Step Out Fearlessly

Have no fear of moving into the unknown.

Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you,

therefore no harm can befall you;

all is very, very well.

Do this in complete faith and confidence.

-Blessed John Paul II

The Assurance Of Things Hoped For

Every minute of every day, through every experience and encounter that we have, God invites us into His company. In order to believe, our hearts must be ready to listen and respond to God’s invitation.

This response is faith, and it involves completely submitting our intellect and our will to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is a free abandonment to the truth, “by trust in the person who bears witness to it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 177). Faith stakes everything on a relationship with this person, Jesus Christ, accepting Him as revelation of the one, all-merciful and all-powerful God.

The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT) lays out the qualities of faith in bullet points:

Faith is knowledge and trust. It has seven characteristics:

• Faith is a sheer gift of God, which we receive when we fervently ask for it.
• Faith is the supernatural power that is absolutely necessary if we are to attain salvation.
• Faith requires the free will and clear understanding of a person when he accepts the divine invitation.
• Faith is absolutely certain, because Jesus guarantees it.
• Faith is incomplete unless it leads to active love.
• Faith grows when we listen more and more carefully to God’s Word and enter a lively exchange with him in prayer.
• Faith gives us even now a foretaste of the joy of heaven (21).

Faith is an authentically human act, in which our “intellect and will cooperate with divine grace” (CCC, 155). God does give us “motives of credibility,” in the miracles of Christ, the witness of saints, true prophecies, and in the fruitfulness of the Church (CCC, 156). Still faith “seeks understanding,” calling the believer to dive deeper into “a more penetrating knowledge,” which “will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love” (CCC, 158).

Faith Transmitted To All Generations

God desires that all men know the truth of Jesus Christ. Before He ascended into heaven, Christ Himself gave the Church a mission, to go and “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). Therefore, all Christians must proclaim the truth of the Gospel, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, “so that all men can freely make a decision for Christ” (YOUCAT).

The Gospel has been transmitted in two ways. It was first transmitted orally by the Apostles, through their fellowship, their preaching, their teaching, and the guidance they gave. Second, it was transmitted in writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The latter we see clearly in the Sacred Scriptures, but the former way is somewhat less tangible. This is why the apostles appointed bishops as successors, so that this teaching could be handed on and preserved with authority. Guided by the Holy Spirit, apostolic succession makes the “living transmission” of the Gospel possible (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 78). This way, the “Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church,” or as the Catechism puts it, God is able to continue speaking with the Spouse of His Son (79).

As Catholics, we accept and honor both Sacred Scripture and Tradition. For “there exists a close connection and communication” between them, and both, “flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end” (Dei Verbum, 9). This end is the fruitful transmission of the Word of God in its entirety throughout the world.

May Your Faith Be Strong

May your faith be strong;

may it not hesitate, not waver, before

the doubts, the uncertainties which

philosophical systems or fashionable

movements would like to suggest to you.

-Blessed John Paul II

November 3, 1980

Set Your Desires Free

What is it about human love that so moves the soul? What is it about love that ignites chivalry in the father, sacrifice in the mother, and tears from the hearts of the young? 

It is love so deep that it un-selfs us, placing us beyond what we know of our world. It paints us. And when good, it fills us where we are empty; where we hunger.

We are born with an eternal hunger, an eternal thirst for wholeness. And this human love gives us a glimpse of what it is we desire. It “faces us with the mystery that surrounds all existence.”

This is what Pope Benedict XVI said in his Wednesday catechesis this week, in which he addressed man’s mysterious desire for God. He quoted the very first words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, saying:

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for (No. 27).

It may seem that this desire has faded in secular culture today, but the heart of man so clearly seeks to go beyond itself—in human love, in art, in learning, and in other things that speak beauty and glory. When man surrounds himself with these things, although he does not know it, he moves towards the golden mystery, which engulfs us.

The miracle of God's love

Last Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Gospel message from Mark’s chapter 6. In the passage, Jesus discovers that the people of His own country do not believe in His divinity. In fact, they are scandalized that the carpenter’s son is now travelling about, preaching like a prophet.

Pope Benedict said that the unbelief amongst the people of Nazareth was understandable, “because their human familiarity made it hard for them to go further and open themselves to the divine dimension. It was difficult for them to believe that this son of a carpenter was the Son of God."

Because of this unbelief, he went on to say:

Jesus 'could do no deeds of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them'. Indeed, the miracles of Christ were not a show of power, but signs of God's love, which is realised wherever it finds reciprocity in the faith of man.

...The man Jesus of Nazareth is the transparency of God, God dwells in Him fully and, while we always seek other signs, other prodigies, we do not realise that the true sign is Him, God made flesh. He is the greatest miracle of the universe: all the love of God contained in a human heart and a human face.

And until we realize that Jesus is the true sign, we will not be ready for Him to heal us, teach us, and prepare us for the Kingdom of Heaven.

So let us pray for the grace to reciprocate God’s love in faith, and let us pray for the courage to proclaim the miracle of Christ to those around us.