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2. Faith sharing Prayer Social action

3. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Learning Core beliefs of Catholicism

4. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Apologies for poor pedagogy! Challenge and enjoyment Breadth Progression xDepth xPersonalisation and Choice Coherence Relevance

5. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Learning Intentions Explore the nature of faith as Receiving Revelation Natural Revelation & Divine Revelation Accepting Revelation in personal response Assent & Adherence Understand the nature of Revelation And its expression in the Sacred Scripture and Tradition

6. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Expression of what Catholics believe Expression of how Catholics celebrate Expression of how Catholics live Expression of how Catholics pray Tool for evangelisation and catechesis, for the renewal of the Church

7. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM So let’s begin as we begin everything, with the Sign of the Cross For most of us, however, we first experience it not as something we did, but as something done to us – as babies – by our natural parents, godparents, and priest, who fulfilled the role of our spiritual father, on the occasion of our Baptism.

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9. … and they will not believe in him unless they have heard of him, and they will not hear of him unless they get a preacher, and they will never have a preacher unless one is sent, but as scripture says: The footsteps of those who bring good news is a welcome sound. Not everyone, of course, listens to the Good News. As Isaiah says, Lord, how many believed what we proclaimed? So faith comes from what is preached and what is preached comes from the word of Christ - Rom 10:14-17

10. ‘Words of Christ’  Faith comes from something given to us  Something revealed in the words of Christ  Word of the Father  Jesus reveals the Father and his saving will

11. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Jesus and the Father in the Gospel according to St John: Jesus comes from/is sent from heaven: Nicodemus: We know that you are a teacher who comes from God (3:2) For God sent his Son into the world (3:17) He who comes from heaven bears witness to the things he has seen and heard (3:31) The Son completes the will of the Father: My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work (4:34) I tell you most solemnly, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees the Father doing (5:19) I have come in the name of my Father (5:43) Jesus reveals the Father and his will: My teaching is not from myself, it comes from the one who sent me (7:16) I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me (8:16) I do nothing of myself, what the Father taught me is what I preach (8:28)

12. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM ‘Have you been with me all this time, Philip,’ said Jesus to him, ‘and you still do not know me? To have seen me is to have seen the Father’. (14:9)

13. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 50)

14. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Man’s religiositySense of beauty, truth and goodness CCC 31-31 Mystery of birth and death Reason

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16. By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 50)

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18. The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously "by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other" and shed light on each another. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

19. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM St. Irenaeus of Lyons repeatedly speaks of this divine pedagogy using the image of God and man becoming accustomed to one another: the Word of God dwelt in man and became the Son of man in order to accustom man to perceive God and to accustom God to dwell in man, according to the Father's pleasure. (CCC 53)

20. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM How does God reveal Himself: Words and deeds = in human history  Mediated  Gradual

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22. "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." (Heb 1:1-2) Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. (CCC 65)

23. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM The content of Divine Revelation: In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4) Dei Verbum 2

24.  God’s very person  Knowledge  Relationship  His will/plan for our salvation (= communion with Him)

25. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM CCC 79: The Father’s self-communication through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church.

26. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM … and they will not believe in him unless they have heard of him, and they will not hear of him unless they get a preacher, and they will never have a preacher unless one is sent, but as scripture says: The footsteps of those who bring good news is a welcome sound. Not everyone, of course, listens to the Good News. As Isaiah says, Lord, how many believed what we proclaimed? So faith comes from what is preached and what is preached comes from the word of Christ. - Rom 10:14-17

27. Jesus commissioned the Apostles: Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations: baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time. Mt 28:19-20

28. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Dei Verbum 7 Apostles ‘faithfully fulfilled this commission: Gospel:saving truth moral teaching heavenly gifts what learnt from Holy Spirit By: oral preaching example/observances writing

29. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Apostolic succession and the Magisterium Preserving Transmitting Interpreting (Cf. CCC 75-78; 85; 888)

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32. Dei Verbum 10 Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church.

33. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM 2 Tim 3:16-17 All scripture is inspired (theopneustos) by God CCC 81 Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.

34. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Inspiration (cf. DV 11-13; CCC 105-108) Written by men chosen by God Who used ‘their own faculties and powers’ To communicate ‘only those things He wanted’ For our salvation These words are true since they are inspired.

35. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Dei Verbum 8 Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so, the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.

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38. Peter Kreeft Just as God’s material houses are sacred, so are his verbal houses.

39. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM And so finally …

40. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM CCC 185 Communion in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith.

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42. Expression of unity: The symbol of faith, then, is a sign of recognition and communion between believers.

43. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM Expression of the true Faith Symbolon also means a gathering, collection or summary. A symbol of faith is a summary of the principal truths of the faith

44. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM A means of passing on the faith Serves as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis CCC 188

45. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM St Paul For us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and through who all things exist; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist. I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve. I Cor 8:6; 15.3-5

46. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM That very day about three thousand were added to their number. These remained faithful to the teaching of the Apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers Acts 2:41-42

47. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM The first ‘profession of faith’ is made during Baptism. The symbol of faith is first and foremost the baptismal creed. CCC 189 Ratzinger/Schonborn Indeed, the Creed is but the unfolding of the baptismal formula.

48. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM We perform this simple act of worship by acknowledging God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while tracing the lines of a cross over our body with our right hand. There you have it, the entire Gospel summed up in about three seconds. We profess the highest and holiest mystery about God, the Blessed Trinity, while confessing what Jesus Christ did on Calvary for our salvation

49. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM @Pontifex 12 September 2015 Every time we make the sign of the cross, we draw closer to the great mystery of the Trinity

50. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM We do not believe in formulae, but in the realities they express, which faith allows us to touch … All the same, we do approach these realities with the help of formulations of the faith which permit us to express the faith and to hand it on, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate and live it more and more. CCC 170

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52. 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

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54. We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Deus Caritas Est

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57. The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." 13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed. 13 Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfilment of God's word, and so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith. CCC 148

58. EXPLORING CATHOLICISM 20 October 2015 Revelation: Jesus @rercag