pesos and you are tempted to buy because the Joneses have it.
In a public, corporate or even religious setting there is that temptation to try and acquire more power and authority than what has been prescribed and it is when we don’t deal with this temptation in the way of God’s Grace that human wisdom sets in and we begin to subscribe to what Satan has intended and that is to become channels of disunity instead of harmony.
But temptations are not supposed to make us fall as these periods of testing that happen in our lives are designed to strengthen and fortify the defenses of our minds, hearts and souls. Temptations are not intended to ruin our lives but to make us better spiritual warriors.
Hence, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness not only to test him but to prove and purify him to make sure that he was ready for the task that he was to pursue. As Satan tried his best to entice Jesus to sin and despite his lack of food for 40 days Jesus remained steadfast in rejecting Satan's temptations.
In the three times that he was tempted Jesus responded by using the Word of God and remaining faithful to God’s Will. What was Jesus telling us? He was simply saying that the devil will try its best to tempt us as we embark in our journey of faith. He will deceive us into believing that discipleship stand in the way of our lives.
Satan will deceive us into thinking that we are better than others. The devil will try to draw us away from God and will present before us situations and conditions that will lead us to make us compromise in our decision to follow God’s Will. Through all these, we will emerge victorious by our reliance on the Word of God.
And in proclaiming the Kingdom of God, Jesus outlined at least two great truths that has become the foundation of the Christian faith. Jesus wants us to believe in the Good News that he came to bring for the world to hear. The Good News that is founded on truth that would bring hope, peace and salvation (Eph 1:13). Our Lord also wants us to believe that God loves us so much that he gave his only begotten Son to ransom us from our sins and restore our wretched nature unto himself.
What we should know is that Jesus himself will give us the Grace and power of the Holy Spirit to allow us to resist all occasions of sin, lead us to repentance, inspire us to believe in the Gospel and allow us to live a new life as citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom. It is all there written for us to be our compass and it is sad when Christians especially leaders do not listen to what the Word of God says. Worst is when the Word of God is removed as the core in the conduct of our lives.
Just as Jesus spent 40 days being subjected to temptation by the devil in the desert, we can also spend the 40-day Lenten Season reflecting on our lives especially in assessing the state of our relationship with God. As St. Paul says in 2 Cor 6:2 “Now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation.”
The Lenten Season is a time when the special graces of the Holy Spirit that are necessary for our salvation are poured out upon us. There is, however, a need for us to cooperate so that we can merit such actual graces by repenting of our sins, spending time in prayer and fasting, giving alms, regular attendance in the Holy Mass and sermons and, worthy reception of the sacraments. As St. Augustine said: “God Who created us without our cooperation will not save us without our cooperation.”
What happens when actual graces are conferred upon us is that the Holy Spirit enters our souls and confers on it a brightness and beauty which claim the friendship of God. This indwelling beauty of the soul is due to the presence of the Holy Spirit and is called ‘sanctifying grace’ and that is the beginning of our salvation.
JUST BECAUSE THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
WAS NOT RECORDED IN THE BIBLE DOESN'T MEAN IT DID NOT HAPPEN
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven which is one of the solemnities that the Catholic Church celebrate has become one of the most contentious issues that has raged in years between the Church and other religious sects not to mention the fundamental cults that have sprouted over time.
However, no Christian could dispute the fact that Mary’s soul is in Heaven as Christ himself certainly would not allow that the soul of his very own mother would be lost. The doctrine of Mary’s bodily assumption after her death cannot be found in the Sacred Scriptures and this is perhaps the reason why other religious organizations cannot and could not believe that this was so.
While the Assumption to Heaven of Mary is not in the Scriptures, it is expressly guaranteed by tradition and by the teaching of the Catholic Church and this is where the difference lies. The Catholic Church has what it calls as the Magisterium or its depository of its doctrines related to the practice of its faith and morals. Just because Mary’s Assumption to Heaven was not written nor mentioned in the Scriptures doesn’t make it wrong or that it did not happen.
While it may be possible that there may be some Catholic doctrines that are similar to the faith principles of other religious sects, what must be taken into consideration is that churches throughout the world are governed by their individual doctrines and that no church can presume or say that the doctrine of one is right and the others are wrong. What we believe in is innate in the faith that we grew up in and to which we have been introduced such that our set of beliefs in the Catholic Church is for our own benefit and much as we respect the faith practices of other churches and or denominations, the Catholic Church must also be respected for what we believe in.
That the Scriptures have omitted to record the fact related to the Assumption of Mary, it should not be used as an argument against this fact because omission in itself is not a denial.
Early Catholic traditions have positively recorded the Assumption of Mary and this is also borne out of the fact that while the mortal remains of St. Peter and St. Paul are found and are being revered by the Catholic faithful in Rome, there is no city or Christian center that laid claim to possessing the mortal remains of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Certainly the relics of Mary would be regarded as having greater value than those of any Saint or Apostle because no one can claim as having as close a relationship with Christ than Mary.
And it is only fitting that the body of Mary which has been preserved even from the stain of original sin should not have been allowed to suffer corruption.
After all, it would be just as easy for God to take her glorified body to Heaven at once as it will be to take the glorified bodies of all the saved at the last day. What is sufficient and what we as Catholics must believe in faith is the sanction of this doctrine by the Catholic Church.
What is, however, written in the Scriptures and which other denominations Christian or otherwise have ignored was what Mary said to Elizabeth in Lk 1:48 “All generations shall call me blessed.” Remember too that Elizabeth upon seeing Mary saluted her with the words: “Blessed are you among women.” (Lk 1:42)
(SOURCE: RADIO REPLIES, VOLUME 1, PAR. 784 AND 785)
LUMEN FIDEI
An Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Pope Francis
to the Bishops, Priests and Deacons,
Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful on Faith
1. The light of faith: this is how the Church’s
tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus.
In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: “I
have come as light into the world, that whoever
believes in me may not remain in darkness”
(Jn 12:46). Saint Paul uses the same image: “God
who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has
shone in our hearts” (2 Cor 4:6). The pagan world,
which hungered for light, had seen the growth of
the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, invoked each
day at sunrise. Yet though the sun was born anew
each morning, it was clearly incapable of casting
its light on all of human existence. The sun does
not illumine all reality; its rays cannot penetrate to
the shadow of death, the place where men’s eyes
are closed to its light. “No one — Saint Justin
Martyr writes — has ever been ready to die for
his faith in the sun”.1 Conscious of the immense
horizon which their faith opened before them,
Christians invoked Jesus as the true sun “whose
rays bestow life”.2 To Martha, weeping for the
death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus said: “Did I
not tell you that if you believed, you would see
the glory of God?” (Jn 11:40). Those who believe,
see; they see with a light that illumines their
1 Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 121, 2: PG 6, 758.
2 ClemenT of Alexandria, Protrepticus, IX: PG 8, 195.
4
entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ,
the morning star which never sets.
An illusory light?
2. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can
almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries.
In modernity, that light might have
been considered sufficient for societies of old,
but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a
humanity come of age, proud of its rationality
and anxious to explore the future in novel ways.
Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light,
preventing mankind from boldly setting out in
quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged
his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to
tread “new paths… with all the uncertainty of
one who must find his own way”, adding that
“this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want
peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if
you want to be a follower of truth, then seek”.3
Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From
this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his
critique of Christianity for diminishing the full
meaning of human existence and stripping life
of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be
the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the
path of a liberated humanity to its future.
3. In the process, faith came to be associated
with darkness. There were those who tried to save
3 Brief an Elisabeth Nietzsche (11 June 1865), in: Werke in
drei Bänden, München, 1954, 953ff.
5
faith by making room for it alongside the light
of reason. Such room would open up wherever
the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever
certainty was no longer possible. Faith was
thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to
be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind
emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps
of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation,
but not something which could be proposed
to others as an objective and shared light
which points the way. Slowly but surely, however,
it would become evident that the light of autonomous
reason is not enough to illumine the future;
ultimately the future remains shadowy and
fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result,
humanity renounced the search for a great light,
Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller
lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet
prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the
absence of light everything becomes confused; it
is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road
to our destination from other roads which take
us in endless circles, going nowhere.
A light to be recovered
4. There is an urgent need, then, to see once
again that faith is a light, for once the flame of
faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The
light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating
every aspect of human existence. A light
this powerful cannot come from ourselves but
from a more primordial source: in a word, it must
6
come from God. Faith is born of an encounter
with the living God who calls us and reveals his
love, a love which precedes us and upon which
we can lean for security and for building our lives.
Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision,
new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great
promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the
future opens up before us. Faith, received from
God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for
our way, guiding our journey through time. On
the one hand, it is a light coming from the past,
the light of the foundational memory of the life
of Jesus which revealed his perfectly trustworthy
love, a love capable of triumphing over death.
Yet since Christ has risen and draws us beyond
death, faith is also a light coming from the future
and opening before us vast horizons which guide
us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth
of communion. We come to see that faith does
not dwell in shadow and gloom; it is a light for
our darkness. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, after
professing his faith to Saint Peter, describes that
light as a “spark, which then becomes a burning
flame and like a heavenly star within me glimmers”.
4 It is this light of faith that I would now
like to consider, so that it can grow and enlighten
the present, becoming a star to brighten the horizon
of our journey at a time when mankind is
particularly in need of light.
4 Paradiso XXIV, 145-147.
7
5. Christ, on the eve of his passion, assured Peter:
“I have prayed for you that your faith may not
fail” (Lk 22:32). He then told him to strengthen
his brothers and sisters in that same faith. Conscious
of the duty entrusted to the Successor of
Peter, Benedict XVI proclaimed the present Year
of Faith, a time of grace which is helping us to
sense the great joy of believing and to renew our
wonder at the vast horizons which faith opens
up, so as then to profess that faith in its unity and
integrity, faithful to the memory of the Lord and
sustained by his presence and by the working of
the Holy Spirit. The conviction born of a faith
which brings grandeur and fulfilment to life, a
faith centred on Christ and on the power of his
grace, inspired the mission of the first Christians.
In the acts of the martyrs, we read the following
dialogue between the Roman prefect Rusticus
and a Christian named Hierax: “‘Where are your
parents?’, the judge asked the martyr. He replied:
‘Our true father is Christ, and our mother is faith
in him’”.5 For those early Christians, faith, as an
encounter with the living God revealed in Christ,
was indeed a “mother”, for it had brought them
to the light and given birth within them to divine
life, a new experience and a luminous vision of
existence for which they were prepared to bear
public witness to the end.
6. The Year of Faith was inaugurated on the
fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second
5 Acta Sanctorum, Junii, I, 21.
8
Vatican Council. This is itself a clear indication
that Vatican II was a Council on faith,6 inasmuch
as it asked us to restore the primacy of
God in Christ to the centre of our lives, both as
a Church and as individuals. The Church never
takes faith for granted, but knows that this gift
of God needs to be nourished and reinforced
so that it can continue to guide her pilgrim way.
The Second Vatican Council enabled the light
of faith to illumine our human experience from
within, accompanying the men and women of
our time on their journey. It clearly showed how
faith enriches life in all its dimensions.
7. These considerations on faith — in continuity
with all that the Church’s magisterium has pronounced
on this theological virtue7 — are meant
to supplement what Benedict XVI had written
in his encyclical letters on charity and hope. He
himself had almost completed a first draft of an
encyclical on faith. For this I am deeply grateful
6 “Though the Council does not expressly deal with
faith, it speaks of it on every page, it recognizes its living, supernatural
character, it presumes it to be full and strong, and it
bases its teachings on it. It is sufficient to recall the Council’s
statements… to see the essential importance which the Council,
in line with the doctrinal tradition of the Church, attributes
to faith, the true faith, which has its source in Christ, and the
magisterium of the Church for its channel” (Paul VI, General
Audience [8 March 1967]: Insegnamenti V [1967], 705).
7 Cf., for example, firsT VaTican ecumenical council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius, Ch. 3:
DS 3008-3020; second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 5: Catechism
of the Catholic Church, Nos. 153-165.
9
to him, and as his brother in Christ I have taken
up his fine work and added a few contributions
of my own. The Successor of Peter, yesterday,
today and tomorrow, is always called to strengthen
his brothers and sisters in the priceless treasure
of that faith which God has given as a light
for humanity’s path.
In God’s gift of faith, a supernatural infused
virtue, we realize that a great love has been offered
us, a good word has been spoken to us, and
that when we welcome that word, Jesus Christ
the Word made flesh, the Holy Spirit transforms
us, lights up our way to the future and enables us
joyfully to advance along that way on wings of
hope. Thus wonderfully interwoven, faith, hope
and charity are the driving force of the Christian
life as it advances towards full communion with
God. But what is it like, this road which faith
opens up before us? What is the origin of this
powerful light which brightens the journey of a
successful and fruitful life?
11
CHAPTER ONE
WE HAVE BELIEVED IN LOVE
(cf. 1 Jn 4:16)
Abraham, our father in faith
8. Faith opens the way before us and accompanies
our steps through time. Hence, if we want
to understand what faith is, we need to follow the
route it has taken, the path trodden by believers,
as witnessed first in the Old Testament. Here a
unique place belongs to Abraham, our father in
faith. Something disturbing takes place in his life:
God speaks to him; he reveals himself as a God
who speaks and calls his name. Faith is linked to
hearing. Abraham does not see God, but hears
his voice. Faith thus takes on a personal aspect.
God is not the god of a particular place, or a deity
linked to specific sacred time, but the God of
a person, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
capable of interacting with man and establishing
a covenant with him. Faith is our response to a
word which engages us personally, to a “Thou”
who calls us by name.
9. The word spoken to Abraham contains both
a call and a promise. First, it is a call to leave his
own land, a summons to a new life, the beginning
of an exodus which points him towards an
unforeseen future. The sight which faith would
give to Abraham would always be linked to the
need to take this step forward: faith “sees” to the
12
extent that it journeys, to the extent that it chooses
to enter into the horizons opened up by God’s
word. This word also contains a promise: Your
descendants will be great in number, you will be
the father of a great nation (cf. Gen 13:16; 15:5;
22:17). As a response to a word which preceded
it, Abraham’s faith would always be an act of remembrance.
Yet this remembrance is not fixed
on past events but, as the memory of a promise,
it becomes capable of opening up the future,
shedding light on the path to be taken. We see
how faith, as remembrance of the future, memoria
futuri, is thus closely bound up with hope.
10. Abraham is asked to entrust himself to this
word. Faith understands that something so apparently
ephemeral and fleeting as a word, when
spoken by the God who is fidelity, becomes absolutely
certain and unshakable, guaranteeing
the continuity of our journey through history.
Faith accepts this word as a solid rock upon
which we can build, a straight highway on which
we can travel. In the Bible, faith is expressed
by the Hebrew word ’emûnāh, derived from the
verb ’amān whose root means “to uphold”. The
term ’emûnāh can signify both God’s fidelity and
man’s faith. The man of faith gains strength by
putting himself in the hands of the God who is
faithful. Playing on this double meaning of the
word — also found in the corresponding terms
in Greek (pistós) and Latin (fidelis) — Saint Cyril
of Jerusalem praised the dignity of the Christian
13
who receives God’s own name: both are called
“faithful”.8 As Saint Augustine explains: “Man is
faithful when he believes in God and his promises;
God is faithful when he grants to man what
he has promised”.9
11. A final element of the story of Abraham
is important for understanding his faith. God’s
word, while bringing newness and surprise, is not
at all alien to Abraham’s experience. In the voice
which speaks to him, the patriarch recognizes a
profound call which was always present at the
core of his being. God ties his promise to that
aspect of human life which has always appeared
most “full of promise”, namely, parenthood,
the begetting of new life: “Sarah your wife shall
bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac”
(Gen 17:19). The God who asks Abraham for
complete trust reveals himself to be the source
of all life. Faith is thus linked to God’s fatherhood,
which gives rise to all creation; the God
who calls Abraham is the Creator, the one who
“calls into existence the things that do not exist”
(Rom 4:17), the one who “chose us before
the foundation of the world… and destined us
for adoption as his children” (Eph 1:4-5). For
Abraham, faith in God sheds light on the depths
of his being, it enables him to acknowledge the
wellspring of goodness at the origin of all things
and to realize that his life is not the product of
8 Cf. Catechesis V, 1: PG 33, 505A.
9 In Psal. 32, II, s. I, 9: PL 36, 284.
14
non-being or chance, but the fruit of a personal
call and a personal love. The mysterious God
who called him is no alien deity, but the God
who is the origin and mainstay of all that is. The
great test of Abraham’s faith, the sacrifice of his
son Isaac, would show the extent to which this
primordial love is capable of ensuring life even
beyond death. The word which could raise up a
son to one who was “as good as dead”, in “the
barrenness” of Sarah’s womb (cf. Rom 4:19), can
also stand by his promise of a future beyond all
threat or danger (cf. Heb 11:19; Rom 4:21).
The faith of Israel
12. The history of the people of Israel in the
Book of Exodus follows in the wake of Abraham’s
faith. Faith once again is born of a primordial
gift: Israel trusts in God, who promises to set
his people free from their misery. Faith becomes
a summons to a lengthy journey leading to worship
of the Lord on Sinai and the inheritance of
a promised land. God’s love is seen to be like that
of a father who carries his child along the way
(cf. Dt 1:31). Israel’s confession of faith takes
shape as an account of God’s deeds in setting
his people free and acting as their guide (cf.
Dt 26:5-11), an account passed down from one
generation to the next. God’s light shines for
Israel through the remembrance of the Lord’s
mighty deeds, recalled and celebrated in worship,
and passed down from parents to children. Here
we see how the light of faith is linked to con15
crete life-stories, to the grateful remembrance
of God’s mighty deeds and the progressive fulfilment
of his promises. Gothic architecture
gave clear expression to this: in the great cathedrals
light comes down from heaven by passing
through windows depicting the history of salvation.
God’s light comes to us through the account
of his self-revelation, and thus becomes
capable of illuminating our passage through time
by recalling his gifts and demonstrating how he
fulfils his promises.
13. The history of Israel also shows us the
temptation of unbelief to which the people
yielded more than once. Here the opposite of
faith is shown to be idolatry. While Moses is
speaking to God on Sinai, the people cannot
bear the mystery of God’s hiddenness, they cannot
endure the time of waiting to see his face.
Faith by its very nature demands renouncing the
immediate possession which sight would appear
to offer; it is an invitation to turn to the source
of the light, while respecting the mystery of a
countenance which will unveil itself personally
in its own good time. Martin Buber once cited a
definition of idolatry proposed by the rabbi of
Kock: idolatry is “when a face addresses a face
which is not a face”.10 In place of faith in God,
it seems better to worship an idol, into whose
face we can look directly and whose origin we
793.
10 M. BuBer, Die Erzählungen der Chassidim, Zürich, 1949,
16
know, because it is the work of our own hands.
Before an idol, there is no risk that we will be
called to abandon our security, for idols “have
mouths, but they cannot speak” (Ps 115:5). Idols
exist, we begin to see, as a pretext for setting
ourselves at the centre of reality and worshiping
the work of our own hands. Once man has lost
the fundamental orientation which unifies his
existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity
of his desires; in refusing to await the time of
promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad
of unconnected instants. Idolatry, then, is
always polytheism, an aimless passing from one
lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey
but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere
and forming a vast labyrinth. Those who choose
not to put their trust in God must hear the din
of countless idols crying out: “Put your trust in
me!” Faith, tied as it is to conversion, is the opposite
of idolatry; it breaks with idols to turn to
the living God in a personal encounter. Believing
means entrusting oneself to a merciful love
which always accepts and pardons, which sustains
and directs our lives, and which shows its
power by its ability to make straight the crooked
lines of our history. Faith consists in the willingness
to let ourselves be constantly transformed
and renewed by God’s call. Herein lies the paradox:
by constantly turning towards the Lord, we
discover a sure path which liberates us from the
dissolution imposed upon us by idols.
17
14. In the faith of Israel we also encounter the
figure of Moses, the mediator. The people may
not see the face of God; it is Moses who speaks
to YHWH on the mountain and then tells the
others of the Lord’s will. With this presence of
a mediator in its midst, Israel learns to journey
together in unity. The individual’s act of faith
finds its place within a community, within the
common “we” of the people who, in faith, are
like a single person — “my first-born son”, as
God would describe all of Israel (cf. Ex 4:22).
Here mediation is not an obstacle, but an opening:
through our encounter with others, our gaze
rises to a truth greater than ourselves. Rousseau
once lamented that he could not see God for
himself: “How many people stand between God
and me!”11 … “Is it really so simple and natural
that God would have sought out Moses in order
to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?”12 On the basis
of an individualistic and narrow conception
of knowledge one cannot appreciate the significance
of mediation, this capacity to participate
in the vision of another, this shared knowledge
which is the knowledge proper to love. Faith is
God’s free gift, which calls for humility and the
courage to trust and to entrust; it enables us to
see the luminous path leading to the encounter
of God and humanity: the history of salvation.
11 Émile, Paris, 1966, 387.
12 Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont, Lausanne, 1993, 110.
18
The fullness of Christian faith
15. “Abraham rejoiced that he would see my
day; he saw it and was glad” (Jn 8:56). According
to these words of Jesus, Abraham’s faith pointed
to him; in some sense it foresaw his mystery.
So Saint Augustine understood it when he stated
that the patriarchs were saved by faith, not faith
in Christ who had come but in Christ who was
yet to come, a faith pressing towards the future
of Jesus.13 Christian faith is centred on Christ;
it is the confession that Jesus is Lord and that
God has raised him from the dead (cf. Rom 10:9).
All the threads of the Old Testament converge
on Christ; he becomes the definitive “Yes” to all
the promises, the ultimate basis of our “Amen”
to God (cf. 2 Cor 1:20). The history of Jesus is
the complete manifestation of God’s reliability.
If Israel continued to recall God’s great acts of
love, which formed the core of its confession of
faith and broadened its gaze in faith, the life of
Jesus now appears as the locus of God’s definitive
intervention, the supreme manifestation of
his love for us. The word which God speaks to
us in Jesus is not simply one word among many,
but his eternal Word (cf. Heb 1:1-2). God can give
no greater guarantee of his love, as Saint Paul
reminds us (cf. Rom 8:31-39). Christian faith is
thus faith in a perfect love, in its decisive power,
in its ability to transform the world and to unfold
its history. “We know and believe the love that
13 Cf. In Ioh. Evang., 45, 9: PL 35, 1722-1723.
19
God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). In the love of God
revealed in Jesus, faith perceives the foundation
on which all reality and its final destiny rest.
16. The clearest proof of the reliability of
Christ’s love is to be found in his dying for our
sake. If laying down one’s life for one’s friends
is the greatest proof of love (cf. Jn 15:13), Jesus
offered his own life for all, even for his enemies,
to transform their hearts. This explains why the
evangelists could see the hour of Christ’s crucifixion
as the culmination of the gaze of faith; in
that hour the depth and breadth of God’s love
shone forth. It was then that Saint John offered
his solemn testimony, as together with the Mother
of Jesus he gazed upon the pierced one (cf.
Jn 19:37): “He who saw this has borne witness, so
that you also may believe. His testimony is true,
and he knows that he tells the truth” (Jn 19:35).
In Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Prince Myshkin sees a
painting by Hans Holbein the Younger depicting
Christ dead in the tomb and says: “Looking at
that painting might cause one to lose his faith”.14
The painting is a gruesome portrayal of the destructive
effects of death on Christ’s body. Yet
it is precisely in contemplating Jesus’ death that
faith grows stronger and receives a dazzling light;
then it is revealed as faith in Christ’s steadfast
love for us, a love capable of embracing death
to bring us salvation. This love, which did not
14 Part II, IV.
20
recoil before death in order to show its depth,
is something I can believe in; Christ’s total selfgift
overcomes every suspicion and enables me
to entrust myself to him completely.
17. Christ’s death discloses the utter reliability
of God’s love above all in the light of his resurrection.
As the risen one, Christ is the trustworthy
witness, deserving of faith (cf. Rev 1:5; Heb
2:17), and a solid support for our faith. “If Christ
has not been raised, your faith is futile”, says
Saint Paul (1 Cor 15:17). Had the Father’s love
not caused Jesus to rise from the dead, had it not
been able to restore his body to life, then it would
not be a completely reliable love, capable of illuminating
also the gloom of death. When Saint
Paul describes his new life in Christ, he speaks of
“faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Clearly, this “faith in
the Son of God” means Paul’s faith in Jesus, but
it also presumes that Jesus himself is worthy of
faith, based not only on his having loved us even
unto death but also on his divine sonship. Precisely
because Jesus is the Son, because he is absolutely
grounded in the Father, he was able to
conquer death and make the fullness of life shine
forth. Our culture has lost its sense of God’s tangible
presence and activity in our world. We think
that God is to be found in the beyond, on another
level of reality, far removed from our everyday
relationships. But if this were the case, if God
could not act in the world, his love would not
21
be truly powerful, truly real, and thus not even
true, a love capable of delivering the bliss that
it promises. It would make no difference at all
whether we believed in him or not. Christians, on
the contrary, profess their faith in God’s tangible
and powerful love which really does act in history
and determines its final destiny: a love that can
be encountered, a love fully revealed in Christ’s
passion, death and resurrection.
18. This fullness which Jesus brings to faith
has another decisive aspect. In faith, Christ is not
simply the one in whom we believe, the supreme
manifestation of God’s love; he is also the one
with whom we are united precisely in order to
believe. Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but
sees things as Jesus himself sees them, with his
own eyes: it is a participation in his way of seeing.
In many areas in our lives we trust others who
know more than we do. We trust the architect
who builds our home, the pharmacist who gives
us medicine for healing, the lawyer who defends
us in court. We also need someone trustworthy
and knowledgeable where God is concerned.
Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who makes
God known to us (cf. Jn 1:18). Christ’s life, his
way of knowing the Father and living in complete
and constant relationship with him, opens
up new and inviting vistas for human experience.
Saint John brings out the importance of a personal
relationship with Jesus for our faith by using
various forms of the verb “to believe”. In
22
addition to “believing that” what Jesus tells us is
true, John also speaks of “believing” Jesus and
“believing in” Jesus. We “believe” Jesus when
we accept his word, his testimony, because he is
truthful. We “believe in” Jesus when we personally
welcome him into our lives and journey towards
him, clinging to him in love and following
in his footsteps along the way.
To enable us to know, accept and follow
him, the Son of God took on our flesh. In this
way he also saw the Father humanly, within the
setting of a journey unfolding in time. Christian
faith is faith in the incarnation of the Word and
his bodily resurrection; it is faith in a God who is
so close to us that he entered our human history.
Far from divorcing us from reality, our faith in
the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth
enables us to grasp reality’s deepest meaning and
to see how much God loves this world and is
constantly guiding it towards himself. This leads
us, as Christians, to live our lives in this world
with ever greater commitment and intensity.
Salvation by faith
19. On the basis of this sharing in Jesus’ way of
seeing things, Saint Paul has left us a description
of the life of faith. In accepting the gift of faith,
believers become a new creation; they receive
a new being; as God’s children, they are now
“sons in the Son”. The phrase “Abba, Father”,
so characteristic of Jesus’ own experience, now
becomes the core of the Christian experience (cf.
23
Rom 8:15). The life of faith, as a filial existence, is
the acknowledgment of a primordial and radical
gift which upholds our lives. We see this clearly in
Saint Paul’s question to the Corinthians: “What
have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4:7).
This was at the very heart of Paul’s debate with
the Pharisees: the issue of whether salvation is
attained by faith or by the works of the law. Paul
rejects the attitude of those who would consider
themselves justified before God on the basis of
their own works. Such people, even when they
obey the commandments and do good works,
are centred on themselves; they fail to realize
that goodness comes from God. Those who live
this way, who want to be the source of their own
righteousness, find that the latter is soon depleted
and that they are unable even to keep the law.
They become closed in on themselves and isolated
from the Lord and from others; their lives
become futile and their works barren, like a tree
far from water. Saint Augustine tells us in his
usual concise and striking way: “Ab eo qui fecit te,
noli deficere nec ad te”, “Do not turn away from the
one who made you, even to turn towards yourself
”.15 Once I think that by turning away from
God I will find myself, my life begins to fall apart
(cf. Lk 15:11-24). The beginning of salvation is
openness to something prior to ourselves, to a
primordial gift that affirms life and sustains it in
being. Only by being open to and acknowledging
15 De Continentia, 4, 11: PL 40, 356.
24
this gift can we be transformed, experience salvation
and bear good fruit. Salvation by faith
means recognizing the primacy of God’s gift. As
Saint Paul puts it: “By grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).
20. Faith’s new way of seeing things is centred
on Christ. Faith in Christ brings salvation
because in him our lives become radically open
to a love that precedes us, a love that transforms
us from within, acting in us and through us. This
is clearly seen in Saint Paul’s exegesis of a text
from Deuteronomy, an exegesis consonant with
the heart of the Old Testament message. Moses
tells the people that God’s command is neither
too high nor too far away. There is no need to
say: “Who will go up for us to heaven and bring
it to us?” or “Who will go over the sea for us,
and bring it to us?” (Dt 30:11-14). Paul interprets
this nearness of God’s word in terms of Christ’s
presence in the Christian. “Do not say in your
heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to
bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the
abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)”
(Rom 10:6-7). Christ came down to earth and
rose from the dead; by his incarnation and resurrection,
the Son of God embraced the whole
of human life and history, and now dwells in our
hearts through the Holy Spirit. Faith knows that
God has drawn close to us, that Christ has been
given to us as a great gift which inwardly trans25
forms us, dwells within us and thus bestows on
us the light that illumines the origin and the end
of life.
21. We come to see the difference, then, which
faith makes for us. Those who believe are transformed
by the love to which they have opened
their hearts in faith. By their openness to this offer
of primordial love, their lives are enlarged and expanded.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me” (Gal 2:20). “May Christ dwell in your
hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). The self-awareness
of the believer now expands because of the presence
of another; it now lives in this other and thus,
in love, life takes on a whole new breadth. Here we
see the Holy Spirit at work. The Christian can see
with the eyes of Jesus and share in his mind, his
filial disposition, because he or she shares in his
love, which is the Spirit. In the love of Jesus, we
receive in a certain way his vision. Without being
conformed to him in love, without the presence
of the Spirit, it is impossible to confess him as
Lord (cf. 1 Cor 12:3).
