The Profession of Faith - What We Believe  

“WHY CATHOLIC?”  PREVIEW OF SESSION THREE

Faith : I Believe, We Believe

First and foremost, faith names our relationship with God.  We believe in God, and in Him alone.  This means that we place ultimate trust in His care since only He has the power to bring us beyond death into eternal life.  Faith promises a great benefit, but it also demands total submission to God’s authority.  We must give up our independence -- our will to judge for ourselves what is good and bad -- in order to accept God’s judgment.  We see this submission in the patriarch Abraham who did not hesitate to prepare the sacrifice of his own son when he heard God asking that of him nor did he keep to his plan when God told him that He was only testing his faith.  We find perhaps greater submission of faith in Mary.  She responded to God’s unimaginable plan for her to conceive the savior as a virgin, “May it be done unto me accord to your word.” 

Strictly speaking, we believe the Church, but do not believe in her.  The Church is like a mother.  She gives birth to our eternal life through Baptism and nurses that life by teaching us, especially through Scripture, about God and His plan for us.   

The third session of “Why Catholic?” enables us to better appreciate our faith.  We may think of faith as a road with many guideposts (Scripture and Tradition) that lead us home to God.  The road, however, encounters detours in our culture that continually raises questions about what we believe. We need to trust the guideposts to move beyond these challenges to faith.