"It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the Faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the perSon of Christ and proclaiming his Mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the Faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father." 49 From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength. 50

Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. the beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the Disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint." 88 Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf." 89 Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of Salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of Faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation." 90 It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation." 91 Hope is expressed and nourished in Prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire.

Jesus makes charity the new commandment. 96 By loving his own "to the end," 97 he makes manifest the Father's Love which he receives. By loving one another, the Disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." and again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." 98

Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your Father and your mother." 132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

The vocation of humanity is to show forth the image of God and to be transformed into the image of the Father's only Son. This vocation takes a personal form since each of us is called to enter into the divine beatitude; it also concerns the human community as a whole.

The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom. Its biblical meaning can be defined as Fatherly instruction, God's pedagogy. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his Love. It is at once firm in its precepts and, in its promises, worthy of love.

The Law of the Gospel fulfills the commandments of the Law. the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire divine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the Heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure, 22 where Faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them the other virtues. the Gospel thus brings the Law to its fullness through imitation of the perfection of the heavenly Father, through forgiveness of enemies and Prayer for persecutors, in emulation of the divine generosity. 23

The New Law practices the acts of religion: almsgiving, Prayer and fasting, directing them to the "Father who sees in secret," in contrast with the desire to "be seen by men." 24 Its Prayer is the Our Father. 25

The New Law is called a law of Love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of Grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of Faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of Son and heir. 31

Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted Son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his Grace. the Fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the Faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

"All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity." 65 All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 66

The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the Grace of final perseverance and the recompense of God their Father for the good works accomplished with his grace in Communion with Jesus. 70 Keeping the same rule of life, believers share the "blessed hope" of those whom the divine mercy gathers into the "holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 71

Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. 86 "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the Father of many nations." 87

The disciple of Christ must not only keep the Faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: "All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks." 82 Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for Salvation: "So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." 83

Christ himself chose the apostles and gave them a share in his Mission and authority. Raised to the Father's right hand, he has not forsaken his flock but he keeps it under his constant protection through the apostles, and guides it still through these same pastors who continue his work today. 61 Thus, it is Christ whose gift it is that some be apostles, others pastors. He continues to act through the bishops. 62

For the bishop, this is first of all a Grace of strength (“the governing spirit": Prayer of Episcopal Consecration in the Latin rite): 78 The grace to guide and defend his Church with strength and prudence as a Father and pastor, with gratuitous Love for all and a preferential love for the poor, the sick, and the needy. This grace impels him to proclaim the Gospel to all, to be the model for his flock, to go before it on the way of sanctification by identifying himself in the Eucharist with Christ the priest and victim, not fearing to give his life for his sheep:

Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." 92 The woman, "Flesh of his flesh," i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. 93 "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the Plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh." 95

This is what the Apostle Paul makes clear when he says: "Husbands, Love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her," adding at once: "'For this reaSon a man shall leave his Father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. This is a great Mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church." 110

It is here that the Father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, Prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity." 168 Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment." 169 Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal Love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in Prayer and the offering of one's life.

Among sacramentals blessings (of perSons, meals, objects, and places) come first. Every blessing praises God and Prays for his gifts. In Christ, Christians are blessed by God the Father "with every spiritual blessing." 175 This is why the Church imparts blessings by invoking the name of Jesus, usually while making the holy sign of the Cross of Christ.

The Church who, as Mother, has borne the Christian sacramentally in her womb during his earthly pilgrimage, accompanies him at his journey's end, in order to surrender him "into the Father's hands." She offers to the Father, in Christ, the child of his Grace, and she commits to the earth, in hope, the seed of the body that will rise in Glory. 184 This offering is fully celebrated in the Eucharistic sacrifice; the blessings before and after Mass are sacramentals.

The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in Church the Eucharist is the Heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death. 189 In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious Communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and Resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table of the Kingdom. 190 It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of the Faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion with the one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by communicating in the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then, by Praying for him and with him.

Christ Jesus always did what was pleasing to the Father, 5 and always lived in perfect Communion with him. Likewise Christ's Disciples are invited to live in the sight of the Father "who sees in secret," 6 in order to become "perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." 7

"Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God," 13 "sanctified . . . (and) called to be saints," 14 Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. 15 This "Spirit of the Son" teaches them to Pray to the Father 16 and, having become their life, prompts them to act so as to bear "the fruit of the Spirit" 17 by charity in action. Healing the wounds of sin, the Holy Spirit renews us interiorly through a spiritual transformation. 18 He enlightens and strengthens us to live as "children of light" through "all that is good and right and true." 19

The dignity of the human perSon is rooted in his Creation in the image and likeness of God (article 1); it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude (article 2). It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment (article 3). By his deliberate actions (article 4), the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience (article 5). Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth (article 6). With the help of Grace they grow in virtue (article 7), avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son 1 to the mercy of our Father in heaven (article 8). In this way they attain to the perfection of charity.

"Christ, . . . in the very revelation of the Mystery of the Father and of his Love, makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to light his exalted vocation." 2 It is in Christ, "the image of the invisible God," 3 that man has been created "in the image and likeness" of the Creator. It is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior, that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the Grace of God. 4

Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the Father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil.

The Magisterium of the Pastors of the Church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching, with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the "deposit" of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from Faith in Christ and animated by charity. Alongside the Creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men.

The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. the present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. the Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities.

Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit...." 17 The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the Heart or not coupled with Love of neighbor. 18 Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." 19 The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the Cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our Salvation. 20 By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.

Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. "But I say to you, Love your enemies and Pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be Sons of your Father who is in heaven." 96

Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. the union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the Flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 120 All human generations proceed from this union. 121

Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and Fatherhood of God. 153 "Married couples should regard it as their proper Mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the Love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility." 154

Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a perSon other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a Father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other." 166

Incest designates intimate relations between relatives or in-laws within a degree that prohibits marriage between them. 180 St. Paul stigmatizes this especially grave offense: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you . . . for a man is living with his Father's wife.... In the name of the Lord Jesus ... you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the Flesh...." 181 Incest corrupts family relationships and marks a regression toward animality.

In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of Grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth. 256 "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." 257 The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies. 258 To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth." 259 To his Disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional Love of truth: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes or No.'" 260

"A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving." 280 The Lord denounces lying as the work of the devil: "You are of your Father the devil, . . . there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." 281

The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods. 340 "Let the proud seek and Love earthly Kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." 341 Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow. 342 Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God.

Christian Prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

In the New Covenant, Prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The Grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit." 12 Thus, the life of Prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in Communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ. 13 Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's Love. 14

Becoming a disciple of Jesus means accepting the invitation to belong to God's family, to live in conformity with His way of life: "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother." 40 Parents should welcome and respect with joy and thanksgiving the Lord's call to one of their children to follow him in virginity for the sake of the Kingdom in the consecrated life or in priestly ministry.

Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: "He who Loves Father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves Son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 39

The sacrament of Baptism is conferred "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." 85 In Baptism, the Lord's name sanctifies man, and the Christian receives his name in the Church. This can be the name of a saint, that is, of a disciple who has lived a life of exemplary fidelity to the Lord. the patron saint provides a model of charity; we are assured of his intercession. the "baptismal name" can also express a Christian Mystery or Christian virtue. "Parents, sponsors, and the pastor are to see that a name is not given which is foreign to Christian sentiment." 86

The Christian begins his day, his Prayers, and his activities with the Sign of the Cross: "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." the baptized person dedicates the day to the Glory of God and calls on the Savior's Grace which lets him act in the Spirit as a child of the Father. the sign of the cross strengthens us in temptations and difficulties.

The name one receives is a name for eternity. In the Kingdom, the mysterious and unique character of each perSon marked with God's name will shine forth in splendor. "To him who conquers . . . I will give a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it." 88 "Then I looked, and Lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." 89

The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their Father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it. This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of perSons.

Observing the fourth commandment brings its reward: "Honor your Father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you." 8 Respecting this commandment provides, along with spiritual fruits, temporal fruits of peace and prosperity. Conversely, failure to observe it brings great harm to communities and to individuals.

The Christian family is a Communion of perSons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. In the proCreation and education of children it reflects the Father's work of creation. It is called to partake of the Prayer and sacrifice of Christ. Daily Prayer and the reading of the Word of God strengthen it in charity. the Christian family has an evangelizing and Missionary task.

The family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor. There are many families who are at times incapable of providing this help. It devolves then on other perSons, other families, and, in a subsidiary way, society to provide for their needs: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world." 12

The fourth commandment illuminates other relationships in society. In our brothers and sisters we see the children of our parents; in our cousins, the descendants of our ancestors; in our fellow citizens, the children of our country; in the baptized, the children of our mother the Church; in every human perSon, a son or daughter of the One who wants to be called "our Father." In this way our relationships with our neighbors are recognized as personal in character. the neighbor is not a "unit" in the human collective; he is "someone" who by his known origins deserves particular attention and respect.