The ecclesial form of faith
22. In this way, the life of the believer becomes
an ecclesial existence, a life lived in the Church.
When Saint Paul tells the Christians of Rome
that all who believe in Christ make up one body,
he urges them not to boast of this; rather, each
must think of himself “according to the measure
of faith that God has assigned” (Rom 12:3).
26
Those who believe come to see themselves in
the light of the faith which they profess: Christ
is the mirror in which they find their own image
fully realized. And just as Christ gathers to
himself all those who believe and makes them
his body, so the Christian comes to see himself
as a member of this body, in an essential relationship
with all other believers. The image of a
body does not imply that the believer is simply
one part of an anonymous whole, a mere cog
in a great machine; rather, it brings out the
vital union of Christ with believers, and of
believers among themselves (cf. Rom 12:4-5).
Christians are “one” (cf. Gal 3:28), yet in a way
which does not make them lose their
individuality; in service to others, they come into
their own in the highest degree. This explains
why, apart from this body, outside this unity of
the Church in Christ, outside this Church
which — in the words of Romano Guardini --
“is the bearer within history of the plenary gaze
of Christ on the world”16 — faith loses its
“measure”; it no longer finds its equilibrium,
the space needed to sustain itself. Faith is
necessarily ecclesial; it is professed from within
the body of Christ as a concrete communion of
believers. It is against this ecclesial backdrop
that faith opens the individual Christian towards
all others. Christ’s word, once heard, by virtue of
its inner power at work in the heart
16 “Vom Wesen katholischer Weltanschauung” (1923), in Unterscheidung
des Christlichen. Gesammelte Studien 1923-1963, Mainz,
1963, 24.
27
of the Christian, becomes a response, a spoken
word, a profession of faith. As Saint Paul puts
it: “one believes with the heart ... and confesses
with the lips” (Rom 10:10). Faith is not a private
matter, a completely individualistic notion or a
personal opinion: it comes from hearing, and it
is meant to find expression in words and to be
proclaimed. For “how are they to believe in him
of whom they have never heard? And how are
they to hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14).
Faith becomes operative in the Christian on the
basis of the gift received, the love which attracts
our hearts to Christ (cf. Gal 5:6), and enables us
to become part of the Church’s great pilgrimage
through history until the end of the world. For
those who have been transformed in this way, a
new way of seeing opens up, faith becomes light
for their eyes.
29
CHAPTER TWO
UNLESS YOU BELIEVE,
YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND
(cf. Is 7:9)
Faith and truth
23. Unless you believe, you will not understand
(cf. Is 7:9). The Greek version of the Hebrew
Bible, the Septuagint translation produced in Alexandria,
gives the above rendering of the words
spoken by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz. In
this way, the issue of the knowledge of truth became
central to faith. The Hebrew text, though,
reads differently; the prophet says to the king:
“If you will not believe, you shall not be established”.
Here there is a play on words, based
on two forms of the verb ’amān: “you will believe”
(ta’amînû) and “you shall be established”
(tē’āmēnû). Terrified by the might of his enemies,
the king seeks the security that an alliance with
the great Assyrian empire can offer. The prophet
tells him instead to trust completely in the solid
and steadfast rock which is the God of Israel.
Because God is trustworthy, it is reasonable to
have faith in him, to stand fast on his word. He is
the same God that Isaiah will later call, twice in
one verse, the God who is Amen, “the God of
truth” (cf. Is 65:16), the enduring foundation of
covenant fidelity. It might seem that the Greek
version of the Bible, by translating “be established”
as “understand”, profoundly altered the
30
meaning of the text by moving away from the
biblical notion of trust in God towards a Greek
notion of intellectual understanding. Yet this
translation, while certainly reflecting a dialogue
with Hellenistic culture, is not alien to the underlying
spirit of the Hebrew text. The firm foundation
that Isaiah promises to the king is indeed
grounded in an understanding of God’s activity
and the unity which he gives to human life and
to the history of his people. The prophet challenges
the king, and us, to understand the Lord’s
ways, seeing in God’s faithfulness the wise plan
which governs the ages. Saint Augustine took up
this synthesis of the ideas of “understanding”
and “being established” in his Confessions when
he spoke of the truth on which one may rely in
order to stand fast: “Then I shall be cast and set
firm in the mould of your truth”.17 From the
context we know that Augustine was concerned
to show that this trustworthy truth of God is, as
the Bible makes clear, his own faithful presence
throughout history, his ability to hold together
times and ages, and to gather into one the scattered
strands of our lives.18
24. Read in this light, the prophetic text leads
to one conclusion: we need knowledge, we need
truth, because without these we cannot stand
firm, we cannot move forward. Faith without
truth does not save, it does not provide a sure
17 XI, 30, 40: PL 32, 825.
18 Cf. ibid., 825-826.
31
footing. It remains a beautiful story, the projection
of our deep yearning for happiness, something
capable of satisfying us to the extent that
we are willing to deceive ourselves. Either that,
or it is reduced to a lofty sentiment which brings
consolation and cheer, yet remains prey to the
vagaries of our spirit and the changing seasons,
incapable of sustaining a steady journey through
life. If such were faith, King Ahaz would be right
not to stake his life and the security of his kingdom
on a feeling. But precisely because of its
intrinsic link to truth, faith is instead able to offer
a new light, superior to the king’s calculations,
for it sees further into the distance and takes into
account the hand of God, who remains faithful
to his covenant and his promises.
25. Today more than ever, we need to be reminded
of this bond between faith and truth,
given the crisis of truth in our age. In contemporary
culture, we often tend to consider the only
real truth to be that of technology: truth is what
we succeed in building and measuring by our scientific
know-how, truth is what works and what
makes life easier and more comfortable. Nowadays
this appears as the only truth that is certain,
the only truth that can be shared, the only
truth that can serve as a basis for discussion or
for common undertakings. Yet at the other end
of the scale we are willing to allow for subjective
truths of the individual, which consist in fidelity
to his or her deepest convictions, yet these are
32
truths valid only for that individual and not capable
of being proposed to others in an effort
to serve the common good. But Truth itself, the
truth which would comprehensively explain our
life as individuals and in society, is regarded with
suspicion. Surely this kind of truth — we hear it
said — is what was claimed by the great totalitarian
movements of the last century, a truth that
imposed its own world view in order to crush the
actual lives of individuals. In the end, what we
are left with is relativism, in which the question
of universal truth — and ultimately this means
the question of God — is no longer relevant.
It would be logical, from this point of view, to
attempt to sever the bond between religion and
truth, because it seems to lie at the root of fanaticism,
which proves oppressive for anyone who
does not share the same beliefs. In this regard,
though, we can speak of a massive amnesia in
our contemporary world. The question of truth
is really a question of memory, deep memory, for
it deals with something prior to ourselves and
can succeed in uniting us in a way that transcends
our petty and limited individual consciousness.
It is a question about the origin of all that is, in
whose light we can glimpse the goal and thus the
meaning of our common path.
Knowledge of the truth and love
26. This being the case, can Christian faith provide
a service to the common good with regard
to the right way of understanding truth? To an33
swer this question, we need to reflect on the kind
of knowledge involved in faith. Here a saying of
Saint Paul can help us: “One believes with the
heart” (Rom 10:10). In the Bible, the heart is the
core of the human person, where all his or her
different dimensions intersect: body and spirit,
interiority and openness to the world and to others,
intellect, will and affectivity. If the heart is
capable of holding all these dimensions together,
it is because it is where we become open to truth
and love, where we let them touch us and deeply
transform us. Faith transforms the whole person
precisely to the extent that he or she becomes
open to love. Through this blending of faith and
love we come to see the kind of knowledge which
faith entails, its power to convince and its ability
to illumine our steps. Faith knows because it is
tied to love, because love itself brings enlightenment.
Faith’s understanding is born when we
receive the immense love of God which transforms
us inwardly and enables us to see reality
with new eyes.
27. The explanation of the connection between
faith and certainty put forward by the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein is well known. For
Wittgenstein, believing can be compared to the
experience of falling in love: it is something subjective
which cannot be proposed as a truth valid
for everyone.19 Indeed, most people nowadays
19 Cf. Vermischte Bemerkungen / Culture and Value, ed. G.H.
von Wright, Oxford, 1991, 32-33; 61-64.
34
would not consider love as related in any way to
truth. Love is seen as an experience associated
with the world of fleeting emotions, no longer
with truth.
But is this an adequate description of love?
Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion.
True, it engages our affectivity, but in order
to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail
leading away from self-centredness and towards
another person, in order to build a lasting relationship;
love aims at union with the beloved.
Here we begin to see how love requires truth.
Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth
can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing
moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a
shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls
prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test
of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all
the elements of our person and becomes a new
light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life.
Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a
firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or
redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to
create life and bear fruit.
If love needs truth, truth also needs love.
Love and truth are inseparable. Without love,
truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive
for people’s day-to-day lives. The truth we
seek, the truth that gives meaning to our journey
through life, enlightens us whenever we are
touched by love. One who loves realizes that
love is an experience of truth, that it opens our
35
eyes to see reality in a new way, in union with the
beloved. In this sense, Saint Gregory the Great
could write that “amor ipse notitia est ”, love is itself
a kind of knowledge possessed of its own logic.20
It is a relational way of viewing the world, which
then becomes a form of shared knowledge, vision
through the eyes of another and a shared
vision of all that exists. William of Saint-Thierry,
in the Middle Ages, follows this tradition when
he comments on the verse of the Song of Songs
where the lover says to the beloved, “Your eyes
are doves” (Song 1:15).21 The two eyes, says William,
are faith-filled reason and love, which then
become one in rising to the contemplation of
God, when our understanding becomes “an understanding
of enlightened love”.22
28. This discovery of love as a source of
knowledge, which is part of the primordial experience
of every man and woman, finds authoritative
expression in the biblical understanding of
faith. In savouring the love by which God chose
them and made them a people, Israel came to
understand the overall unity of the divine plan.
Faith-knowledge, because it is born of God’s
covenantal love, is knowledge which lights up a
path in history. That is why, in the Bible, truth
and fidelity go together: the true God is the God
20 Homiliae in Evangelia, II, 27, 4: PL 76, 1207.
21 Cf. Expositio super Cantica Canticorum, XVIII, 88: CCL,
Continuatio Mediaevalis 87, 67.
22 Ibid., XIX, 90: CCL, Continuatio Mediaevalis 87, 69.
36
of fidelity who keeps his promises and makes possible,
in time, a deeper understanding of his plan.
Through the experience of the prophets, in the
pain of exile and in the hope of a definitive return
to the holy city, Israel came to see that this divine
“truth” extended beyond the confines of its
own history, to embrace the entire history of the
world, beginning with creation. Faith-knowledge
sheds light not only on the destiny of one particular
people, but the entire history of the created
world, from its origins to its consummation.
Faith as hearing and sight
29. Precisely because faith-knowledge is linked
to the covenant with a faithful God who enters
into a relationship of love with man and speaks
his word to him, the Bible presents it as a form
of hearing; it is associated with the sense of
hearing. Saint Paul would use a formula which
became classic: fides ex auditu, “faith comes from
hearing” (Rom 10:17). Knowledge linked to a
word is always personal knowledge; it recognizes
the voice of the one speaking, opens up to
that person in freedom and follows him or her
in obedience. Paul could thus speak of the “obedience
of faith” (cf. Rom 1:5; 16:26).23 Faith is
23 “The obedience of faith (Rom 16:26; compare Rom 1:5,
2 Cor 10:5-6) must be our response to the God who reveals.
By faith one freely submits oneself entirely to God making the
full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals, and
willingly assenting to the revelation given by God. For this faith
to be accorded, we need the grace of God, anticipating it and
37
also a knowledge bound to the passage of time,
for words take time to be pronounced, and it is
a knowledge assimilated only along a journey of
discipleship. The experience of hearing can thus
help to bring out more clearly the bond between
knowledge and love.
At times, where knowledge of the truth is
concerned, hearing has been opposed to sight;
it has been claimed that an emphasis on sight
was characteristic of Greek culture. If light
makes possible that contemplation of the whole
to which humanity has always aspired, it would
also seem to leave no space for freedom, since
it comes down from heaven directly to the eye,
without calling for a response. It would also seem
to call for a kind of static contemplation, far removed
from the world of history with its joys
and sufferings. From this standpoint, the biblical
understanding of knowledge would be antithetical
to the Greek understanding, inasmuch as the
latter linked knowledge to sight in its attempt to
attain a comprehensive understanding of reality.
This alleged antithesis does not, however,
correspond to the biblical datum. The Old Testament
combined both kinds of knowledge, since
hearing God’s word is accompanied by the desire
assisting it, as well as the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who
moves the heart and converts it to God, and opens the eyes
of the mind and makes it easy for all to accept and believe the
truth. The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts,
so that revelation may be more and more deeply understood”
(second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic Constitution
on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 5).
38
to see his face. The ground was thus laid for a
dialogue with Hellenistic culture, a dialogue present
at the heart of sacred Scripture. Hearing emphasizes
personal vocation and obedience, and
the fact that truth is revealed in time. Sight provides
a vision of the entire journey and allows it
to be situated within God’s overall plan; without
this vision, we would be left only with unconnected
parts of an unknown whole.
30. The bond between seeing and hearing in
faith-knowledge is most clearly evident in John’s
Gospel. For the Fourth Gospel, to believe is
both to hear and to see. Faith’s hearing emerges
as a form of knowing proper to love: it is a
personal hearing, one which recognizes the voice
of the Good Shepherd (cf. Jn 10:3-5); it is a hearing
which calls for discipleship, as was the case
with the first disciples: “Hearing him say these
things, they followed Jesus” (Jn 1:37). But faith
is also tied to sight. Seeing the signs which Jesus
worked leads at times to faith, as in the case of
the Jews who, following the raising of Lazarus,
“having seen what he did, believed in him”
(Jn 11:45). At other times, faith itself leads to
deeper vision: “If you believe, you will see the
glory of God” (Jn 11:40). In the end, belief and
sight intersect: “Whoever believes in me believes
in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees
him who sent me” (Jn 12:44-45). Joined to hearing,
seeing then becomes a form of following
Christ, and faith appears as a process of gazing,
39
in which our eyes grow accustomed to peering
into the depths. Easter morning thus passes from
John who, standing in the early morning darkness
before the empty tomb, “saw and believed”
(Jn 20:8), to Mary Magdalene who, after seeing
Jesus (cf. Jn 20:14) and wanting to cling to him,
is asked to contemplate him as he ascends to the
Father, and finally to her full confession before
the disciples: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18).
How does one attain this synthesis between
hearing and seeing? It becomes possible through
the person of Christ himself, who can be seen
and heard. He is the Word made flesh, whose
glory we have seen (cf. Jn 1:14). The light of
faith is the light of a countenance in which the
Father is seen. In the Fourth Gospel, the truth
which faith attains is the revelation of the Father
in the Son, in his flesh and in his earthly deeds,
a truth which can be defined as the “light-filled
life” of Jesus.24 This means that faith-knowledge
does not direct our gaze to a purely inward truth.
The truth which faith discloses to us is a truth
centred on an encounter with Christ, on the contemplation
of his life and on the awareness of
his presence. Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of
the Apostles’ oculata fides — a faith which sees! --
in the presence of the body of the Risen Lord.25
With their own eyes they saw the risen Jesus and
24 Cf. H. schlier, Meditationen über den Johanneischen Begriff
der Wahrheit, in Besinnung auf das Neue Testament. Exegetische Aufsätze
und Vorträge 2, Freiburg, Basel, Wien, 1959, 272.
25 Cf. S. Th. III, q. 55, a. 2, ad 1.
40
they believed; in a word, they were able to peer
into the depths of what they were seeing and to
confess their faith in the Son of God, seated at
the right hand of the Father.
31. It was only in this way, by taking flesh, by
sharing our humanity, that the knowledge proper
to love could come to full fruition. For the light
of love is born when our hearts are touched and
we open ourselves to the interior presence of the
beloved, who enables us to recognize his mystery.
Thus we can understand why, together with
hearing and seeing, Saint John can speak of faith
as touch, as he says in his First Letter: “What we
have heard, what we have seen with our eyes and
touched with our hands, concerning the word of
life” (1 Jn 1:1). By his taking flesh and coming
among us, Jesus has touched us, and through the
sacraments he continues to touch us even today;
transforming our hearts, he unceasingly enables
us to acknowledge and acclaim him as the Son of
God. In faith, we can touch him and receive the
power of his grace. Saint Augustine, commenting
on the account of the woman suffering from
haemorrhages who touched Jesus and was cured
(cf. Lk 8:45-46), says: “To touch him with our
hearts: that is what it means to believe”.26 The
crowd presses in on Jesus, but they do not reach
him with the personal touch of faith, which apprehends
the mystery that he is the Son who re-
26 Sermo 229/L (Guelf. 14), 2 (Miscellanea Augustiniana
1, 487/488): “Tangere autem corde, hoc est credere”.
41
veals the Father. Only when we are configured to
Jesus do we receive the eyes needed to see him.
The dialogue between faith and reason
32. Christian faith, inasmuch as it proclaims
the truth of God’s total love and opens us to the
power of that love, penetrates to the core of our
human experience. Each of us comes to the light
because of love, and each of us is called to love
in order to remain in the light. Desirous of illumining
all reality with the love of God made
manifest in Jesus, and seeking to love others with
that same love, the first Christians found in the
Greek world, with its thirst for truth, an ideal
partner in dialogue. The encounter of the Gospel
message with the philosophical culture of the
ancient world proved a decisive step in the evangelization
of all peoples, and stimulated a fruitful
interaction between faith and reason which has
continued down the centuries to our own times.
Blessed John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter
Fides et Ratio, showed how faith and reason each
strengthen the other.27 Once we discover the full
light of Christ’s love, we realize that each of the
loves in our own lives had always contained a ray
of that light, and we understand its ultimate destination.
That fact that our human loves contain
that ray of light also helps us to see how all love
is meant to share in the complete self-gift of the
27 Cf. Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998),
73: AAS (1999), 61-62.
42
Son of God for our sake. In this circular movement,
the light of faith illumines all our human
relationships, which can then be lived in union
with the gentle love of Christ.
33. In the life of Saint Augustine we find a significant
example of this process whereby reason,
with its desire for truth and clarity, was integrated
into the horizon of faith and thus gained new
understanding. Augustine accepted the Greek
philosophy of light, with its insistence on the
importance of sight. His encounter with Neoplatonism
introduced him to the paradigm of the
light which, descending from on high to illumine
all reality, is a symbol of God. Augustine thus
came to appreciate God’s transcendence and discovered
that all things have a certain transparency,
that they can reflect God’s goodness. This
realization liberated him from his earlier Manichaeism,
which had led him to think that good
and evil were in constant conflict, confused and
intertwined. The realization that God is light
provided Augustine with a new direction in life
and enabled him to acknowledge his sinfulness
and to turn towards the good.
All the same, the decisive moment in Augustine’s
journey of faith, as he tells us in the
Confessions, was not in the vision of a God above
and beyond this world, but in an experience of
hearing. In the garden, he heard a voice telling
him: “Take and read”. He then took up the book
containing the epistles of Saint Paul and started
43
to read the thirteenth chapter of the Letter to
the Romans.28 In this way, the personal God of
the Bible appeared to him: a God who is able to
speak to us, to come down to dwell in our midst
and to accompany our journey through history,
making himself known in the time of hearing
and response.
Yet this encounter with the God who speaks
did not lead Augustine to reject light and seeing.
He integrated the two perspectives of hearing
and seeing, constantly guided by the revelation
of God’s love in Jesus. Thus Augustine developed
a philosophy of light capable of embracing
both the reciprocity proper to the word and the
freedom born of looking to the light. Just as the
word calls for a free response, so the light finds
a response in the image which reflects it. Augustine
can therefore associate hearing and seeing,
and speak of “the word which shines forth within”.
29 The light becomes, so to speak, the light
of a word, because it is the light of a personal
countenance, a light which, even as it enlightens
us, calls us and seeks to be reflected on our faces
and to shine from within us. Yet our longing
for the vision of the whole, and not merely of
fragments of history, remains and will be fulfilled
in the end, when, as Augustine says, we will see
and we will love.30 Not because we will be able to
lucet ”.
28 Cf. Confessiones, VIII, 12, 29: PL 32, 762.
29 De Trinitate, XV, 11, 20: PL 42, 1071: “verbum quod intus
30 Cf. De Civitate Dei, XXII, 30, 5: PL 41, 804.
44
possess all the light, which will always be inexhaustible,
but because we will enter wholly into
that light.
34. The light of love proper to faith can illumine
the questions of our own time about truth.
Truth nowadays is often reduced to the subjective
authenticity of the individual, valid only for
the life of the individual. A common truth intimidates
us, for we identify it with the intransigent
demands of totalitarian systems. But if truth is a
truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal
encounter with the Other and with others, then
it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals
and become part of the common good. As a
truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed
by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual.
Since it is born of love, it can penetrate to
the heart, to the personal core of each man and
woman. Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent,
but grows in respectful coexistence with others.
One who believes may not be presumptuous; on
the contrary, truth leads to humility, since believers
know that, rather than ourselves possessing
truth, it is truth which embraces and possesses
us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of
faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and
dialogue with all.
Nor is the light of faith, joined to the truth
of love, extraneous to the material world, for love
is always lived out in body and spirit; the light of
faith is an incarnate light radiating from the lumi45
nous life of Jesus. It also illumines the material
world, trusts its inherent order and knows that
it calls us to an ever widening path of harmony
and understanding. The gaze of science thus
benefits from faith: faith encourages the scientist
to remain constantly open to reality in all its
inexhaustible richness. Faith awakens the critical
sense by preventing research from being satisfied
with its own formulae and helps it to realize that
nature is always greater. By stimulating wonder
before the profound mystery of creation, faith
broadens the horizons of reason to shed greater
light on the world which discloses itself to scientific
investigation.
Faith and the search for God
35. The light of faith in Jesus also illumines
the path of all those who seek God, and makes
a specifically Christian contribution to dialogue
with the followers of the different religions. The
Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the witness of
those just ones who, before the covenant with
Abraham, already sought God in faith. Of Enoch
“it was attested that he had pleased God”
(Heb 11:5), something impossible apart from
faith, for “whoever would approach God must
believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who seek him” (Heb 11:6). We can see from this
that the path of religious man passes through
the acknowledgment of a God who cares for us
and is not impossible to find. What other reward
can God give to those who seek him, if not to
let himself be found? Even earlier, we encounter
46
Abel, whose faith was praised and whose
gifts, his offering of the firstlings of his flock
(cf. Heb 11:4), were therefore pleasing to God.
Religious man strives to see signs of God in the
daily experiences of life, in the cycle of the seasons,
in the fruitfulness of the earth and in the
movement of the cosmos. God is light and he
can be found also by those who seek him with a
sincere heart.
An image of this seeking can be seen in the
Magi, who were led to Bethlehem by the star
(cf. Mt 2:1-12). For them God’s light appeared
as a journey to be undertaken, a star which led
them on a path of discovery. The star is a sign of
God’s patience with our eyes which need to grow
accustomed to his brightness. Religious man is a
wayfarer; he must be ready to let himself be led,
to come out of himself and to find the God of
perpetual surprises. This respect on God’s part
for our human eyes shows us that when we draw
near to God, our human lights are not dissolved
in the immensity of his light, as a star is engulfed
by the dawn, but shine all the more brightly the
closer they approach the primordial fire, like a
mirror which reflects light. Christian faith in Jesus,
the one Saviour of the world, proclaims that
all God’s light is concentrated in him, in his “luminous
life” which discloses the origin and the
end of history.31 There is no human experience,
31 Cf. congregaTion for The DocTrine of The FaiTh,
Declaration Dominus Iesus (6 August 2000), 15: AAS 92 (2000),
756.
47
no journey of man to God, which cannot be taken
up, illumined and purified by this light. The
more Christians immerse themselves in the circle
of Christ’s light, the more capable they become
of understanding and accompanying the path of
every man and woman towards God.
Because faith is a way, it also has to do with
the lives of those men and women who, though
not believers, nonetheless desire to believe and
continue to seek. To the extent that they are sincerely
open to love and set out with whatever
light they can find, they are already, even without
knowing it, on the path leading to faith. They
strive to act as if God existed, at times because
they realize how important he is for finding a
sure compass for our life in common or because
they experience a desire for light amid darkness,
but also because in perceiving life’s grandeur
and beauty they intuit that the presence of God
would make it all the more beautiful. Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons tells how Abraham, before hearing
God’s voice, had already sought him “in the
ardent desire of his heart” and “went throughout
the whole world, asking himself where God
was to be found”, until “God had pity on him
who, all alone, had sought him in silence”.32 Anyone
who sets off on the path of doing good to
others is already drawing near to God, is already
sustained by his help, for it is characteristic of
the divine light to brighten our eyes whenever we
walk towards the fullness of love.
32 Demonstratio Apostolicae Predicationis, 24: SC 406, 117.
48
Faith and theology
36. Since faith is a light, it draws us into itself,
inviting us to explore ever more fully the horizon
which it illumines, all the better to know the
object of our love. Christian theology is born of
this desire. Clearly, theology is impossible without
faith; it is part of the very process of faith,
which seeks an ever deeper understanding of
God’s self-disclosure culminating in Christ. It
follows that theology is more than simply an effort
of human reason to analyze and understand,
along the lines of the experimental sciences. God
cannot be reduced to an object. He is a subject
who makes himself known and perceived in an
interpersonal relationship. Right faith orients
reason to open itself to the light which comes
from God, so that reason, guided by love of the
truth, can come to a deeper knowledge of God.
The great medieval theologians and teachers
rightly held that theology, as a science of faith, is
a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself.
It is not just our discourse about God, but
first and foremost the acceptance and the pursuit
of a deeper understanding of the word which
God speaks to us, the word which God speaks
about himself, for he is an eternal dialogue of
communion, and he allows us to enter into this
dialogue.33 Theology thus demands the humili-
33 Cf. BonaVenTure, Breviloquium, prol.: Opera Omnia, V,
Quaracchi 1891, 201; In I Sent., proem, q. 1, resp.: Opera Omnia,
I, Quaracchi 1891, 7; Thomas aquinas, S. Th I, q.1.
49
ty to be “touched” by God, admitting its own
limitations before the mystery, while striving to
investigate, with the discipline proper to reason,
the inexhaustible riches of this mystery.
Theology also shares in the ecclesial form
of faith; its light is the light of the believing subject
which is the Church. This implies, on the one
hand, that theology must be at the service of the
faith of Christians, that it must work humbly to
protect and deepen the faith of everyone, especially
ordinary believers. On the other hand, because
it draws its life from faith, theology cannot consider
the magisterium of the Pope and the bishops
in communion with him as something extrinsic,
a limitation of its freedom, but rather as one of
its internal, constitutive dimensions, for the magisterium
ensures our contact with the primordial
source and thus provides the certainty of attaining
to the word of Christ in all its integrity.
51
CHAPTER THREE
I DELIVERED TO YOU
WHAT I ALSO RECEIVED
(cf. 1 Cor 15:3)
The Church, mother of our faith
37. Those who have opened their hearts to
God’s love, heard his voice and received his light,
cannot keep this gift to themselves. Since faith is
hearing and seeing, it is also handed on as word
and light. Addressing the Corinthians, Saint Paul
used these two very images. On the one hand
he says: “But just as we have the same spirit of
faith that is in accordance with scripture — ‘I believed,
and so I spoke’ — we also believe, and so
we speak” (2 Cor 4:13). The word, once accepted,
becomes a response, a confession of faith,
which spreads to others and invites them to believe.
Paul also uses the image of light: “All of
us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the
Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being
transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18).
It is a light reflected from one face to another,
even as Moses himself bore a reflection of God’s
glory after having spoken with him: “God… has
shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ”
(2 Cor 4:6). The light of Christ shines, as in a
mirror, upon the face of Christians; as it spreads,
it comes down to us, so that we too can share
in that vision and reflect that light to others, in
52
the same way that, in the Easter liturgy, the light
of the paschal candle lights countless other candles.
Faith is passed on, we might say, by contact,
from one person to another, just as one candle is
lighted from another. Christians, in their poverty,
plant a seed so rich that it becomes a great tree,
capable of filling the world with its fruit.
38. The transmission of the faith not only
brings light to men and women in every place;
it travels through time, passing from one generation
to another. Because faith is born of an
encounter which takes place in history and lights
up our journey through time, it must be passed
on in every age. It is through an unbroken chain
of witnesses that we come to see the face of Jesus.
But how is this possible? How can we be
certain, after all these centuries, that we have encountered
the “real Jesus”? Were we merely isolated
individuals, were our starting point simply
our own individual ego seeking in itself the basis
of absolutely sure knowledge, a certainty of
this sort would be impossible. I cannot possibly
verify for myself something which happened so
long ago. But this is not the only way we attain
knowledge. Persons always live in relationship.
We come from others, we belong to others, and
our lives are enlarged by our encounter with others.
Even our own knowledge and self-awareness
are relational; they are linked to others who have
gone before us: in the first place, our parents,
who gave us our life and our name. Language
53
itself, the words by which we make sense of our
lives and the world around us, comes to us from
others, preserved in the living memory of others.
Self-knowledge is only possible when we share in
a greater memory. The same thing holds true for
faith, which brings human understanding to its
fullness. Faith’s past, that act of Jesus’ love which
brought new life to the world, comes down to us
through the memory of others — witnesses --
and is kept alive in that one remembering subject
which is the Church. The Church is a Mother
who teaches us to speak the language of faith.
Saint John brings this out in his Gospel by closely
uniting faith and memory and associating both
with the working of the Holy Spirit, who, as Jesus
says, “will remind you of all that I have said
to you” (Jn 14:26). The love which is the Holy
Spirit and which dwells in the Church unites every
age and makes us contemporaries of Jesus,
thus guiding us along our pilgrimage of faith.
