STATEMENTS FOR COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATIONS IN THEOLOGY THE CREED 1. Man is by nature and vocation, a religious being.

Coming from God, going toward God; man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God. 2. The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human reason. (Vat. I, can.2) 3. God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and words. 4. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single deposit of the Word of God (DV 10), in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches. 5. God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors; he acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving truth. (Cf. DV 11) 6. The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 book of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New. 7. Faith is a personal adherence of the whole of man to God who reveals himself. It involves an asset of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words. 8. Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Sons is another, the Holy Spirits is another; but the Godhead of the Father, son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. (Athanasian Creed) 9. God alone created the universe freely, directly and without any help. 10. By divine Providence, God cares for and sustains his creation. The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil

is a mystery that God illuminates by His Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. 11. Man occupies a unique place in creation: he is in the image of god; in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; he is created male and female, God established him in his friendship. 12. Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of the original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called original sin. 13. Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused but united in the one person of Gods Son. 14. Christ, Son of God, and Lord are titles which indicate who Jesus is. 15. Mary is truly Mother of God since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself. 16. Mary is the most excellent fruit of redemption (SC 103); from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure fro all personal sin throughout her life. 17. The mystery of the Incarnation (conception and birth) and the Paschal mystery (passion, crucifixion, death, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension are the mysteries of our redemption. 18. Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that he came to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt. 20:28) 19. Christ, the first- born from the dead (Col. 1:18), is the principle of our won resurrection, even now by the justification our souls (Rom 6:4), and one day by the new life he will impart to our bodies (Rom 8:11). 20. Christs ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus humanity into Gods heavenly domain.

21. On Judgment Day at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to judge the living and the dead to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil. 22. From the beginning to the end of time, whenever God sends his Son, he always sends hi Spirit: their mission is conjoined and inseparable. 23. The word Church means convocation. It designates the assembly of those whom Gods Word convokes, i.e gathers together to form the People of God, and who themselves, nourished with the Body of Christ, become the Body of Christ, and Temple of the Holy Spirit. 24. The soul Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic subsists in the Catholic Church which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines. (LG 8) 25. The bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is head of the college of bishops , the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church. He enjoys, by divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls. 26. Lay people share in the three-fold office and mission of Christ as priests, prophet and king. 27. Christ endowed the Magisterium of the Church with the gift of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. 28. Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at every moment of his death; either entrance into heaven, purgatory, or everlasting damnation. THE SACRAMENTS 1. Liturgy is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. It involves the presentation of mans sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible to the senses, and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs. In its full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. (SC 7) 3

2. The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. 3. Christian initiation is accomplished Baptism Confirmation, and Eucharist. by three Sacraments:

4. The Eucharist is the memorial of Christs Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action. 5. The forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is conferred by a particular sacrament called the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 6. The sacrament of Reconciliation is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent (repentance, confession, reparation) and the priests absolution. 7. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick has as its purpose the conferral of a special grace on the Christian experiencing the difficulties inherent in the condition of grave illness or old age. 8. The ministerial priesthood differs in essence from the common priesthood of the faithful because it confers a sacred power for the service of the faithful. The ordained ministers exercise their service for the People of God by teaching, divine worship and pastoral governance. 9. The Sacrament of Matrimony is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love . THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 1. Freedom is the power to act or not to act, and so to perform deliberate acts of ones own. Freedom attains perfection in its acts when directed toward God, the sovereign God. 2. The object, the intention and the circumstances make up the three sources of the morality of human acts. 4

3. Conscience is a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. 4. Sins are tightly evaluated according to their gravity, which is distinguished as Mortal or Venial. 5. The First Commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope and love him above all else. 6. The Second Commandment enjoins respect for the Lords name. The name of the Lord is holy. 7. The Sabbath which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ. 8. According to the Fourth Commandment, God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents and those whom he has vested with authority for our good. 9. The Fifth Commandment teaches that every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of God. 10. The tradition Commandment Every baptised covenant which love. of the Church has understood the Sixth as encompassing the whole human sexuality. person is called to lead a chaste life. The spouses have feely entered into entails faithful

11. The Seventh Commandment enjoins the practice of justice and charity in the administration of earthly goods and the fruits of mens labor. 12. The Eight Commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. 13. The Ninth Commandment warns against lust or carnal concupiscence. 14. The Tenth Commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power.