Parishable Items

Catechism of the Catholic Church #1275-1284

• Christian initiation is accomplished by three sacraments together: Baptism which is the beginning of new life; Confirmation which is its strengthening; and the Eucharist which nourishes the disciple with Christ’s Body and Blood for his transformation in Christ.

• “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

• Baptism is birth into the new life in Christ. In accordance with the Lord’s will, it is necessary for salvation, as is the Church herself, which we enter by Baptism.

• The essential rite of Baptism consists in immersing the candidate in water or pouring water on his head, while pronouncing the invocation of the Most Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

• The fruit of Baptism, or baptismal grace, is a rich reality that includes forgiveness of original sin and all personal sins, birth into the new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. By this very fact the person baptized is incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and made a sharer in the priesthood of Christ.

• Baptism imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual sign, the character, which consecrates the baptized person for Christian worship. Because of the character Baptism cannot be repeated.

• Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, can be saved even if they have not been baptized.

• Since the earliest times, Baptism has been administered to children, for it is a grace and a gift of God that does not presuppose any human merit; children are baptized in the faith of the Church. Entry into Christian life gives access to true freedom.

• With respect to children who have died without Baptism, the liturgy of the Church invites us to trust in God’s mercy and to pray for their salvation.

• In case of necessity, any person can baptize provided that he have the intention of doing that which the Church does and provided that he pours water on the candidate’s head while saying: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

● “Father,. . . you formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures” (Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer IV).

●  Man is predestined to reproduce the image of God’s Son made man, the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), so that Christ shall be the first-born of a multitude of brothers and sisters.

●  Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.

●  “God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning, “male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons.

●  Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.

● With Job, the just man, we confess: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)

●  Faithful to the witness of Scripture, the Church often addresses her prayer to the “almighty and eternal God,” believing firmly that “nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)

●  God shows forth his almighty power by converting us from our sins and restoring us to his friendship by grace. “God, you show your almighty power above all in your mercy and forgiveness. . .” (Roman Missal, 26th Sunday, Opening Prayer).

●  If we do not believe that God’s love is almighty, how can we believe that the Father could create us, the Son redeem us and the Holy Spirit sanctify us?

● “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD…” (Mark 12:29) The supreme being must be unique, without equal. If God is not one, he is not God.

●  Faith in God leads us to turn to him alone as our first origin and our ultimate goal, and neither to prefer anything to him nor to substitute anything for him.

●  Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: “If you understood him, it would not be God.” (St. Augustine)

●  The God of our faith has revealed himself as HE WHO IS; and he has made himself known as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6) God’s very being is Truth and Love.

●  Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words.

●  “To believe” has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it.

●  We must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

●  Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

●  “Believing” is a human act, conscious and free, corresponding to the dignity of the human person.

●  “Believing” is an ecclesial act. the Church’s faith precedes, engenders, supports and nourishes our faith. the Church is the mother of all believers. “No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.” (St. Cyprian)

●  We believe all “that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed.” (Pope Paul VI)

●  Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16)

●  “Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come.” (St. Thomas Aquinas)

● “All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ” (Hugh of St. Victor)

●  The Sacred Scriptures contain the Word of God and, because they are inspired, they are truly the Word of God.

●  God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors; he acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving truth.

●  Interpretation of the inspired Scripture must be attentive above all to what God wants to reveal through the sacred authors for our salvation. What comes from the Spirit is not fully understood except by the Spirit’s action.

●  The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.

●  The four Gospels occupy a central place because Christ Jesus is their center.

●  The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God’s plan and his Revelation. the Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God.

●  The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord: both nourish and govern the whole Christian life. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

● What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns in glory.

● Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches.

● The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.

● Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.

● The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

In 1992, Pope John Paul the Great released the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “a sure norm for teaching the faith.” It is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to practice or understand the Catholic Faith better, but who has the time to read it?

Thankfully, the Catechism summarizes its extensive teaching into 59 “In Brief” sections. If you are committed to learning more about your Catholic Faith in an easy though comprehensive way, then study the “In Brief” Catechism in this year ahead.

On Man’s Capacity for God (CCC #44-49)

● Man is by nature and vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God.

● Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he finds happiness: “When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of you, my life will be complete.” (St. Augustine)

● When he listens to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man can arrive at certainty about the existence of God, the cause and the end of everything.

● The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human reason.

● We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust the mystery.

● Without the Creator, the creature vanishes. This is the reason why believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring the light of the living God to those who do not know him or who reject him.