39. It is impossible to believe on our own. Faith
is not simply an individual decision which takes
place in the depths of the believer’s heart, nor a
completely private relationship between the “I”
of the believer and the divine “Thou”, between
an autonomous subject and God. By its very nature,
faith is open to the “We” of the Church; it
always takes place within her communion. We are
reminded of this by the dialogical format of the
creed used in the baptismal liturgy. Our belief is
expressed in response to an invitation, to a word
54
which must be heard and which is not my own; it
exists as part of a dialogue and cannot be merely
a profession originating in an individual. We can
respond in the singular — “I believe” — only
because we are part of a greater fellowship, only
because we also say “We believe”. This openness
to the ecclesial “We” reflects the openness of
God’s own love, which is not only a relationship
between the Father and the Son, between an “I”
and a “Thou”, but is also, in the Spirit, a “We”, a
communion of persons. Here we see why those
who believe are never alone, and why faith tends
to spread, as it invites others to share in its joy.
Those who receive faith discover that their horizons
expand as new and enriching relationships
come to life. Tertullian puts this well when he describes
the catechumens who, “after the cleansing
which gives new birth” are welcomed into
the house of their mother and, as part of a new
family, pray the Our Father together with their
brothers and sisters.34
The sacraments and the transmission of faith
40. The Church, like every family, passes on to
her children the whole store of her memories. But
how does this come about in a way that nothing
is lost, but rather everything in the patrimony of
faith comes to be more deeply understood? It is
through the apostolic Tradition preserved in the
34 Cf. De Baptismo, 20, 5: CCL 1, 295.
55
Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit that
we enjoy a living contact with the foundational
memory. What was handed down by the apostles
— as the Second Vatican Council states --
“comprises everything that serves to make the
people of God live their lives in holiness and increase
their faith. In this way the Church, in her
doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits
to every generation all that she herself is, all
that she believes”.35
Faith, in fact, needs a setting in which it can
be witnessed to and communicated, a means
which is suitable and proportionate to what is
communicated. For transmitting a purely doctrinal
content, an idea might suffice, or perhaps
a book, or the repetition of a spoken message.
But what is communicated in the Church, what
is handed down in her living Tradition, is the new
light born of an encounter with the true God,
a light which touches us at the core of our being
and engages our minds, wills and emotions,
opening us to relationships lived in communion.
There is a special means for passing down this
fullness, a means capable of engaging the entire
person, body and spirit, interior life and relationships
with others. It is the sacraments, celebrated
in the Church’s liturgy. The sacraments communicate
an incarnate memory, linked to the times
and places of our lives, linked to all our senses; in
35 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum,
8.
56
them the whole person is engaged as a member
of a living subject and part of a network of communitarian
relationships. While the sacraments
are indeed sacraments of faith,36 it can also be
said that faith itself possesses a sacramental
structure. The awakening of faith is linked to the
dawning of a new sacramental sense in our lives
as human beings and as Christians, in which visible
and material realities are seen to point beyond
themselves to the mystery of the eternal.
41. The transmission of faith occurs first and
foremost in baptism. Some might think that baptism
is merely a way of symbolizing the confession
of faith, a pedagogical tool for those who
require images and signs, while in itself ultimately
unnecessary. An observation of Saint Paul
about baptism reminds us that this is not the
case. Paul states that “we were buried with him
by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).
In baptism we become a new creation and God’s
adopted children. The Apostle goes on to say
that Christians have been entrusted to a “standard
of teaching” (týpos didachés), which they now
obey from the heart (cf. Rom 6:17). In baptism
we receive both a teaching to be professed and a
specific way of life which demands the engagement
of the whole person and sets us on the path
36 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council,
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 59.
57
to goodness. Those who are baptized are set in
a new context, entrusted to a new environment,
a new and shared way of acting, in the Church.
Baptism makes us see, then, that faith is not the
achievement of isolated individuals; it is not an
act which someone can perform on his own, but
rather something which must be received by entering
into the ecclesial communion which transmits
God’s gift. No one baptizes himself, just as
no one comes into the world by himself. Baptism
is something we receive.
42. What are the elements of baptism which
introduce us into this new “standard of teaching”?
First, the name of the Trinity — the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit — is invoked upon
the catechumen. Thus, from the outset, a synthesis
of the journey of faith is provided. The God
who called Abraham and wished to be called his
God, the God who revealed his name to Moses,
the God who, in giving us his Son, revealed fully
the mystery of his Name, now bestows upon the
baptized a new filial identity. This is clearly seen
in the act of baptism itself: immersion in water.
Water is at once a symbol of death, inviting us to
pass through self-conversion to a new and greater
identity, and a symbol of life, of a womb in
which we are reborn by following Christ in his
new life. In this way, through immersion in water,
baptism speaks to us of the incarnational structure
of faith. Christ’s work penetrates the depths
of our being and transforms us radically, making
58
us adopted children of God and sharers in the
divine nature. It thus modifies all our relationships,
our place in this world and in the universe,
and opens them to God’s own life of communion.
This change which takes place in baptism
helps us to appreciate the singular importance of
the catechumenate — whereby growing numbers
of adults, even in societies with ancient Christian
roots, now approach the sacrament of baptism
— for the new evangelization. It is the road of
preparation for baptism, for the transformation
of our whole life in Christ.
To appreciate this link between baptism and
faith, we can recall a text of the prophet Isaiah,
which was associated with baptism in early Christian
literature: “Their refuge will be the fortresses
of rocks… their water assured” (Is 33:16).37 The
baptized, rescued from the waters of death, were
now set on a “fortress of rock” because they had
found a firm and reliable foundation. The waters
of death were thus transformed into waters of
life. The Greek text, in speaking of that water
which is “assured”, uses the word pistós, “faithful”.
The waters of baptism are indeed faithful
and trustworthy, for they flow with the power of
Christ’s love, the source of our assurance in the
journey of life.
43. The structure of baptism, its form as a rebirth
in which we receive a new name and a new
37 Cf. Epistula Barnabae, 11, 5: SC 172, 162
59
life, helps us to appreciate the meaning and importance
of infant baptism. Children are not capable
of accepting the faith by a free act, nor are
they yet able to profess that faith on their own;
therefore the faith is professed by their parents
and godparents in their name. Since faith is a reality
lived within the community of the Church,
part of a common “We”, children can be supported
by others, their parents and godparents,
and welcomed into their faith, which is the faith
of the Church; this is symbolized by the candle
which the child’s father lights from the paschal
candle. The structure of baptism, then, demonstrates
the critical importance of cooperation
between Church and family in passing on the
faith. Parents are called, as Saint Augustine once
said, not only to bring children into the world but
also to bring them to God, so that through baptism
they can be reborn as children of God and
receive the gift of faith.38 Thus, along with life,
children are given a fundamental orientation and
assured of a good future; this orientation will be
further strengthened in the sacrament of Confirmation
with the seal of the Holy Spirit.
44. The sacramental character of faith finds its
highest expression in the Eucharist. The Eucharist
is a precious nourishment for faith: an encounter
with Christ truly present in the supreme
38 Cf. De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia I, 4, 5: PL 44, 413:
“Habent quippe intentionem generandi regenerandos, ut qui ex eis saeculi
filii nascuntur in Dei filios renascantur”.
60
act of his love, the life-giving gift of himself. In
the Eucharist we find the intersection of faith’s
two dimensions. On the one hand, there is the
dimension of history: the Eucharist is an act of
remembrance, a making present of the mystery
in which the past, as an event of death and resurrection,
demonstrates its ability to open up a
future, to foreshadow ultimate fulfilment. The
liturgy reminds us of this by its repetition of
the word hodie, the “today” of the mysteries of
salvation. On the other hand, we also find the
dimension which leads from the visible world
to the invisible. In the Eucharist we learn to see
the heights and depths of reality. The bread and
wine are changed into the body and blood of
Christ, who becomes present in his passover to
the Father: this movement draws us, body and
soul, into the movement of all creation towards
its fulfilment in God.
45. In the celebration of the sacraments, the
Church hands down her memory especially
through the profession of faith. The creed does
not only involve giving one’s assent to a body
of abstract truths; rather, when it is recited the
whole of life is drawn into a journey towards full
communion with the living God. We can say that
in the creed believers are invited to enter into
the mystery which they profess and to be transformed
by it. To understand what this means,
let us look first at the contents of the creed. It
has a trinitarian structure: the Father and the Son
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are united in the Spirit of love. The believer thus
states that the core of all being, the inmost secret
of all reality, is the divine communion. The creed
also contains a christological confession: it takes
us through all the mysteries of Christ’s life up to
his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven
before his final return in glory. It tells us that this
God of communion, reciprocal love between the
Father and the Son in the Spirit, is capable of
embracing all of human history and drawing it
into the dynamic unity of the Godhead, which
has its source and fulfillment in the Father. The
believer who professes his or her faith is taken
up, as it were, into the truth being professed. He
or she cannot truthfully recite the words of the
creed without being changed, without becoming
part of that history of love which embraces us
and expands our being, making it part of a great
fellowship, the ultimate subject which recites
the creed, namely, the Church. All the truths in
which we believe point to the mystery of the new
life of faith as a journey of communion with the
living God.
Faith, prayer and the Decalogue
46. Two other elements are essential in the
faithful transmission of the Church’s memory.
First, the Lord’s Prayer, the “Our Father”. Here
Christians learn to share in Christ’s own spiritual
experience and to see all things through his eyes.
From him who is light from light, the onlybegotten
Son of the Father, we come to know
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God and can thus kindle in others the desire to
draw near to him.
Similarly important is the link between faith
and the Decalogue. Faith, as we have said, takes
the form of a journey, a path to be followed, which
begins with an encounter with the living God. It
is in the light of faith, of complete entrustment to
the God who saves, that the Ten Commandments
take on their deepest truth, as seen in the words
which introduce them: “I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex
20:2). The Decalogue is not a set of negative commands,
but concrete directions for emerging from
the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in
order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced
by his mercy and then to bring that mercy
to others. Faith thus professes the love of God,
origin and upholder of all things, and lets itself be
guided by this love in order to journey towards the
fullness of communion with God. The Decalogue
appears as the path of gratitude, the response of
love, made possible because in faith we are receptive
to the experience of God’s transforming love
for us. And this path receives new light from Jesus’
teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5-7).
These, then, are the four elements which
comprise the storehouse of memory which the
Church hands down: the profession of faith, the
celebration of the sacraments, the path of the ten
commandments, and prayer. The Church’s catechesis
has traditionally been structured around
these four elements; this includes the Catechism of
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the Catholic Church, which is a fundamental aid for
that unitary act with which the Church communicates
the entire content of her faith: “all that
she herself is, and all that she believes”.39
The unity and integrity of faith
47. The unity of the Church in time and space
is linked to the unity of the faith: “there is one
body and one Spirit… one faith” (Eph 4:4-5).
These days we can imagine a group of people
being united in a common cause, in mutual affection,
in sharing the same destiny and a single
purpose. But we find it hard to conceive of a
unity in one truth. We tend to think that a unity
of this sort is incompatible with freedom of
thought and personal autonomy. Yet the experience
of love shows us that a common vision is
possible, for through love we learn how to see
reality through the eyes of others, not as something
which impoverishes but instead enriches
our vision. Genuine love, after the fashion of
God’s love, ultimately requires truth, and the
shared contemplation of the truth which is Jesus
Christ enables love to become deep and enduring.
This is also the great joy of faith: a unity of
vision in one body and one spirit. Saint Leo the
Great could say: “If faith is not one, then it is
not faith”.40
39 second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 8.
40 In Nativitate Domini Sermo, 4, 6: SC 22, 110.
64
What is the secret of this unity? Faith is
“one”, in the first place, because of the oneness
of the God who is known and confessed. All the
articles of faith speak of God; they are ways to
know him and his works. Consequently, their unity
is far superior to any possible construct of human
reason. They possess a unity which enriches us because
it is given to us and makes us one.
Faith is also one because it is directed to the
one Lord, to the life of Jesus, to the concrete
history which he shares with us. Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons made this clear in his struggle against
Gnosticism. The Gnostics held that there are
two kinds of faith: a crude, imperfect faith suited
to the masses, which remained at the level of
Jesus’ flesh and the contemplation of his mysteries;
and a deeper, perfect faith reserved to a small
circle of initiates who were intellectually capable
of rising above the flesh of Jesus towards the
mysteries of the unknown divinity. In opposition
to this claim, which even today exerts a certain
attraction and has its followers, Saint Irenaeus insisted
that there is but one faith, for it is grounded
in the concrete event of the incarnation and can
never transcend the flesh and history of Christ,
inasmuch as God willed to reveal himself fully
in that flesh. For this reason, he says, there is no
difference in the faith of “those able to discourse
of it at length” and “those who speak but little”,
between the greater and the less: the first cannot
increase the faith, nor the second diminish it.41
41 Cf. irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I, 10, 2: SC 264, 160.
65
Finally, faith is one because it is shared by
the whole Church, which is one body and one
Spirit. In the communion of the one subject
which is the Church, we receive a common gaze.
By professing the same faith, we stand firm on
the same rock, we are transformed by the same
Spirit of love, we radiate one light and we have a
single insight into reality.
48. Since faith is one, it must be professed in all
its purity and integrity. Precisely because all the
articles of faith are interconnected, to deny one
of them, even of those that seem least important,
is tantamount to distorting the whole. Each
period of history can find this or that point of
faith easier or harder to accept: hence the need
for vigilance in ensuring that the deposit of faith
is passed on in its entirety (cf. 1 Tim 6:20) and that
all aspects of the profession of faith are duly emphasized.
Indeed, inasmuch as the unity of faith
is the unity of the Church, to subtract something
from the faith is to subtract something from the
veracity of communion. The Fathers described
faith as a body, the body of truth composed of
various members, by analogy with the body of
Christ and its prolongation in the Church.42 The
integrity of the faith was also tied to the image
of the Church as a virgin and her fidelity in love
for Christ her spouse; harming the faith means
harming communion with the Lord.43 The unity
42 Cf. ibid., II, 27, 1: SC 294, 264.
43 Cf. augusTine, De Sancta Virginitate, 48, 48: PL 40, 424-
66
of faith, then, is the unity of a living body; this
was clearly brought out by Blessed John Henry
Newman when he listed among the characteristic
notes for distinguishing the continuity of doctrine
over time its power to assimilate everything
that it meets in the various settings in which it
becomes present and in the diverse cultures
which it encounters,44 purifying all things and
bringing them to their finest expression. Faith is
thus shown to be universal, catholic, because its
light expands in order to illumine the entire cosmos
and all of history.
49. As a service to the unity of faith and its
integral transmission, the Lord gave his Church
the gift of apostolic succession. Through this
means, the continuity of the Church’s memory
is ensured and certain access can be had to the
wellspring from which faith flows. The assurance
of continuity with the origins is thus given by
living persons, in a way consonant with the living
faith which the Church is called to transmit. She
depends on the fidelity of witnesses chosen by
the Lord for this task. For this reason, the magisterium
always speaks in obedience to the prior
word on which faith is based; it is reliable because
of its trust in the word which it hears, preserves
425: “Servatur et in fide inviolata quaedam castitas virginalis, qua Ecclesia
uni viro virgo casta coaptatur”.
44 Cf. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Uniform
Edition: Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1868-
1881), 185-189.
67
and expounds.45 In Saint Paul’s farewell discourse
to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, which Saint
Luke recounts for us in the Acts of the Apostles,
he testifies that he had carried out the task which
the Lord had entrusted to him of “declaring the
whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Thanks to
the Church’s magisterium, this counsel can come
to us in its integrity, and with it the joy of being
able to follow it fully.
45 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 10.
69
CHAPTER FOUR
GOD PREPARES A CITY FOR THEM
(cf. Heb 11:16)
Faith and the common good
50. In presenting the story of the patriarchs
and the righteous men and women of the Old
Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews highlights
an essential aspect of their faith. That faith is not
only presented as a journey, but also as a process
of building, the preparing of a place in which
human beings can dwell together with one another.
The first builder was Noah who saved his
family in the ark (Heb 11:7). Then comes Abraham,
of whom it is said that by faith he dwelt in
tents, as he looked forward to the city with firm
foundations (cf. Heb 11:9-10). With faith comes
a new reliability, a new firmness, which God
alone can give. If the man of faith finds support
in the God of fidelity, the God who is Amen
(cf. Is 65:16), and thus becomes firm himself, we
can now also say that firmness of faith marks the
city which God is preparing for mankind. Faith
reveals just how firm the bonds between people
can be when God is present in their midst. Faith
does not merely grant interior firmness, a steadfast
conviction on the part of the believer; it also
sheds light on every human relationship because
it is born of love and reflects God’s own love.
The God who is himself reliable gives us a city
which is reliable.
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51. Precisely because it is linked to love (cf. Gal
5:6), the light of faith is concretely placed at the
service of justice, law and peace. Faith is born of
an encounter with God’s primordial love, wherein
the meaning and goodness of our life become
evident; our life is illumined to the extent that it
enters into the space opened by that love, to the
extent that it becomes, in other words, a path and
praxis leading to the fullness of love. The light of
faith is capable of enhancing the richness of human
relations, their ability to endure, to be trustworthy,
to enrich our life together. Faith does not
draw us away from the world or prove irrelevant
to the concrete concerns of the men and women
of our time. Without a love which is trustworthy,
nothing could truly keep men and women united.
Human unity would be conceivable only on
the basis of utility, on a calculus of conflicting
interests or on fear, but not on the goodness of
living together, not on the joy which the mere
presence of others can give. Faith makes us appreciate
the architecture of human relationships
because it grasps their ultimate foundation and
definitive destiny in God, in his love, and thus
sheds light on the art of building; as such it becomes
a service to the common good. Faith is
truly a good for everyone; it is a common good.
Its light does not simply brighten the interior
of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build
an eternal city in the hereafter; it helps us build
our societies in such a way that they can journey
towards a future of hope. The Letter to the
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Hebrews offers an example in this regard when
it names, among the men and women of faith,
Samuel and David, whose faith enabled them to
“administer justice” (Heb 11:33). This expression
refers to their justice in governance, to that wisdom
which brings peace to the people (cf. 1 Sam
12:3-5; 2 Sam 8:15). The hands of faith are raised
up to heaven, even as they go about building in
charity a city based on relationships in which the
love of God is laid as a foundation.
Faith and the family
52. In Abraham’s journey towards the future
city, the Letter to the Hebrews mentions the
blessing which was passed on from fathers to
sons (cf. Heb 11:20-21). The first setting in which
faith enlightens the human city is the family. I
think first and foremost of the stable union of
man and woman in marriage. This union is born
of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s
own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance
of the goodness of sexual differentiation,
whereby spouses can become one flesh
(cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a
new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness,
wisdom and loving plan. Grounded in this
love, a man and a woman can promise each other
mutual love in a gesture which engages their
entire lives and mirrors many features of faith.
Promising love for ever is possible when we perceive
a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings,
a plan which sustains us and enables
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us to surrender our future entirely to the one we
love. Faith also helps us to grasp in all its depth
and richness the begetting of children, as a sign
of the love of the Creator who entrusts us with
the mystery of a new person. So it was that Sarah,
by faith, became a mother, for she trusted in
God’s fidelity to his promise (cf. Heb 11:11).
53. In the family, faith accompanies every age
of life, beginning with childhood: children learn
to trust in the love of their parents. This is why it
is so important that within their families parents
encourage shared expressions of faith which can
help children gradually to mature in their own
faith. Young people in particular, who are going
through a period in their lives which is so complex,
rich and important for their faith, ought to
feel the constant closeness and support of their
families and the Church in their journey of faith.
We have all seen, during World Youth Days, the
joy that young people show in their faith and
their desire for an ever more solid and generous
life of faith. Young people want to live life to the
fullest. Encountering Christ, letting themselves
be caught up in and guided by his love, enlarges
the horizons of existence, gives it a firm hope
which will not disappoint. Faith is no refuge for
the fainthearted, but something which enhances
our lives. It makes us aware of a magnificent calling,
the vocation of love. It assures us that this
love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for it
is based on God’s faithfulness which is stronger
than our every weakness.
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A light for life in society
54. Absorbed and deepened in the family, faith
becomes a light capable of illumining all our relationships
in society. As an experience of the
mercy of God the Father, it sets us on the path
of brotherhood. Modernity sought to build a
universal brotherhood based on equality, yet we
gradually came to realize that this brotherhood,
lacking a reference to a common Father as its
ultimate foundation, cannot endure. We need to
return to the true basis of brotherhood. The history
of faith has been from the beginning a history
of brotherhood, albeit not without conflict.
God calls Abraham to go forth from his land and
promises to make of him a great nation, a great
people on whom the divine blessing rests (cf.
Gen 12:1-3). As salvation history progresses, it becomes
evident that God wants to make everyone
share as brothers and sisters in that one blessing,
which attains its fullness in Jesus, so that all
may be one. The boundless love of our Father
also comes to us, in Jesus, through our brothers
and sisters. Faith teaches us to see that every man
and woman represents a blessing for me, that the
light of God’s face shines on me through the faces
of my brothers and sisters.
How many benefits has the gaze of Christian
faith brought to the city of men for their
common life! Thanks to faith we have come to
understand the unique dignity of each person,
something which was not clearly seen in antiquity.
In the second century the pagan Celsus
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reproached Christians for an idea that he considered
foolishness and delusion: namely, that God
created the world for man, setting human beings
at the pinnacle of the entire cosmos. “Why claim
that [grass] grows for the benefit of man, rather
than for that of the most savage of the brute
beasts?”46 “If we look down to Earth from the
heights of heaven, would there really be any difference
between our activities and those of the
ants and bees?”47 At the heart of biblical faith is
God’s love, his concrete concern for every person,
and his plan of salvation which embraces
all of humanity and all creation, culminating in
the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Without insight into these realities,
there is no criterion for discerning what makes
human life precious and unique. Man loses his
place in the universe, he is cast adrift in nature,
either renouncing his proper moral responsibility
or else presuming to be a sort of absolute judge,
endowed with an unlimited power to manipulate
the world around him.
55. Faith, on the other hand, by revealing the
love of God the Creator, enables us to respect
nature all the more, and to discern in it a grammar
written by the hand of God and a dwelling
place entrusted to our protection and care. Faith
also helps us to devise models of development
which are based not simply on utility and prof-
46 origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 75: SC 136, 372.
47 Ibid., 85: SC 136, 394.
75
it, but consider creation as a gift for which we
are all indebted; it teaches us to create just forms
of government, in the realization that authority
comes from God and is meant for the service of
the common good. Faith likewise offers the possibility
of forgiveness, which so often demands
time and effort, patience and commitment. Forgiveness
is possible once we discover that goodness
is always prior to and more powerful than
evil, and that the word with which God affirms
our life is deeper than our every denial. From a
purely anthropological standpoint, unity is superior
to conflict; rather than avoiding conflict, we
need to confront it in an effort to resolve and
move beyond it, to make it a link in a chain, as
part of a progress towards unity.
When faith is weakened, the foundations of
life also risk being weakened, as the poet T.S.
Eliot warned: “Do you need to be told that even
those modest attainments / As you can boast in
the way of polite society / Will hardly survive
the Faith to which they owe their significance?”
48 If we remove faith in God from
our cities, mutual trust would be weakened, we
would remain united only by fear and our stability
would be threatened. In the Letter to the
Hebrews we read that “God is not ashamed to be
called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city
for them” (Heb 11:16). Here the expression “is
48 “Choruses from The Rock”, in The Collected Poems and
Plays 1909-1950, New York, 1980, 106.
76
not ashamed” is associated with public acknowledgment.
The intention is to say that God, by his
concrete actions, makes a public avowal that he is
present in our midst and that he desires to solidify
every human relationship. Could it be the case,
instead, that we are the ones who are ashamed to
call God our God? That we are the ones who fail
to confess him as such in our public life, who fail
to propose the grandeur of the life in common
which he makes possible? Faith illumines life and
society. If it possesses a creative light for each
new moment of history, it is because it sets every
event in relationship to the origin and destiny of
all things in the Father.
Consolation and strength amid suffering
56. Writing to the Christians of Corinth about
his sufferings and tribulations, Saint Paul links his
faith to his preaching of the Gospel. In himself
he sees fulfilled the passage of Scripture which
reads: “I believed, and so I spoke” (2 Cor 4:13).
The reference is to a verse of Psalm 116, in which
the psalmist exclaims: “I kept my faith, even
when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted’” (v. 10). To
speak of faith often involves speaking of painful
testing, yet it is precisely in such testing that Paul
sees the most convincing proclamation of the
Gospel, for it is in weakness and suffering that
we discover God’s power which triumphs over
our weakness and suffering. The apostle himself
experienced a dying which would become life
for Christians (cf. 2 Cor 4:7-12). In the hour of
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trial faith brings light, while suffering and weakness
make it evident that “we do not proclaim
ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord”
(2 Cor 4:5). The eleventh chapter of the Letter to
the Hebrews concludes with a reference to those
who suffered for their faith (cf. Heb 11:35-38);
outstanding among these was Moses, who suffered
abuse for the Christ (cf. v. 26). Christians
know that suffering cannot be eliminated, yet
it can have meaning and become an act of love
and entrustment into the hands of God who
does not abandon us; in this way it can serve as
a moment of growth in faith and love. By contemplating
Christ’s union with the Father even
at the height of his sufferings on the cross (cf.
Mk 15:34), Christians learn to share in the same
gaze of Jesus. Even death is illumined and can
be experienced as the ultimate call to faith, the
ultimate “Go forth from your land” (Gen 12:1),
the ultimate “Come!” spoken by the Father, to
whom we abandon ourselves in the confidence
that he will keep us steadfast even in our final
passage.
57. Nor does the light of faith make us forget
the sufferings of this world. How many men and
women of faith have found mediators of light in
those who suffer! So it was with Saint Francis of
Assisi and the leper, or with Blessed Mother Teresa
of Calcutta and her poor. They understood
the mystery at work in them. In drawing near to the
suffering, they were certainly not able to eliminate
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all their pain or to explain every evil. Faith is not
a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp
which guides our steps in the night and suffices
for the journey. To those who suffer, God does
not provide arguments which explain everything;
rather, his response is that of an accompanying
presence, a history of goodness which touches
every story of suffering and opens up a ray of
light. In Christ, God himself wishes to share this
path with us and to offer us his gaze so that we
might see the light within it. Christ is the one who,
having endured suffering, is “the pioneer and perfecter
of our faith” (Heb 12:2).
Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to
the common good is always one of hope — a
hope which looks ever ahead in the knowledge
that only from God, from the future which
comes from the risen Jesus, can our society find
solid and lasting foundations. In this sense faith
is linked to hope, for even if our dwelling place
here below is wasting away, we have an eternal
dwelling place which God has already prepared
in Christ, in his body (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-5:5). The
dynamic of faith, hope and charity (cf. 1 Th 1:3;
1 Cor 13:13) thus leads us to embrace the concerns
of all men and women on our journey
towards that city “whose architect and builder
is God” (Heb 11:10), for “hope does not disappoint”
(Rom 5:5).
In union with faith and charity, hope propels
us towards a sure future, set against a different
horizon with regard to the illusory enticements
79
of the idols of this world yet granting new momentum
and strength to our daily lives. Let us
refuse to be robbed of hope, or to allow our
hope to be dimmed by facile answers and solutions
which block our progress, “fragmenting”
time and changing it into space. Time is always
much greater than space. Space hardens processes,
whereas time propels towards the future and
encourages us to go forward in hope.
Blessed is she who believed (Lk 1:45)
58. In the parable of the sower, Saint Luke
has left us these words of the Lord about the
“good soil”: “These are the ones who when they
hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good
heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance”
(Lk 8:15). In the context of Luke’s Gospel, this
mention of an honest and good heart which
hears and keeps the word is an implicit portrayal
of the faith of the Virgin Mary. The evangelist
himself speaks of Mary’s memory, how she
treasured in her heart all that she had heard and
seen, so that the word could bear fruit in her life.
The Mother of the Lord is the perfect icon of
faith; as Saint Elizabeth would say: “Blessed is
she who believed” (Lk 1:45).
In Mary, the Daughter of Zion, is fulfilled
the long history of faith of the Old Testament,
with its account of so many faithful women, beginning
with Sarah: women who, alongside the
patriarchs, were those in whom God’s promise
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was fulfilled and new life flowered. In the fullness
of time, God’s word was spoken to Mary
and she received that word into her heart, her entire
being, so that in her womb it could take flesh
and be born as light for humanity. Saint Justin
Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, uses a striking
expression; he tells us that Mary, receiving
the message of the angel, conceived “faith and
joy”.49 In the Mother of Jesus, faith demonstrated
its fruitfulness; when our own spiritual lives
bear fruit we become filled with joy, which is the
clearest sign of faith’s grandeur. In her own life
Mary completed the pilgrimage of faith, following
in the footsteps of her Son.50 In her the faith
journey of the Old Testament was thus taken up
into the following of Christ, transformed by him
and entering into the gaze of the incarnate Son
of God.
59. We can say that in the Blessed Virgin Mary
we find something I mentioned earlier, namely
that the believer is completely taken up into
his or her confession of faith. Because of her
close bond with Jesus, Mary is strictly connected
to what we believe. As Virgin and Mother, Mary
offers us a clear sign of Christ’s divine sonship.
The eternal origin of Christ is in the Father. He
is the Son in a total and unique sense, and so
he is born in time without the intervention of
49 Cf. Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 100, 5: PG 6, 710.
50 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 58.
81
a man. As the Son, Jesus brings to the world a
new beginning and a new light, the fullness of
God’s faithful love bestowed on humanity. But
Mary’s true motherhood also ensured for the Son
of God an authentic human history, true flesh in
which he would die on the cross and rise from the
dead. Mary would accompany Jesus to the cross
(cf. Jn 19:25), whence her motherhood would extend
to each of his disciples (cf. Jn 19:26-27). She
will also be present in the upper room after Jesus’
resurrection and ascension, joining the apostles
in imploring the gift of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14).
The movement of love between Father, Son and
Spirit runs through our history, and Christ draws
us to himself in order to save us (cf. Jn 12:32). At
the centre of our faith is the confession of Jesus,
the Son of God, born of a woman, who brings
us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, to adoption
as sons and daughters (cf. Gal 4:4).
60. Let us turn in prayer to Mary, Mother of
the Church and Mother of our faith.
Mother, help our faith!
Open our ears to hear God’s word and to
recognize his voice and call.
Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps,
to go forth from our own land and to receive
his promise.
Help us to be touched by his love, that we
may touch him in faith.
Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and
to believe in his love, especially at times of trial,
82
beneath the shadow of the cross, when our faith
is called to mature.
Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One.
Remind us that those who believe are never
alone.
Teach us to see all things with the eyes of
Jesus, that he may be light for our path. And may
this light of faith always increase in us, until the
dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself,
your Son, our Lord!
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 29 June,
the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and
Paul, in the year 2013, the first of my pontificate.
83
CONTENTS
The light of faith [1] . . . . . . . . . 3
An illusory light? [2-3] . . . . . . . . . 4
A light to be recovered [4-7] . . . . . . . 5
chapter one
we have believed in love
(cf. 1 Jn 4:16)
Abraham, our father in faith [8-11] . . . . 11
The faith of Israel [12-14] . . . . . . . . 14
The fullness of Christian faith [15-18] . . . 18
Salvation by faith [19-21] . . . . . . . . 22
The ecclesial form of faith [22] . . . . . . 25
chapter two
unless you believe,
you will not understand
(cf. Is 7:9)
Faith and truth [23-25] . . . . . . . . . 29
Knowledge of the truth and love [26-28] . . 32
Faith as hearing and sight [29-31] . . . . . 36
The dialogue between faith and reason [32-34] 41
Faith and the search for God [35] . . . . . 45
Faith and theology [36] . . . . . . . . . 48
chapter three
i delivered to you what i also received
(cf. 1 Cor 15:3)
The Church, mother of our faith [37-39] . . 51
The sacraments and the transmission of faith
[40-45] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Faith, prayer and the Decalogue [46] . . . . 61
The unity and integrity of faith [47-49] . . . 63
chapter four
God prepares a city for them
(cf. Heb 11:16)
Faith and the common good [50-51] . . . . 69
Faith and the family [52-53] . . . . . . . 71
A light for life in society [54-55]. . . . . . 73
Consolation and strength amid suffering
[56-57] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Blessed is she who BelieVed (cf. Lk 1:45)
[58-60] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
VATICAN PRESS
tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus.
In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: “I
have come as light into the world, that whoever
believes in me may not remain in darkness”
(Jn 12:46). Saint Paul uses the same image: “God
who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has
shone in our hearts” (2 Cor 4:6). The pagan world,
which hungered for light, had seen the growth of
the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, invoked each
day at sunrise. Yet though the sun was born anew
each morning, it was clearly incapable of casting
its light on all of human existence. The sun does
not illumine all reality; its rays cannot penetrate to
the shadow of death, the place where men’s eyes
are closed to its light. “No one — Saint Justin
Martyr writes — has ever been ready to die for
his faith in the sun”.1 Conscious of the immense
horizon which their faith opened before them,
Christians invoked Jesus as the true sun “whose
rays bestow life”.2 To Martha, weeping for the
death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus said: “Did I
not tell you that if you believed, you would see
the glory of God?” (Jn 11:40). Those who believe,
see; they see with a light that illumines their
1 Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 121, 2: PG 6, 758.
2 ClemenT of Alexandria, Protrepticus, IX: PG 8, 195.
4
entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ,
the morning star which never sets.
An illusory light?
2. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can
almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries.
In modernity, that light might have
been considered sufficient for societies of old,
but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a
humanity come of age, proud of its rationality
and anxious to explore the future in novel ways.
Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light,
preventing mankind from boldly setting out in
quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged
his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to
tread “new paths… with all the uncertainty of
one who must find his own way”, adding that
“this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want
peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if
you want to be a follower of truth, then seek”.3
Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From
this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his
critique of Christianity for diminishing the full
meaning of human existence and stripping life
of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be
the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the
path of a liberated humanity to its future.
3. In the process, faith came to be associated
with darkness. There were those who tried to save
3 Brief an Elisabeth Nietzsche (11 June 1865), in: Werke in
drei Bänden, München, 1954, 953ff.
5
faith by making room for it alongside the light
of reason. Such room would open up wherever
the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever
certainty was no longer possible. Faith was
thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to
be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind
emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps
of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation,
but not something which could be proposed
to others as an objective and shared light
which points the way. Slowly but surely, however,
it would become evident that the light of autonomous
reason is not enough to illumine the future;
ultimately the future remains shadowy and
fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result,
humanity renounced the search for a great light,
Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller
lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet
prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the
absence of light everything becomes confused; it
is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road
to our destination from other roads which take
us in endless circles, going nowhere.
A light to be recovered
4. There is an urgent need, then, to see once
again that faith is a light, for once the flame of
faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The
light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating
every aspect of human existence. A light
this powerful cannot come from ourselves but
from a more primordial source: in a word, it must
6
come from God. Faith is born of an encounter
with the living God who calls us and reveals his
love, a love which precedes us and upon which
we can lean for security and for building our lives.
Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision,
new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great
promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the
future opens up before us. Faith, received from
God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for
our way, guiding our journey through time. On
the one hand, it is a light coming from the past,
the light of the foundational memory of the life
of Jesus which revealed his perfectly trustworthy
love, a love capable of triumphing over death.
Yet since Christ has risen and draws us beyond
death, faith is also a light coming from the future
and opening before us vast horizons which guide
us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth
of communion. We come to see that faith does
not dwell in shadow and gloom; it is a light for
our darkness. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, after
professing his faith to Saint Peter, describes that
light as a “spark, which then becomes a burning
flame and like a heavenly star within me glimmers”.
4 It is this light of faith that I would now
like to consider, so that it can grow and enlighten
the present, becoming a star to brighten the horizon
of our journey at a time when mankind is
particularly in need of light.
4 Paradiso XXIV, 145-147.
7
5. Christ, on the eve of his passion, assured Peter:
“I have prayed for you that your faith may not
fail” (Lk 22:32). He then told him to strengthen
his brothers and sisters in that same faith. Conscious
of the duty entrusted to the Successor of
Peter, Benedict XVI proclaimed the present Year
of Faith, a time of grace which is helping us to
sense the great joy of believing and to renew our
wonder at the vast horizons which faith opens
up, so as then to profess that faith in its unity and
integrity, faithful to the memory of the Lord and
sustained by his presence and by the working of
the Holy Spirit. The conviction born of a faith
which brings grandeur and fulfilment to life, a
faith centred on Christ and on the power of his
grace, inspired the mission of the first Christians.
In the acts of the martyrs, we read the following
dialogue between the Roman prefect Rusticus
and a Christian named Hierax: “‘Where are your
parents?’, the judge asked the martyr. He replied:
‘Our true father is Christ, and our mother is faith
in him’”.5 For those early Christians, faith, as an
encounter with the living God revealed in Christ,
was indeed a “mother”, for it had brought them
to the light and given birth within them to divine
life, a new experience and a luminous vision of
existence for which they were prepared to bear
public witness to the end.
6. The Year of Faith was inaugurated on the
fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second
5 Acta Sanctorum, Junii, I, 21.
8
Vatican Council. This is itself a clear indication
that Vatican II was a Council on faith,6 inasmuch
as it asked us to restore the primacy of
God in Christ to the centre of our lives, both as
a Church and as individuals. The Church never
takes faith for granted, but knows that this gift
of God needs to be nourished and reinforced
so that it can continue to guide her pilgrim way.
The Second Vatican Council enabled the light
of faith to illumine our human experience from
within, accompanying the men and women of
our time on their journey. It clearly showed how
faith enriches life in all its dimensions.
7. These considerations on faith — in continuity
with all that the Church’s magisterium has pronounced
on this theological virtue7 — are meant
to supplement what Benedict XVI had written
in his encyclical letters on charity and hope. He
himself had almost completed a first draft of an
encyclical on faith. For this I am deeply grateful
6 “Though the Council does not expressly deal with
faith, it speaks of it on every page, it recognizes its living, supernatural
character, it presumes it to be full and strong, and it
bases its teachings on it. It is sufficient to recall the Council’s
statements… to see the essential importance which the Council,
in line with the doctrinal tradition of the Church, attributes
to faith, the true faith, which has its source in Christ, and the
magisterium of the Church for its channel” (Paul VI, General
Audience [8 March 1967]: Insegnamenti V [1967], 705).
7 Cf., for example, firsT VaTican ecumenical council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius, Ch. 3:
DS 3008-3020; second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 5: Catechism
of the Catholic Church, Nos. 153-165.
9
to him, and as his brother in Christ I have taken
up his fine work and added a few contributions
of my own. The Successor of Peter, yesterday,
today and tomorrow, is always called to strengthen
his brothers and sisters in the priceless treasure
of that faith which God has given as a light
for humanity’s path.
In God’s gift of faith, a supernatural infused
virtue, we realize that a great love has been offered
us, a good word has been spoken to us, and
that when we welcome that word, Jesus Christ
the Word made flesh, the Holy Spirit transforms
us, lights up our way to the future and enables us
joyfully to advance along that way on wings of
hope. Thus wonderfully interwoven, faith, hope
and charity are the driving force of the Christian
life as it advances towards full communion with
God. But what is it like, this road which faith
opens up before us? What is the origin of this
powerful light which brightens the journey of a
successful and fruitful life?
11
CHAPTER ONE
WE HAVE BELIEVED IN LOVE
(cf. 1 Jn 4:16)
Abraham, our father in faith
8. Faith opens the way before us and accompanies
our steps through time. Hence, if we want
to understand what faith is, we need to follow the
route it has taken, the path trodden by believers,
as witnessed first in the Old Testament. Here a
unique place belongs to Abraham, our father in
faith. Something disturbing takes place in his life:
God speaks to him; he reveals himself as a God
who speaks and calls his name. Faith is linked to
hearing. Abraham does not see God, but hears
his voice. Faith thus takes on a personal aspect.
God is not the god of a particular place, or a deity
linked to specific sacred time, but the God of
a person, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
capable of interacting with man and establishing
a covenant with him. Faith is our response to a
word which engages us personally, to a “Thou”
who calls us by name.
9. The word spoken to Abraham contains both
a call and a promise. First, it is a call to leave his
own land, a summons to a new life, the beginning
of an exodus which points him towards an
unforeseen future. The sight which faith would
give to Abraham would always be linked to the
need to take this step forward: faith “sees” to the
12
extent that it journeys, to the extent that it chooses
to enter into the horizons opened up by God’s
word. This word also contains a promise: Your
descendants will be great in number, you will be
the father of a great nation (cf. Gen 13:16; 15:5;
22:17). As a response to a word which preceded
it, Abraham’s faith would always be an act of remembrance.
Yet this remembrance is not fixed
on past events but, as the memory of a promise,
it becomes capable of opening up the future,
shedding light on the path to be taken. We see
how faith, as remembrance of the future, memoria
futuri, is thus closely bound up with hope.
10. Abraham is asked to entrust himself to this
word. Faith understands that something so apparently
ephemeral and fleeting as a word, when
spoken by the God who is fidelity, becomes absolutely
certain and unshakable, guaranteeing
the continuity of our journey through history.
Faith accepts this word as a solid rock upon
which we can build, a straight highway on which
we can travel. In the Bible, faith is expressed
by the Hebrew word ’emûnāh, derived from the
verb ’amān whose root means “to uphold”. The
term ’emûnāh can signify both God’s fidelity and
man’s faith. The man of faith gains strength by
putting himself in the hands of the God who is
faithful. Playing on this double meaning of the
word — also found in the corresponding terms
in Greek (pistós) and Latin (fidelis) — Saint Cyril
of Jerusalem praised the dignity of the Christian
13
who receives God’s own name: both are called
“faithful”.8 As Saint Augustine explains: “Man is
faithful when he believes in God and his promises;
God is faithful when he grants to man what
he has promised”.9
11. A final element of the story of Abraham
is important for understanding his faith. God’s
word, while bringing newness and surprise, is not
at all alien to Abraham’s experience. In the voice
which speaks to him, the patriarch recognizes a
profound call which was always present at the
core of his being. God ties his promise to that
aspect of human life which has always appeared
most “full of promise”, namely, parenthood,
the begetting of new life: “Sarah your wife shall
bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac”
(Gen 17:19). The God who asks Abraham for
complete trust reveals himself to be the source
of all life. Faith is thus linked to God’s fatherhood,
which gives rise to all creation; the God
who calls Abraham is the Creator, the one who
“calls into existence the things that do not exist”
(Rom 4:17), the one who “chose us before
the foundation of the world… and destined us
for adoption as his children” (Eph 1:4-5). For
Abraham, faith in God sheds light on the depths
of his being, it enables him to acknowledge the
wellspring of goodness at the origin of all things
and to realize that his life is not the product of
8 Cf. Catechesis V, 1: PG 33, 505A.
9 In Psal. 32, II, s. I, 9: PL 36, 284.
14
non-being or chance, but the fruit of a personal
call and a personal love. The mysterious God
who called him is no alien deity, but the God
who is the origin and mainstay of all that is. The
great test of Abraham’s faith, the sacrifice of his
son Isaac, would show the extent to which this
primordial love is capable of ensuring life even
beyond death. The word which could raise up a
son to one who was “as good as dead”, in “the
barrenness” of Sarah’s womb (cf. Rom 4:19), can
also stand by his promise of a future beyond all
threat or danger (cf. Heb 11:19; Rom 4:21).
The faith of Israel
12. The history of the people of Israel in the
Book of Exodus follows in the wake of Abraham’s
faith. Faith once again is born of a primordial
gift: Israel trusts in God, who promises to set
his people free from their misery. Faith becomes
a summons to a lengthy journey leading to worship
of the Lord on Sinai and the inheritance of
a promised land. God’s love is seen to be like that
of a father who carries his child along the way
(cf. Dt 1:31). Israel’s confession of faith takes
shape as an account of God’s deeds in setting
his people free and acting as their guide (cf.
Dt 26:5-11), an account passed down from one
generation to the next. God’s light shines for
Israel through the remembrance of the Lord’s
mighty deeds, recalled and celebrated in worship,
and passed down from parents to children. Here
we see how the light of faith is linked to con15
crete life-stories, to the grateful remembrance
of God’s mighty deeds and the progressive fulfilment
of his promises. Gothic architecture
gave clear expression to this: in the great cathedrals
light comes down from heaven by passing
through windows depicting the history of salvation.
God’s light comes to us through the account
of his self-revelation, and thus becomes
capable of illuminating our passage through time
by recalling his gifts and demonstrating how he
fulfils his promises.
13. The history of Israel also shows us the
temptation of unbelief to which the people
yielded more than once. Here the opposite of
faith is shown to be idolatry. While Moses is
speaking to God on Sinai, the people cannot
bear the mystery of God’s hiddenness, they cannot
endure the time of waiting to see his face.
Faith by its very nature demands renouncing the
immediate possession which sight would appear
to offer; it is an invitation to turn to the source
of the light, while respecting the mystery of a
countenance which will unveil itself personally
in its own good time. Martin Buber once cited a
definition of idolatry proposed by the rabbi of
Kock: idolatry is “when a face addresses a face
which is not a face”.10 In place of faith in God,
it seems better to worship an idol, into whose
face we can look directly and whose origin we
793.
10 M. BuBer, Die Erzählungen der Chassidim, Zürich, 1949,
16
know, because it is the work of our own hands.
Before an idol, there is no risk that we will be
called to abandon our security, for idols “have
mouths, but they cannot speak” (Ps 115:5). Idols
exist, we begin to see, as a pretext for setting
ourselves at the centre of reality and worshiping
the work of our own hands. Once man has lost
the fundamental orientation which unifies his
existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity
of his desires; in refusing to await the time of
promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad
of unconnected instants. Idolatry, then, is
always polytheism, an aimless passing from one
lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey
but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere
and forming a vast labyrinth. Those who choose
not to put their trust in God must hear the din
of countless idols crying out: “Put your trust in
me!” Faith, tied as it is to conversion, is the opposite
of idolatry; it breaks with idols to turn to
the living God in a personal encounter. Believing
means entrusting oneself to a merciful love
which always accepts and pardons, which sustains
and directs our lives, and which shows its
power by its ability to make straight the crooked
lines of our history. Faith consists in the willingness
to let ourselves be constantly transformed
and renewed by God’s call. Herein lies the paradox:
by constantly turning towards the Lord, we
discover a sure path which liberates us from the
dissolution imposed upon us by idols.
17
14. In the faith of Israel we also encounter the
figure of Moses, the mediator. The people may
not see the face of God; it is Moses who speaks
to YHWH on the mountain and then tells the
others of the Lord’s will. With this presence of
a mediator in its midst, Israel learns to journey
together in unity. The individual’s act of faith
finds its place within a community, within the
common “we” of the people who, in faith, are
like a single person — “my first-born son”, as
God would describe all of Israel (cf. Ex 4:22).
Here mediation is not an obstacle, but an opening:
through our encounter with others, our gaze
rises to a truth greater than ourselves. Rousseau
once lamented that he could not see God for
himself: “How many people stand between God
and me!”11 … “Is it really so simple and natural
that God would have sought out Moses in order
to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?”12 On the basis
of an individualistic and narrow conception
of knowledge one cannot appreciate the significance
of mediation, this capacity to participate
in the vision of another, this shared knowledge
which is the knowledge proper to love. Faith is
God’s free gift, which calls for humility and the
courage to trust and to entrust; it enables us to
see the luminous path leading to the encounter
of God and humanity: the history of salvation.
11 Émile, Paris, 1966, 387.
12 Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont, Lausanne, 1993, 110.
18
The fullness of Christian faith
15. “Abraham rejoiced that he would see my
day; he saw it and was glad” (Jn 8:56). According
to these words of Jesus, Abraham’s faith pointed
to him; in some sense it foresaw his mystery.
So Saint Augustine understood it when he stated
that the patriarchs were saved by faith, not faith
in Christ who had come but in Christ who was
yet to come, a faith pressing towards the future
of Jesus.13 Christian faith is centred on Christ;
it is the confession that Jesus is Lord and that
God has raised him from the dead (cf. Rom 10:9).
All the threads of the Old Testament converge
on Christ; he becomes the definitive “Yes” to all
the promises, the ultimate basis of our “Amen”
to God (cf. 2 Cor 1:20). The history of Jesus is
the complete manifestation of God’s reliability.
If Israel continued to recall God’s great acts of
love, which formed the core of its confession of
faith and broadened its gaze in faith, the life of
Jesus now appears as the locus of God’s definitive
intervention, the supreme manifestation of
his love for us. The word which God speaks to
us in Jesus is not simply one word among many,
but his eternal Word (cf. Heb 1:1-2). God can give
no greater guarantee of his love, as Saint Paul
reminds us (cf. Rom 8:31-39). Christian faith is
thus faith in a perfect love, in its decisive power,
in its ability to transform the world and to unfold
its history. “We know and believe the love that
13 Cf. In Ioh. Evang., 45, 9: PL 35, 1722-1723.
19
God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). In the love of God
revealed in Jesus, faith perceives the foundation
on which all reality and its final destiny rest.
16. The clearest proof of the reliability of
Christ’s love is to be found in his dying for our
sake. If laying down one’s life for one’s friends
is the greatest proof of love (cf. Jn 15:13), Jesus
offered his own life for all, even for his enemies,
to transform their hearts. This explains why the
evangelists could see the hour of Christ’s crucifixion
as the culmination of the gaze of faith; in
that hour the depth and breadth of God’s love
shone forth. It was then that Saint John offered
his solemn testimony, as together with the Mother
of Jesus he gazed upon the pierced one (cf.
Jn 19:37): “He who saw this has borne witness, so
that you also may believe. His testimony is true,
and he knows that he tells the truth” (Jn 19:35).
In Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Prince Myshkin sees a
painting by Hans Holbein the Younger depicting
Christ dead in the tomb and says: “Looking at
that painting might cause one to lose his faith”.14
The painting is a gruesome portrayal of the destructive
effects of death on Christ’s body. Yet
it is precisely in contemplating Jesus’ death that
faith grows stronger and receives a dazzling light;
then it is revealed as faith in Christ’s steadfast
love for us, a love capable of embracing death
to bring us salvation. This love, which did not
14 Part II, IV.
20
recoil before death in order to show its depth,
is something I can believe in; Christ’s total selfgift
overcomes every suspicion and enables me
to entrust myself to him completely.
17. Christ’s death discloses the utter reliability
of God’s love above all in the light of his resurrection.
As the risen one, Christ is the trustworthy
witness, deserving of faith (cf. Rev 1:5; Heb
2:17), and a solid support for our faith. “If Christ
has not been raised, your faith is futile”, says
Saint Paul (1 Cor 15:17). Had the Father’s love
not caused Jesus to rise from the dead, had it not
been able to restore his body to life, then it would
not be a completely reliable love, capable of illuminating
also the gloom of death. When Saint
Paul describes his new life in Christ, he speaks of
“faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Clearly, this “faith in
the Son of God” means Paul’s faith in Jesus, but
it also presumes that Jesus himself is worthy of
faith, based not only on his having loved us even
unto death but also on his divine sonship. Precisely
because Jesus is the Son, because he is absolutely
grounded in the Father, he was able to
conquer death and make the fullness of life shine
forth. Our culture has lost its sense of God’s tangible
presence and activity in our world. We think
that God is to be found in the beyond, on another
level of reality, far removed from our everyday
relationships. But if this were the case, if God
could not act in the world, his love would not
21
be truly powerful, truly real, and thus not even
true, a love capable of delivering the bliss that
it promises. It would make no difference at all
whether we believed in him or not. Christians, on
the contrary, profess their faith in God’s tangible
and powerful love which really does act in history
and determines its final destiny: a love that can
be encountered, a love fully revealed in Christ’s
passion, death and resurrection.
18. This fullness which Jesus brings to faith
has another decisive aspect. In faith, Christ is not
simply the one in whom we believe, the supreme
manifestation of God’s love; he is also the one
with whom we are united precisely in order to
believe. Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but
sees things as Jesus himself sees them, with his
own eyes: it is a participation in his way of seeing.
In many areas in our lives we trust others who
know more than we do. We trust the architect
who builds our home, the pharmacist who gives
us medicine for healing, the lawyer who defends
us in court. We also need someone trustworthy
and knowledgeable where God is concerned.
Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who makes
God known to us (cf. Jn 1:18). Christ’s life, his
way of knowing the Father and living in complete
and constant relationship with him, opens
up new and inviting vistas for human experience.
Saint John brings out the importance of a personal
relationship with Jesus for our faith by using
various forms of the verb “to believe”. In
22
addition to “believing that” what Jesus tells us is
true, John also speaks of “believing” Jesus and
“believing in” Jesus. We “believe” Jesus when
we accept his word, his testimony, because he is
truthful. We “believe in” Jesus when we personally
welcome him into our lives and journey towards
him, clinging to him in love and following
in his footsteps along the way.
To enable us to know, accept and follow
him, the Son of God took on our flesh. In this
way he also saw the Father humanly, within the
setting of a journey unfolding in time. Christian
faith is faith in the incarnation of the Word and
his bodily resurrection; it is faith in a God who is
so close to us that he entered our human history.
Far from divorcing us from reality, our faith in
the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth
enables us to grasp reality’s deepest meaning and
to see how much God loves this world and is
constantly guiding it towards himself. This leads
us, as Christians, to live our lives in this world
with ever greater commitment and intensity.
Salvation by faith
19. On the basis of this sharing in Jesus’ way of
seeing things, Saint Paul has left us a description
of the life of faith. In accepting the gift of faith,
believers become a new creation; they receive
a new being; as God’s children, they are now
“sons in the Son”. The phrase “Abba, Father”,
so characteristic of Jesus’ own experience, now
becomes the core of the Christian experience (cf.
23
Rom 8:15). The life of faith, as a filial existence, is
the acknowledgment of a primordial and radical
gift which upholds our lives. We see this clearly in
Saint Paul’s question to the Corinthians: “What
have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4:7).
This was at the very heart of Paul’s debate with
the Pharisees: the issue of whether salvation is
attained by faith or by the works of the law. Paul
rejects the attitude of those who would consider
themselves justified before God on the basis of
their own works. Such people, even when they
obey the commandments and do good works,
are centred on themselves; they fail to realize
that goodness comes from God. Those who live
this way, who want to be the source of their own
righteousness, find that the latter is soon depleted
and that they are unable even to keep the law.
They become closed in on themselves and isolated
from the Lord and from others; their lives
become futile and their works barren, like a tree
far from water. Saint Augustine tells us in his
usual concise and striking way: “Ab eo qui fecit te,
noli deficere nec ad te”, “Do not turn away from the
one who made you, even to turn towards yourself
”.15 Once I think that by turning away from
God I will find myself, my life begins to fall apart
(cf. Lk 15:11-24). The beginning of salvation is
openness to something prior to ourselves, to a
primordial gift that affirms life and sustains it in
being. Only by being open to and acknowledging
15 De Continentia, 4, 11: PL 40, 356.
24
this gift can we be transformed, experience salvation
and bear good fruit. Salvation by faith
means recognizing the primacy of God’s gift. As
Saint Paul puts it: “By grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).
20. Faith’s new way of seeing things is centred
on Christ. Faith in Christ brings salvation
because in him our lives become radically open
to a love that precedes us, a love that transforms
us from within, acting in us and through us. This
is clearly seen in Saint Paul’s exegesis of a text
from Deuteronomy, an exegesis consonant with
the heart of the Old Testament message. Moses
tells the people that God’s command is neither
too high nor too far away. There is no need to
say: “Who will go up for us to heaven and bring
it to us?” or “Who will go over the sea for us,
and bring it to us?” (Dt 30:11-14). Paul interprets
this nearness of God’s word in terms of Christ’s
presence in the Christian. “Do not say in your
heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to
bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the
abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)”
(Rom 10:6-7). Christ came down to earth and
rose from the dead; by his incarnation and resurrection,
the Son of God embraced the whole
of human life and history, and now dwells in our
hearts through the Holy Spirit. Faith knows that
God has drawn close to us, that Christ has been
given to us as a great gift which inwardly trans25
forms us, dwells within us and thus bestows on
us the light that illumines the origin and the end
of life.
21. We come to see the difference, then, which
faith makes for us. Those who believe are transformed
by the love to which they have opened
their hearts in faith. By their openness to this offer
of primordial love, their lives are enlarged and expanded.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me” (Gal 2:20). “May Christ dwell in your
hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). The self-awareness
of the believer now expands because of the presence
of another; it now lives in this other and thus,
in love, life takes on a whole new breadth. Here we
see the Holy Spirit at work. The Christian can see
with the eyes of Jesus and share in his mind, his
filial disposition, because he or she shares in his
love, which is the Spirit. In the love of Jesus, we
receive in a certain way his vision. Without being
conformed to him in love, without the presence
of the Spirit, it is impossible to confess him as
Lord (cf. 1 Cor 12:3).
The ecclesial form of faith
22. In this way, the life of the believer becomes
an ecclesial existence, a life lived in the Church.
When Saint Paul tells the Christians of Rome
that all who believe in Christ make up one body,
he urges them not to boast of this; rather, each
must think of himself “according to the measure
of faith that God has assigned” (Rom 12:3).
26
Those who believe come to see themselves in
the light of the faith which they profess: Christ
is the mirror in which they find their own image
fully realized. And just as Christ gathers to
himself all those who believe and makes them
his body, so the Christian comes to see himself
as a member of this body, in an essential relationship
with all other believers. The image of a
body does not imply that the believer is simply
one part of an anonymous whole, a mere cog
in a great machine; rather, it brings out the
vital union of Christ with believers, and of
believers among themselves (cf. Rom 12:4-5).
Christians are “one” (cf. Gal 3:28), yet in a way
which does not make them lose their
individuality; in service to others, they come into
their own in the highest degree. This explains
why, apart from this body, outside this unity of
the Church in Christ, outside this Church
which — in the words of Romano Guardini --
“is the bearer within history of the plenary gaze
of Christ on the world”16 — faith loses its
“measure”; it no longer finds its equilibrium,
the space needed to sustain itself. Faith is
necessarily ecclesial; it is professed from within
the body of Christ as a concrete communion of
believers. It is against this ecclesial backdrop
that faith opens the individual Christian towards
all others. Christ’s word, once heard, by virtue of
its inner power at work in the heart
16 “Vom Wesen katholischer Weltanschauung” (1923), in Unterscheidung
des Christlichen. Gesammelte Studien 1923-1963, Mainz,
1963, 24.
27
of the Christian, becomes a response, a spoken
word, a profession of faith. As Saint Paul puts
it: “one believes with the heart ... and confesses
with the lips” (Rom 10:10). Faith is not a private
matter, a completely individualistic notion or a
personal opinion: it comes from hearing, and it
is meant to find expression in words and to be
proclaimed. For “how are they to believe in him
of whom they have never heard? And how are
they to hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14).
Faith becomes operative in the Christian on the
basis of the gift received, the love which attracts
our hearts to Christ (cf. Gal 5:6), and enables us
to become part of the Church’s great pilgrimage
through history until the end of the world. For
those who have been transformed in this way, a
new way of seeing opens up, faith becomes light
for their eyes.
29
CHAPTER TWO
UNLESS YOU BELIEVE,
YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND
(cf. Is 7:9)
Faith and truth
23. Unless you believe, you will not understand
(cf. Is 7:9). The Greek version of the Hebrew
Bible, the Septuagint translation produced in Alexandria,
gives the above rendering of the words
spoken by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz. In
this way, the issue of the knowledge of truth became
central to faith. The Hebrew text, though,
reads differently; the prophet says to the king:
“If you will not believe, you shall not be established”.
Here there is a play on words, based
on two forms of the verb ’amān: “you will believe”
(ta’amînû) and “you shall be established”
(tē’āmēnû). Terrified by the might of his enemies,
the king seeks the security that an alliance with
the great Assyrian empire can offer. The prophet
tells him instead to trust completely in the solid
and steadfast rock which is the God of Israel.