The divine Fatherhood is the source of human fatherhood; 16 this is the foundation of the honor owed to parents. the respect of children, whether minors or adults, for their father and mother 17 is nourished by the natural affection born of the bond uniting them. It is required by God's commandment. 18

Respect for parents (filial piety) derives from gratitude toward those who, by the gift of life, their Love and their work, have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow in stature, wisdom, and Grace. "With all your Heart honor your Father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?" 19

Filial respect is shown by true docility and obedience. "My Son, keep your Father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.... When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you." 20 "A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke." 21

Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human perSons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God's law.

Prayer is lived in the first place beginning with the realities of Creation. the first nine chapters of Genesis describe this relationship with God as an offering of the first-born of Abel's flock, as the invocation of the divine name at the time of Enosh, and as "walking with God. 5 Noah's offering is pleasing to God, who blesses him and through him all creation, because his Heart was upright and undivided; Noah, like Enoch before him, "walks with God." 6 This kind of Prayer is lived by many righteous people in all religions. In his indefectible covenant with every living creature, 7 God has always called people to prayer. But it is above all beginning with our Father Abraham that prayer is Revealed in the Old Testament.

"Christ, whom the Father hallowed and sent into the world, has, through his apostles, made their successors, the bishops namely, sharers in his consecration and Mission; and these, in their turn, duly entrusted in varying degrees various members of the Church with the office of their ministry." 43 "The function of the bishops' ministry was handed over in a subordinate degree to priests so that they might be appointed in the order of the priesthood and be co-workers of the episcapal order for the proper fulfillment of the apostolic mission that had been entrusted to it by Christ." 44

When the Church keeps the memorials of martyrs and other saints during the annual cycle, she proclaims the Paschal Mystery in those "who have suffered and have been glorified with Christ. She proposes them to the Faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ, and through their merits she begs for God's favors." 45

In the Old Testament the prophets announced that the Spirit of the Lord would rest on the hoped-for Messiah for his saving Mission. 90 The descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at his Baptism by John was the sign that this was he who was to come, the Messiah, the Son of God. 91 He was conceived of the Holy Spirit; his whole life and his whole mission are carried out in total Communion with the Holy Spirit whom the Father gives him "without measure." 92

Christ himself declared that he was marked with his Father's seal. 107 Christians are also marked with a seal: "It is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has comMissioned us; he has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our Hearts as a guarantee." 108 This seal of the Holy Spirit marks our total belonging to Christ, our enrollment in his service for ever, as well as the promise of divine protection in the great eschatological trial. 109

From this fact, Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of Baptismal Grace: - it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us cry, "Abba! Father!"; 115 - it unites us more firmly to Christ; - it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us; - it renders our bond with the Church more perfect; 116 - it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the Faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross: 117

"The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that Communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit." 136

The miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his Disciples to feed the multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his Eucharist. 156 The sign of water turned into wine at Cana already announces the Hour of Jesus' glorification. It makes manifest the fulfillment of the wedding feast in the Father's Kingdom, where the Faithful will drink the new wine that has become the Blood of Christ. 157

The Lord, having Loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. 161 In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; "thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament." 162

By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his Father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the Glory of the Kingdom.

The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words "until he comes" does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession in the presence of the Father. 165

In the epiclesis, the Church asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing 178 ) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and so that those who take part in the Eucharist may be one body and one spirit (some liturgical traditions put the epiclesis after the anamnesis). In the institution narrative, the power of the words and the action of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine Christ's body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the Cross once for all.

In the anamnesis that follows, the Church calls to mind the Passion, Resurrection, and glorious return of Christ Jesus; she presents to the Father the offering of his Son which reconciles us with him. In the intercessions, the Church indicates that the Eucharist is celebrated in Communion with the whole Church in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead, and in communion with the pastors of the Church, the Pope, the diocesan bishop, his presbyterium and his deacons, and all the bishops of the whole world together with their Churches.

We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his Creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.

We must therefore consider the Eucharist as: - thanksgiving and praise to the Father; - the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his Body; - the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his Spirit.

The Mystery of Christ, his Incarnation and Passover, which we celebrate in the Eucharist especially at the Sunday assembly, permeates and transfigures the time of each day, through the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, "the divine office." 46 This celebration, Faithful to the apostolic exhortations to "Pray constantly," is "so devised that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God." 47 In this "public Prayer of the Church," 48 The Faithful (clergy, religious, and lay people) exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized. Celebrated in "the form approved" by the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours "is truly the voice of the Bride herself addressed to her Bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his Body addresses to the Father. 49

The hymns and litanies of the Liturgy of the Hours integrate the Prayer of the psalms into the age of the Church, expressing the symbolism of the time of day, the liturgical seaSon, or the feast being celebrated. Moreover, the reading from the Word of God at each Hour (with the subsequent responses or troparia) and readings from the Fathers and spiritual masters at certain Hours, reveal more deeply the meaning of the Mystery being celebrated, assist in understanding the psalms, and prepare for silent Prayer. the lectio divina, where the Word of God is so read and meditated that it becomes prayer, is thus rooted in the liturgical celebration.

Finally, the Church has an eschatological significance. To enter into the house of God, we must Cross a threshold, which symbolizes passing from the world wounded by sin to the world of the new Life to which all men are called. the visible church is a symbol of the Father's house toward which the People of God is journeying and where the Father "will wipe every tear from their eyes." 65 Also for this reaSon, the Church is the house of all God's children, open and welcoming.

The celebration of the liturgy, therefore, should correspond to the genius and culture of the different peoples. 70 In order that the Mystery of Christ be "made known to all the nations . . . to bring about the obedience of Faith," 71 it must be proclaimed, celebrated, and lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled: 72 It is with and through their own human culture, assumed and transfigured by Christ, that the multitude of God's children has access to the Father, in order to glorify him in the one Spirit.

All the Old Covenant prefigurations find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus. He begins his public life after having himself baptized by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan. 17 After his Resurrection Christ gives this Mission to his apostles: "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." 18

Our Lord voluntarily submitted himself to the Baptism of St. John, intended for sinners, in order to "fulfill all righteousness." 19 Jesus' gesture is a manifestation of his self-emptying. 20 The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of the first Creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation, and the Father Revealed Jesus as his "beLoved Son." 21

In the Latin Church this triple infusion is accompanied by the minister's words: "N., I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." In the Eastern liturgies the catechumen turns toward the East and the priest says: "The servant of God, N., is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." At the invocation of each person of the Most Holy Trinity, the priest immerses the candidate in the water and raises him up again.

The white garment symbolizes that the perSon baptized has "put on Christ," 42 has risen with Christ. the candle, lit from the Easter candle, signifies that Christ has enlightened the neophyte. In him the baptized are "the light of the world." 43 The newly baptized is now, in the only Son, a child of God entitled to say the Prayer of the children of God: "Our Father."

First Holy Communion. Having become a child of God clothed with the wedding garment, the neophyte is admitted "to the marriage supper of the Lamb" 44 and receives the food of the new life, the body and blood of Christ. the Eastern Churches maintain a lively awareness of the unity of Christian initiation by giving Holy Communion to all the newly baptized and confirmed, even little children, recalling the Lord's words: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them." 45 The Latin Church, which reserves adMission to Holy Communion to those who have attained the age of reaSon, expresses the orientation of Baptism to the Eucharist by having the newly baptized child brought to the altar for the Praying of the Our Father.

For the Grace of Baptism to unfold, the parents' help is important. So too is the role of the GodFather and godmother, who must be firm believers, able and ready to help the newly baptized - child or adult on the road of Christian life. 55 Their task is a truly ecclesial function (officium). 56 The whole ecclesial community bears some responsibility for the development and safeguarding of the grace given at Baptism.

The Eucharist, the sacrament of our Salvation accomplished by Christ on the Cross, is also a sacrifice of praise in thanksgiving for the work of Creation. In the Eucharistic sacrifice the whole of creation Loved by God is presented to the Father through the death and the Resurrection of Christ. Through Christ the Church can offer the sacrifice of praise in thanksgiving for all that God has made good, beautiful, and just in creation and in humanity.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through Creation, redemption, and sanctification. Eucharist means first of all "thanksgiving."

The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of praise by which the Church sings the Glory of God in the name of all Creation. This sacrifice of praise is possible only through Christ: he unites the Faithful to his perSon, to his praise, and to his intercession, so that the sacrifice of praise to the Father is offered through Christ and with him, to be accepted in him.

Without being strictly necessary, confession of everyday faults (venial sins) is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church. 59 Indeed the regular confession of our venial sins helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the life of the Spirit. By receiving more frequently through this sacrament the gift of the Father's mercy, we are spurred to be merciful as he is merciful: 60

Since Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, 65 bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops' collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

When he celebrates the sacrament of Penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal Son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial judge whose judgment is both just and merciful. the priest is the sign and the instrument of God's merciful Love for the sinner.

