Penny Catechism; Faith

 What is Faith?   Faith is a supernatural gift of God which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed.

Well this seems simple and straightforward or is it?   As I said before, this catechism is based on the teachings of the Council of Trent, and I am sure that on Faith a great deal more would have been said there.  Now the Council of Trent met to counter the rise of Protestantism which using the Bible brought up many disagreements with the Catholic Church.   Indeed the Calvinists claimed that Faith alone will save us, so how can so many people 'of Faith' disagree with one another.   The answer lies in our doubts, in our struggles to justify what we believe against the evidence of scripture and tradition.    When I was a young boy at school, everyone around me was catholic and the evidence was that every Catholic followed Jesus and the Church.  I had no doubts about my Faith.  When I was older, I saw that society was changing, and weighing the changes against my Catholic Faith I began to ask questions.     I read many books on Apologetics which went further than doctrine and applied catholic teaching to society and demonstrated that a secular society would bring a destruction of what was good.   With the help of God I began to believe in my Catholic Faith without doubt, and how it was a way of life contrary to the morals of society, and could restore so many parts of peoples lives that have been destroyed.   I never doubted fro then the teachings of Jesus which brought me into conflict with the priests and laity who claimed that Vatican II had changed the Church and what it taught.    It was often a bitter feud, but I knew that I had to defend not myself, but Jesus and his teaching for so many young people were being destroyed.   So they found me a challenge, and were in constant complaint about me. 

I should mention that I am taking my questions from a revision of the Penny Catechism of 1889, approved by the English Bishops in 1985.  There are one or two subtle changes.   There are answers to questions later that I have found in their version 'A Catechism of Christian Doctrine' which I have found quite appalling and I will not hesitate to condemn.        

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Translation of Luke 1: 28 in the Latin Vulgate by St Jerome.

.......et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus..... If indeed we are to have a Year of the Bible and indeed praise St Jerome, as indeed he deserves to be praised, for translating the texts approved by the Church into Latin, the language of the Mass, then surely we should check what the Latin says according to St Jerome before we rush into translating into other languages.    In this case translating  from the Gospel of Luke, St Jerome wrote the above, which translates  "..and entering the angel said to her 'Hail full of grace the Lord is with you and blessed are you among women".   Now you do not have to be a scholar to realise that this means much more than 'highly favoured'.   So why I ask myself does the translation we read in our Catholic Church at the gospel read 'highly favoured' rather than 'full of grace'  Why is this important?   Because if she was born 'full of grace' t
Read more

FAIR AS THE MOON, BRIGHT AS THE SUN, TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN BATTLE ARRAY

'Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array'. The above quote will be familiar to only a few Catholics today,   It was once on the lips of members of the Legion of Mary which was present in many parishes.    Fair as the moon and bright as the sun certainly describes Our Lady of Fatima but who exactly is meant by 'terrible as an army set in battle array?'   Certainly Our Lady appeared to ask us to pray for the conversion of sinners many of who were going to Hell for their sins as forewarned by her Son Jesus when he preachedHis Gospel.  Often we are trying and feel we are succeeding in living good lives when suddenly everything goes wrong  Like St Paul we often do the things we do not want to do rather than those that we want to do.   It is because we are involved in a war between Good and Evil and we are the children of Mary that the red Dragon wishes to devour in Revelations 12    We
Read more

The meaning of 'virgo Immaculata'

Image
As you will see from the stained glass window the name given to the image is Virgo Immaculata.   Mary was the virgin who remained sinless and spotless.  Yes she would have been tempted by Satan, but as the image shows she kept close to God in prayer and all the wiles of Satan, the forbidden fruit he offered, depictdd by the apple, ended up stuck in his throat while the right foot of Mary crushed his head. "I will put enmity between Thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed", God tole the serpent in Genesis   Satan was no match for Jesus who was God made Man but he had overcome a mere mortal before in Eve, What a triumph it would have been to destroy she whom Jesus loved above al others - his mother.   But Mary kept close to Jesus and to God, the new Eve, and mother of the new children that the death of Jesus brought into being.    And as Revelations 12 tells us having failed to destroy the birth of Jesus Satan  went after her other children - us.       When
Read more