The Catholic Faith

Topic 2-RS1 Q
 The Catholic Faith
Faith simply means “believing in God.”

● Christian Faith is believing in the God revealed by

Jesus Christ.
●

Faith is our personal response as “disciples of Christ”

of accepting him “as Lord and Savior.”
 The Obedience of Faith
● “To obey in faith is to submit freely to the
word that has been heard, because its truth
is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. ”
(CCC 144)
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on FAITH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQXo1za88T4
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

1. TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE

O.T. 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).

● “Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At

the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the
whole truth that God has revealed.”
● (CCC, #150).
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

2. FAITH IS A GRACE

"Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace
of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior help
of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God,
who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to
accept and believe the truth.'" (CCC 153)
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

3. FAITH AND UNDERSTANDING

● “The submission of our faith might nevertheless

be in accordance with reason, God willed that
external proofs of his Revelation should be joined
to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit."
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

4. FAITH IS CERTAIN

● "The certainty that the divine light gives is

greater than that which the light of natural
reason gives." "Ten thousand difficulties do
not make one doubt." (CCC 157)
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

4. FREEDOM OF FAITH

● , "man's response to God by faith must be

free, and... therefore nobody is to be
forced to embrace the faith against his
will.”
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

"God calls men to serve him in spirit and in truth.

Consequently, they are bound to him in conscience, but not
coerced. . . This fact received its fullest manifestation in
Christ Jesus." Indeed, Christ invited people to faith and
conversion but never coerced them. "For he bore witness to
the truth but refused to use force to impose it on those who
spoke against it. His kingdom... grows by the love with
which Christ, lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself."
(CCC 160)
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

5. The NECESSITY OF FAITH

"Since "without faith it is impossible to please

(God) " and to attain to the fellowship of his
sons, therefore without faith no one has ever
attained justification, nor will anyone obtain
eternal life 'But he who endures to the end.”
(CCC 161)
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

6. The PERSEVERANCE OF FAITH

To live, grow and persevere in the faith until

the end, we must nourish it with the word of
God; we must beg the Lord to increase our
faith; it must be "working through charity,"
abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of
the Church. (CCC 162)
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
7. TRINITARIAN

● Faith is our adherence to the Triune God revealed through

Jesus Christ our Lord.

● “Our Faith as Catholics, then, consists in our personal

conviction and belief in God our Father, revealed by Jesus
Christ, His own divine Son-made-man, and their presence
to us through the Holy Spirit, in the Church” (cf. PCP II 64;
CCC 151-52).
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
8. 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).
●
● Missionary spirit is the test of authentic Faith because it is
unthinkable that a person should believe in Christ’s Word and
Kingdom without bearing witness and proclaiming it in his turn
(cf. EN 24; PCP II 67-71, 402).
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
9. INFORMED AND COMMUNITARIAN

(PCP II)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).
- Faith must be “Communitarian” since it is the Church
that transmits to us Christ’s revelation through Sacred
Scripture and its living Tradition, and alone makes
possible for us an adequate faith-response (cf. PCP II 65).
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
10. INCULTURATED

-
- This Catholic faith in God and in Jesus Christ is
never separated from the typical Filipino faith in
family and friends.
 THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF FAITH

BELIEVING (Paniniwala)

Christian Faith, then, is personal knowledge of

Jesus Christ as “my Lord and my God”
(Jn 20:28).
DOING (Pagsunod)

St. James writes:

“My brothers, what good is it to profess faith
without practicing it?” (James 2:14).
TRUSTING/ENTRUSTING-(Pagtitiwala)

● Beyond believing and doing, faith is also entrusting

oneself into God’s hands.

N.T.: Jesus worked signs and cures only with those who
trusted in him.

“Everything is possible to a man who trusts” (Mk 9:23).

● Faith, then, is from the heart - the loving, trusting,
and hoping in the Lord that comes from God’s
own love flooding our hearts.

“lives and grows through

This trusting Faith
prayer and worship”
 THE PROFESSION OF CHRISTIAN
FAITH

Topic 3
 TOPIC OUTLINE
I. ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD
II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CREED
III. APOSTLES CREED & NICENE CREED
IV. 12 ARTICLES OF FAITH
1. I Believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth

2. And in Jesus christ, His Only Son Our Lord.

3. He was Conceived bt the Power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the

Virgin Mary

4.
 ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD

Creed
● is derived from the Latin word, “CREDO” which
means, “I BELIEVE”.
● It refers to a formula of the Church’s profession of Faith, in
which the essential contents of the faith are authoritatively
summarized.

● Brief formulas of faith that make it possible for all believers

to make common profession.
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CREED
How did it come about?
● The Creed goes back to Jesus himself who
commanded his disciples to baptize.

● “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
(Mt. 28:19-20).
●

● THUS, THE CREEDS ARE THE ELABORATIONS OF

FAITH IN THIS TRIUNE GOD
It begins with the profession of faith in the:
FATHER (creator and preserver of the world)
SON (through whom the world and we ourselves have
found redemption).
HOLY SPIRIT (the presence of God in the Church and
in the world).
Hence, the creed is structured according to the TRINITY.
Pentecost - is one of the major Feasts of the Jews
where the apostles and the Blessed Virgin
Mary received the gift of the Holy Spirit
50 days after Jesus’ resurrection.
(pente - 50)
● In the course of time, there was already one creed that was
widely accepted in all churches called:

Old Roman Creed

- discovered by a historian Nertorius 200AD . This was
used by all Churches. It comes from the Church of Rome
- The Old Roman Creed - Latin and this becomes the
Apostles Creed -
HERESY - false teachings that contradicts on what
was already accepted as true.

ARIUS - Christian priest

whose teachings gave rise
to a theological doctrine
known as Arianism.
- He is the most known heretic
in Christian history.
History of the Creed
● Nicene Creed
- also called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed,
- The Nicene Creed explains the Church's teachings about
the Trinity and affirms historical realities of Jesus' life.
The Nicene creed does not directly quote Scripture, but it
is based on biblical truths.
● The Council of Nicaea was the first general council of the
Church since the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, which set
conditions for Gentiles to join the Church.
History of the Creed

● The Apostles' Creed is referred to as

so as it is rightly regarded as a faithful
summary of the Apostles' faith.
● On the other hand, the Nicene Creed
draws its authority from the reason that
it stemmed from the first two ecumenical
councils
 ● Why do we recite our Creed?
● What is the purpose of the Creed?
● We profess our Faith so that the whole gathered
people may respond to the Word of God
proclaimed in the readings taken from Sacred
Scripture and explained in the Homily and that they
may also honor and confess the great mysteries
of the faith by pronouncing the rule of faith in a
formula approved for liturgical use and before the
celebration of these mysteries in the Eucharist
begins. (Roman Missal)
Functions of the Creed
A..Summary of Beliefs/Catholic truths

-For the Church, the Creed was created for:

1. Communicating the Christian message to the world
2. for grounding its own ever deepening insight into Christ’s truth
3. for uniting Catholics in their common commitment to Christ
4. for inter-religious dialogue with non-Christians

B.Pledge of Loyalty to God and His Church

The Creed are public confessions of Christian faith in the Triune
God.
Functions of the Creed
C.Proclamation of Identity
- it helps ground the Catholic believer’s self - identity .
In proclaiming the Creed, we Filipino Catholics
acknowledge that our basic personal identity is drawn
from God’s initiative in recreating us through Christ and
the Holy Spirit into one community.