We also call these spiritual goods of the Communion of saints the Church's treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the 'treasury of the Church' is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their effficacy." 87

"This treasury includes as well the Prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the Prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his Grace have made their lives holy and carried out the Mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own Salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body." 88

An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the reMission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity. 89

The sacrament of Penance can also take place in the framework of a communal celebration in which we prepare ourselves together for confession and give thanks together for the forgiveness received. Here, the perSonal confession of sins and individual absolution are inserted into a liturgy of the word of God with readings and a homily, an examination of conscience conducted in common, a communal request for forgiveness, the Our Father and a thanksgiving in common. This communal celebration expresses more clearly the ecclesial character of penance. However, regardless of its manner of celebration the sacrament of Penance is always, by its very nature, a liturgical action, and therefore an ecclesial and public action. 90

An ecclesial Grace. the sick who receive this sacrament, "by freely uniting themselves to the passion and death of Christ," "contribute to the good of the People of God." 137 By celebrating this sacrament the Church, in the Communion of saints, intercedes for the benefit of the sick perSon, and he, for his part, though the grace of this sacrament, contributes to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God the Father.

A preparation for the final journey. If the sacrament of anointing of the sick is given to all who suffer from serious illness and infirmity, even more rightly is it given to those at the point of departing this life; so it is also called sacramentum exeuntium (the sacrament of those departing). 138 The Anointing of the Sick completes our conformity to the death and Resurrection of Christ, just as Baptism began it. It completes the holy anointings that mark the whole Christian life: that of Baptism which sealed the new life in us, and that of Confirmation which strengthened us for the combat of this life. This last anointing fortifies the end of our earthly life like a solid rampart for the final struggles before entering the Father's house. 139

In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received at this moment of "passing over" to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of Resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 140 The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father. 141

Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a Kingdom, priests for his God and Father." 20 The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. the Faithful exercise their Baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's Mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the Faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood." 21

Through the ordained ministry, especially that of bishops and priests, the presence of Christ as head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers. 26 In the beautiful expression of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop is typos tou Patros: he is like the living image of God the Father. 27

"In the name of the whole Church" does not mean that priests are the delegates of the community. the Prayer and offering of the Church are inseparable from the Prayer and offering of Christ, her head; it is always the case that Christ worships in and through his Church. the whole Church, the Body of Christ, prays and offers herself "through him, with him, in him," in the unity of the Holy Spirit, to God the Father. the whole Body, caput et membra, prays and offers itself, and therefore those who in the Body are especially his ministers are called ministers not only of Christ, but also of the Church. It is because the ministerial priesthood represents Christ that it can represent the Church.

The formula of absolution used in the Latin Church expresses the essential elements of this sacrament: the Father of mercies is the source of all forgiveness. He effects the reconciliation of sinners through the Passover of his Son and the gift of his Spirit, through the Prayer and ministry of the Church:

Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal Grace and wounded ecclesial Communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. the Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as "the second Plank [of Salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace." 47

The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. the Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. the lives of the Faithful, their praise, sufferings, Prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.

It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. the Church Fathers strongly affirmed the Faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. the principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." 223 Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me." 224

At the Last Supper the Lord himself directed his Disciples' attention toward the fulfillment of the Passover in the Kingdom of God: "I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." 240 Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist she remembers this promise and turns her gaze "to him who is to come." In her Prayer she calls for his coming: "Marana tha!" "Come, Lord Jesus!" 241 "May your Grace come and this world pass away!" 242

It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus' call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father 5 from whom one has strayed by sin. It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner's perSonal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.

Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our Heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his Grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart). 24

Since Easter, the Holy Spirit has proved "the world wrong about sin," 29 i.e., proved that the world has not believed in him whom the Father has sent. But this same Spirit who brings sin to light is also the Consoler who gives the human Heart Grace for repentance and conversion. 30

The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, Prayer, and almsgiving, 31 which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. Alongside the radical purification brought about by Baptism or martyrdom they cite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins: effort at reconciliation with one's neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the Salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of charity "which covers a multitude of sins." 32

Reading Sacred Scripture, Praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Our Father - every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins.

The process of conversion and repentance was described by Jesus in the parable of the prodigal Son, the center of which is the merciful Father: 37 The fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the father's house; the extreme misery in which the son finds himself after squandering his fortune; his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse, at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate; his reflection on all he has lost; his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his father; the journey back; the father's generous welcome; the father's joy - all these are characteristic of the process of conversion. the beautiful robe, the ring, and the festive banquet are symbols of that new life - pure worthy, and joyful - of anyone who returns to God and to the bosom of his family, which is the Church. Only the Heart of Christ Who knows the depths of his Father's Love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way.

The Second Vatican Council "teaches . . . that the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders is conferred by episcopal consecration, that fullness namely which, both in the liturgical tradition of the Church and the language of the Fathers of the Church, is called the high priesthood, the acme (summa) of the sacred ministry." 36

The traditional expression "the Lord's Prayer" - oratio Dominica - means that the Prayer to our Father is taught and given to us by the Lord Jesus. the prayer that comes to us from Jesus is truly unique: it is "of the Lord." On the one hand, in the words of this prayer the only Son gives us the words the Father gave him: 13 he is the master of our prayer. On the other, as Word incarnate, he knows in his human Heart the needs of his human brothers and sisters and reveals them to us: he is the model of our prayer.

Grammatically, "our" qualifies a reality common to more than one perSon. There is only one God, and he is recognized as Father by those who, through Faith in his only Son, are reborn of him by water and the Spirit. 47 The Church is this new Communion of God and men. United with the only Son, who has become "the firstborn among many brethren," she is in communion with one and the same Father in one and the same Holy Spirit. 48 In Praying "our" Father, each of the baptized is praying in this communion: "The company of those who believed were of one Heart and soul." 49

For this reaSon, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this Prayer to "our" Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons for all the baptized. In Communion by Faith in Christ and by Baptism, they ought to join in Jesus' Prayer for the unity of his Disciples. 50

Finally, if we Pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the Love that we receive frees us from it. the "our" at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, like the "us" of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome. 51

The baptized cannot Pray to "our" Father without bringing before him all those for whom he gave his beLoved Son. God's love has no bounds, neither should our Prayer. 52 Praying "our" Father opens to us the dimensions of his love Revealed in Christ: praying with and for all who do not yet know him, so that Christ may "gather into one the children of God." 53 God's care for all men and for the whole of Creation has inspired all the great practitioners of prayer; it should extend our prayer to the full breadth of love whenever we dare to say "our" Father.

This biblical expression does not mean a place (“space"), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not "elsewhere": he transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness. It is precisely because he is thrice holy that he is so close to the humble and contrite Heart.

The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the Mystery of the covenant we are living when we Pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the Father's house is our homeland. Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant, 56 but conversion of Heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven. 57 Jn Christ, then, heaven and earth are reconciled, 58 for the Son alone "descended from heaven" and causes us to ascend there with him, by his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension. 59

When the Church Prays "our Father who art in heaven," she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated "with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" and "hidden with Christ in God;" 60 yet at the same time, "here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling." 61

Simple and Faithful trust, humble and joyous assurance are the proper dispositions for one who Prays the Our Father.

We can invoke God as "Father" because the Son of God made man has Revealed him to us. Jn this Son, through Baptism, we are incorporated and adopted as sons of God.

The Lord's Prayer brings us into Communion with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. At the same time it reveals us to ourselves (cf GS 22 # 1).

Praying to our Father should develop in us the will to become like him and foster in us a humble and trusting Heart.

When we say "Our" Father, we are invoking the new covenant in Jesus Christ, Communion with the Holy Trinity, and the divine Love which spreads through the Church to encompass the world.

"Who art in heaven" does not refer to a place but to God's majesty and his presence in the Hearts of the just. Heaven, the Father's house, is the true homeland toward which we are heading and to which, already, we belong.

When we Pray to "our" Father, we perSonally address the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By doing so we do not divide the Godhead, since the Father is its "source and origin," but rather confess that the Son is eternally begotten by him and the Holy Spirit proceeds from him. We are not confusing the persons, for we confess that our Communion is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in their one Holy Spirit. the Holy Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible. When we pray to the Father, we adore and glorify him together with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

When we say "our" Father, we recognize first that all his promises of Love announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal covenant in his Christ: we have become "his" people and he is henceforth "our" God. This new relationship is the purely gratuitous gift of belonging to each other: we are to respond to "Grace and truth" given us in Jesus Christ with love and Faithfulness. 45

But Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. 14 As in every vocal Prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to Pray to their Father. Jesus not only gives us the words of our filial prayer; at the same time he gives us the Spirit by whom these words become in us "spirit and life." 15 Even more, the proof and possibility of our filial prayer is that the Father "sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" 16 Since our prayer sets forth our desires before God, it is again the Father, "he who searches the hearts of men," who "knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." 17 The prayer to Our Father is inserted into the mysterious Mission of the Son and of the Spirit.

