FAITH CHRISTIAN FAITH CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITH

Believing in God. Believing in the God revealed by Jesus Christ.

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

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

FAITH IN HUMAN RELATIONS:

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

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

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

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

TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE

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

TRINITARIAN
For us Christians, Faith is our adherence to the Triune God revealed through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is our friendship with Christ and through Christ with the Father, in their Holy Spirit. Our Faith as Catholics, then, consists in our personal conviction and belief in God our Father, revealed by Jesus Christ, His own divine Sonmade-man, and their presence to us through the Holy Spirit, in the Church (cf. PCP II 64; CCC 15152).

LOVING, MATURING, AND MISSIONARY

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

INFORMED AND COMMUNITARIAN

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

INCULTURATED
This Catholic faith in God and in Jesus Christ is never separated from the typical Filipino faith in family and friends. On the one hand, we live out our faith in God precisely in our daily relationships with family, friends, fellow workers, etc. This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one another (Jn 13:35; cf. PCP II 72-73, 162, 202-11).

MIND What can I know?

We can know God as Our Father and Christ as Our Lord. Know that we belong to God . . . that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to recognize the One who is true (1 Jn 5:19-20). Pagkilala sa Ama, sa Anak at sa Espiritu Santo. Keep His commandments (1 Jn 2:3), which means to love in deed and truth and not merely talk about it (1 Jn 3:18). This demands acting on the credibility of Gods teachings in Christ as true and dependable. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers; neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord (Rom 8:38-39)

DOCTRINE

WILL What should I do?

MORALS

HEART What can I hope for?

WORSHIP

Faith is knowing, but not mere head knowledge of some abstract truths. It is like the deep knowledge we have of our parents, or of anyone we love dearly. Christian Faith, then, is personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as my Lord and my God (Jn 20:28).

Faith is a commitment to follow (obey) Gods will for us. This we see exemplified in Marys I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say (Lk 1:38). PCP II brings out this doing dimension of faith as witnessing through loving service of our needy neighbors. In our concrete situation, particularly urgent is the call for: 1) deeds of justice and love; and 2) for protecting and caring for our endangered earths environment (cf. PCP II 78-80). Faith is from the heart __ the loving, trusting, and hoping in the Lord that comes from Gods own love flooding our hearts. This trusting Faith lives and grows through prayer and worship __ personal heartfelt conversation with God that is the opposite of mindless, mechanical repetition of memorized formulas. Genuine personal prayer and group prayer find both their inspirational source and summit of perfection in the Liturgy. (cf. PCP II 74-77).

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

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

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

CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONFERENCE OF THE PHILIPPINES ECCCE

CHAPTER 3 OUR RESPONSE: WE BELIEVE