Because God is trustworthy, it is reasonable to
have faith in him, to stand fast on his word. He is
the same God that Isaiah will later call, twice in
one verse, the God who is Amen, “the God of
truth” (cf. Is 65:16), the enduring foundation of
covenant fidelity. It might seem that the Greek
version of the Bible, by translating “be established”
as “understand”, profoundly altered the
30
meaning of the text by moving away from the
biblical notion of trust in God towards a Greek
notion of intellectual understanding. Yet this
translation, while certainly reflecting a dialogue
with Hellenistic culture, is not alien to the underlying
spirit of the Hebrew text. The firm foundation
that Isaiah promises to the king is indeed
grounded in an understanding of God’s activity
and the unity which he gives to human life and
to the history of his people. The prophet challenges
the king, and us, to understand the Lord’s
ways, seeing in God’s faithfulness the wise plan
which governs the ages. Saint Augustine took up
this synthesis of the ideas of “understanding”
and “being established” in his Confessions when
he spoke of the truth on which one may rely in
order to stand fast: “Then I shall be cast and set
firm in the mould of your truth”.17 From the
context we know that Augustine was concerned
to show that this trustworthy truth of God is, as
the Bible makes clear, his own faithful presence
throughout history, his ability to hold together
times and ages, and to gather into one the scattered
strands of our lives.18
24. Read in this light, the prophetic text leads
to one conclusion: we need knowledge, we need
truth, because without these we cannot stand
firm, we cannot move forward. Faith without
truth does not save, it does not provide a sure
17 XI, 30, 40: PL 32, 825.
18 Cf. ibid., 825-826.
31
footing. It remains a beautiful story, the projection
of our deep yearning for happiness, something
capable of satisfying us to the extent that
we are willing to deceive ourselves. Either that,
or it is reduced to a lofty sentiment which brings
consolation and cheer, yet remains prey to the
vagaries of our spirit and the changing seasons,
incapable of sustaining a steady journey through
life. If such were faith, King Ahaz would be right
not to stake his life and the security of his kingdom
on a feeling. But precisely because of its
intrinsic link to truth, faith is instead able to offer
a new light, superior to the king’s calculations,
for it sees further into the distance and takes into
account the hand of God, who remains faithful
to his covenant and his promises.
25. Today more than ever, we need to be reminded
of this bond between faith and truth,
given the crisis of truth in our age. In contemporary
culture, we often tend to consider the only
real truth to be that of technology: truth is what
we succeed in building and measuring by our scientific
know-how, truth is what works and what
makes life easier and more comfortable. Nowadays
this appears as the only truth that is certain,
the only truth that can be shared, the only
truth that can serve as a basis for discussion or
for common undertakings. Yet at the other end
of the scale we are willing to allow for subjective
truths of the individual, which consist in fidelity
to his or her deepest convictions, yet these are
32
truths valid only for that individual and not capable
of being proposed to others in an effort
to serve the common good. But Truth itself, the
truth which would comprehensively explain our
life as individuals and in society, is regarded with
suspicion. Surely this kind of truth — we hear it
said — is what was claimed by the great totalitarian
movements of the last century, a truth that
imposed its own world view in order to crush the
actual lives of individuals. In the end, what we
are left with is relativism, in which the question
of universal truth — and ultimately this means
the question of God — is no longer relevant.
It would be logical, from this point of view, to
attempt to sever the bond between religion and
truth, because it seems to lie at the root of fanaticism,
which proves oppressive for anyone who
does not share the same beliefs. In this regard,
though, we can speak of a massive amnesia in
our contemporary world. The question of truth
is really a question of memory, deep memory, for
it deals with something prior to ourselves and
can succeed in uniting us in a way that transcends
our petty and limited individual consciousness.
It is a question about the origin of all that is, in
whose light we can glimpse the goal and thus the
meaning of our common path.
Knowledge of the truth and love
26. This being the case, can Christian faith provide
a service to the common good with regard
to the right way of understanding truth? To an33
swer this question, we need to reflect on the kind
of knowledge involved in faith. Here a saying of
Saint Paul can help us: “One believes with the
heart” (Rom 10:10). In the Bible, the heart is the
core of the human person, where all his or her
different dimensions intersect: body and spirit,
interiority and openness to the world and to others,
intellect, will and affectivity. If the heart is
capable of holding all these dimensions together,
it is because it is where we become open to truth
and love, where we let them touch us and deeply
transform us. Faith transforms the whole person
precisely to the extent that he or she becomes
open to love. Through this blending of faith and
love we come to see the kind of knowledge which
faith entails, its power to convince and its ability
to illumine our steps. Faith knows because it is
tied to love, because love itself brings enlightenment.
Faith’s understanding is born when we
receive the immense love of God which transforms
us inwardly and enables us to see reality
with new eyes.
27. The explanation of the connection between
faith and certainty put forward by the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein is well known. For
Wittgenstein, believing can be compared to the
experience of falling in love: it is something subjective
which cannot be proposed as a truth valid
for everyone.19 Indeed, most people nowadays
19 Cf. Vermischte Bemerkungen / Culture and Value, ed. G.H.
von Wright, Oxford, 1991, 32-33; 61-64.
34
would not consider love as related in any way to
truth. Love is seen as an experience associated
with the world of fleeting emotions, no longer
with truth.
But is this an adequate description of love?
Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion.
True, it engages our affectivity, but in order
to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail
leading away from self-centredness and towards
another person, in order to build a lasting relationship;
love aims at union with the beloved.
Here we begin to see how love requires truth.
Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth
can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing
moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a
shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls
prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test
of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all
the elements of our person and becomes a new
light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life.
Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a
firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or
redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to
create life and bear fruit.
If love needs truth, truth also needs love.
Love and truth are inseparable. Without love,
truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive
for people’s day-to-day lives. The truth we
seek, the truth that gives meaning to our journey
through life, enlightens us whenever we are
touched by love. One who loves realizes that
love is an experience of truth, that it opens our
35
eyes to see reality in a new way, in union with the
beloved. In this sense, Saint Gregory the Great
could write that “amor ipse notitia est ”, love is itself
a kind of knowledge possessed of its own logic.20
It is a relational way of viewing the world, which
then becomes a form of shared knowledge, vision
through the eyes of another and a shared
vision of all that exists. William of Saint-Thierry,
in the Middle Ages, follows this tradition when
he comments on the verse of the Song of Songs
where the lover says to the beloved, “Your eyes
are doves” (Song 1:15).21 The two eyes, says William,
are faith-filled reason and love, which then
become one in rising to the contemplation of
God, when our understanding becomes “an understanding
of enlightened love”.22
28. This discovery of love as a source of
knowledge, which is part of the primordial experience
of every man and woman, finds authoritative
expression in the biblical understanding of
faith. In savouring the love by which God chose
them and made them a people, Israel came to
understand the overall unity of the divine plan.
Faith-knowledge, because it is born of God’s
covenantal love, is knowledge which lights up a
path in history. That is why, in the Bible, truth
and fidelity go together: the true God is the God
20 Homiliae in Evangelia, II, 27, 4: PL 76, 1207.
21 Cf. Expositio super Cantica Canticorum, XVIII, 88: CCL,
Continuatio Mediaevalis 87, 67.
22 Ibid., XIX, 90: CCL, Continuatio Mediaevalis 87, 69.
36
of fidelity who keeps his promises and makes possible,
in time, a deeper understanding of his plan.
Through the experience of the prophets, in the
pain of exile and in the hope of a definitive return
to the holy city, Israel came to see that this divine
“truth” extended beyond the confines of its
own history, to embrace the entire history of the
world, beginning with creation. Faith-knowledge
sheds light not only on the destiny of one particular
people, but the entire history of the created
world, from its origins to its consummation.
Faith as hearing and sight
29. Precisely because faith-knowledge is linked
to the covenant with a faithful God who enters
into a relationship of love with man and speaks
his word to him, the Bible presents it as a form
of hearing; it is associated with the sense of
hearing. Saint Paul would use a formula which
became classic: fides ex auditu, “faith comes from
hearing” (Rom 10:17). Knowledge linked to a
word is always personal knowledge; it recognizes
the voice of the one speaking, opens up to
that person in freedom and follows him or her
in obedience. Paul could thus speak of the “obedience
of faith” (cf. Rom 1:5; 16:26).23 Faith is
23 “The obedience of faith (Rom 16:26; compare Rom 1:5,
2 Cor 10:5-6) must be our response to the God who reveals.
By faith one freely submits oneself entirely to God making the
full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals, and
willingly assenting to the revelation given by God. For this faith
to be accorded, we need the grace of God, anticipating it and
37
also a knowledge bound to the passage of time,
for words take time to be pronounced, and it is
a knowledge assimilated only along a journey of
discipleship. The experience of hearing can thus
help to bring out more clearly the bond between
knowledge and love.
At times, where knowledge of the truth is
concerned, hearing has been opposed to sight;
it has been claimed that an emphasis on sight
was characteristic of Greek culture. If light
makes possible that contemplation of the whole
to which humanity has always aspired, it would
also seem to leave no space for freedom, since
it comes down from heaven directly to the eye,
without calling for a response. It would also seem
to call for a kind of static contemplation, far removed
from the world of history with its joys
and sufferings. From this standpoint, the biblical
understanding of knowledge would be antithetical
to the Greek understanding, inasmuch as the
latter linked knowledge to sight in its attempt to
attain a comprehensive understanding of reality.
This alleged antithesis does not, however,
correspond to the biblical datum. The Old Testament
combined both kinds of knowledge, since
hearing God’s word is accompanied by the desire
assisting it, as well as the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who
moves the heart and converts it to God, and opens the eyes
of the mind and makes it easy for all to accept and believe the
truth. The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts,
so that revelation may be more and more deeply understood”
(second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic Constitution
on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 5).
38
to see his face. The ground was thus laid for a
dialogue with Hellenistic culture, a dialogue present
at the heart of sacred Scripture. Hearing emphasizes
personal vocation and obedience, and
the fact that truth is revealed in time. Sight provides
a vision of the entire journey and allows it
to be situated within God’s overall plan; without
this vision, we would be left only with unconnected
parts of an unknown whole.
30. The bond between seeing and hearing in
faith-knowledge is most clearly evident in John’s
Gospel. For the Fourth Gospel, to believe is
both to hear and to see. Faith’s hearing emerges
as a form of knowing proper to love: it is a
personal hearing, one which recognizes the voice
of the Good Shepherd (cf. Jn 10:3-5); it is a hearing
which calls for discipleship, as was the case
with the first disciples: “Hearing him say these
things, they followed Jesus” (Jn 1:37). But faith
is also tied to sight. Seeing the signs which Jesus
worked leads at times to faith, as in the case of
the Jews who, following the raising of Lazarus,
“having seen what he did, believed in him”
(Jn 11:45). At other times, faith itself leads to
deeper vision: “If you believe, you will see the
glory of God” (Jn 11:40). In the end, belief and
sight intersect: “Whoever believes in me believes
in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees
him who sent me” (Jn 12:44-45). Joined to hearing,
seeing then becomes a form of following
Christ, and faith appears as a process of gazing,
39
in which our eyes grow accustomed to peering
into the depths. Easter morning thus passes from
John who, standing in the early morning darkness
before the empty tomb, “saw and believed”
(Jn 20:8), to Mary Magdalene who, after seeing
Jesus (cf. Jn 20:14) and wanting to cling to him,
is asked to contemplate him as he ascends to the
Father, and finally to her full confession before
the disciples: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18).
How does one attain this synthesis between
hearing and seeing? It becomes possible through
the person of Christ himself, who can be seen
and heard. He is the Word made flesh, whose
glory we have seen (cf. Jn 1:14). The light of
faith is the light of a countenance in which the
Father is seen. In the Fourth Gospel, the truth
which faith attains is the revelation of the Father
in the Son, in his flesh and in his earthly deeds,
a truth which can be defined as the “light-filled
life” of Jesus.24 This means that faith-knowledge
does not direct our gaze to a purely inward truth.
The truth which faith discloses to us is a truth
centred on an encounter with Christ, on the contemplation
of his life and on the awareness of
his presence. Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of
the Apostles’ oculata fides — a faith which sees! --
in the presence of the body of the Risen Lord.25
With their own eyes they saw the risen Jesus and
24 Cf. H. schlier, Meditationen über den Johanneischen Begriff
der Wahrheit, in Besinnung auf das Neue Testament. Exegetische Aufsätze
und Vorträge 2, Freiburg, Basel, Wien, 1959, 272.
25 Cf. S. Th. III, q. 55, a. 2, ad 1.
40
they believed; in a word, they were able to peer
into the depths of what they were seeing and to
confess their faith in the Son of God, seated at
the right hand of the Father.
31. It was only in this way, by taking flesh, by
sharing our humanity, that the knowledge proper
to love could come to full fruition. For the light
of love is born when our hearts are touched and
we open ourselves to the interior presence of the
beloved, who enables us to recognize his mystery.
Thus we can understand why, together with
hearing and seeing, Saint John can speak of faith
as touch, as he says in his First Letter: “What we
have heard, what we have seen with our eyes and
touched with our hands, concerning the word of
life” (1 Jn 1:1). By his taking flesh and coming
among us, Jesus has touched us, and through the
sacraments he continues to touch us even today;
transforming our hearts, he unceasingly enables
us to acknowledge and acclaim him as the Son of
God. In faith, we can touch him and receive the
power of his grace. Saint Augustine, commenting
on the account of the woman suffering from
haemorrhages who touched Jesus and was cured
(cf. Lk 8:45-46), says: “To touch him with our
hearts: that is what it means to believe”.26 The
crowd presses in on Jesus, but they do not reach
him with the personal touch of faith, which apprehends
the mystery that he is the Son who re-
26 Sermo 229/L (Guelf. 14), 2 (Miscellanea Augustiniana
1, 487/488): “Tangere autem corde, hoc est credere”.
41
veals the Father. Only when we are configured to
Jesus do we receive the eyes needed to see him.
The dialogue between faith and reason
32. Christian faith, inasmuch as it proclaims
the truth of God’s total love and opens us to the
power of that love, penetrates to the core of our
human experience. Each of us comes to the light
because of love, and each of us is called to love
in order to remain in the light. Desirous of illumining
all reality with the love of God made
manifest in Jesus, and seeking to love others with
that same love, the first Christians found in the
Greek world, with its thirst for truth, an ideal
partner in dialogue. The encounter of the Gospel
message with the philosophical culture of the
ancient world proved a decisive step in the evangelization
of all peoples, and stimulated a fruitful
interaction between faith and reason which has
continued down the centuries to our own times.
Blessed John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter
Fides et Ratio, showed how faith and reason each
strengthen the other.27 Once we discover the full
light of Christ’s love, we realize that each of the
loves in our own lives had always contained a ray
of that light, and we understand its ultimate destination.
That fact that our human loves contain
that ray of light also helps us to see how all love
is meant to share in the complete self-gift of the
27 Cf. Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998),
73: AAS (1999), 61-62.
42
Son of God for our sake. In this circular movement,
the light of faith illumines all our human
relationships, which can then be lived in union
with the gentle love of Christ.
33. In the life of Saint Augustine we find a significant
example of this process whereby reason,
with its desire for truth and clarity, was integrated
into the horizon of faith and thus gained new
understanding. Augustine accepted the Greek
philosophy of light, with its insistence on the
importance of sight. His encounter with Neoplatonism
introduced him to the paradigm of the
light which, descending from on high to illumine
all reality, is a symbol of God. Augustine thus
came to appreciate God’s transcendence and discovered
that all things have a certain transparency,
that they can reflect God’s goodness. This
realization liberated him from his earlier Manichaeism,
which had led him to think that good
and evil were in constant conflict, confused and
intertwined. The realization that God is light
provided Augustine with a new direction in life
and enabled him to acknowledge his sinfulness
and to turn towards the good.
All the same, the decisive moment in Augustine’s
journey of faith, as he tells us in the
Confessions, was not in the vision of a God above
and beyond this world, but in an experience of
hearing. In the garden, he heard a voice telling
him: “Take and read”. He then took up the book
containing the epistles of Saint Paul and started
43
to read the thirteenth chapter of the Letter to
the Romans.28 In this way, the personal God of
the Bible appeared to him: a God who is able to
speak to us, to come down to dwell in our midst
and to accompany our journey through history,
making himself known in the time of hearing
and response.
Yet this encounter with the God who speaks
did not lead Augustine to reject light and seeing.
He integrated the two perspectives of hearing
and seeing, constantly guided by the revelation
of God’s love in Jesus. Thus Augustine developed
a philosophy of light capable of embracing
both the reciprocity proper to the word and the
freedom born of looking to the light. Just as the
word calls for a free response, so the light finds
a response in the image which reflects it. Augustine
can therefore associate hearing and seeing,
and speak of “the word which shines forth within”.
29 The light becomes, so to speak, the light
of a word, because it is the light of a personal
countenance, a light which, even as it enlightens
us, calls us and seeks to be reflected on our faces
and to shine from within us. Yet our longing
for the vision of the whole, and not merely of
fragments of history, remains and will be fulfilled
in the end, when, as Augustine says, we will see
and we will love.30 Not because we will be able to
lucet ”.
28 Cf. Confessiones, VIII, 12, 29: PL 32, 762.
29 De Trinitate, XV, 11, 20: PL 42, 1071: “verbum quod intus
30 Cf. De Civitate Dei, XXII, 30, 5: PL 41, 804.
44
possess all the light, which will always be inexhaustible,
but because we will enter wholly into
that light.
34. The light of love proper to faith can illumine
the questions of our own time about truth.
Truth nowadays is often reduced to the subjective
authenticity of the individual, valid only for
the life of the individual. A common truth intimidates
us, for we identify it with the intransigent
demands of totalitarian systems. But if truth is a
truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal
encounter with the Other and with others, then
it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals
and become part of the common good. As a
truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed
by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual.
Since it is born of love, it can penetrate to
the heart, to the personal core of each man and
woman. Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent,
but grows in respectful coexistence with others.
One who believes may not be presumptuous; on
the contrary, truth leads to humility, since believers
know that, rather than ourselves possessing
truth, it is truth which embraces and possesses
us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of
faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and
dialogue with all.
Nor is the light of faith, joined to the truth
of love, extraneous to the material world, for love
is always lived out in body and spirit; the light of
faith is an incarnate light radiating from the lumi45
nous life of Jesus. It also illumines the material
world, trusts its inherent order and knows that
it calls us to an ever widening path of harmony
and understanding. The gaze of science thus
benefits from faith: faith encourages the scientist
to remain constantly open to reality in all its
inexhaustible richness. Faith awakens the critical
sense by preventing research from being satisfied
with its own formulae and helps it to realize that
nature is always greater. By stimulating wonder
before the profound mystery of creation, faith
broadens the horizons of reason to shed greater
light on the world which discloses itself to scientific
investigation.
Faith and the search for God
35. The light of faith in Jesus also illumines
the path of all those who seek God, and makes
a specifically Christian contribution to dialogue
with the followers of the different religions. The
Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the witness of
those just ones who, before the covenant with
Abraham, already sought God in faith. Of Enoch
“it was attested that he had pleased God”
(Heb 11:5), something impossible apart from
faith, for “whoever would approach God must
believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who seek him” (Heb 11:6). We can see from this
that the path of religious man passes through
the acknowledgment of a God who cares for us
and is not impossible to find. What other reward
can God give to those who seek him, if not to
let himself be found? Even earlier, we encounter
46
Abel, whose faith was praised and whose
gifts, his offering of the firstlings of his flock
(cf. Heb 11:4), were therefore pleasing to God.
Religious man strives to see signs of God in the
daily experiences of life, in the cycle of the seasons,
in the fruitfulness of the earth and in the
movement of the cosmos. God is light and he
can be found also by those who seek him with a
sincere heart.
An image of this seeking can be seen in the
Magi, who were led to Bethlehem by the star
(cf. Mt 2:1-12). For them God’s light appeared
as a journey to be undertaken, a star which led
them on a path of discovery. The star is a sign of
God’s patience with our eyes which need to grow
accustomed to his brightness. Religious man is a
wayfarer; he must be ready to let himself be led,
to come out of himself and to find the God of
perpetual surprises. This respect on God’s part
for our human eyes shows us that when we draw
near to God, our human lights are not dissolved
in the immensity of his light, as a star is engulfed
by the dawn, but shine all the more brightly the
closer they approach the primordial fire, like a
mirror which reflects light. Christian faith in Jesus,
the one Saviour of the world, proclaims that
all God’s light is concentrated in him, in his “luminous
life” which discloses the origin and the
end of history.31 There is no human experience,
31 Cf. congregaTion for The DocTrine of The FaiTh,
Declaration Dominus Iesus (6 August 2000), 15: AAS 92 (2000),
756.
47
no journey of man to God, which cannot be taken
up, illumined and purified by this light. The
more Christians immerse themselves in the circle
of Christ’s light, the more capable they become
of understanding and accompanying the path of
every man and woman towards God.
Because faith is a way, it also has to do with
the lives of those men and women who, though
not believers, nonetheless desire to believe and
continue to seek. To the extent that they are sincerely
open to love and set out with whatever
light they can find, they are already, even without
knowing it, on the path leading to faith. They
strive to act as if God existed, at times because
they realize how important he is for finding a
sure compass for our life in common or because
they experience a desire for light amid darkness,
but also because in perceiving life’s grandeur
and beauty they intuit that the presence of God
would make it all the more beautiful. Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons tells how Abraham, before hearing
God’s voice, had already sought him “in the
ardent desire of his heart” and “went throughout
the whole world, asking himself where God
was to be found”, until “God had pity on him
who, all alone, had sought him in silence”.32 Anyone
who sets off on the path of doing good to
others is already drawing near to God, is already
sustained by his help, for it is characteristic of
the divine light to brighten our eyes whenever we
walk towards the fullness of love.
32 Demonstratio Apostolicae Predicationis, 24: SC 406, 117.
48
Faith and theology
36. Since faith is a light, it draws us into itself,
inviting us to explore ever more fully the horizon
which it illumines, all the better to know the
object of our love. Christian theology is born of
this desire. Clearly, theology is impossible without
faith; it is part of the very process of faith,
which seeks an ever deeper understanding of
God’s self-disclosure culminating in Christ. It
follows that theology is more than simply an effort
of human reason to analyze and understand,
along the lines of the experimental sciences. God
cannot be reduced to an object. He is a subject
who makes himself known and perceived in an
interpersonal relationship. Right faith orients
reason to open itself to the light which comes
from God, so that reason, guided by love of the
truth, can come to a deeper knowledge of God.
The great medieval theologians and teachers
rightly held that theology, as a science of faith, is
a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself.
It is not just our discourse about God, but
first and foremost the acceptance and the pursuit
of a deeper understanding of the word which
God speaks to us, the word which God speaks
about himself, for he is an eternal dialogue of
communion, and he allows us to enter into this
dialogue.33 Theology thus demands the humili-
33 Cf. BonaVenTure, Breviloquium, prol.: Opera Omnia, V,
Quaracchi 1891, 201; In I Sent., proem, q. 1, resp.: Opera Omnia,
I, Quaracchi 1891, 7; Thomas aquinas, S. Th I, q.1.
49
ty to be “touched” by God, admitting its own
limitations before the mystery, while striving to
investigate, with the discipline proper to reason,
the inexhaustible riches of this mystery.
Theology also shares in the ecclesial form
of faith; its light is the light of the believing subject
which is the Church. This implies, on the one
hand, that theology must be at the service of the
faith of Christians, that it must work humbly to
protect and deepen the faith of everyone, especially
ordinary believers. On the other hand, because
it draws its life from faith, theology cannot consider
the magisterium of the Pope and the bishops
in communion with him as something extrinsic,
a limitation of its freedom, but rather as one of
its internal, constitutive dimensions, for the magisterium
ensures our contact with the primordial
source and thus provides the certainty of attaining
to the word of Christ in all its integrity.
51
CHAPTER THREE
I DELIVERED TO YOU
WHAT I ALSO RECEIVED
(cf. 1 Cor 15:3)
The Church, mother of our faith
37. Those who have opened their hearts to
God’s love, heard his voice and received his light,
cannot keep this gift to themselves. Since faith is
hearing and seeing, it is also handed on as word
and light. Addressing the Corinthians, Saint Paul
used these two very images. On the one hand
he says: “But just as we have the same spirit of
faith that is in accordance with scripture — ‘I believed,
and so I spoke’ — we also believe, and so
we speak” (2 Cor 4:13). The word, once accepted,
becomes a response, a confession of faith,
which spreads to others and invites them to believe.
Paul also uses the image of light: “All of
us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the
Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being
transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18).
It is a light reflected from one face to another,
even as Moses himself bore a reflection of God’s
glory after having spoken with him: “God… has
shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ”
(2 Cor 4:6). The light of Christ shines, as in a
mirror, upon the face of Christians; as it spreads,
it comes down to us, so that we too can share
in that vision and reflect that light to others, in
52
the same way that, in the Easter liturgy, the light
of the paschal candle lights countless other candles.
Faith is passed on, we might say, by contact,
from one person to another, just as one candle is
lighted from another. Christians, in their poverty,
plant a seed so rich that it becomes a great tree,
capable of filling the world with its fruit.
38. The transmission of the faith not only
brings light to men and women in every place;
it travels through time, passing from one generation
to another. Because faith is born of an
encounter which takes place in history and lights
up our journey through time, it must be passed
on in every age. It is through an unbroken chain
of witnesses that we come to see the face of Jesus.
But how is this possible? How can we be
certain, after all these centuries, that we have encountered
the “real Jesus”? Were we merely isolated
individuals, were our starting point simply
our own individual ego seeking in itself the basis
of absolutely sure knowledge, a certainty of
this sort would be impossible. I cannot possibly
verify for myself something which happened so
long ago. But this is not the only way we attain
knowledge. Persons always live in relationship.
We come from others, we belong to others, and
our lives are enlarged by our encounter with others.
Even our own knowledge and self-awareness
are relational; they are linked to others who have
gone before us: in the first place, our parents,
who gave us our life and our name. Language
53
itself, the words by which we make sense of our
lives and the world around us, comes to us from
others, preserved in the living memory of others.
Self-knowledge is only possible when we share in
a greater memory. The same thing holds true for
faith, which brings human understanding to its
fullness. Faith’s past, that act of Jesus’ love which
brought new life to the world, comes down to us
through the memory of others — witnesses --
and is kept alive in that one remembering subject
which is the Church. The Church is a Mother
who teaches us to speak the language of faith.
Saint John brings this out in his Gospel by closely
uniting faith and memory and associating both
with the working of the Holy Spirit, who, as Jesus
says, “will remind you of all that I have said
to you” (Jn 14:26). The love which is the Holy
Spirit and which dwells in the Church unites every
age and makes us contemporaries of Jesus,
thus guiding us along our pilgrimage of faith.
39. It is impossible to believe on our own. Faith
is not simply an individual decision which takes
place in the depths of the believer’s heart, nor a
completely private relationship between the “I”
of the believer and the divine “Thou”, between
an autonomous subject and God. By its very nature,
faith is open to the “We” of the Church; it
always takes place within her communion. We are
reminded of this by the dialogical format of the
creed used in the baptismal liturgy. Our belief is
expressed in response to an invitation, to a word
54
which must be heard and which is not my own; it
exists as part of a dialogue and cannot be merely
a profession originating in an individual. We can
respond in the singular — “I believe” — only
because we are part of a greater fellowship, only
because we also say “We believe”. This openness
to the ecclesial “We” reflects the openness of
God’s own love, which is not only a relationship
between the Father and the Son, between an “I”
and a “Thou”, but is also, in the Spirit, a “We”, a
communion of persons. Here we see why those
who believe are never alone, and why faith tends
to spread, as it invites others to share in its joy.
Those who receive faith discover that their horizons
expand as new and enriching relationships
come to life. Tertullian puts this well when he describes
the catechumens who, “after the cleansing
which gives new birth” are welcomed into
the house of their mother and, as part of a new
family, pray the Our Father together with their
brothers and sisters.34
The sacraments and the transmission of faith
40. The Church, like every family, passes on to
her children the whole store of her memories. But
how does this come about in a way that nothing
is lost, but rather everything in the patrimony of
faith comes to be more deeply understood? It is
through the apostolic Tradition preserved in the
34 Cf. De Baptismo, 20, 5: CCL 1, 295.
55
Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit that
we enjoy a living contact with the foundational
memory. What was handed down by the apostles
— as the Second Vatican Council states --
“comprises everything that serves to make the
people of God live their lives in holiness and increase
their faith. In this way the Church, in her
doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits
to every generation all that she herself is, all
that she believes”.35
Faith, in fact, needs a setting in which it can
be witnessed to and communicated, a means
which is suitable and proportionate to what is
communicated. For transmitting a purely doctrinal
content, an idea might suffice, or perhaps
a book, or the repetition of a spoken message.
But what is communicated in the Church, what
is handed down in her living Tradition, is the new
light born of an encounter with the true God,
a light which touches us at the core of our being
and engages our minds, wills and emotions,
opening us to relationships lived in communion.
There is a special means for passing down this
fullness, a means capable of engaging the entire
person, body and spirit, interior life and relationships
with others. It is the sacraments, celebrated
in the Church’s liturgy. The sacraments communicate
an incarnate memory, linked to the times
and places of our lives, linked to all our senses; in
35 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum,
8.
56
them the whole person is engaged as a member
of a living subject and part of a network of communitarian
relationships. While the sacraments
are indeed sacraments of faith,36 it can also be
said that faith itself possesses a sacramental
structure. The awakening of faith is linked to the
dawning of a new sacramental sense in our lives
as human beings and as Christians, in which visible
and material realities are seen to point beyond
themselves to the mystery of the eternal.
41. The transmission of faith occurs first and
foremost in baptism. Some might think that baptism
is merely a way of symbolizing the confession
of faith, a pedagogical tool for those who
require images and signs, while in itself ultimately
unnecessary. An observation of Saint Paul
about baptism reminds us that this is not the
case. Paul states that “we were buried with him
by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).
In baptism we become a new creation and God’s
adopted children. The Apostle goes on to say
that Christians have been entrusted to a “standard
of teaching” (týpos didachés), which they now
obey from the heart (cf. Rom 6:17). In baptism
we receive both a teaching to be professed and a
specific way of life which demands the engagement
of the whole person and sets us on the path
36 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council,
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 59.
57
to goodness. Those who are baptized are set in
a new context, entrusted to a new environment,
a new and shared way of acting, in the Church.
Baptism makes us see, then, that faith is not the
achievement of isolated individuals; it is not an
act which someone can perform on his own, but
rather something which must be received by entering
into the ecclesial communion which transmits
God’s gift. No one baptizes himself, just as
no one comes into the world by himself. Baptism
is something we receive.