In Baptism and Confirmation, the handing on (traditio) of the Lord's Prayer signifies new birth into the divine life. Since Christian Prayer is our speaking to God with the very word of God, those who are "born anew". . . through the living and abiding word of God" 20 learn to invoke their Father by the one Word he always hears. They can henceforth do so, for the seal of the Holy Spirit's anointing is indelibly placed on their Hearts, ears, lips, indeed their whole filial being. This is why most of the patristic commentaries on the Our Father are addressed to catechumens and neophytes. When the Church prays the Lord's Prayer, it is always the people made up of the "new-born" who pray and obtain mercy. 21

In the Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer also reveals the eschatological character of its petitions. It is the proper Prayer of "the end-time," the time of Salvation that began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and will be fulfilled with the Lord's return. the petitions addressed to our Father, as distinct from the prayers of the old covenant, rely on the Mystery of salvation already accomplished, once for all, in Christ crucified and risen.

In the Roman liturgy, the Eucharistic assembly is invited to Pray to our heavenly Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies develop and use similar expressions: "dare in all confidence," "make us worthy of...." From the burning bush Moses heard a voice saying to him, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 26 Only Jesus could Cross that threshold of the divine holiness, for "when he had made purification for sins," he brought us into the Father's presence: "Here am I, and the children God has given me." 27

Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our Hearts of certain false images drawn "from this world." Humility makes us recognize that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," that is, "to little children." 30 The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area "upon him" would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To Pray to the Father is to enter into his Mystery as he is and as the Son has Revealed him to us.

We can invoke God as "Father" because he is Revealed to us by his Son become man and because his Spirit makes him known to us. the personal relation of the Son to the Father is something that man cannot conceive of nor the angelic powers even dimly see: and yet, the Spirit of the Son grants a participation in that very relation to us who believe that Jesus is the Christ and that we are born of God. 32

When we Pray to the Father, we are in Communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 33 Then we know and recognize him with an ever new sense of wonder. the first phrase of the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it is a supplication. For it is the Glory of God that we should recognize him as "Father," the true God. We give him thanks for having Revealed his name to us, for the gift of believing in it, and for the indwelling of his Presence in us.

We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us into the Body of his Christ; through the anointing of his Spirit who flows from the head to the members, he makes us other "Christs."

Thus the Lord's Prayer reveals us to ourselves at the same time that it reveals the Father to us. 36

The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life. Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions: First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his likeness by Grace; and we must respond to this grace.

Second, a humble and trusting Heart that enables us "to turn and become like children": 41 for it is to "little children" that the Father is Revealed. 42

"Our" Father refers to God. the adjective, as used by us, does not express possession, but an entirely new relationship with God.

After we have placed ourselves in the presence of God our Father to adore and to Love and to bless him, the Spirit of adoption stirs up in our Hearts seven petitions, seven blessings. the first three, more theological, draw us toward the Glory of the Father; the last four, as ways toward him, commend our wretchedness to his Grace. "Deep calls to deep." 63

The first series of petitions carries us toward him, for his own sake: thy name, thy Kingdom, thy will! It is characteristic of Love to think first of the one whom we love. In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves; the burning desire, even anguish, of the beloved Son for his Father's Glory seizes us: 64 "hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...." These three supplications were already answered in the saving sacrifice of Christ, but they are henceforth directed in hope toward their final fulfillment, for God is not yet all in all. 65

The second series of petitions unfolds with the same movement as certain Eucharistic epicleses: as an offering up of our expectations, that draws down upon itself the eyes of the Father of mercies. They go up from us and concern us from this very moment, in our present world: "give us . . . forgive us . . . lead us not ... deliver us...." the fourth and fifth petitions concern our life as such - to be fed and to be healed of sin; the last two concern our battle for the victory of life - that battle of Prayer.

Now - and this is daunting - this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our Hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. 136 In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father's merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his Grace.

This "as" is not unique in Jesus' teaching: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"; "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful"; "A new commandment I give to you, that you Love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." 139 It is impossible to keep the Lord's commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the Heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make "ours" the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. 140 Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves "forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave" us. 141

Thus the Lord's words on forgiveness, the Love that loves to the end, 142 become a living reality. the parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord's teaching on ecclesial Communion, ends with these words: "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your Heart." 143 It is there, in fact, "in the depths of the heart," that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.

Christian Prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, 144 transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high-point of Christian Prayer; only Hearts attuned to God's compassion can receive the gift of prayer. Forgiveness also bears witness that, in our world, Love is stronger than sin. the martyrs of yesterday and today bear this witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another. 145

This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." 150 "God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one"; 151 on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle "between Flesh and spirit"; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.

"Lead us not into temptation" implies a decision of the Heart: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.... No one can serve two masters." 156 "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." 157 In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength. "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is Faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it." 158

Such a battle and such a victory become possible only through Prayer. It is by his Prayer that Jesus vanquishes the tempter, both at the outset of his public Mission and in the ultimate struggle of his agony. 159 In this petition to our heavenly Father, Christ unites us to his battle and his agony. He urges us to vigilance of the Heart in Communion with his own. Vigilance is "custody of the heart," and Jesus prayed for us to the Father: "Keep them in your name." 160 The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch. 161 Finally, this petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance. "Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake." 162

The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus' Prayer: "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one." 163 It touches each of us perSonally, but it is always "we" who Pray, in Communion with the whole Church, for the deliverance of the whole human family. the Lord's Prayer continually opens us to the range of God's economy of Salvation. Our interdependence in the drama of sin and death is turned into solidarity in the Body of Christ, the "communion of saints." 164

"A murderer from the beginning, . . . a liar and the Father of lies," Satan is "the deceiver of the whole world." 165 Through him sin and death entered the world and by his definitive defeat all Creation will be "freed from the corruption of sin and death." 166 Now "we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one." 167

When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we Pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the Grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ's return By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of Faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has "the keys of Death and Hades," who "is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." 174

The final doxology, "For the Kingdom, the power and the Glory are yours, now and forever," takes up again, by inclusion, the first three petitions to our Father: the glorification of his name, the coming of his reign, and the power of his saving will. But these Prayers are now proclaimed as adoration and thanksgiving, as in the liturgy of heaven. 176 The ruler of this world has mendaciously attributed to himself the three titles of kingship, power, and glory. 177 Christ, the Lord, restores them to his Father and our Father, until he hands over the kingdom to him when the Mystery of Salvation will be brought to its completion and God will be all in all. 178

With bold confidence, we began Praying to our Father. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the Baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition, we return to him like the prodigal Son and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him. 133 Our petition begins with a "confession" of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because, in his Son, "we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." 134 We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his Church. 135

"Pray and work." 121 "Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you." 122 Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it with thanksgiving, as Christian families do when saying Grace at meals.

By the three first petitions, we are strengthened in Faith, filled with hope, and set aflame by charity. Being creatures and still sinners, we have to petition for us, for that "us" bound by the world and history, which we offer to the boundless Love of God. For through the name of his Christ and the reign of his Holy Spirit, our Father accomplishes his Plan of Salvation, for us and for the whole world.

The term "to hallow" is to be understood here not primarily in its causative sense (only God hallows, makes holy), but above all in an evaluative sense: to recognize as holy, to treat in a holy way. and so, in adoration, this invocation is sometimes understood as praise and thanksgiving. 66 But this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative: a petition, a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved. Beginning with this first petition to our Father, we are immersed in the innermost Mystery of his Godhead and the drama of the Salvation of our humanity. Asking the Father that his name be made holy draws us into his Plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, "according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ," that we might "be holy and blameless before him in Love." 67

Finally, in Jesus the name of the Holy God is Revealed and given to us, in the Flesh, as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word, and by his sacrifice. 75 This is the Heart of his priestly Prayer: "Holy Father . . . for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth." 76 Because he "sanctifies" his own name, Jesus reveals to us the name of the Father. 77 At the end of Christ's Passover, the Father gives him the name that is above all names: "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father." 78

In the waters of Baptism, we have been "washed . . . sanctified . . . justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." 79 Our Father calls us to holiness in the whole of our life, and since "he is the source of (our) life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and . . .sanctification," 80 both his Glory and our life depend on the hallowing of his name in us and by us. Such is the urgency of our first petition.

This petition embodies all the others. Like the six petitions that follow, it is fulfilled by the Prayer of Christ. Prayer to our Father is our prayer, if it is prayed in the name of Jesus. 84 In his priestly prayer, Jesus asks: "Holy Father, protect in your name those whom you have given me." 85

In the New Testament, the word basileia can be translated by "kingship" (abstract noun), "Kingdom" (concrete noun) or "reign" (action noun). the Kingdom of God lies ahead of us. It is brought near in the Word incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ's death and Resurrection. the Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. the kingdom will come in Glory when Christ hands it over to his Father:

Our Father "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 95 He "is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish." 96 His commandment is "that you Love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." 97 This commandment summarizes all the others and expresses his entire will.

