exploring catholicism. faith sharing prayer social action

EXPLORING CATHOLICISM


NOT …

Faith sharing

Prayer

Social action


Is …Learning

Core beliefs of Catholicism


Apologies for poor pedagogy!Challenge and enjoymentBreadthProgressionx Depthx Personalisation and ChoiceCoherenceRelevance


Learning Intentions

Explore the nature of faith as

Receiving Revelation

Natural Revelation & Divine Revelation

Accepting Revelation in personal response

Assent & Adherence

Understand the nature of Revelation

And its expression in the Sacred Scripture and Tradition


Expression of what Catholics believe

Expression of how Catholics celebrate

Expression of how Catholics live

Expression of how Catholics pray

Tool for evangelisation and catechesis, for

the renewal of the Church


So let’s begin as we begin everything, with the Sign of the Cross

For most of us, however, we first experience it not as something we did, but as something done to us – as babies – by our natural parents, godparents, and priest, who fulfilled the role of our spiritual father, on the occasion of our Baptism.


FAITHReceiving Accepting


… and they will not believe in him unless they have heard of him, and they will not hear of him unless they get a preacher, and they will never have a preacher unless one is sent, but as scripture says: The footsteps of those who bring good news is a welcome sound. Not everyone, of course, listens to the Good News. As Isaiah says, Lord, how many believed what we proclaimed? So faith comes from what is preached and what is preached comes from the word of Christ

- Rom 10:14-17


‘Words of Christ’ÞFaith comes from something given to usÞSomething revealed in the words of ChristÞWord of the FatherÞ Jesus reveals the Father and his saving will


Jesus and the Father in the Gospel according to St John:

Jesus comes from/is sent from heaven:Nicodemus: We know that you are a teacher who comes from God (3:2)For God sent his Son into the world (3:17)He who comes from heaven bears witness to the things he has seen

and heard (3:31)

The Son completes the will of the Father:My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his

work (4:34)I tell you most solemnly, the Son can do nothing by himself;he can only do what he sees the Father doing (5:19)I have come in the name of my Father (5:43)

Jesus reveals the Father and his will:My teaching is not from myself, it comes from the one who sent me

(7:16)I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me (8:16)I do nothing of myself, what the Father taught me is what I preach

(8:28)

EXPLORING CATHOLICISM‘Have you been with me all this time, Philip,’ said Jesus to him, ‘and you still do not know me? To have seen me is to have seen the Father’. (14:9)

The Father and I are one (10:30)


Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 50)


Man’s religiosity Sense of beauty,truth and goodness

CCC 31-31

Mystery of birth and death

Reason


Natural Revelation


By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 50)


Divine Revelation


The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously "by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other" and shed light on each another. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.


St. Irenaeus of Lyons repeatedly speaks of this divine pedagogy using the image of God and man becoming accustomed to one another: the Word of God dwelt in man and became the Son of man in order to accustom man to perceive God and to accustom God to dwell in man, according to the Father's pleasure.(CCC 53)


How does God reveal Himself:

Words and deeds

= in human history

Þ Mediated

Þ Gradual


"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." (Heb 1:1-2) Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. (CCC 65)


The content of Divine Revelation:In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4) Dei Verbum 2

ÞGod’s very personÞKnowledgeÞRelationship

ÞHis will/plan for our salvation (= communion with Him)


CCC 79:

The Father’s self-communication through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church.


… and they will not believe in him unless they have heard of him, and they will not hear of him unless they get a preacher, and they will never have a preacher unless one is sent, but as scripture says: The footsteps of those who bring good news is a welcome sound. Not everyone, of course, listens to the Good News. As Isaiah says, Lord, how many believed what we proclaimed? So faith comes from what is preached and what is preached comes from the word of Christ.

- Rom 10:14-17


Jesus commissioned the Apostles:Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations: baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.

Mt 28:19-20


Dei Verbum 7Apostles ‘faithfully fulfilled this commission:

Gospel: saving truthmoral teaching

heavenly giftswhat learnt from Holy Spirit

By:oral preachingexample/observanceswriting


Apostolic succession and the Magisterium

Preserving

Transmitting

Interpreting

(Cf. CCC 75-78; 85; 888)


Depositum fideiWord of God


Word of God

Scripture Tradition


Dei Verbum 10

Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church.


Scripture2 Tim 3:16-17

All scripture is inspired (theopneustos) by God

CCC 81

Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.


Inspiration (cf. DV 11-13; CCC 105-108)

Written by men chosen by God

Who used ‘their own faculties and powers’

To communicate ‘only those things He wanted’

For our salvation

These words are true since they are inspired.

EXPLORING CATHOLICISMTradition

Dei Verbum 8

Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so, the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.


SacramentsLiturgy

Theology

TeachingSaintsArt


Peter Kreeft

Just as God’s material houses are sacred, so are his verbal houses.


And so finally …

The Creed


CCC 185

Communion in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith.


Expression of unity:The symbol of faith, then, is a sign of recognition and communion between believers.


Expression of the true FaithSymbolon also means a gathering, collection or summary. A symbol of faith is a summary of the principal truths of the faith


A means of passing on the faithServes as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis

CCC 188


St PaulFor us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and through who all things exist; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist.

I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve.

I Cor 8:6; 15.3-5


That very day about three thousand were added to their number. These remained faithful to the teaching of the Apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers

Acts 2:41-42


The first ‘profession of faith’ is made during Baptism. The symbol of faith is first and foremost the baptismal creed.CCC 189Ratzinger/Schonborn

Indeed, the Creed is but the unfolding of the baptismal formula.


We perform this simple act of worship by acknowledging God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while tracing the lines of a cross over our body with our right hand.

There you have it, the entire Gospel summed up in about three seconds. We profess the highest and holiest mystery about God, the Blessed Trinity, while confessing what Jesus Christ did on Calvary for our salvation


@Pontifex 12 September 2015

Every time we make the sign of the cross, we draw closer to the great mystery of the Trinity


We do not believe in formulae, but in the realities they express, which faith allows us to touch …All the same, we do approach these realities with the help of formulations of the faith which permit us to express the faith and to hand it on, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate and live it more and more.

CCC 170


FAITHReceiving Accepting

Revelation Response


Response

Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.

CCC 150


Response

Person Truth Revealed


We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

Deus Caritas Est


Lived

Professed Celebrated

Prayed


The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed.Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfilment of God's word, and so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith.

CCC 148

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__PV.HTM#$4I


20 October 2015Revelation: Jesus

@rercag

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