42. What are the elements of baptism which
introduce us into this new “standard of teaching”?
First, the name of the Trinity — the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit — is invoked upon
the catechumen. Thus, from the outset, a synthesis
of the journey of faith is provided. The God
who called Abraham and wished to be called his
God, the God who revealed his name to Moses,
the God who, in giving us his Son, revealed fully
the mystery of his Name, now bestows upon the
baptized a new filial identity. This is clearly seen
in the act of baptism itself: immersion in water.
Water is at once a symbol of death, inviting us to
pass through self-conversion to a new and greater
identity, and a symbol of life, of a womb in
which we are reborn by following Christ in his
new life. In this way, through immersion in water,
baptism speaks to us of the incarnational structure
of faith. Christ’s work penetrates the depths
of our being and transforms us radically, making
58
us adopted children of God and sharers in the
divine nature. It thus modifies all our relationships,
our place in this world and in the universe,
and opens them to God’s own life of communion.
This change which takes place in baptism
helps us to appreciate the singular importance of
the catechumenate — whereby growing numbers
of adults, even in societies with ancient Christian
roots, now approach the sacrament of baptism
— for the new evangelization. It is the road of
preparation for baptism, for the transformation
of our whole life in Christ.
To appreciate this link between baptism and
faith, we can recall a text of the prophet Isaiah,
which was associated with baptism in early Christian
literature: “Their refuge will be the fortresses
of rocks… their water assured” (Is 33:16).37 The
baptized, rescued from the waters of death, were
now set on a “fortress of rock” because they had
found a firm and reliable foundation. The waters
of death were thus transformed into waters of
life. The Greek text, in speaking of that water
which is “assured”, uses the word pistós, “faithful”.
The waters of baptism are indeed faithful
and trustworthy, for they flow with the power of
Christ’s love, the source of our assurance in the
journey of life.
43. The structure of baptism, its form as a rebirth
in which we receive a new name and a new
37 Cf. Epistula Barnabae, 11, 5: SC 172, 162
59
life, helps us to appreciate the meaning and importance
of infant baptism. Children are not capable
of accepting the faith by a free act, nor are
they yet able to profess that faith on their own;
therefore the faith is professed by their parents
and godparents in their name. Since faith is a reality
lived within the community of the Church,
part of a common “We”, children can be supported
by others, their parents and godparents,
and welcomed into their faith, which is the faith
of the Church; this is symbolized by the candle
which the child’s father lights from the paschal
candle. The structure of baptism, then, demonstrates
the critical importance of cooperation
between Church and family in passing on the
faith. Parents are called, as Saint Augustine once
said, not only to bring children into the world but
also to bring them to God, so that through baptism
they can be reborn as children of God and
receive the gift of faith.38 Thus, along with life,
children are given a fundamental orientation and
assured of a good future; this orientation will be
further strengthened in the sacrament of Confirmation
with the seal of the Holy Spirit.
44. The sacramental character of faith finds its
highest expression in the Eucharist. The Eucharist
is a precious nourishment for faith: an encounter
with Christ truly present in the supreme
38 Cf. De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia I, 4, 5: PL 44, 413:
“Habent quippe intentionem generandi regenerandos, ut qui ex eis saeculi
filii nascuntur in Dei filios renascantur”.
60
act of his love, the life-giving gift of himself. In
the Eucharist we find the intersection of faith’s
two dimensions. On the one hand, there is the
dimension of history: the Eucharist is an act of
remembrance, a making present of the mystery
in which the past, as an event of death and resurrection,
demonstrates its ability to open up a
future, to foreshadow ultimate fulfilment. The
liturgy reminds us of this by its repetition of
the word hodie, the “today” of the mysteries of
salvation. On the other hand, we also find the
dimension which leads from the visible world
to the invisible. In the Eucharist we learn to see
the heights and depths of reality. The bread and
wine are changed into the body and blood of
Christ, who becomes present in his passover to
the Father: this movement draws us, body and
soul, into the movement of all creation towards
its fulfilment in God.
45. In the celebration of the sacraments, the
Church hands down her memory especially
through the profession of faith. The creed does
not only involve giving one’s assent to a body
of abstract truths; rather, when it is recited the
whole of life is drawn into a journey towards full
communion with the living God. We can say that
in the creed believers are invited to enter into
the mystery which they profess and to be transformed
by it. To understand what this means,
let us look first at the contents of the creed. It
has a trinitarian structure: the Father and the Son
61
are united in the Spirit of love. The believer thus
states that the core of all being, the inmost secret
of all reality, is the divine communion. The creed
also contains a christological confession: it takes
us through all the mysteries of Christ’s life up to
his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven
before his final return in glory. It tells us that this
God of communion, reciprocal love between the
Father and the Son in the Spirit, is capable of
embracing all of human history and drawing it
into the dynamic unity of the Godhead, which
has its source and fulfillment in the Father. The
believer who professes his or her faith is taken
up, as it were, into the truth being professed. He
or she cannot truthfully recite the words of the
creed without being changed, without becoming
part of that history of love which embraces us
and expands our being, making it part of a great
fellowship, the ultimate subject which recites
the creed, namely, the Church. All the truths in
which we believe point to the mystery of the new
life of faith as a journey of communion with the
living God.
Faith, prayer and the Decalogue
46. Two other elements are essential in the
faithful transmission of the Church’s memory.
First, the Lord’s Prayer, the “Our Father”. Here
Christians learn to share in Christ’s own spiritual
experience and to see all things through his eyes.
From him who is light from light, the onlybegotten
Son of the Father, we come to know
62
God and can thus kindle in others the desire to
draw near to him.
Similarly important is the link between faith
and the Decalogue. Faith, as we have said, takes
the form of a journey, a path to be followed, which
begins with an encounter with the living God. It
is in the light of faith, of complete entrustment to
the God who saves, that the Ten Commandments
take on their deepest truth, as seen in the words
which introduce them: “I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex
20:2). The Decalogue is not a set of negative commands,
but concrete directions for emerging from
the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in
order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced
by his mercy and then to bring that mercy
to others. Faith thus professes the love of God,
origin and upholder of all things, and lets itself be
guided by this love in order to journey towards the
fullness of communion with God. The Decalogue
appears as the path of gratitude, the response of
love, made possible because in faith we are receptive
to the experience of God’s transforming love
for us. And this path receives new light from Jesus’
teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5-7).
These, then, are the four elements which
comprise the storehouse of memory which the
Church hands down: the profession of faith, the
celebration of the sacraments, the path of the ten
commandments, and prayer. The Church’s catechesis
has traditionally been structured around
these four elements; this includes the Catechism of
63
the Catholic Church, which is a fundamental aid for
that unitary act with which the Church communicates
the entire content of her faith: “all that
she herself is, and all that she believes”.39
The unity and integrity of faith
47. The unity of the Church in time and space
is linked to the unity of the faith: “there is one
body and one Spirit… one faith” (Eph 4:4-5).
These days we can imagine a group of people
being united in a common cause, in mutual affection,
in sharing the same destiny and a single
purpose. But we find it hard to conceive of a
unity in one truth. We tend to think that a unity
of this sort is incompatible with freedom of
thought and personal autonomy. Yet the experience
of love shows us that a common vision is
possible, for through love we learn how to see
reality through the eyes of others, not as something
which impoverishes but instead enriches
our vision. Genuine love, after the fashion of
God’s love, ultimately requires truth, and the
shared contemplation of the truth which is Jesus
Christ enables love to become deep and enduring.
This is also the great joy of faith: a unity of
vision in one body and one spirit. Saint Leo the
Great could say: “If faith is not one, then it is
not faith”.40
39 second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 8.
40 In Nativitate Domini Sermo, 4, 6: SC 22, 110.
64
What is the secret of this unity? Faith is
“one”, in the first place, because of the oneness
of the God who is known and confessed. All the
articles of faith speak of God; they are ways to
know him and his works. Consequently, their unity
is far superior to any possible construct of human
reason. They possess a unity which enriches us because
it is given to us and makes us one.
Faith is also one because it is directed to the
one Lord, to the life of Jesus, to the concrete
history which he shares with us. Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons made this clear in his struggle against
Gnosticism. The Gnostics held that there are
two kinds of faith: a crude, imperfect faith suited
to the masses, which remained at the level of
Jesus’ flesh and the contemplation of his mysteries;
and a deeper, perfect faith reserved to a small
circle of initiates who were intellectually capable
of rising above the flesh of Jesus towards the
mysteries of the unknown divinity. In opposition
to this claim, which even today exerts a certain
attraction and has its followers, Saint Irenaeus insisted
that there is but one faith, for it is grounded
in the concrete event of the incarnation and can
never transcend the flesh and history of Christ,
inasmuch as God willed to reveal himself fully
in that flesh. For this reason, he says, there is no
difference in the faith of “those able to discourse
of it at length” and “those who speak but little”,
between the greater and the less: the first cannot
increase the faith, nor the second diminish it.41
41 Cf. irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I, 10, 2: SC 264, 160.
65
Finally, faith is one because it is shared by
the whole Church, which is one body and one
Spirit. In the communion of the one subject
which is the Church, we receive a common gaze.
By professing the same faith, we stand firm on
the same rock, we are transformed by the same
Spirit of love, we radiate one light and we have a
single insight into reality.
48. Since faith is one, it must be professed in all
its purity and integrity. Precisely because all the
articles of faith are interconnected, to deny one
of them, even of those that seem least important,
is tantamount to distorting the whole. Each
period of history can find this or that point of
faith easier or harder to accept: hence the need
for vigilance in ensuring that the deposit of faith
is passed on in its entirety (cf. 1 Tim 6:20) and that
all aspects of the profession of faith are duly emphasized.
Indeed, inasmuch as the unity of faith
is the unity of the Church, to subtract something
from the faith is to subtract something from the
veracity of communion. The Fathers described
faith as a body, the body of truth composed of
various members, by analogy with the body of
Christ and its prolongation in the Church.42 The
integrity of the faith was also tied to the image
of the Church as a virgin and her fidelity in love
for Christ her spouse; harming the faith means
harming communion with the Lord.43 The unity
42 Cf. ibid., II, 27, 1: SC 294, 264.
43 Cf. augusTine, De Sancta Virginitate, 48, 48: PL 40, 424-
66
of faith, then, is the unity of a living body; this
was clearly brought out by Blessed John Henry
Newman when he listed among the characteristic
notes for distinguishing the continuity of doctrine
over time its power to assimilate everything
that it meets in the various settings in which it
becomes present and in the diverse cultures
which it encounters,44 purifying all things and
bringing them to their finest expression. Faith is
thus shown to be universal, catholic, because its
light expands in order to illumine the entire cosmos
and all of history.
49. As a service to the unity of faith and its
integral transmission, the Lord gave his Church
the gift of apostolic succession. Through this
means, the continuity of the Church’s memory
is ensured and certain access can be had to the
wellspring from which faith flows. The assurance
of continuity with the origins is thus given by
living persons, in a way consonant with the living
faith which the Church is called to transmit. She
depends on the fidelity of witnesses chosen by
the Lord for this task. For this reason, the magisterium
always speaks in obedience to the prior
word on which faith is based; it is reliable because
of its trust in the word which it hears, preserves
425: “Servatur et in fide inviolata quaedam castitas virginalis, qua Ecclesia
uni viro virgo casta coaptatur”.
44 Cf. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Uniform
Edition: Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1868-
1881), 185-189.
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and expounds.45 In Saint Paul’s farewell discourse
to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, which Saint
Luke recounts for us in the Acts of the Apostles,
he testifies that he had carried out the task which
the Lord had entrusted to him of “declaring the
whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Thanks to
the Church’s magisterium, this counsel can come
to us in its integrity, and with it the joy of being
able to follow it fully.
45 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 10.
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CHAPTER FOUR
GOD PREPARES A CITY FOR THEM
(cf. Heb 11:16)
Faith and the common good
50. In presenting the story of the patriarchs
and the righteous men and women of the Old
Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews highlights
an essential aspect of their faith. That faith is not
only presented as a journey, but also as a process
of building, the preparing of a place in which
human beings can dwell together with one another.
The first builder was Noah who saved his
family in the ark (Heb 11:7). Then comes Abraham,
of whom it is said that by faith he dwelt in
tents, as he looked forward to the city with firm
foundations (cf. Heb 11:9-10). With faith comes
a new reliability, a new firmness, which God
alone can give. If the man of faith finds support
in the God of fidelity, the God who is Amen
(cf. Is 65:16), and thus becomes firm himself, we
can now also say that firmness of faith marks the
city which God is preparing for mankind. Faith
reveals just how firm the bonds between people
can be when God is present in their midst. Faith
does not merely grant interior firmness, a steadfast
conviction on the part of the believer; it also
sheds light on every human relationship because
it is born of love and reflects God’s own love.
The God who is himself reliable gives us a city
which is reliable.
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51. Precisely because it is linked to love (cf. Gal
5:6), the light of faith is concretely placed at the
service of justice, law and peace. Faith is born of
an encounter with God’s primordial love, wherein
the meaning and goodness of our life become
evident; our life is illumined to the extent that it
enters into the space opened by that love, to the
extent that it becomes, in other words, a path and
praxis leading to the fullness of love. The light of
faith is capable of enhancing the richness of human
relations, their ability to endure, to be trustworthy,
to enrich our life together. Faith does not
draw us away from the world or prove irrelevant
to the concrete concerns of the men and women
of our time. Without a love which is trustworthy,
nothing could truly keep men and women united.
Human unity would be conceivable only on
the basis of utility, on a calculus of conflicting
interests or on fear, but not on the goodness of
living together, not on the joy which the mere
presence of others can give. Faith makes us appreciate
the architecture of human relationships
because it grasps their ultimate foundation and
definitive destiny in God, in his love, and thus
sheds light on the art of building; as such it becomes
a service to the common good. Faith is
truly a good for everyone; it is a common good.
Its light does not simply brighten the interior
of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build
an eternal city in the hereafter; it helps us build
our societies in such a way that they can journey
towards a future of hope. The Letter to the
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Hebrews offers an example in this regard when
it names, among the men and women of faith,
Samuel and David, whose faith enabled them to
“administer justice” (Heb 11:33). This expression
refers to their justice in governance, to that wisdom
which brings peace to the people (cf. 1 Sam
12:3-5; 2 Sam 8:15). The hands of faith are raised
up to heaven, even as they go about building in
charity a city based on relationships in which the
love of God is laid as a foundation.
Faith and the family
52. In Abraham’s journey towards the future
city, the Letter to the Hebrews mentions the
blessing which was passed on from fathers to
sons (cf. Heb 11:20-21). The first setting in which
faith enlightens the human city is the family. I
think first and foremost of the stable union of
man and woman in marriage. This union is born
of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s
own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance
of the goodness of sexual differentiation,
whereby spouses can become one flesh
(cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a
new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness,
wisdom and loving plan. Grounded in this
love, a man and a woman can promise each other
mutual love in a gesture which engages their
entire lives and mirrors many features of faith.
Promising love for ever is possible when we perceive
a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings,
a plan which sustains us and enables
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us to surrender our future entirely to the one we
love. Faith also helps us to grasp in all its depth
and richness the begetting of children, as a sign
of the love of the Creator who entrusts us with
the mystery of a new person. So it was that Sarah,
by faith, became a mother, for she trusted in
God’s fidelity to his promise (cf. Heb 11:11).
53. In the family, faith accompanies every age
of life, beginning with childhood: children learn
to trust in the love of their parents. This is why it
is so important that within their families parents
encourage shared expressions of faith which can
help children gradually to mature in their own
faith. Young people in particular, who are going
through a period in their lives which is so complex,
rich and important for their faith, ought to
feel the constant closeness and support of their
families and the Church in their journey of faith.
We have all seen, during World Youth Days, the
joy that young people show in their faith and
their desire for an ever more solid and generous
life of faith. Young people want to live life to the
fullest. Encountering Christ, letting themselves
be caught up in and guided by his love, enlarges
the horizons of existence, gives it a firm hope
which will not disappoint. Faith is no refuge for
the fainthearted, but something which enhances
our lives. It makes us aware of a magnificent calling,
the vocation of love. It assures us that this
love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for it
is based on God’s faithfulness which is stronger
than our every weakness.
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A light for life in society
54. Absorbed and deepened in the family, faith
becomes a light capable of illumining all our relationships
in society. As an experience of the
mercy of God the Father, it sets us on the path
of brotherhood. Modernity sought to build a
universal brotherhood based on equality, yet we
gradually came to realize that this brotherhood,
lacking a reference to a common Father as its
ultimate foundation, cannot endure. We need to
return to the true basis of brotherhood. The history
of faith has been from the beginning a history
of brotherhood, albeit not without conflict.
God calls Abraham to go forth from his land and
promises to make of him a great nation, a great
people on whom the divine blessing rests (cf.
Gen 12:1-3). As salvation history progresses, it becomes
evident that God wants to make everyone
share as brothers and sisters in that one blessing,
which attains its fullness in Jesus, so that all
may be one. The boundless love of our Father
also comes to us, in Jesus, through our brothers
and sisters. Faith teaches us to see that every man
and woman represents a blessing for me, that the
light of God’s face shines on me through the faces
of my brothers and sisters.
How many benefits has the gaze of Christian
faith brought to the city of men for their
common life! Thanks to faith we have come to
understand the unique dignity of each person,
something which was not clearly seen in antiquity.
In the second century the pagan Celsus
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reproached Christians for an idea that he considered
foolishness and delusion: namely, that God
created the world for man, setting human beings
at the pinnacle of the entire cosmos. “Why claim
that [grass] grows for the benefit of man, rather
than for that of the most savage of the brute
beasts?”46 “If we look down to Earth from the
heights of heaven, would there really be any difference
between our activities and those of the
ants and bees?”47 At the heart of biblical faith is
God’s love, his concrete concern for every person,
and his plan of salvation which embraces
all of humanity and all creation, culminating in
the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Without insight into these realities,
there is no criterion for discerning what makes
human life precious and unique. Man loses his
place in the universe, he is cast adrift in nature,
either renouncing his proper moral responsibility
or else presuming to be a sort of absolute judge,
endowed with an unlimited power to manipulate
the world around him.
55. Faith, on the other hand, by revealing the
love of God the Creator, enables us to respect
nature all the more, and to discern in it a grammar
written by the hand of God and a dwelling
place entrusted to our protection and care. Faith
also helps us to devise models of development
which are based not simply on utility and prof-
46 origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 75: SC 136, 372.
47 Ibid., 85: SC 136, 394.
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it, but consider creation as a gift for which we
are all indebted; it teaches us to create just forms
of government, in the realization that authority
comes from God and is meant for the service of
the common good. Faith likewise offers the possibility
of forgiveness, which so often demands
time and effort, patience and commitment. Forgiveness
is possible once we discover that goodness
is always prior to and more powerful than
evil, and that the word with which God affirms
our life is deeper than our every denial. From a
purely anthropological standpoint, unity is superior
to conflict; rather than avoiding conflict, we
need to confront it in an effort to resolve and
move beyond it, to make it a link in a chain, as
part of a progress towards unity.
When faith is weakened, the foundations of
life also risk being weakened, as the poet T.S.
Eliot warned: “Do you need to be told that even
those modest attainments / As you can boast in
the way of polite society / Will hardly survive
the Faith to which they owe their significance?”
48 If we remove faith in God from
our cities, mutual trust would be weakened, we
would remain united only by fear and our stability
would be threatened. In the Letter to the
Hebrews we read that “God is not ashamed to be
called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city
for them” (Heb 11:16). Here the expression “is
48 “Choruses from The Rock”, in The Collected Poems and
Plays 1909-1950, New York, 1980, 106.
76
not ashamed” is associated with public acknowledgment.
The intention is to say that God, by his
concrete actions, makes a public avowal that he is
present in our midst and that he desires to solidify
every human relationship. Could it be the case,
instead, that we are the ones who are ashamed to
call God our God? That we are the ones who fail
to confess him as such in our public life, who fail
to propose the grandeur of the life in common
which he makes possible? Faith illumines life and
society. If it possesses a creative light for each
new moment of history, it is because it sets every
event in relationship to the origin and destiny of
all things in the Father.
Consolation and strength amid suffering
56. Writing to the Christians of Corinth about
his sufferings and tribulations, Saint Paul links his
faith to his preaching of the Gospel. In himself
he sees fulfilled the passage of Scripture which
reads: “I believed, and so I spoke” (2 Cor 4:13).
The reference is to a verse of Psalm 116, in which
the psalmist exclaims: “I kept my faith, even
when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted’” (v. 10). To
speak of faith often involves speaking of painful
testing, yet it is precisely in such testing that Paul
sees the most convincing proclamation of the
Gospel, for it is in weakness and suffering that
we discover God’s power which triumphs over
our weakness and suffering. The apostle himself
experienced a dying which would become life
for Christians (cf. 2 Cor 4:7-12). In the hour of
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trial faith brings light, while suffering and weakness
make it evident that “we do not proclaim
ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord”
(2 Cor 4:5). The eleventh chapter of the Letter to
the Hebrews concludes with a reference to those
who suffered for their faith (cf. Heb 11:35-38);
outstanding among these was Moses, who suffered
abuse for the Christ (cf. v. 26). Christians
know that suffering cannot be eliminated, yet
it can have meaning and become an act of love
and entrustment into the hands of God who
does not abandon us; in this way it can serve as
a moment of growth in faith and love. By contemplating
Christ’s union with the Father even
at the height of his sufferings on the cross (cf.
Mk 15:34), Christians learn to share in the same
gaze of Jesus. Even death is illumined and can
be experienced as the ultimate call to faith, the
ultimate “Go forth from your land” (Gen 12:1),
the ultimate “Come!” spoken by the Father, to
whom we abandon ourselves in the confidence
that he will keep us steadfast even in our final
passage.
57. Nor does the light of faith make us forget
the sufferings of this world. How many men and
women of faith have found mediators of light in
those who suffer! So it was with Saint Francis of
Assisi and the leper, or with Blessed Mother Teresa
of Calcutta and her poor. They understood
the mystery at work in them. In drawing near to the
suffering, they were certainly not able to eliminate
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all their pain or to explain every evil. Faith is not
a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp
which guides our steps in the night and suffices
for the journey. To those who suffer, God does
not provide arguments which explain everything;
rather, his response is that of an accompanying
presence, a history of goodness which touches
every story of suffering and opens up a ray of
light. In Christ, God himself wishes to share this
path with us and to offer us his gaze so that we
might see the light within it. Christ is the one who,
having endured suffering, is “the pioneer and perfecter
of our faith” (Heb 12:2).
Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to
the common good is always one of hope — a
hope which looks ever ahead in the knowledge
that only from God, from the future which
comes from the risen Jesus, can our society find
solid and lasting foundations. In this sense faith
is linked to hope, for even if our dwelling place
here below is wasting away, we have an eternal
dwelling place which God has already prepared
in Christ, in his body (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-5:5). The
dynamic of faith, hope and charity (cf. 1 Th 1:3;
1 Cor 13:13) thus leads us to embrace the concerns
of all men and women on our journey
towards that city “whose architect and builder
is God” (Heb 11:10), for “hope does not disappoint”
(Rom 5:5).
In union with faith and charity, hope propels
us towards a sure future, set against a different
horizon with regard to the illusory enticements
79
of the idols of this world yet granting new momentum
and strength to our daily lives. Let us
refuse to be robbed of hope, or to allow our
hope to be dimmed by facile answers and solutions
which block our progress, “fragmenting”
time and changing it into space. Time is always
much greater than space. Space hardens processes,
whereas time propels towards the future and
encourages us to go forward in hope.
Blessed is she who believed (Lk 1:45)
58. In the parable of the sower, Saint Luke
has left us these words of the Lord about the
“good soil”: “These are the ones who when they
hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good
heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance”
(Lk 8:15). In the context of Luke’s Gospel, this
mention of an honest and good heart which
hears and keeps the word is an implicit portrayal
of the faith of the Virgin Mary. The evangelist
himself speaks of Mary’s memory, how she
treasured in her heart all that she had heard and
seen, so that the word could bear fruit in her life.
The Mother of the Lord is the perfect icon of
faith; as Saint Elizabeth would say: “Blessed is
she who believed” (Lk 1:45).
In Mary, the Daughter of Zion, is fulfilled
the long history of faith of the Old Testament,
with its account of so many faithful women, beginning
with Sarah: women who, alongside the
patriarchs, were those in whom God’s promise
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was fulfilled and new life flowered. In the fullness
of time, God’s word was spoken to Mary
and she received that word into her heart, her entire
being, so that in her womb it could take flesh
and be born as light for humanity. Saint Justin
Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, uses a striking
expression; he tells us that Mary, receiving
the message of the angel, conceived “faith and
joy”.49 In the Mother of Jesus, faith demonstrated
its fruitfulness; when our own spiritual lives
bear fruit we become filled with joy, which is the
clearest sign of faith’s grandeur. In her own life
Mary completed the pilgrimage of faith, following
in the footsteps of her Son.50 In her the faith
journey of the Old Testament was thus taken up
into the following of Christ, transformed by him
and entering into the gaze of the incarnate Son
of God.
59. We can say that in the Blessed Virgin Mary
we find something I mentioned earlier, namely
that the believer is completely taken up into
his or her confession of faith. Because of her
close bond with Jesus, Mary is strictly connected
to what we believe. As Virgin and Mother, Mary
offers us a clear sign of Christ’s divine sonship.
The eternal origin of Christ is in the Father. He
is the Son in a total and unique sense, and so
he is born in time without the intervention of
49 Cf. Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 100, 5: PG 6, 710.
50 Cf. second VaTican ecumenical council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 58.
81
a man. As the Son, Jesus brings to the world a
new beginning and a new light, the fullness of
God’s faithful love bestowed on humanity. But
Mary’s true motherhood also ensured for the Son
of God an authentic human history, true flesh in
which he would die on the cross and rise from the
dead. Mary would accompany Jesus to the cross
(cf. Jn 19:25), whence her motherhood would extend
to each of his disciples (cf. Jn 19:26-27). She
will also be present in the upper room after Jesus’
resurrection and ascension, joining the apostles
in imploring the gift of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14).
The movement of love between Father, Son and
Spirit runs through our history, and Christ draws
us to himself in order to save us (cf. Jn 12:32). At
the centre of our faith is the confession of Jesus,
the Son of God, born of a woman, who brings
us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, to adoption
as sons and daughters (cf. Gal 4:4).
60. Let us turn in prayer to Mary, Mother of
the Church and Mother of our faith.
Mother, help our faith!
Open our ears to hear God’s word and to
recognize his voice and call.
Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps,
to go forth from our own land and to receive
his promise.
Help us to be touched by his love, that we
may touch him in faith.
Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and
to believe in his love, especially at times of trial,
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beneath the shadow of the cross, when our faith
is called to mature.
Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One.
Remind us that those who believe are never
alone.
Teach us to see all things with the eyes of
Jesus, that he may be light for our path. And may
this light of faith always increase in us, until the
dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself,
your Son, our Lord!
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 29 June,
the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and
Paul, in the year 2013, the first of my pontificate.
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CONTENTS
The light of faith [1] . . . . . . . . . 3
An illusory light? [2-3] . . . . . . . . . 4
A light to be recovered [4-7] . . . . . . . 5
chapter one
we have believed in love
(cf. 1 Jn 4:16)
Abraham, our father in faith [8-11] . . . . 11
The faith of Israel [12-14] . . . . . . . . 14
The fullness of Christian faith [15-18] . . . 18
Salvation by faith [19-21] . . . . . . . . 22
The ecclesial form of faith [22] . . . . . . 25
chapter two
unless you believe,
you will not understand
(cf. Is 7:9)
Faith and truth [23-25] . . . . . . . . . 29
Knowledge of the truth and love [26-28] . . 32
Faith as hearing and sight [29-31] . . . . . 36
The dialogue between faith and reason [32-34] 41
Faith and the search for God [35] . . . . . 45
Faith and theology [36] . . . . . . . . . 48
chapter three
i delivered to you what i also received
(cf. 1 Cor 15:3)
The Church, mother of our faith [37-39] . . 51
The sacraments and the transmission of faith
[40-45] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Faith, prayer and the Decalogue [46] . . . . 61
The unity and integrity of faith [47-49] . . . 63
chapter four
God prepares a city for them
(cf. Heb 11:16)
Faith and the common good [50-51] . . . . 69
Faith and the family [52-53] . . . . . . . 71
A light for life in society [54-55]. . . . . . 73
Consolation and strength amid suffering
[56-57] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Blessed is she who BelieVed (cf. Lk 1:45)
[58-60] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
VATICAN PRESS
TOWARDS A YIELDED SPIRIT
As we step into a new Liturgical Season we call Ordinary Time, we begin with this Gospel passage from Mark (Mk 1:14-20) and here we see Jesus beginning his ministry by proclaiming: "The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe." Our initial reaction would of course be what is the Kingdom of God that Jesus is talking about and again to fully understand what Our Lord meant we need to go back in time and look at salvation history from the Old Testament times to the time when Jesus was born.
It doesn't end there, we have to look at why he was born in a lowly manger if he was from the beginning a King. We also have to digest so we can appreciate the reason why he was sent and the promises made by God who said: "For whosoever believe in him shall not perish but will have eternal life." (Jn 3:16)
So now he comes and says "the Kingdom of God is near." (v.15) and we ask what is the Kingdom of God like. When Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is near, this utterance could be likened in so many ways to when he proclaimed the "the Year of the Lord's favor" (Lk 4:19). The Kingdom of God and the Year of the Lord's favor
It doesn't end there, we have to look at why he was born in a lowly manger if he was from the beginning a King. We also have to digest so we can appreciate the reason why he was sent and the promises made by God who said: "For whosoever believe in him shall not perish but will have eternal life." (Jn 3:16)
So now he comes and says "the Kingdom of God is near." (v.15) and we ask what is the Kingdom of God like. When Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is near, this utterance could be likened in so many ways to when he proclaimed the "the Year of the Lord's favor" (Lk 4:19). The Kingdom of God and the Year of the Lord's favor
THOSE WHO LOVE GOD AND NEIGHBOR GIVE THEIR ALL
(Reflection delivered by ED M. MALAY at the Corporate Worship
of Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community on Nov. 14, 2012
at the Santuario de San Antonio Parish, Makati City, Philippines.)