In Christ, and through his human will, the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled once for all. Jesus said on entering into this world: "Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." 99 Only Jesus can say: "I always do what is pleasing to him." 100 In the Prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: "not my will, but yours be done." 101 For this reaSon Jesus "gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father." 102 "and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." 103

"Although he was a Son, [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered." 104 How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience - we who in him have become children of adoption. We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son's, in order to fulfill his will, his Plan of Salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and with the power of his Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father. 105

By Prayer we can discern "what is the will of God" and obtain the endurance to do it. 108 Jesus teaches us that one enters the Kingdom of heaven not by speaking words, but by doing "the will of my Father in heaven." 109

"Give us": the trust of children who look to their Father for everything is beautiful. "He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." 113 He gives to all the living "their food in due seaSon." 114 Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good he is, beyond all goodness.

"Give us" also expresses the covenant. We are his and he is ours, for our sake. But this "us" also recognizes him as the Father of all men and we Pray to him for them all, in solidarity with their needs and sufferings.

"Our bread": the Father who gives us life cannot not but give us the nourishment life requires - all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on the filial trust that cooperates with our Father's providence. 115 He is not inviting us to idleness, 116 but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God:

The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a Prayer; but in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate our lives. Jesus teaches us this new life by his words; he teaches us to ask for it by our Prayer. the rightness of our life in him will depend on the rightness of our prayer.

As a final stage in the purification of his Faith, Abraham, "who had received the promises," 13 is asked to sacrifice the Son God had given him. Abraham's faith does not weaken (“God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering."), for he "considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead." 14 and so the Father of believers is conformed to the likeness of the Father who will not spare his own Son but wiLl deliver him up for us all. 15 Prayer restores man to God's likeness and enables him to share in the power of God's Love that saves the multitude. 16

When Jesus openly entrusts to his Disciples the Mystery of Prayer to the Father, he reveals to them what their Prayer and ours must be, once he has returned to the Father in his glorified humanity. What is new is to "ask in his name." 78 Faith in the Son introduces the disciples into the knowledge of the Father, because Jesus is "the way, and the truth, and the life." 79 Faith bears its fruit in Love: it means keeping the word and the commandments of Jesus, it means abiding with him in the Father who, in him, so loves us that he abides with us. In this new covenant the certitude that our petitions will be heard is founded on the prayer of Jesus. 80

Even more, what the Father gives us when our Prayer is united with that of Jesus is "another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth." 81 This new dimension of Prayer and of its circumstances is displayed throughout the farewell discourse. 82 In the Holy Spirit, Christian prayer is a Communion of Love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him: "Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." 83

Mary's Prayer is Revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her Prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father's Plan of loving kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ's conception; at Pentecost, for the formation of the Church, his Body. 88 In the Faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the Almighty made "full of Grace" responds by offering her whole being: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." "Fiat": this is Christian prayer: to be wholly God's, because he is wholly ours.

TWO fundamental forms express this movement: our Prayer ascends in the Holy Spirit through Christ to the Father - we bless him for having blessed us; 97 it implores the Grace of the Holy Spirit that descends through Christ from the Father - he blesses us. 98

The vocabulary of supplication in the New Testament is rich in shades of meaning: ask, beseech, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out, even "struggle in Prayer." 102 Its most usual form, because the most spontaneous, is petition: by Prayer of petition we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures who are not our own beginning, not the masters of adversity, not our own last end. We are sinners who as Christians know that we have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already a turning back to him.

The first movement of the Prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable: "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" 105 It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure Prayer. A trusting humility brings us back into the light of Communion between the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and with one another, so that "we receive from him whatever we ask." 106 Asking forgiveness is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer.

When we share in God's saving Love, we understand that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is glorified by what we ask the Father in his name. 110 It is with this confidence that St. James and St. Paul exhort us to Pray at all times. 111

Intercession is a Prayer of petition which leads us to Pray as Jesus did. He is the one intercessor with the Father on behalf of all men, especially sinners. 112 He is "able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." 113 The Holy Spirit "himself intercedes for us . . . and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." 114

Thanksgiving characterizes the Prayer of the Church which, in celebrating the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is. Indeed, in the work of Salvation, Christ sets Creation free from sin and death to consecrate it anew and make it return to the Father, for his Glory. the thanksgiving of the members of the Body participates in that of their Head.

Praise is the form of Prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him Glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of Heart who Love God in Faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, 121 testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of Prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the "one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist." 122

"[Address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual Songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your Heart." 124 Like the inspired writers of the New Testament, the first Christian communities read the Book of Psalms in a new way, singing in it the Mystery of Christ. In the newness of the Spirit, they also composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard - of event that God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and Ascension to the right hand of the Father. 125 Doxology, the praise of God, arises from this "marvelous work" of the whole economy of Salvation. 126

The Revelation of "what must soon take place," the Apocalypse, is borne along by the Songs of the heavenly liturgy 127 but also by the intercession of the "witnesses" (martyrs). 128 The prophets and the saints, all those who were slain on earth for their witness to Jesus, the vast throng of those who, having come through the great tribulation, have gone before us into the Kingdom, all sing the praise and Glory of him who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb. 129 In Communion with them, the Church on earth also sings these songs with Faith in the midst of trial. By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against all hope and gives thanks to the "Father of lights," from whom "every perfect gift" comes down. 130 Thus faith is pure praise.

Three principal parables on Prayer are transmitted to us by St. Luke: - the first, "the importunate friend," 75 invites us to urgent Prayer: "Knock, and it will be opened to you." To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will "give whatever he needs," and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts. - the second, "the importunate widow," 76 is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of Faith. "and yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" - the third parable, "the Pharisee and the tax collector," 77 concerns the humility of the Heart that prays. "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" the Church continues to make this prayer its own: Kyrie eleison!

The Prayer of Faith consists not only in saying "Lord, Lord," but in disposing the Heart to do the will of the Father. 70 Jesus calls his Disciples to bring into their Prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine Plan. 71

Elijah is the "Father" of the prophets, "the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob." 30 Elijah's name, "The Lord is my God," foretells the people's cry in response to his Prayer on Mount Carmel. 31 St. James refers to Elijah in order to encourage us to Pray: "The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective." 32

The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin learned to Pray in his human Heart. He learns to pray from his mother, who kept all the great things the Almighty had done and treasured them in her heart. 41 He learns to pray in the words and rhythms of the Prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem. But his prayer springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of twelve: "I must be in my Father's house." 42 Here the newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be Revealed: his filial prayer, which the Father awaits from his children, is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in his humanity, with and for men.

The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of Prayer in Christ's ministry. Jesus Prays before the decisive moments of his Mission: before his Father's witness to him during his Baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father's Plan of Love by his Passion. 43 He also prays before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles: at his election and call of the Twelve, before Peter's confession of him as "the Christ of God," and again that the Faith of the chief of the Apostles may not fail when tempted. 44 Jesus' prayer before the events of Salvation that the Father has asked him to fulfill is a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father.

"He was Praying in a certain place and when he had ceased, one of his Disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray."' 45 In seeing the Master at Prayer the disciple of Christ also wants to pray. By contemplating and hearing the Son, the master of prayer, the children learn to pray to the Father.

Jesus often draws apart to Pray in solitude, on a mountain, preferably at night. 46 He includes all men in his Prayer, for he has taken on humanity in his incarnation, and he offers them to the Father when he offers himself. Jesus, the Word who has become Flesh, shares by his human prayer in all that "his brethren" experience; he sympathizes with their weaknesses in order to free them. 47 It was for this that the Father sent him. His words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret.

The evangelists have preserved two more explicit Prayers offered by Christ during his public ministry. Each begins with thanksgiving. In the first, Jesus confesses the Father, acknowledges, and blesses him because he has hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from those who think themselves learned and has Revealed them to infants, the poor of the Beatitudes. 48 His exclamation, "Yes, Father!" expresses the depth of his Heart, his adherence to the Father's "good pleasure," echoing his mother's Fiat at the time of his conception and prefiguring what he will say to the Father in his agony. the whole Prayer of Jesus is contained in this loving adherence of his human heart to the Mystery of the will of the Father. 49

The second Prayer, before the raising of Lazarus, is recorded by St. John. 50 Thanksgiving precedes the event: "Father, I thank you for having heard me," which implies that the Father always hears his petitions. Jesus immediately adds: "I know that you always hear me," which implies that Jesus, on his part, constantly made such petitions. Jesus' Prayer, characterized by thanksgiving, reveals to us how to ask: before the gift is given, Jesus commits himself to the One who in giving gives himself. the Giver is more precious than the gift; he is the "treasure"; in him abides his Son's Heart; the gift is given "as well." 51

When the hour had come for him to fulfill the Father's Plan of Love, Jesus allows a glimpse of the boundless depth of his filial Prayer, not only before he freely delivered himself up (“Abba . . . not my will, but yours."), 53 but even in his last words on the Cross, where Prayer and the gift of self are but one: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", 54 "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise", 55 "Woman, behold your Son" - "Behold your mother", 56 "I thirst."; 57 "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 58 "It is finished"; 59 "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" 60 until the "loud cry" as he expires, giving up his spirit. 61

All the troubles, for all time, of humanity enslaved by sin and death, all the petitions and intercessions of Salvation history are summed up in this cry of the incarnate Word. Here the Father accepts them and, beyond all hope, answers them by raising his Son. Thus is fulfilled and brought to completion the drama of Prayer in the economy of Creation and salvation. the Psalter gives us the key to Prayer in Christ. In the "today" of the Resurrection the Father says: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." 62

When Jesus Prays he is already teaching us how to pray. His Prayer to his Father is the theological path (the path of Faith, hope, and charity) of our prayer to God. But the Gospel also gives us Jesus' explicit teaching on prayer. Like a wise teacher he takes hold of us where we are and leads us progressively toward the Father. Addressing the crowds following him, Jesus builds on what they already know of prayer from the Old Covenant and opens to them the newness of the coming Kingdom. Then he reveals this newness to them in parables. Finally, he will speak openly of the Father and the Holy Spirit to his Disciples who will be the teachers of prayer in his Church.

