Credo -3- The Faith of the Church - Catechesis with Pope Benedict XVI - Totus2us

Catechesis with Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI in the Year of Faith: ".. Lastly, I would like to emphasize that it is in the ecclesial community that personal faith grows and matures. It is interesting to observe how in the New Testament the word “saints” refers to Christians as a whole, and certainly not everyone would have had the qualities to be declared saints by the Church. What, then, is this term meant to indicate? The fact that those who had and lived faith in the risen Christ were called to become a point of reference for everyone else, putting them in contact with the Person and the Message of Jesus, who reveals the face of the living God. And this also holds true for us: a Christian who lets himself be guided and shaped gradually by the faith of the Church, despite his weaknesses, his limitations and his difficulties, becomes like a window open to the light of the living God, who receives this light and transmits it to the world. Blessed John Paul II in his Encyclical Redemptoris Missio affirmed that “Mission renews the Church, revitalizes faith and Christian identity, gives new enthusiasm and new motivation. Faith is strengthened when it is given to others” (2). The widespread tendency today to relegate faith to the private sphere therefore contradicts its very nature. We need the Church so as to have our faith confirmed and so as to experience the gifts of God: his Word, the Sacraments, the support of grace and the witness of love. Thus our “I” in the “we” of the Church is able to perceive itself, at the same time, as the recipient and protagonist of an event that surpasses it: the experience of communion with God, which founds the communion among men. In a world in which individualism seems to regulate relationships between people, rendering them ever more fragile, faith calls us to be People of God, to be Church, bearers of the love and communion of God for all mankind (cf Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1)." (General Audience, 31 October 2012) Music by Ooberfuse: Credo. Visit Totus2us.com for much more.