The Theme “Those who love God and neighbor give their all” was the topic given to me for my Reflection at the Corporate Worship of the BLD on Nov. 14, 2012. I chose to begin with an explanation on the ongoing conflict that Jesus had with the Pharisees and in this Gospel passage in Mk 12:38-44, Jesus began by telling his disciples of what seemed to be the arrogant behavior of the Pharisees which he contrasted in the second part of the Gospel with the humility with which a poor widow put in whatever she had into the temple treasury.
In v.38 Jesus cited the penchant of the Pharisees who walk around in flowing robes and like to be greeted in marketplaces. The word ‘Rabbi’ means great one (in Matt 23:7 – Jesus warned his disciples about attachment to titles.) He also cited the habit of the Pharisees in having the most important seats in the synagogue v.39 and worst they devour widows’ houses or misappropriate the houses of widows and for a show make lengthy prayers. v.40 Such men will be punished most severely, Jesus told his disciples.
However, if there was one thing that the Jews were in uniformity with ne another it was in the matter of their tithing. All the Jews for as long as they are not handicapped – they all tithe – rich and poor alike. And in this gospel passage we see: “many rich people threw in large amounts. (v.41) What the wealthy normally give was one Denarius which was equivalent to a day’s labor.
The drama in this passage began when “a poor widow came and put in two very small coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.” (v.42) The poor widow actually put in two small coins called Lepton and this was made of bronze and is equivalent to 1/128 of one denarius.
Because of her condition, the widow could have kept one coin and used the other coin for her food. She was destitute. In the time of Jesus, unless a widow has a son who agrees to take care of her or unless she was rich, a widow in those days was considered a nobody. She would probably be reduced to slavery or begging. And here we see a widow who put in everything she had.
Why? It was probably on account of what the Jews believed in. As a Jew this widow knew the Shema. “Hear O, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Love the lord your God with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down or stand. Tie them on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates.” (Deut 6:4-9)
The Shema is recited two times a day by the Jews to affirm their faith in god. In the practice of their faith, the Jews also hope that God is an answering God and that they will be blessed for their faithfulness. This was probably what the woman felt when she put in her last two coins – and this did not escape the attention of Jesus.
There are three lessons we can learn from this gospel experience. The first is that tithing requires:
1. Proportional giving – what Jesus was saying was that how much we give is related to how much we have. In fact, he is telling us in Lk 12:48 “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
This principle of proportional giving is at the root of the tithe (10% giving to the lord) taught in the Old Testament. And St. Paul reiterates this principle to the Corinthian church when he said: "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income..." (1 Cor 16:2).
2. Sacrificial giving – Jesus didn't tell the woman to keep her money, that God doesn't really need it. He lets her give and his heart swells with pride for this lady. If he stopped her, he deprives her of the blessing of giving to God. So he lets her do it. We don't win extra points with God when we give sacrificially. This is not a contest. But know that when you make sacrifices for God, he is watching. It doesn't matter if no one else sees or knows. It is better that they do not. But you may count on the fact that God sees and knows your giving. Jesus promises, "your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Mt 6:4)
3. Faith-filled giving – The third lesson I see here is that we ourselves should not despise our small gifts to God. Sometimes we fall under the worldly spell that "bigger must be better." That's not true of our giving to God. We are to give what we are able, whether small or great. If you've ever been poor, then you know that it is easy to feel, "my small gift won't make any difference. It won't matter." But that's not true. It does matter. It matters to your Heavenly Father who loves you.
It is also faith-filled when you give, not knowing exactly how God will provide for you after you give. I'm not encouraging foolish giving, but faith-filled giving, giving proportionately to your income and expecting God to meet your needs, “each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give.” (2 cor 9:7)
And so now we come to the most important questions we will ask tonight. Why is it that we cannot give as the Bible says. What is it that is stopping us from giving what is due to God. Let us go back to the Shema. The Jews regardless of the reasons behind their giving give because they know who God is. They believed that they love God in the way they practice their faith. So the question as to why our tithes and love offerings are not as what is expected of a community that is as blessed as the B.L.D. will touch on these two issues – 1.) Perhaps we do not really know God in the way that he should be known. (2.) It is probable that we may only be paying lip service when we say we love God.
And this brings us to Canon Law no. 1752 which says: “Salus Animarum Suprema Lex” which when translated into English means “The salvation of souls is the supreme law.” How then is this related to our topic tonight. We have been taught that Jesus did not come into this world to abolish the law but to perfect it. Jesus knew what he was getting into. He knew he will be rejected, criticized, mocked and eventually suffer and crucified. But he endured and went through all that in perfect obedience to the Will of the Father to become the purveyor of the supreme law – the salvation of souls and because Jesus paid a high price to ransom us and because the Psalmist says that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, then it presupposes that our lives are not our own but it belongs to him who gives us everything we need to live. Thus, we who have been given the privilege to call God Abba Father, our God expects us to know him and to love him for it is only in so doing that we can really truly give our all.
Brothers and Sisters, let us be emboldened by the promise in Mal 3:10 which says: “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”
Indeed, it is only in knowing that we don’t have any ownership of whatever we have including the life we live and loving God and trusting he will take care of our needs and loving our neighbor as well that we can give our all.
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
of Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community on Nov. 14, 2012
at the Santuario de San Antonio Parish, Makati City, Philippines.)
The Theme “Those who love God and neighbor give their all” was the topic given to me for my Reflection at the Corporate Worship of the BLD on Nov. 14, 2012. I chose to begin with an explanation on the ongoing conflict that Jesus had with the Pharisees and in this Gospel passage in Mk 12:38-44, Jesus began by telling his disciples of what seemed to be the arrogant behavior of the Pharisees which he contrasted in the second part of the Gospel with the humility with which a poor widow put in whatever she had into the temple treasury.
In v.38 Jesus cited the penchant of the Pharisees who walk around in flowing robes and like to be greeted in marketplaces. The word ‘Rabbi’ means great one (in Matt 23:7 – Jesus warned his disciples about attachment to titles.) He also cited the habit of the Pharisees in having the most important seats in the synagogue v.39 and worst they devour widows’ houses or misappropriate the houses of widows and for a show make lengthy prayers. v.40 Such men will be punished most severely, Jesus told his disciples.
However, if there was one thing that the Jews were in uniformity with ne another it was in the matter of their tithing. All the Jews for as long as they are not handicapped – they all tithe – rich and poor alike. And in this gospel passage we see: “many rich people threw in large amounts. (v.41) What the wealthy normally give was one Denarius which was equivalent to a day’s labor.
The drama in this passage began when “a poor widow came and put in two very small coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.” (v.42) The poor widow actually put in two small coins called Lepton and this was made of bronze and is equivalent to 1/128 of one denarius.
Because of her condition, the widow could have kept one coin and used the other coin for her food. She was destitute. In the time of Jesus, unless a widow has a son who agrees to take care of her or unless she was rich, a widow in those days was considered a nobody. She would probably be reduced to slavery or begging. And here we see a widow who put in everything she had.
Why? It was probably on account of what the Jews believed in. As a Jew this widow knew the Shema. “Hear O, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Love the lord your God with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down or stand. Tie them on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates.” (Deut 6:4-9)
The Shema is recited two times a day by the Jews to affirm their faith in god. In the practice of their faith, the Jews also hope that God is an answering God and that they will be blessed for their faithfulness. This was probably what the woman felt when she put in her last two coins – and this did not escape the attention of Jesus.
There are three lessons we can learn from this gospel experience. The first is that tithing requires:
1. Proportional giving – what Jesus was saying was that how much we give is related to how much we have. In fact, he is telling us in Lk 12:48 “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
This principle of proportional giving is at the root of the tithe (10% giving to the lord) taught in the Old Testament. And St. Paul reiterates this principle to the Corinthian church when he said: "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income..." (1 Cor 16:2).
2. Sacrificial giving – Jesus didn't tell the woman to keep her money, that God doesn't really need it. He lets her give and his heart swells with pride for this lady. If he stopped her, he deprives her of the blessing of giving to God. So he lets her do it. We don't win extra points with God when we give sacrificially. This is not a contest. But know that when you make sacrifices for God, he is watching. It doesn't matter if no one else sees or knows. It is better that they do not. But you may count on the fact that God sees and knows your giving. Jesus promises, "your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Mt 6:4)
3. Faith-filled giving – The third lesson I see here is that we ourselves should not despise our small gifts to God. Sometimes we fall under the worldly spell that "bigger must be better." That's not true of our giving to God. We are to give what we are able, whether small or great. If you've ever been poor, then you know that it is easy to feel, "my small gift won't make any difference. It won't matter." But that's not true. It does matter. It matters to your Heavenly Father who loves you.
It is also faith-filled when you give, not knowing exactly how God will provide for you after you give. I'm not encouraging foolish giving, but faith-filled giving, giving proportionately to your income and expecting God to meet your needs, “each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give.” (2 cor 9:7)
And so now we come to the most important questions we will ask tonight. Why is it that we cannot give as the Bible says. What is it that is stopping us from giving what is due to God. Let us go back to the Shema. The Jews regardless of the reasons behind their giving give because they know who God is. They believed that they love God in the way they practice their faith. So the question as to why our tithes and love offerings are not as what is expected of a community that is as blessed as the B.L.D. will touch on these two issues – 1.) Perhaps we do not really know God in the way that he should be known. (2.) It is probable that we may only be paying lip service when we say we love God.
And this brings us to Canon Law no. 1752 which says: “Salus Animarum Suprema Lex” which when translated into English means “The salvation of souls is the supreme law.” How then is this related to our topic tonight. We have been taught that Jesus did not come into this world to abolish the law but to perfect it. Jesus knew what he was getting into. He knew he will be rejected, criticized, mocked and eventually suffer and crucified. But he endured and went through all that in perfect obedience to the Will of the Father to become the purveyor of the supreme law – the salvation of souls and because Jesus paid a high price to ransom us and because the Psalmist says that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, then it presupposes that our lives are not our own but it belongs to him who gives us everything we need to live. Thus, we who have been given the privilege to call God Abba Father, our God expects us to know him and to love him for it is only in so doing that we can really truly give our all.
Brothers and Sisters, let us be emboldened by the promise in Mal 3:10 which says: “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”
Indeed, it is only in knowing that we don’t have any ownership of whatever we have including the life we live and loving God and trusting he will take care of our needs and loving our neighbor as well that we can give our all.
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
THE SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL
(Please allow me to reprint this article inspired by messages received by Vassula Ryden who in the last 26 years has been receiving messages from God. These messages have now become part of the documents of the True Life In God (TLIG) ministry of Mrs. Ryden. I am reprinting this because I believe that Churches and or Communities for that matter that are having difficulty growing towards a life in God, with God and for God is because they are unaware of the Jezebel Spirit which may have taken hold of their environment. Churches and or Communities that may be manifesting this type of spirit should not be in denial but should go into a prayer to discern the presence of the Jezebel spirit and confront it. One such manifestation is when it is evident that your Church and or Community is not growing nor progressing as it should be.)
Many Christians are not aware that they might be carriers of one demon or more. They can never imagine that whatever physical or psychological illness they suffer could be caused by evil spirits that made their home in them.
Many emotional disorders, neurosis, break downs, unfounded fears, anxieties, migraine headaches, asthma, allergies and other psychosomatic diseases very often are caused by a demon that has taken his abode in the soul and body of a person.
In our days if someone suggests to them such a thing, they would laugh at the notion of having such a demon or they would simply think your thoughts are medieval, outdated or superstitious. Leaving such a demon or even ignoring it would simply cause more damage since it would be an invitation to this evil spirit to remain permanently in us.
In this article I shall mainly focus on one spirit, that is very common and found especially in religious circles, but as well in offices, families and circle of friends. One could detect it easily if one knows its behavior.
It is a product of the flesh that opens the door to an evil spirit. It is behavior that operates through a person to control by the use of manipulative, domineering and intimidating tactics. When it is in the church it is to disrupt the flow of the Spirit.
The devil hates the prophetic flow of God, because the prophetic ministry demands repentance and cuts away evil without compromise. The prophet always speaks against Jezebel. Additionally, the prophetic words come with creative power, which renders the enemy helpless. There is such significance in the fact that Jezebel wanted to destroy Elijah.
The Jezebel spirit hates the prophetic, uncompromising voice. It cannot accomplish its agenda with a prophet around. However, here, I shall not so much talk about the queen Jezebel, married to King Ahab, because that is from what it gets its name, but because one can read the Scriptures and find out their story. I shall only write of her spirit.
Jezebels have a personality that has been shaped by controlling demonic thoughts. Therefore, the person must be willing to ruthlessly face truth and be willing to let God crucify his flesh. The flesh and its patterns must be subjected to the Holy Spirit daily in order for the person to be permanently set free.
Jesus had warned the Church at Thyatira about this diabolical spirit called Jezebel. Jezebel's aim is to silence God's prophets because in doing so, it destroys the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy (Rev.19:10). It takes you away from the truth and from the words of our Lord given to us for the benefit of His Church, to follow what does not come from God.
Expert in aping God, it can lure many faithful away from the real prophetic revelation that is given by God's grace. Since a Jezebel spirit counterfeits the prophetic anointing in gifts, calling, and authority, a prophetic leader will become a target of a Jezebel spirit, as will a church in which the prophetic is held in high regard. A prophetic church and its leaders must realize that if the spirit of Elijah is going to return, so will its counter-spirit - the Jezebel spirit.
In these last days the Holy Spirit led us to be aware more than ever of this evil spirit revealing to us its name. It had infiltrated in some of our prayer groups in the past, causing a lot of damage, frustration, quarrels, and finally division and destruction as well as in the Associations of True life in God. It would not fail to penetrate as well in the good work of the Coordinators' team and disrupt it, but with the grace of our Lord we will always succeed in discerning it and remove it from within our circles before damage is done. Just like the angel removing the darnel from the wheat, I have a feeling that these are the times when our Lord is cleansing His field.
FACE TO FACE WITH JEZEBEL
During these past fourteen years, how many times have I come face to face with this spirit, but without knowing its name! I have met individuals carrying this evil spirit in my meetings, during encounters, in prayer groups, and other places.
How many times have I heard from them the classical sentence: "I'm just like you. I have exactly the same experiences as you have. I understand you. God tells me the same things as he tells you." Or, "Jesus is also giving me messages very similar to yours. We should join forces and work together." Or, more direct, "Jesus and the Virgin Mary told me that we should work together." Some would be simple but just as deadly and would say: "Our blessed Mother wants you to do this or that," indicating to me what I should be doing.
These comments would be either in verbal form or they would be in written form, passing in my hand or through friends a written message from "their angel" to me, or from "Jesus or Mary," many of which will be either flattering me to lure me, or flogging me because I had rejected them!
A true gift of the Holy Spirit never labels itself but allows God to let it be discovered. Since it is His work and He intends to deal with it, He will see to it to be known in His time. If one has a genuine call of God, people will recognize it. But so many who are not given the gift of prophecy, go around wearing a badge, cheapening themselves by sticking the label on themselves.
As I was in transit in Nice one day and waiting for my plane, I was approached by a young lady who apparently had recognized me. She said that she had been reading the TLIG inspirations and was delighted with its contents. Just before leaving she pulled out her private card which contained her name and just below her name was her profession. It read: "Messenger of God." How brazen can one get!
Very recently we had to face this evil spirit again in several different places. Thanks for Fr. Abberton and Fr. Sullivan's help, this evil spirit was dealt with great success but not without a struggle. Unfortunately to this day, those that carried it and were asked to go for deliverance prayers and healing have not gone. It is very difficult to bend pride in them or submit to their self-ego. Those that said they went for deliverance prayers, went there unconvinced that they were carrying this spirit; denying what they carry does not help much because they block themselves to the Spirit who is ready to heal them.
By calling herself a "prophetess," Jezebel was teaching and leading God's bondservants astray. Over the centuries, she has been around, seeking to attack the prophetic ministry given either on a person or in the Church, and where the prophetic gift is present, you can be sure that sooner or later the Jezebel spirit will manifest itself. I sometimes doubt that the person carrying the Jezebel spirit has any notion that she or he carries it, since this person is determined in reaching his or her goal at any price.
Probably most deceiving to many is that Jezebel was religious and did religious things. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, meaning "with Baal". She converted her husband Ahab to follow Baal. Ahab married her against God's command. The name Jezebel specifically means "without dwelling or habitation." A true explanation of Jezebel can clearly be described as the worship of self-will.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF JEZEBEL
The clear battle with the Jezebel spirit is over people. In the church, that spirit desires to rule and control the people of God. If we are not people of decision, we will fall under the spell of the Jezebel spirit. She is a supporter of, and heavily influential in, religious organization as well as politics. While Jezebel is religious, she wields her false power against the true prophetic flow of God. She hates the prophets and all prophetic ministry. Specifically she hates repentance, humility and intercessory prayer, because they destroy her strongholds of stubbornness and pride.
Jezebels love to project a sense of power they do not have. It is based on intimidation, in order to cloud the minds of those they desire to oppress. How frequently that spirit tries to wield influence: In the church - "If you take this action, we will withhold our tithe." Or, "Submit to me, or you won't have a spiritual covering." In spiritual organizations, - "If you don't see it my way, I will just pull out and you can deal without me and all the work I prepared I will keep." Yes, if one does not go along with his or her action, there will be consequences. Intimidation always seeks to move the person through threats.
This use of fear puts the victim under control out of fear of losing something precious to him. This is blackmail and far from God's love, because these are all improper channels, use of illegitimate power and authority, projection of power that is not ours to use. This by no means insinuates that a person shouldn't stand up for himself, but rather that it should be done through proper channels. Manipulating, intimidating and dominating another human being are blatant uses of control and illegitimate authority.
In the first stages of my witnessing while in Switzerland I was approached by a lady who seemed quite gentle and eager to give some help in the French translations. As I had no one yet, I accepted her offer. Her husband worked in a school and was teaching French Literature. She appeared to be the right person to translate as her husband could give some light as well in what she translated. But after reading the text given to me, I discovered that the terminology was far from Biblical terminology. Jesus' simple clear words, were turned into French literature, losing the touch of intimacy.
And as we know, TLIG (True Life In God) has indeed very close links of terminology with the Scriptures. In fact there are many quotations from the Scriptures. I took the liberty to alter certain words that were biblical, taking them from the French Bible. When she found out that I dared interfere in what she called "her" work, I was threatened and accused of interfering into what she called perfect French, treating me as an ignorant person who does not know refined French language, reminding me that her husband is a teacher of French literature, etc. She wrote a hard letter to me and said that either they do it their way without me altering their language and putting it into Biblical language, or they would pull out. After consulting my confessor, he advised me to let them go.
I called her and said to her that I don't accept what she said. Frustrated, she asked me to give her back her translated manuscript. Immediately I turned to our Lord and asked Him to send me a translator. That same evening Lucien Lombard called me and asked me if he could do some work, perhaps translations? That is how our Lord works. If one instrument fails Him, He replaces that person. No problem.
This lady then, having been stopped to work in the translations, wrote her own book of "divine messages". Went over to Belgium and had them print them out. The Jezebel spirit is also vengeful. She started to approach many of my friends to tell them how evil I was and that she too had visions. In one of her visions, she said, she saw Padre Pio, who indicated to her that I was indeed very evil and that I was a false prophet. As this was not enough to get even with me, she opened a website against TLIG. Her mission was to destroy the prophetic flow of God. To my knowledge her site is still there.
VARIOUS OTHER TRAITS OF JEZEBEL - PLAYING THE MASTER, PLAYING THE MARTYR
Self-pity is clearly a conscious resignation and surrendering to the victim mentality. "When you see yourself as a victim, you literally enter into sin with Jezebel, because you are not resisting her," says one book about the Jezebel spirit. They talk about brotherly love but they do just the opposite, consciously or unconsciously. This "love" is not a divine love or even a refined human love. Rather, it is totally selfish love with its own agenda, seeking recognition or control.
They would even use a religious term, fasting, and a religious occasion to bring their will to pass. They would quote passages out of Scriptures to you and preach to you and give you a full conference of moral values to show to you how wicked you are and how far from God your thoughts are, contrast to how good they are, yet victimized.
In other words, they would play the Master who are spiritually elevated and exceeding you, instead of the humble servants of God who follow what Scriptures say: "There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interest first but everybody thinks of the other people's interests instead." (Phi 2: 3-4).
Jezebel, I have noticed has many traits. She will take any trait so long as she attains her goal. The other façade to manipulate will be this of a Martyr instead of playing the Master. This façade of Jezebel will try and manipulate everyone, accusing them as evil towards her. They go around to make you believe you are misunderstanding them and that you are chasing innocent blood, just like The Sacrificial Lamb or martyred as the Saint Martyrs.
We had one who compared himself to Jesus the Supreme Victim, when Jesus was forced to leave Israel because of Herod. This person I am writing of carried the Ahab spirit and was manipulated by a Jezebel spirit. At times though he himself carried the Jezebel spirit and through his characteristics I started to believe that as a person can have a double personality so it could be with the spirits lodging inside people. I believe that this particular person carried both spirits; in that particular event I will be speaking of he carried both.
This leader of our prayer group had allowed another person who had the Jezebel spirit to take over not only his spiritual activities for his own selfish agenda but also our prayer group. He thought by proclaiming the Jezebel spirit as The Prophet and Healer it would gain him popularity in a declining and dying prayer group. When I discovered and confronted the two spirits, the leader who carried the Ahab spirit tried to put the blame on other innocent people accusing them of all sorts of things. This is why I believe that one can carry both spirits. From Ahab, he became Jezebel because he had no problem to lie so long as he would gain his cause. Jezebel has no problem to lie, she is known to be notorious in lying.
This leader of our prayer group was forced to leave not only the prayer group but the country he lived in as well, to avoid a court case that was declared on him and is still pending. Although he was advised to go to a deliverance and healing retreat, he refused, acting as though he was unjustly attacked. Taking on the spirit of a martyr, unfortunately they would enlist many in their "cause". This already satisfies them without them caring they are causing division and becoming an abomination in God's Eyes.
It is also quite common for someone with a Jezebel spirit to show up at someone's house without notice, saying the Lord told him to go pray for a particular need. They feel compelled to pray over others, but this urge is not from God.
CONFRONTING THE JEZEBEL AND AHAB'S SPIRIT
When the Jezebel spirit is confronted with the truth, it would perceive the confronter as the enemy. Then it counter-attacks with assaults against this "enemy". In fact, no greater wrath seems to occur than when a controlling person is confronted. This person will never admit guilt or relinquish the sense of power and will retaliate against the confronter. Defensiveness is a common reaction when a suggestion is made. Pride with a mixture of insecurity, which is deep rooted, cannot take correction, because all correction is perceived as rejection.
Therefore, you will never hear a person with a controlling spirit admit he is wrong. It is always the fault of someone else. Never is there confession of guilt, contrition or true remorse.
The Jezebel spirit is in contrast to the will of God. Her will has become god. Her will must be accomplished, regardless of the consequences. Not only did Jezebel steal authority, she manipulated those in leadership. She used lies and distortions. God waits for someone to stand up to her - to confront her. Many succumb to the Ahab spirit and simply turn their heads from her tactics. They reason that, after all, she is religious and works hard in the Church. The greatest weakness among leaders is the fear of confrontation. They want peace without paying the price of confronting the manipulation and controlling tactics of the Jezebel spirit.
I remember when I had to confront people with that spirit, what a quantity of accusations suddenly poured out of their mouth! The hatred that was being manifested suddenly, reminded me when, in the beginning, I was attacked by Satan. The terminology was exactly the same and this is why I recognized Satan in these people. Before that, they had me as a friend and were greatly appreciating my mission, but after confronting them, they would drag me in mire and call me all sorts of names, as well as false prophet, and would call my mission and witnessing as, "total rubbish." What is interesting is that they all react in the same way! The spirit of Ahab though would react in a different way.
It is interesting how similar Jezebel's reactions are to those of Satan. When the devil tried to infiltrate into the writings in the beginning and I would discover him, his language suddenly from "divine" would become vulgar. The people who "loved" me would turn into a devotee to destroying me and my reputation, after my confrontation with them.
Sometimes Jezebel becomes temporarily remorseful, but soon she'll go back to her controlling tactics. When it comes to prayer, she would be praying for her own agenda. There is no power in that. True, fervent intercessory prayer causes hearts to change from pride and loftiness to repentance and humility; nothing brings a greater death blow to the spirit of Jezebel. As is typical of a Jezebel, she would complain that she wasn't appreciated enough. In her self-centered nature she would go to any lengths, by lying and exaggerating, to make herself look spiritual; after all when being self-centered, no one is as important as they are. Jezebel would state again and again that her decision was the result of much prayer. She knows how to garner sympathy by knowing how to cry at the drop of a hat and fool almost anyone.
As for the Ahab spirit, it is known to abdicate his authority. It be-speaks of a mind-set that avoids confrontation and denies fault. The spirit of Ahab is weak and fearful. It loves its position but fears confrontation. Working in tandem, the spirits of Ahab and Jezebel quietly form a co-dependent relationship. Both will need and feed off the other in order to accomplish their goals.
A pastor influenced by an Ahab spirit will need the help of someone with the Jezebel spirit, in order to maintain position and to entrench his popularity. The pastor may allow this person to exercise his or her "gifts" for his own selfish agenda and that is only to gain popularity at any cost. In acting in this way, any previous flow of true prophecy that was there, would be given less importance and eventually would be silenced. When this happens a spiritual vacuum will be created in their church.
SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
One day, one of our prayer groups held a private meeting to deal with certain arrangements for the future. That day, unexpectedly, walked in two gentlemen whom they slightly knew and who were claiming they had the gift of prophecy. When they intruded right in the middle of that meeting no one said a word to them. Indeed some were even happy to have them around, thinking that they could have been God-sent to solve the problem they were dealing with.
Unfortunately the spiritual director of that particular group had been promoting them secretly, influencing the whole group to believe in them, not knowing that both carried the Jezebel spirit. These two had no business in this meeting but they had invited themselves to stay in. In a flash, a communication started with the Divine and "divine messages" started to pour in for several people in there. These messages were indicating to them what to do.
No one insisted for them to leave, since the "divine messages" were so flattering and complimenting that it made it more difficult for anyone to do something. It was a lure of the devil. No one dared confront them. Much later on, the people who received those "divine messages" understood that they had not come from God.
Confrontation is really the only "cure" in dealing with a Jezebel spirit. The problem is that many people fear confrontation, knowing it will create an ugly scene. Therefore they prolong the inevitable.
MANIPULATION, CONTROL AND INTIMIDATION
Two things have always plagued the Church - control and the desire to dominate. This power struggle has always divided and short-circuited the power of the Church. The most cunning and yet most common way the spirit of control operates is through manipulation. Manipulation is used in several ways: such as flattery, self-pity, hinting for something, etc. The use of manipulation to extract money, for example, comes in many forms.
The most ridiculous form I heard of, was of this "seer", who opened a house of prayer and who put up a notice that declared that the more money one gives for that house of prayer the less risk one would have to go to purgatory. Giving money would lead you straight to heaven. Unfortunately many good people believed this "seer" and poured their money in there.
Without fear, she used their money to provide herself with an expensive car and another one for her husband. When one day I confronted her, from that "loving" friend she was once, she turned around to show her real colors. She accused me of false prophet and alerted many people she knew who were reading the TLIG inspirations to burn the books. She took a lot of trouble, taking all means to destroy me and my mission. I had understood that once you discover and reveal to everyone the Jezebel spirit, she would go into fits and from playing the spiritual person would become the opposite. She would declare war and make so much noise for fear of others seeing in her falsehood. She would call people who were our distributors in the States to ask them to burn my books and video tapes and would give them the best of reasons, that is: "God asked me to warn you" etc.
Ammunition too is another issue. Jezebels are continually collecting ammunition. They acquire information that they can use against you in case they ever begin to lose their grip on power. All what they would have collected they would use against you without mercy. Here we had a case, when the associations were being formed.
This person I am talking of was given in our groups great authority to deal with the organizers, my meetings, the reports, one of our journals and other things. He gained the respect of one of our close priests and had managed to manipulate him to the point that if I did not agree with him, he would report me to the priest and turn him against me. If I dared arrange myself a meeting dealing with the organizer directly without going through him, he would report me to that priest who would shout to me and threaten me of quitting. I was even told by that priest to confide in this person everything, as one does to a spiritual director or to a confessor! He made the priest force me to give all the information I carried, to him, otherwise He would report me and I would be in trouble. He had to be informed about everything.
As if this was not enough, suddenly this man would start behaving strangely, declaring that he too had locutions from Jesus. He would go into a sort of trance and would give orders to everyone, declaring later on that these orders came from Christ Himself. He would play the prophet.
In a retreat, he would gather some people who were in the same country as his, and would try to gain them on his side, saying, "Jesus tells you to follow me and not Vassula. Her mission is over" His aim was to divide our group and gain on his side as many as he could. He went as far as to say: "Jesus told me that I would be the one who would take over the TLIG messages because the messages have ended with Vassula." As though TLIG is an inheritance! When "slain" in the spirit, he would go into a "crucifixion" giving us "divine messages." It was of no use for me to insist that all what he had did not come from God since he had full support from that priest who held the group together.
In the end, when I confronted him and the priest as well, all hell broke loose. I lost both. For us, it was not a loss but a relief to get rid of that Jezebel spirit; we only regretted we lost that priest as well who was a good priest, but blinded and manipulated by that spirit. Many years passed by, and in the end, this priest, realizing his mistake, contacted me once more. The other man, simply vanished.
Therefore, when people try to manipulate or dominate the will of others, it is in direct violation of God's laws and comes under Satan's domain.
Control as well is to withhold information. A Jezebel wields power over you by knowing something you don't know in a situation. In the eyes of a Jezebel, having information you don't have is a powerful weapon of control.
TEMPTATIONS
Many times, I noticed, when one is given a greater responsibility than others, working in our groups, they start being tempted by thinking they are exempt from correction. Just like the case of above. It is of utmost importance to remain humble, to have the heart of a servant, and not a tyrant. Ego probably stands in the way more than any other factor in becoming responsible. When ego has not been dealt with, someone who has been given responsibility begins to think of himself as without faults or flaws. Jesus is our example, and he opposes the proud. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble", (1 Pet 5:5). Anyone who is tempted to control gives an open door to the Jezebel spirit.