From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of Heart: reconciliation with one's brother before presenting an offering on the altar, Love of enemies, and Prayer for persecutors, Prayer to the Father in secret, not heaping up empty phrases, prayerful forgiveness from the depths of the heart, purity of heart, and seeking the Kingdom before all else. 64 This filial conversion is entirely directed to the Father.

Once committed to conversion, the Heart learns to Pray in Faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the beLoved Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to "seek" and to "knock," since he himself is the door and the way. 65

Just as Jesus Prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in Prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." 66 Such is the power of prayer and of Faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." 67 Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own Disciples 68 as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman. 69

We learn to Pray at certain moments by hearing the Word of the Lord and sharing in his Paschal Mystery, but his Spirit is offered us at all times, in the events of each day, to make Prayer spring up from us. Jesus' teaching about praying to our Father is in the same vein as his teaching about providence: 12 time is in the Father's hands; it is in the present that we encounter him, not yesterday nor tomorrow, but today: "O that today you would hearken to his voice! Harden not your Hearts." 13

There is no other way of Christian Prayer than Christ. Whether our Prayer is communal or perSonal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus. the sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father.

The Prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to Pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. Certain psalms, given their use in the Prayer of the Church, and the New Testament place on our lips and engrave in our Hearts prayer to Christ in the form of invocations: Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God, King, BeLoved Son, Son of the Virgin, Good Shepherd, our Life, our Light, our Hope, our Resurrection, Friend of mankind....

For St. Paul, this trust is bold, founded on the Prayer of the Spirit in us and on the Faithful Love of the Father who has given us his only Son. 31 Transformation of the Praying Heart is the first response to our petition.

The Prayer of Jesus makes Christian Prayer an efficacious petition. He is its model, he prays in us and with us. Since the Heart of the Son seeks only what pleases the Father, how could the prayer of the children of adoption be centered on the gifts rather than the Giver?

Jesus also Prays for us - in our place and on our behalf. All our petitions were gathered up, once for all, in his cry on the Cross and, in his Resurrection, heard by the Father. This is why he never ceases to intercede for us with the Father. 32 If our Prayer is resolutely united with that of Jesus, in trust and boldness as children, we obtain all that we ask in his name, even more than any particular thing: the Holy Spirit himself, who contains all gifts.

"Pray constantly . . . always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." 33 St. Paul adds, "Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all Prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints." 34 For "we have not been commanded to work, to keep watch and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing." 35 This tireless fervor can come only from Love. Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love. This love opens our Hearts to three enlightening and life-giving facts of Faith about prayer.

Prayer and Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same Love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love; the same filial and loving conformity with the Father's Plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and more to Christ Jesus; the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us. "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he [will] give it to you. This I command you, to love one another." 41

When "his hour" came, Jesus Prayed to the Father. 43 His Prayer, the longest transmitted by the Gospel, embraces the whole economy of Creation and Salvation, as well as his death and Resurrection. the prayer of the Hour of Jesus always remains his own, just as his Passover "once for all" remains ever present in the liturgy of his Church.

Christian Tradition rightly calls this Prayer the "priestly" Prayer of Jesus. It is the prayer of our high priest, inseparable from his sacrifice, from his passing over (Passover) to the Father to whom he is wholly "consecrated." 44

Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his Prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. the Prayer of this hour fills the end-times and carries them toward their consummation. Jesus, the Son to whom the Father has given all things, has given himself wholly back to the Father, yet expresses himself with a sovereign freedom 46 by virtue of the power the Father has given him over all Flesh. the Son, who made himself Servant, is Lord, the Pantocrator. Our high priest who prays for us is also the one who prays in us and the God who hears our prayer.

By entering into the holy name of the Lord Jesus we can accept, from within, the Prayer he teaches us: "Our Father!" His priestly Prayer fulfills, from within, the great petitions of the Lord's Prayer: concern for the Father's name; 47 passionate zeal for his Kingdom (Glory); 48 The accomplishment of the will of the Father, of his Plan of Salvation; 49 and deliverance from evil. 50

Finally, in this Prayer Jesus reveals and gives to us the "knowledge," inseparably one, of the Father and of the Son, 51 which is the very Mystery of the life of Prayer.

Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache, we find, "For yours are the power and the Glory for ever." 4 The Apostolic Constitutions add to the beginning: "the Kingdom," and this is the formula retained to our day in ecumenical Prayer. 5 The Byzantine tradition adds after "the glory" the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." the Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of "awaiting our blessed hope" and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 6 Then comes the assembly's acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic Constitutions.

After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian Prayer and flow together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine concludes:

Are we convinced that "we do not know how to Pray as we ought"? 23 Are we asking God for "what is good for us"? Our Father knows what we need before we ask him, 24 but he awaits our petition because the dignity of his children lies in their freedom. We must pray, then, with his Spirit of freedom, to be able truly to know what he wants. 25

In the first place, we ought to be astonished by this fact: when we praise God or give him thanks for his benefits in general, we are not particularly concerned whether or not our Prayer is acceptable to him. On the other hand, we demand to see the results of our petitions. What is the image of God that motivates our Prayer: an instrument to be used? or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The traditional form of petition to the Holy Spirit is to invoke the Father through Christ our Lord to give us the Consoler Spirit. 23 Jesus insists on this petition to be made in his name at the very moment when he promises the gift of the Spirit of Truth. 24 But the simplest and most direct Prayer is also traditional, "Come, Holy Spirit," and every liturgical tradition has developed it in antiphons and hymns.

Mary is the perfect Orans (Prayer), a figure of the Church. When we Pray to her, we are adhering with her to the Plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beLoved disciple we welcome Jesus' mother into our homes, 39 for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. the prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope. 40

Many religious have consecrated their whole lives to Prayer. Hermits, monks, and nuns since the time of the desert Fathers have devoted their time to praising God and interceding for his people. the consecrated life cannot be sustained or spread without Prayer; it is one of the living sources of contemplation and the spiritual life of the Church.

The Church, the house of God, is the proper place for the liturgical Prayer of the parish community. It is also the privileged place for adoration of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. the choice of a favorable place is not a matter of indifference for true Prayer. - For perSonal prayer, this can be a "prayer corner" with the Sacred Scriptures and icons, in order to be there, in secret, before our Father. 48 In a Christian family, this kind of little oratory fosters prayer in common. - In regions where monasteries exist, the vocation of these communities is to further the participation of the Faithful in the Liturgy of the Hours and to provide necessary solitude for more intense personal prayer. 49 - Pilgrimages evoke our earthly journey toward heaven and are traditionally very special occasions for renewal in prayer. For pilgrims seeking living water, shrines are special places for living the forms of Christian prayer "in Church."

Prayer is the life of the new Heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life in the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions insist that Prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart "We must remember God more often than we draw breath." 1 But we cannot pray "at all times" if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration.

Vocal Prayer is an essential element of the Christian life. To his Disciples, drawn by their Master's silent Prayer, Jesus teaches a vocal prayer, the Our Father. He not only prayed aloud the liturgical prayers of the synagogue but, as the Gospels show, he raised his voice to express his perSonal prayer, from exultant blessing of the Father to the agony of Gesthemani. 3

Meditation is above all a quest. the mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. the required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or seaSon, writings of the spiritual Fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of Creation, and that of history the page on which the "today" of God is written.

What is contemplative Prayer? St. Teresa answers: "Contemplative Prayer [oracion mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know Loves us." 6 Contemplative prayer seeks him "whom my soul loves." 7 It is Jesus, and in him, the Father. We seek him, because to desire him is always the beginning of love, and we seek him in that pure Faith which causes us to be born of him and to live in him. In this inner prayer we can still meditate, but our attention is fixed on the Lord himself.

