Friday, May 8, 2015

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 25 – Part I.



YOUCAT Question n. 25 - Part I. Why does the faith require definitions and formulas?


(Youcat answer) Faith is not about empty words but about reality. In the Church, condensed formulas of faith developed over the course of time; with their help we can contemplate, express, learn, hand on, celebrate, and live out this reality.       

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 170) We do not believe in formulas, but in those realities they express, which faith allows us to touch. "The believer's act [of faith] does not terminate in the propositions, but in the realities [which they express]" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 1,2, ad 2). 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 on it more and more. (CCC 171) The Church, "the pillar and bulwark of the truth", faithfully guards "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints". She guards the memory of Christ's words; it is she who from generation to generation hands on the apostles' confession of faith (I Tim 3:15; Jude 3). As a mother who teaches her children to speak and so to understand and communicate, the Church our Mother teaches us the language of faith in order to introduce us to the understanding and the life of faith.     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Without fixed forms, the content of the faith would dissipate. That is why the Church attaches great importance to definite sentences, the precise wording of which was usually achieved painstakingly, so as to protect the message of Christ from misunderstandings and falsifications. Furthermore, creeds are important when the Church’s faith has to be translated into different cultures while being preserved in its essentials, because a common faith is the foundation for the Church’s unity.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 172) Through the centuries, in so many languages, cultures, peoples and nations, the Church has constantly confessed this one faith, received from the one Lord, transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded in the conviction that all people have only one God and Father (Cf. Eph 4:4-6). St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a witness of this faith, declared: (CCC 173) "Indeed, the Church, though scattered throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, having received the faith from the apostles and their disciples… guards [this preaching and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single heart, and preaches, teaches and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as if possessing only one mouth" (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 1, 10, 1-2: PG 7/1, 549-552).    

(This question is continued: II Why does the faith require definitions and formulas?)

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