One major characteristic of a controller is that he has to be right. He has no tolerance for being wrong and will rarely, if ever, admit to wrongdoing. A Jezebel spirit is never wrong, unless it is a temporary admittance of guilt to gain "favor" with someone. When a Jezebel apologizes it is never in true repentance or acknowledgment of wrongdoing but rather, "I'm sorry your feelings were hurt."
In a dialogue, he will twist things around to the point of making you feel you need to apologize for causing him to make a bad decision. I have also noticed some other characteristic from the Jezebel spirit. The controller will always take the glory for anything that looks good. He will quickly overlook those who did the hard work and easily would step on people, sacrificing all etiquette to be the one who receives credit.
SPIRIT OR FLESH?
Is Jezebel a spirit or a work of the flesh? Jezebel is a spirit, but it has found access through uncrucified flesh. You will never have a person with a controlling spirit admit he is wrong. It is always the fault of someone else. If you insist on an apology and confront the controller, you will probably get a screaming response such as, "Yes, I'm wrong. I'm always wrong." This sarcastic spewing is a long way from repentance.
TALKS IN CONFUSION
One of its sly ways to slip away once confronted, is to try to confuse you by changing the subject five times in one minute. Confusion keeps them "undiscovered" and unexposed. Therefore, it is impossible to converse with a Jezebel in logic. They would write several pages dealing with all sorts of other situations than the one you are confronting them with. The context would be so vague that no one would understand head or tails. If it is in conversation they would simply talk nonsense to delude and confuse you, never responding to your question. In this situation, one has to repeat the question and ask them only to respond to that question. They never do. They never will.
TALKS IN A MONOLOGUE
Many times the ones that carry the Jezebel spirit talk non-stop. They have a need to feel power and authority, and they will do anything to achieve it. They feel they know more than anyone; therefore they dominate all conversations. Jezebel uses talking as a form of control. In a typical conversation, he does all the talking, whether it is about sports, the weather or the Kingdom of God. Because of this form of control, he is unable to receive input from anyone in his life. All conversation with him is one-sided. You are doing the listening. And if ever there is a break and you want to say something, the Jezebel switches off and does not hear you.
EGO
Rather than seeing themselves as committed servants in God's affairs who at one time volunteered willingly to serve God, they see themselves as chief executive officers of a large company. God sees them more as the butlers. God is the Chief Executive Officer. Their attitude aggravates their surrounding. They boss people around, running the spiritual affairs like a business rather than the Kingdom of God. To say the least there is a great need of dying to one's ego and humility. There is no place for ego in the Kingdom of God.
There is no doubt that God chose us to serve Him without our own agendas. For many of us, we have determined to serve God "our way." We must therefore mature and acknowledge His Leadership and comprehend His words: "I am the Vine, you are the branches, He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." (Jn 15:5).
Some people who had a change of heart and acknowledged God as Number One in their lives are doing their own thing for God. They are loners and not team workers. Without a prayer life, there will be no awareness of what the Lord is saying, and passivity and lukewarmness will take over. Jesus was not on the earth to carry His will, but to fulfill the Will of the Father. As believers, we must renounce our own agenda and seek to fulfill His purpose in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the Guide to reveal to us His purpose.
We have learnt how the Jezebel spirit is full of ego and envious as well. To desire (envy) the gifts of the Spirit given to others for your own glory is a sin. It resembles the sin of Cain over Abel. Abel was pleasing to God and because of egoistical reasons and envy, Cain sliced Abel's throat. Here I am bringing the attention to those whom I heard saying to people: "Go home and practice to speak in tongues". As if one could practice this gift given by the Holy Spirit as one practices his piano lesson! I remember a young priest who asked our prayer group to come often to him so as to practice the gift of tongues. When nothing was happening, after a few "lessons", he blamed the group by saying that among them is an evil person that blocks the flow of the Spirit and he chased them away!
Recently I heard that in one of our groups someone goes to lessons of prophecy: in other words, to learn to prophecy. Have we really come to that? How much more can we deviate the Scriptures? For this is deviation and misinterpretation of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit does not sell and trade His gifts, but gives them freely to whom he chooses. The gift of tongues is a realm of prayer that is higher than the natural range of prayer. "For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries." (1 Cor 14:2) Of course Saint Paul says that it would be better that there is one who could interpret this language for the benefit of the church and he goes on to say that prophecy is more valuable because the church benefits from it.
When a believer prays in tongues, he is bypassing the limitations of his brain and speaking to God in the Spirit. In fact, it is the same with all the gifts of the Spirit - prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, etc. No manifestation of the Spirit is a product of the brain but rather a gift and manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, I would warn anyone who goes to "special lessons" that the Spirit of God gives.
I will end up with this; I want to add though that a lot of the context of this article has been taken out of the books written by R.T. Kendall who has written two volumes about the Jezebel spirit. The beginning of this article are passages taken from a Greek Orthodox priest's newsletter. The rest are from my own experiences.
Although I am in the middle of packing to move and now it is 6.00 pm the day before I leave definitively Rome, I managed to finish this article. Because of the rush, please forgive my mistakes, bad English, and perhaps repetitive passages. The aim in doing this work is for our benefit. Read attentively and see if anyone of you might start having traits of this spirit. If you think you recognize yourself in any part, remember all is not lost, but there is a wide door of escape and that is: REPENTANCE. God bless you all,
In Christ,
Vassula Ryden
(This letter was written in December of 2004)
Many Christians are not aware that they might be carriers of one demon or more. They can never imagine that whatever physical or psychological illness they suffer could be caused by evil spirits that made their home in them.
Many emotional disorders, neurosis, break downs, unfounded fears, anxieties, migraine headaches, asthma, allergies and other psychosomatic diseases very often are caused by a demon that has taken his abode in the soul and body of a person.
In our days if someone suggests to them such a thing, they would laugh at the notion of having such a demon or they would simply think your thoughts are medieval, outdated or superstitious. Leaving such a demon or even ignoring it would simply cause more damage since it would be an invitation to this evil spirit to remain permanently in us.
In this article I shall mainly focus on one spirit, that is very common and found especially in religious circles, but as well in offices, families and circle of friends. One could detect it easily if one knows its behavior.
It is a product of the flesh that opens the door to an evil spirit. It is behavior that operates through a person to control by the use of manipulative, domineering and intimidating tactics. When it is in the church it is to disrupt the flow of the Spirit.
The devil hates the prophetic flow of God, because the prophetic ministry demands repentance and cuts away evil without compromise. The prophet always speaks against Jezebel. Additionally, the prophetic words come with creative power, which renders the enemy helpless. There is such significance in the fact that Jezebel wanted to destroy Elijah.
The Jezebel spirit hates the prophetic, uncompromising voice. It cannot accomplish its agenda with a prophet around. However, here, I shall not so much talk about the queen Jezebel, married to King Ahab, because that is from what it gets its name, but because one can read the Scriptures and find out their story. I shall only write of her spirit.
Jezebels have a personality that has been shaped by controlling demonic thoughts. Therefore, the person must be willing to ruthlessly face truth and be willing to let God crucify his flesh. The flesh and its patterns must be subjected to the Holy Spirit daily in order for the person to be permanently set free.
Jesus had warned the Church at Thyatira about this diabolical spirit called Jezebel. Jezebel's aim is to silence God's prophets because in doing so, it destroys the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy (Rev.19:10). It takes you away from the truth and from the words of our Lord given to us for the benefit of His Church, to follow what does not come from God.
Expert in aping God, it can lure many faithful away from the real prophetic revelation that is given by God's grace. Since a Jezebel spirit counterfeits the prophetic anointing in gifts, calling, and authority, a prophetic leader will become a target of a Jezebel spirit, as will a church in which the prophetic is held in high regard. A prophetic church and its leaders must realize that if the spirit of Elijah is going to return, so will its counter-spirit - the Jezebel spirit.
In these last days the Holy Spirit led us to be aware more than ever of this evil spirit revealing to us its name. It had infiltrated in some of our prayer groups in the past, causing a lot of damage, frustration, quarrels, and finally division and destruction as well as in the Associations of True life in God. It would not fail to penetrate as well in the good work of the Coordinators' team and disrupt it, but with the grace of our Lord we will always succeed in discerning it and remove it from within our circles before damage is done. Just like the angel removing the darnel from the wheat, I have a feeling that these are the times when our Lord is cleansing His field.
FACE TO FACE WITH JEZEBEL
During these past fourteen years, how many times have I come face to face with this spirit, but without knowing its name! I have met individuals carrying this evil spirit in my meetings, during encounters, in prayer groups, and other places.
How many times have I heard from them the classical sentence: "I'm just like you. I have exactly the same experiences as you have. I understand you. God tells me the same things as he tells you." Or, "Jesus is also giving me messages very similar to yours. We should join forces and work together." Or, more direct, "Jesus and the Virgin Mary told me that we should work together." Some would be simple but just as deadly and would say: "Our blessed Mother wants you to do this or that," indicating to me what I should be doing.
These comments would be either in verbal form or they would be in written form, passing in my hand or through friends a written message from "their angel" to me, or from "Jesus or Mary," many of which will be either flattering me to lure me, or flogging me because I had rejected them!
A true gift of the Holy Spirit never labels itself but allows God to let it be discovered. Since it is His work and He intends to deal with it, He will see to it to be known in His time. If one has a genuine call of God, people will recognize it. But so many who are not given the gift of prophecy, go around wearing a badge, cheapening themselves by sticking the label on themselves.
As I was in transit in Nice one day and waiting for my plane, I was approached by a young lady who apparently had recognized me. She said that she had been reading the TLIG inspirations and was delighted with its contents. Just before leaving she pulled out her private card which contained her name and just below her name was her profession. It read: "Messenger of God." How brazen can one get!
Very recently we had to face this evil spirit again in several different places. Thanks for Fr. Abberton and Fr. Sullivan's help, this evil spirit was dealt with great success but not without a struggle. Unfortunately to this day, those that carried it and were asked to go for deliverance prayers and healing have not gone. It is very difficult to bend pride in them or submit to their self-ego. Those that said they went for deliverance prayers, went there unconvinced that they were carrying this spirit; denying what they carry does not help much because they block themselves to the Spirit who is ready to heal them.
By calling herself a "prophetess," Jezebel was teaching and leading God's bondservants astray. Over the centuries, she has been around, seeking to attack the prophetic ministry given either on a person or in the Church, and where the prophetic gift is present, you can be sure that sooner or later the Jezebel spirit will manifest itself. I sometimes doubt that the person carrying the Jezebel spirit has any notion that she or he carries it, since this person is determined in reaching his or her goal at any price.
Probably most deceiving to many is that Jezebel was religious and did religious things. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, meaning "with Baal". She converted her husband Ahab to follow Baal. Ahab married her against God's command. The name Jezebel specifically means "without dwelling or habitation." A true explanation of Jezebel can clearly be described as the worship of self-will.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF JEZEBEL
The clear battle with the Jezebel spirit is over people. In the church, that spirit desires to rule and control the people of God. If we are not people of decision, we will fall under the spell of the Jezebel spirit. She is a supporter of, and heavily influential in, religious organization as well as politics. While Jezebel is religious, she wields her false power against the true prophetic flow of God. She hates the prophets and all prophetic ministry. Specifically she hates repentance, humility and intercessory prayer, because they destroy her strongholds of stubbornness and pride.
Jezebels love to project a sense of power they do not have. It is based on intimidation, in order to cloud the minds of those they desire to oppress. How frequently that spirit tries to wield influence: In the church - "If you take this action, we will withhold our tithe." Or, "Submit to me, or you won't have a spiritual covering." In spiritual organizations, - "If you don't see it my way, I will just pull out and you can deal without me and all the work I prepared I will keep." Yes, if one does not go along with his or her action, there will be consequences. Intimidation always seeks to move the person through threats.
This use of fear puts the victim under control out of fear of losing something precious to him. This is blackmail and far from God's love, because these are all improper channels, use of illegitimate power and authority, projection of power that is not ours to use. This by no means insinuates that a person shouldn't stand up for himself, but rather that it should be done through proper channels. Manipulating, intimidating and dominating another human being are blatant uses of control and illegitimate authority.
In the first stages of my witnessing while in Switzerland I was approached by a lady who seemed quite gentle and eager to give some help in the French translations. As I had no one yet, I accepted her offer. Her husband worked in a school and was teaching French Literature. She appeared to be the right person to translate as her husband could give some light as well in what she translated. But after reading the text given to me, I discovered that the terminology was far from Biblical terminology. Jesus' simple clear words, were turned into French literature, losing the touch of intimacy.
And as we know, TLIG (True Life In God) has indeed very close links of terminology with the Scriptures. In fact there are many quotations from the Scriptures. I took the liberty to alter certain words that were biblical, taking them from the French Bible. When she found out that I dared interfere in what she called "her" work, I was threatened and accused of interfering into what she called perfect French, treating me as an ignorant person who does not know refined French language, reminding me that her husband is a teacher of French literature, etc. She wrote a hard letter to me and said that either they do it their way without me altering their language and putting it into Biblical language, or they would pull out. After consulting my confessor, he advised me to let them go.
I called her and said to her that I don't accept what she said. Frustrated, she asked me to give her back her translated manuscript. Immediately I turned to our Lord and asked Him to send me a translator. That same evening Lucien Lombard called me and asked me if he could do some work, perhaps translations? That is how our Lord works. If one instrument fails Him, He replaces that person. No problem.
This lady then, having been stopped to work in the translations, wrote her own book of "divine messages". Went over to Belgium and had them print them out. The Jezebel spirit is also vengeful. She started to approach many of my friends to tell them how evil I was and that she too had visions. In one of her visions, she said, she saw Padre Pio, who indicated to her that I was indeed very evil and that I was a false prophet. As this was not enough to get even with me, she opened a website against TLIG. Her mission was to destroy the prophetic flow of God. To my knowledge her site is still there.
VARIOUS OTHER TRAITS OF JEZEBEL - PLAYING THE MASTER, PLAYING THE MARTYR
Self-pity is clearly a conscious resignation and surrendering to the victim mentality. "When you see yourself as a victim, you literally enter into sin with Jezebel, because you are not resisting her," says one book about the Jezebel spirit. They talk about brotherly love but they do just the opposite, consciously or unconsciously. This "love" is not a divine love or even a refined human love. Rather, it is totally selfish love with its own agenda, seeking recognition or control.
They would even use a religious term, fasting, and a religious occasion to bring their will to pass. They would quote passages out of Scriptures to you and preach to you and give you a full conference of moral values to show to you how wicked you are and how far from God your thoughts are, contrast to how good they are, yet victimized.
In other words, they would play the Master who are spiritually elevated and exceeding you, instead of the humble servants of God who follow what Scriptures say: "There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interest first but everybody thinks of the other people's interests instead." (Phi 2: 3-4).
Jezebel, I have noticed has many traits. She will take any trait so long as she attains her goal. The other façade to manipulate will be this of a Martyr instead of playing the Master. This façade of Jezebel will try and manipulate everyone, accusing them as evil towards her. They go around to make you believe you are misunderstanding them and that you are chasing innocent blood, just like The Sacrificial Lamb or martyred as the Saint Martyrs.
We had one who compared himself to Jesus the Supreme Victim, when Jesus was forced to leave Israel because of Herod. This person I am writing of carried the Ahab spirit and was manipulated by a Jezebel spirit. At times though he himself carried the Jezebel spirit and through his characteristics I started to believe that as a person can have a double personality so it could be with the spirits lodging inside people. I believe that this particular person carried both spirits; in that particular event I will be speaking of he carried both.
This leader of our prayer group had allowed another person who had the Jezebel spirit to take over not only his spiritual activities for his own selfish agenda but also our prayer group. He thought by proclaiming the Jezebel spirit as The Prophet and Healer it would gain him popularity in a declining and dying prayer group. When I discovered and confronted the two spirits, the leader who carried the Ahab spirit tried to put the blame on other innocent people accusing them of all sorts of things. This is why I believe that one can carry both spirits. From Ahab, he became Jezebel because he had no problem to lie so long as he would gain his cause. Jezebel has no problem to lie, she is known to be notorious in lying.
This leader of our prayer group was forced to leave not only the prayer group but the country he lived in as well, to avoid a court case that was declared on him and is still pending. Although he was advised to go to a deliverance and healing retreat, he refused, acting as though he was unjustly attacked. Taking on the spirit of a martyr, unfortunately they would enlist many in their "cause". This already satisfies them without them caring they are causing division and becoming an abomination in God's Eyes.
It is also quite common for someone with a Jezebel spirit to show up at someone's house without notice, saying the Lord told him to go pray for a particular need. They feel compelled to pray over others, but this urge is not from God.
CONFRONTING THE JEZEBEL AND AHAB'S SPIRIT
When the Jezebel spirit is confronted with the truth, it would perceive the confronter as the enemy. Then it counter-attacks with assaults against this "enemy". In fact, no greater wrath seems to occur than when a controlling person is confronted. This person will never admit guilt or relinquish the sense of power and will retaliate against the confronter. Defensiveness is a common reaction when a suggestion is made. Pride with a mixture of insecurity, which is deep rooted, cannot take correction, because all correction is perceived as rejection.
Therefore, you will never hear a person with a controlling spirit admit he is wrong. It is always the fault of someone else. Never is there confession of guilt, contrition or true remorse.
The Jezebel spirit is in contrast to the will of God. Her will has become god. Her will must be accomplished, regardless of the consequences. Not only did Jezebel steal authority, she manipulated those in leadership. She used lies and distortions. God waits for someone to stand up to her - to confront her. Many succumb to the Ahab spirit and simply turn their heads from her tactics. They reason that, after all, she is religious and works hard in the Church. The greatest weakness among leaders is the fear of confrontation. They want peace without paying the price of confronting the manipulation and controlling tactics of the Jezebel spirit.
I remember when I had to confront people with that spirit, what a quantity of accusations suddenly poured out of their mouth! The hatred that was being manifested suddenly, reminded me when, in the beginning, I was attacked by Satan. The terminology was exactly the same and this is why I recognized Satan in these people. Before that, they had me as a friend and were greatly appreciating my mission, but after confronting them, they would drag me in mire and call me all sorts of names, as well as false prophet, and would call my mission and witnessing as, "total rubbish." What is interesting is that they all react in the same way! The spirit of Ahab though would react in a different way.
It is interesting how similar Jezebel's reactions are to those of Satan. When the devil tried to infiltrate into the writings in the beginning and I would discover him, his language suddenly from "divine" would become vulgar. The people who "loved" me would turn into a devotee to destroying me and my reputation, after my confrontation with them.
Sometimes Jezebel becomes temporarily remorseful, but soon she'll go back to her controlling tactics. When it comes to prayer, she would be praying for her own agenda. There is no power in that. True, fervent intercessory prayer causes hearts to change from pride and loftiness to repentance and humility; nothing brings a greater death blow to the spirit of Jezebel. As is typical of a Jezebel, she would complain that she wasn't appreciated enough. In her self-centered nature she would go to any lengths, by lying and exaggerating, to make herself look spiritual; after all when being self-centered, no one is as important as they are. Jezebel would state again and again that her decision was the result of much prayer. She knows how to garner sympathy by knowing how to cry at the drop of a hat and fool almost anyone.
As for the Ahab spirit, it is known to abdicate his authority. It be-speaks of a mind-set that avoids confrontation and denies fault. The spirit of Ahab is weak and fearful. It loves its position but fears confrontation. Working in tandem, the spirits of Ahab and Jezebel quietly form a co-dependent relationship. Both will need and feed off the other in order to accomplish their goals.
A pastor influenced by an Ahab spirit will need the help of someone with the Jezebel spirit, in order to maintain position and to entrench his popularity. The pastor may allow this person to exercise his or her "gifts" for his own selfish agenda and that is only to gain popularity at any cost. In acting in this way, any previous flow of true prophecy that was there, would be given less importance and eventually would be silenced. When this happens a spiritual vacuum will be created in their church.
SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
One day, one of our prayer groups held a private meeting to deal with certain arrangements for the future. That day, unexpectedly, walked in two gentlemen whom they slightly knew and who were claiming they had the gift of prophecy. When they intruded right in the middle of that meeting no one said a word to them. Indeed some were even happy to have them around, thinking that they could have been God-sent to solve the problem they were dealing with.
Unfortunately the spiritual director of that particular group had been promoting them secretly, influencing the whole group to believe in them, not knowing that both carried the Jezebel spirit. These two had no business in this meeting but they had invited themselves to stay in. In a flash, a communication started with the Divine and "divine messages" started to pour in for several people in there. These messages were indicating to them what to do.
No one insisted for them to leave, since the "divine messages" were so flattering and complimenting that it made it more difficult for anyone to do something. It was a lure of the devil. No one dared confront them. Much later on, the people who received those "divine messages" understood that they had not come from God.
Confrontation is really the only "cure" in dealing with a Jezebel spirit. The problem is that many people fear confrontation, knowing it will create an ugly scene. Therefore they prolong the inevitable.
MANIPULATION, CONTROL AND INTIMIDATION
Two things have always plagued the Church - control and the desire to dominate. This power struggle has always divided and short-circuited the power of the Church. The most cunning and yet most common way the spirit of control operates is through manipulation. Manipulation is used in several ways: such as flattery, self-pity, hinting for something, etc. The use of manipulation to extract money, for example, comes in many forms.
The most ridiculous form I heard of, was of this "seer", who opened a house of prayer and who put up a notice that declared that the more money one gives for that house of prayer the less risk one would have to go to purgatory. Giving money would lead you straight to heaven. Unfortunately many good people believed this "seer" and poured their money in there.
Without fear, she used their money to provide herself with an expensive car and another one for her husband. When one day I confronted her, from that "loving" friend she was once, she turned around to show her real colors. She accused me of false prophet and alerted many people she knew who were reading the TLIG inspirations to burn the books. She took a lot of trouble, taking all means to destroy me and my mission. I had understood that once you discover and reveal to everyone the Jezebel spirit, she would go into fits and from playing the spiritual person would become the opposite. She would declare war and make so much noise for fear of others seeing in her falsehood. She would call people who were our distributors in the States to ask them to burn my books and video tapes and would give them the best of reasons, that is: "God asked me to warn you" etc.
Ammunition too is another issue. Jezebels are continually collecting ammunition. They acquire information that they can use against you in case they ever begin to lose their grip on power. All what they would have collected they would use against you without mercy. Here we had a case, when the associations were being formed.
This person I am talking of was given in our groups great authority to deal with the organizers, my meetings, the reports, one of our journals and other things. He gained the respect of one of our close priests and had managed to manipulate him to the point that if I did not agree with him, he would report me to the priest and turn him against me. If I dared arrange myself a meeting dealing with the organizer directly without going through him, he would report me to that priest who would shout to me and threaten me of quitting. I was even told by that priest to confide in this person everything, as one does to a spiritual director or to a confessor! He made the priest force me to give all the information I carried, to him, otherwise He would report me and I would be in trouble. He had to be informed about everything.
As if this was not enough, suddenly this man would start behaving strangely, declaring that he too had locutions from Jesus. He would go into a sort of trance and would give orders to everyone, declaring later on that these orders came from Christ Himself. He would play the prophet.
In a retreat, he would gather some people who were in the same country as his, and would try to gain them on his side, saying, "Jesus tells you to follow me and not Vassula. Her mission is over" His aim was to divide our group and gain on his side as many as he could. He went as far as to say: "Jesus told me that I would be the one who would take over the TLIG messages because the messages have ended with Vassula." As though TLIG is an inheritance! When "slain" in the spirit, he would go into a "crucifixion" giving us "divine messages." It was of no use for me to insist that all what he had did not come from God since he had full support from that priest who held the group together.
In the end, when I confronted him and the priest as well, all hell broke loose. I lost both. For us, it was not a loss but a relief to get rid of that Jezebel spirit; we only regretted we lost that priest as well who was a good priest, but blinded and manipulated by that spirit. Many years passed by, and in the end, this priest, realizing his mistake, contacted me once more. The other man, simply vanished.
Therefore, when people try to manipulate or dominate the will of others, it is in direct violation of God's laws and comes under Satan's domain.
Control as well is to withhold information. A Jezebel wields power over you by knowing something you don't know in a situation. In the eyes of a Jezebel, having information you don't have is a powerful weapon of control.
TEMPTATIONS
Many times, I noticed, when one is given a greater responsibility than others, working in our groups, they start being tempted by thinking they are exempt from correction. Just like the case of above. It is of utmost importance to remain humble, to have the heart of a servant, and not a tyrant. Ego probably stands in the way more than any other factor in becoming responsible. When ego has not been dealt with, someone who has been given responsibility begins to think of himself as without faults or flaws. Jesus is our example, and he opposes the proud. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble", (1 Pet 5:5). Anyone who is tempted to control gives an open door to the Jezebel spirit.
One major characteristic of a controller is that he has to be right. He has no tolerance for being wrong and will rarely, if ever, admit to wrongdoing. A Jezebel spirit is never wrong, unless it is a temporary admittance of guilt to gain "favor" with someone. When a Jezebel apologizes it is never in true repentance or acknowledgment of wrongdoing but rather, "I'm sorry your feelings were hurt."
In a dialogue, he will twist things around to the point of making you feel you need to apologize for causing him to make a bad decision. I have also noticed some other characteristic from the Jezebel spirit. The controller will always take the glory for anything that looks good. He will quickly overlook those who did the hard work and easily would step on people, sacrificing all etiquette to be the one who receives credit.
SPIRIT OR FLESH?
Is Jezebel a spirit or a work of the flesh? Jezebel is a spirit, but it has found access through uncrucified flesh. You will never have a person with a controlling spirit admit he is wrong. It is always the fault of someone else. If you insist on an apology and confront the controller, you will probably get a screaming response such as, "Yes, I'm wrong. I'm always wrong." This sarcastic spewing is a long way from repentance.
TALKS IN CONFUSION
One of its sly ways to slip away once confronted, is to try to confuse you by changing the subject five times in one minute. Confusion keeps them "undiscovered" and unexposed. Therefore, it is impossible to converse with a Jezebel in logic. They would write several pages dealing with all sorts of other situations than the one you are confronting them with. The context would be so vague that no one would understand head or tails. If it is in conversation they would simply talk nonsense to delude and confuse you, never responding to your question. In this situation, one has to repeat the question and ask them only to respond to that question. They never do. They never will.
TALKS IN A MONOLOGUE
Many times the ones that carry the Jezebel spirit talk non-stop. They have a need to feel power and authority, and they will do anything to achieve it. They feel they know more than anyone; therefore they dominate all conversations. Jezebel uses talking as a form of control. In a typical conversation, he does all the talking, whether it is about sports, the weather or the Kingdom of God. Because of this form of control, he is unable to receive input from anyone in his life. All conversation with him is one-sided. You are doing the listening. And if ever there is a break and you want to say something, the Jezebel switches off and does not hear you.
EGO
Rather than seeing themselves as committed servants in God's affairs who at one time volunteered willingly to serve God, they see themselves as chief executive officers of a large company. God sees them more as the butlers. God is the Chief Executive Officer. Their attitude aggravates their surrounding. They boss people around, running the spiritual affairs like a business rather than the Kingdom of God. To say the least there is a great need of dying to one's ego and humility. There is no place for ego in the Kingdom of God.
There is no doubt that God chose us to serve Him without our own agendas. For many of us, we have determined to serve God "our way." We must therefore mature and acknowledge His Leadership and comprehend His words: "I am the Vine, you are the branches, He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." (Jn 15:5).
Some people who had a change of heart and acknowledged God as Number One in their lives are doing their own thing for God. They are loners and not team workers. Without a prayer life, there will be no awareness of what the Lord is saying, and passivity and lukewarmness will take over. Jesus was not on the earth to carry His will, but to fulfill the Will of the Father. As believers, we must renounce our own agenda and seek to fulfill His purpose in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the Guide to reveal to us His purpose.
We have learnt how the Jezebel spirit is full of ego and envious as well. To desire (envy) the gifts of the Spirit given to others for your own glory is a sin. It resembles the sin of Cain over Abel. Abel was pleasing to God and because of egoistical reasons and envy, Cain sliced Abel's throat. Here I am bringing the attention to those whom I heard saying to people: "Go home and practice to speak in tongues". As if one could practice this gift given by the Holy Spirit as one practices his piano lesson! I remember a young priest who asked our prayer group to come often to him so as to practice the gift of tongues. When nothing was happening, after a few "lessons", he blamed the group by saying that among them is an evil person that blocks the flow of the Spirit and he chased them away!
Recently I heard that in one of our groups someone goes to lessons of prophecy: in other words, to learn to prophecy. Have we really come to that? How much more can we deviate the Scriptures? For this is deviation and misinterpretation of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit does not sell and trade His gifts, but gives them freely to whom he chooses. The gift of tongues is a realm of prayer that is higher than the natural range of prayer. "For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries." (1 Cor 14:2) Of course Saint Paul says that it would be better that there is one who could interpret this language for the benefit of the church and he goes on to say that prophecy is more valuable because the church benefits from it.
When a believer prays in tongues, he is bypassing the limitations of his brain and speaking to God in the Spirit. In fact, it is the same with all the gifts of the Spirit - prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, etc. No manifestation of the Spirit is a product of the brain but rather a gift and manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, I would warn anyone who goes to "special lessons" that the Spirit of God gives.
I will end up with this; I want to add though that a lot of the context of this article has been taken out of the books written by R.T. Kendall who has written two volumes about the Jezebel spirit. The beginning of this article are passages taken from a Greek Orthodox priest's newsletter. The rest are from my own experiences.
Although I am in the middle of packing to move and now it is 6.00 pm the day before I leave definitively Rome, I managed to finish this article. Because of the rush, please forgive my mistakes, bad English, and perhaps repetitive passages. The aim in doing this work is for our benefit. Read attentively and see if anyone of you might start having traits of this spirit. If you think you recognize yourself in any part, remember all is not lost, but there is a wide door of escape and that is: REPENTANCE. God bless you all,
In Christ,
Vassula Ryden
(This letter was written in December of 2004)