Contemplative Prayer is the Prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the Love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more. 8 But he knows that the love he is returning is poured out by the Spirit in his Heart, for everything is Grace from God. Contemplative prayer is the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son.

Contemplative Prayer is also the pre-eminently intense time of Prayer. In it the Father strengthens our inner being with power through his Spirit "that Christ may dwell in (our) Hearts through Faith" and we may be "grounded in Love." 10

Contemplative Prayer is silence, the "symbol of the world to come" 12 or "silent Love." 13 Words in this kind of Prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable to the "outer" man, the Father speaks to us his incarnate Word, who suffered, died, and rose; in this silence the Spirit of adoption enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus.

All the Scriptures - the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms - are fulfilled in Christ. 10 The Gospel is this "Good News." Its first proclamation is summarized by St. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount; 11 The Prayer to our Father is at the center of this proclamation. It is in this context that each petition bequeathed to us by the Lord is illuminated:

The liturgical word and action are inseparable both insofar as they are signs and instruction and insofar as they accomplish what they signify. When the Holy Spirit awakens Faith, he not only gives an understanding of the Word of God, but through the sacraments also makes present the "wonders" of God which it proclaims. the Spirit makes present and communicates the Father's work, fulfilled by the beLoved Son.

Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has Revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 111 It is in Christ's Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe". 112

We believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man. He 'came from God', 4 'descended from heaven', 5 and 'came in the Flesh'. 6 For 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of Grace and truth; we have beheld his Glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . . and from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.' 7

Moved by the Grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' 8 On the rock of this Faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church. 9 "To preach. . . the unsearchable riches of Christ" 10

"At the Heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a PerSon, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father. . .who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising, is living with us forever." 13 To catechize is "to reveal in the Person of Christ the whole of God's eternal design reaching fulfilment in that Person. It is to seek to understand the meaning of Christ's actions and words and of the signs worked by him." 14 Catechesis aims at putting "people . . . in Communion . . . with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the Love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity." 15

Jesus' Resurrection glorifies the name of the Saviour God, for from that time on it is the name of Jesus that fully manifests the supreme power of the "name which is above every name". 27 The evil spirits fear his name; in his name his Disciples perform miracles, for the Father grants all they ask in this name. 28

To the shepherds, the angel announced the birth of Jesus as the Messiah promised to Israel: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." 32 From the beginning he was "the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world", conceived as "holy" in Mary's virginal womb. 33 God called Joseph to "take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit", so that Jesus, "who is called Christ", should be born of Joseph's spouse into the messianic lineage of David. 34

Jesus' messianic consecration reveals his divine Mission, "for the name 'Christ' implies 'he who anointed', 'he who was anointed' and 'the very anointing with which he was anointed'. the one who anointed is the Father, the one who was anointed is the Son, and he was anointed with the Spirit who is the anointing.'" 35 His eternal messianic consecration was Revealed during the time of his earthly life at the moment of his Baptism by John, when "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power", "that he might be revealed to Israel" 36 as its Messiah. His works and words will manifest him as "the Holy One of God". 37

Such is not the case for Simon Peter when he confesses Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God", for Jesus responds solemnly: "Flesh and blood has not Revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." 46 Similarly Paul will write, regarding his conversion on the road to Damascus, "When he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his Grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles..." 47 "and in the synagogues immediately [Paul] proclaimed Jesus, saying, 'He is the Son of God.'" 48 From the beginning this acknowledgment of Christ's divine sonship will be the centre of the apostolic Faith, first professed by Peter as the Church's foundation. 49

Peter could recognize the transcendent character of the Messiah's divine Sonship because Jesus had clearly allowed it to be so understood. To his accusers' question before the Sanhedrin, "Are you the Son of God, then?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am." 50 Well before this, Jesus referred to himself as "the Son" who knows the Father, as distinct from the "servants" God had earlier sent to his people; he is superior even to the angels. 51 He distinguished his sonship from that of his Disciples by never saying "our Father", except to command them: "You, then, Pray like this: 'Our Father'", and he emphasized this distinction, saying "my Father and your Father". 52

The Gospels report that at two solemn moments, the Baptism and the Transfiguration of Christ, the voice of the Father designates Jesus his "beLoved Son". 53 Jesus calls himself the "only Son of God", and by this title affirms his eternal pre-existence. 54 He asks for Faith in "the name of the only Son of God". 55 In the centurion's exclamation before the crucified Christ, "Truly this man was the Son of God", 56 that Christian confession is already heard. Only in the Paschal Mystery can the believer give the title "Son of God" its full meaning.

After his Resurrection, Jesus' divine Sonship becomes manifest in the power of his glorified humanity. He was "designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead". 57 The apostles can confess: "We have beheld his Glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of Grace and truth." 58

In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the ineffable Hebrew name YHWH, by which God Revealed himself to Moses, 59 is rendered as Kyrios, "Lord". From then on, "Lord" becomes the more usual name by which to indicate the divinity of Israel's God. the New Testament uses this full sense of the title "Lord" both for the Father and - what is new - for Jesus, who is thereby recognized as God Himself. 60

By attributing to Jesus the divine title "Lord", the first confessions of the Church's Faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honour and Glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because "he was in the form of God", 65 and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising him from the dead and exalting him into his glory. 66

From the beginning of Christian history, the assertion of Christ's Lordship over the world and over history has implicitly recognized that man should not submit his perSonal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Caesar is not "the Lord". 67 "The Church. . . believes that the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of man's history is to be found in its Lord and Master." 68

The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because he "became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam. 305 Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the "Proto-evangelium" as Mary, the mother of Christ, the "new Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special Grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life. 306

Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the Mission received from his Father. 273 "The reaSon the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." 274 In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 116 Holy Scripture begins with these solemn words. the profession of Faith takes them up when it confesses that God the Father almighty is "Creator of heaven and earth" (Apostles' Creed), "of all that is, seen and unseen" (Nicene Creed). We shall speak first of the Creator, then of Creation and finally of the fall into sin from which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to raise us up again.

The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, 132 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of Faith: "There exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom", "by the Son and the Spirit" who, so to speak, are "his hands". 133 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

The Glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us "to be his Sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious Grace", 138 for "the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through Creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God." 139 The ultimate purpose of creation is that God "who is the creator of all things may at last become "all in all", thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude." 140

Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children's smallest needs: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?". . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." 167

If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian Faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of Creation, the drama of sin and the patient Love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible Mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.

The Scriptural expression "heaven and earth" means all that exists, Creation in its entirety. It also indicates the bond, deep within creation, that both unites heaven and earth and distinguishes the one from the other: "the earth" is the world of men, while "heaven" or "the heavens" can designate both the firmament and God's own "place" - "our Father in heaven" and consequently the "heaven" too which is eschatological Glory. Finally, "heaven" refers to the saints and the "place" of the spiritual creatures, the angels, who surround God. 186

St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'" 188 With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they "always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven" they are the "mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word". 189

In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a Father and husband. 241

Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. 269 This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God." 270 The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the Father of lies". 271

The Word became Flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "Loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world", and "he was Revealed to take away sins": 70

The Word became Flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." 74 On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!" 75 Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you." 76 This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example. 77

Christ's whole earthly life - his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking - is Revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father", and the Father can say: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" 177 Because our Lord became man in order to do his Father's will, even the least characteristics of his mysteries manifest "God's Love. . . among us". 178

All Christ's riches "are for every individual and are everybody's property." 187 Christ did not live his life for himself but for us, from his Incarnation "for us men and for our Salvation" to his death "for our sins" and Resurrection "for our justification". 188 He is still "our advocate with the Father", who "always lives to make intercession" for us. 189 He remains ever "in the presence of God on our behalf, bringing before him all that he lived and suffered for us." 190

Jesus' obedience to his mother and legal Father fulfils the fourth commandment perfectly and was the temporal image of his filial obedience to his Father in heaven. the everyday obedience of Jesus to Joseph and Mary both announced and anticipated the obedience of Holy Thursday: "Not my will. . ." 223 The obedience of Christ in the daily routine of his hidden life was already inaugurating his work of restoring what the disobedience of Adam had destroyed. 224

The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus. 226 Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the Mystery of his total consecration to a Mission that flows from his divine Sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work?" 227 Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in Faith. Mary "kept all these things in her Heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.

The Baptism of Jesus is on his part the acceptance and inauguration of his Mission as God's suffering Servant. He allows himself to be numbered among sinners; he is already "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". 232 Already he is anticipating the "baptism" of his bloody death. 233 Already he is coming to "fulfil all righteousness", that is, he is submitting himself entirely to his Father's will: out of Love he consents to this baptism of death for the remission of our sins. 234 The Father's voice responds to the Son's acceptance, proclaiming his entire delight in his Son. 235 The Spirit whom Jesus possessed in fullness from his conception comes to "rest on him". 236 Jesus will be the source of the Spirit for all mankind. At his baptism "the heavens were opened" 237 - the heavens that Adam's sin had closed - and the waters were sanctified by the descent of Jesus and the Spirit, a prelude to the new Creation.

