ENCYCLICAL LETTER
LUMEN FIDEI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
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 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 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 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.
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
XVIproclaimed 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
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 virtue[7]— 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 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?
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 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 ’emûn?h, derived from the verb ’am?n whose
root means "to uphold". The term ’emûn?h 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 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 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 concrete
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 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.
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.
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 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 recoil before death in order to show its depth, is something I can
believe in; Christ’s total self-gift 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 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 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. 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 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 transforms 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).
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 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.
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 ’am?n: "you will believe" (ta’amînû) and
"you shall be established" (t?’?m?nû). 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 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 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 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 answer 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 reveals 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 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 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 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 luminous 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 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, 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] Any-one 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.
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 humility 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 only-begotten Son of the Father, we come to
know 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 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]
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]
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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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 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
profit, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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.
FRANCISCUS
[1] Dialogus
cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 121, 2: PG 6, 758.
[2] Clement of
Alexandria, Protrepticus, IX: PG 8, 195.
[3] Brief an
Elisabeth Nietzsche (11 June 1865), in: Werke in drei Bänden, München, 1954, 953ff.
[4] Paradiso XXIV, 145-147.
[5] Acta Sanctorum, Junii, I, 21.
[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.
[8] Cf. Catechesis V, 1: PG 33, 505A.
[9] In Psal. 32, II, s. I, 9: PL 36, 284.
[10] M. Buber, Die
Erzählungen der Chassidim, Zürich, 1949, 793.
[11] Émile,
Paris, 1966, 387.
[12] Lettre
à Christophe de Beaumont, Lausanne, 1993,
110.
[13] Cf. In
Ioh. Evang., 45, 9: PL 35, 1722-1723.
[14] Part
II, IV.
[15] De
Continentia, 4, 11: PL 40, 356.
[16] "Vom Wesen
katholischer Weltanschauung" (1923), in Unterscheidung des
Christlichen. Gesammelte Studien 1923-1963, Mainz, 1963, 24.
[17] XI, 30,
40: PL 32, 825.
[18] Cf. ibid.,
825-826.
[19] Cf. Vermischte
Bemerkungen / Culture and Value, ed.
G.H. von Wright, Oxford, 1991, 32-33; 61-64.
[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.
[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
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).
[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.
[26] Sermo 229/L (Guelf. 14), 2 (Miscellanea Augustiniana 1, 487/488): "Tangere
autem corde, hoc est credere".
[27] Cf.
Encyclical Letter Fides
et Ratio (14
September 1998), 73: AAS (1999), 61-62.
[28] Cf. Confessiones,
VIII, 12, 29: PL 32, 762.
[29] De
Trinitate, XV, 11, 20: PL 42, 1071: "verbum quod intus
lucet ".
[30] Cf. De
Civitate Dei, XXII, 30, 5: PL 41, 804.
[31] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus
Iesus (6 August 2000), 15: AAS 92
(2000), 756.
[32] Demonstratio Apostolicae
Predicationis, 24: SC 406, 117.
[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.
[34] Cf. De Baptismo, 20, 5: CCL 1, 295.
[35] Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei
Verbum, 8.
[36] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum
Concilium, 59.
[37] Cf. Epistula Barnabae, 11, 5: SC 172, 162.
[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".
[39] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei
Verbum, 8.
[40] In
Nativitate Domini Sermo, 4, 6: SC 22, 110.
[41] Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus
Haereses, I, 10, 2: SC 264, 160.
[42] Cf. ibid.,
II, 27, 1: SC 294, 264.
[43] Cf.
Augustine, De Sancta Virginitate, 48, 48: PL 40, 424-425: "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.
[45] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei
Verbum, 10.
[46] Origen, Contra
Celsum, IV, 75: SC 136, 372.
[47] Ibid., 85: SC 136, 394.
[48] "Choruses from The Rock", in The Collected
Poems and Plays 1909-1950, New York, 1980, 106.
[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.
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