Through Baptism the Christian is sacramentally assimilated to Jesus, who in his own baptism anticipates his death and Resurrection. the Christian must enter into this Mystery of humble self-abasement and repentance, go down into the water with Jesus in order to rise with him, be reborn of water and the Spirit so as to become the Father's beLoved Son in the Son and "walk in newness of life": 238

The evangelists indicate the salvific meaning of this mysterious event: Jesus is the new Adam who remained Faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation. Jesus fulfils Israel's vocation perfectly: in contrast to those who had once provoked God during forty years in the desert, Christ reveals himself as God's Servant, totally obedient to the divine will. In this, Jesus is the devil's conqueror: he "binds the strong man" to take back his plunder. 243 Jesus' victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience of his filial Love for the Father.

"Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying: 'The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe in the gospel.'" 246 "To carry out the will of the Father Christ inaugurated the kingdom of heaven on earth." 247 Now the Father's will is "to raise up men to share in his own divine life". 248 He does this by gathering men around his Son Jesus Christ. This gathering is the Church, "on earth the seed and beginning of that kingdoms". 249

The Kingdom belongs to the poor and lowly, which means those who have accepted it with humble Hearts. Jesus is sent to "preach good news to the poor"; 253 he declares them blessed, for "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 254 To them - the "little ones" the Father is pleased to reveal what remains hidden from the wise and the learned. 255 Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the Cross; he experiences hunger, thirst and privation. 256 Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active Love toward them the condition for entering his kingdom. 257

Jesus invites sinners to the table of the Kingdom: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." 258 He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his Father's boundless mercy for them and the vast "joy in heaven over one sinner who repents". 259 The supreme proof of his Love will be the sacrifice of his own life "for the forgiveness of sins". 260

The signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him. They invite belief in him. 269 To those who turn to him in Faith, he grants what they ask. 270 So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father's works; they bear witness that he is the Son of God. 271 But his miracles can also be occasions for "offence"; 272 they are not intended to satisfy people's curiosity or desire for magic Despite his evident miracles some people reject Jesus; he is even accused of acting by the power of demons. 273

Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve; 283 Jesus entrusted a unique Mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord then declared to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." 284 Christ, the "living Stone", 285 thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the Faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakeable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it. 286

For a moment Jesus discloses his divine Glory, confirming Peter's confession. He also reveals that he will have to go by the way of the Cross at Jerusalem in order to "enter into his glory". 295 Moses and Elijah had seen God's glory on the Mountain; the Law and the Prophets had announced the Messiah's sufferings. 296 Christ's Passion is the will of the Father: the Son acts as God's servant; 297 The cloud indicates the presence of the Holy Spirit. "The whole Trinity appeared: the Father in the voice; the Son in the man; the Spirit in the shining cloud." 298

Mary's virginity manifests God's absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. "He was never estranged from the Father because of the human nature which he assumed. . . He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures." 161

From the first formulations of her Faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived "by the Holy Spirit without human seed". 146 The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says: You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the Flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,. . . he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate. . . he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen. 147

The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian Faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the Flesh". 87 But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. the first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father. 88

The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine perSon of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed: Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our Salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God. 91

The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: "What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed", sings the Roman Liturgy. 95 and the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our Salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!" 96

But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person. 104 "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God." 105 Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father. 106 The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human Hearts. 107

Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made Flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our Salvation. 110 Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will." 111

Jesus knew and Loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." 116 He has loved us all with a human Heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our Salvation, 117 "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception. 118

The Mission of the Holy Spirit is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son. 122 The Holy Spirit, "the Lord, the giver of Life", is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely fecundate it, causing her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.

The Father's only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is "Christ", that is to say, anointed by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning of his human existence, though the manifestation of this fact takes place only progressively: to the shepherds, to the magi, to John the Baptist, to the Disciples. 123 Thus the whole life of Jesus Christ will make manifest "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power." 124

The "splendour of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reaSon of the merits of her Son". 136 The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in Love". 137

The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God "the All-Holy" (Panagia), and celebrate her as "free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature". 138 By the Grace of God Mary remained free of every perSonal sin her whole life long. "Let it be done to me according to your word. . ."

Called in the Gospels "the mother of Jesus", Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her Son, as "the mother of my Lord". 144 In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the Flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (Theotokos). 145

How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of "his Father David". 308 Acclaimed as Son of David, as the one who brings Salvation (Hosanna means "Save!" or "Give salvation!"), the "King of Glory" enters his City "riding on an ass". 309 Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth. 310 and so the subjects of his Kingdom on that day are children and God's poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds. 311 Their acclamation, "Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord", 312 is taken up by the Church in the Sanctus of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord's Passover.

God is the Father Almighty, whose fatherhood and power shed light on one another: God reveals his fatherly omnipotence by the way he takes care of our needs; by the filial adoption that he gives us ("I will be a father to you, and you shall be my Sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty"): 109 finally by his infinite mercy, for he displays his power at its height by freely forgiving sins.

So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, comMissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "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; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." 4 Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it." 5

Abraham thus fulfils the definition of Faith in Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen": 7 "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." 8 Because he was "strong in his faith", Abraham became the "Father of all who believe". 9

For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his "beLoved Son", in whom the Father is "well pleased"; God tells us to listen to him. 18 The Lord himself said to his Disciples: "Believe in God, believe also in me." 19 We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is himself God, the Word made Flesh: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known." 20 Because he "has seen the Father", Jesus Christ is the only one who knows him and can reveal him. 21

When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from Flesh and blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven". 24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the Grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the Heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.'" 25

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. 58 St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a witness of this faith, declared:

The first "profession of Faith" is made during Baptism. the symbol of faith is first and foremost the baptismal creed. Since Baptism is given "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", 3 The truths of faith professed during Baptism are articulated in terms of their reference to the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

"These three parts are distinct although connected with one another. According to a compariSon often used by the Fathers, we call them articles. Indeed, just as in our bodily members there are certain articulations which distinguish and separate them, so too in this profession of Faith, the name "articles" has justly and rightly been given to the truths we must believe particularly and distinctly." 6 In accordance with an ancient tradition, already attested to by St. Ambrose, it is also customary to reckon the articles of the Creed as twelve, thus symbolizing the fullness of the apostolic faith by the number of the apostles. 7

As on the day of our Baptism, when our whole life was entrusted to the "standard of teaching", 14 let us embrace the Creed of our life-giving Faith. To say the Credo with faith is to enter into Communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also with the whole Church which transmits the faith to us and in whose midst we believe:

Our profession of Faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, 1 The beginning and the end of everything. the Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine perSon of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the Creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God's works.

God calls Moses from the midst of a bush that burns without being consumed: "I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 9 God is the God of the fathers, the One who had called and guided the patriarchs in their wanderings. He is the Faithful and compassionate God who remembers them and his promises; he comes to free their descendants from slavery. He is the God who, from beyond space and time, can do this and wills to do it, the God who will put his almighty power to work for this Plan.

By revealing his name God at the same time reveals his Faithfulness which is from everlasting to everlasting, valid for the past ("I am the God of your Father"), as for the future ("I will be with you"). 12 God, who reveals his name as "I AM", reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.

God's Love for Israel is compared to a Father's love for his Son. His love for his people is stronger than a mother's for her children. God loves his people more than a bridegroom his beloved; his love will be victorious over even the worst infidelities and will extend to his most precious gift: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." 40

2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's Heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church" 81 ).

In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God". 67 "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them." 68

Periods of renewal in the Church are also intense moments of catechesis. In the great era of the Fathers of the Church, saintly bishops devoted an important part of their ministry to catechesis. St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, and many other Fathers wrote catechetical works that remain models for us. 11

It is therefore no surprise that catechesis in the Church has again attracted attention in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope Paul Vl considered the great catechism of modern times. the General Catechetical Directory (1971) the sessions of the Synod of Bishops devoted to evangelization (1974) and catechesis (1977), the apostolic exhortations Evangelii nuntiandi (1975) and Catechesi tradendae (1979), attest to this. the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985 asked "that a catechism or compendium of all Catholic doctrine regarding both Faith and morals be composed" 13 The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, made the Synod's wish his own, acknowledging that "this desire wholly corresponds to a real need of the universal Church and of the particular Churches." 14 He set in motion everything needed to carry out the Synod Fathers' wish.

This catechism aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both Faith and morals, in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Church's Tradition. Its principal sources are the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the liturgy, and the Church's Magisterium. It is intended to serve "as a point of reference for the catechisms or compendia that are composed in the various countries". 15

Those who belong to Christ through Faith and Baptism must confess their baptismal faith before men. 16 First therefore the Catechism expounds revelation, by which God addresses and gives himself to man, and the faith by which man responds to God (Section One). the profession of faith summarizes the gifts that God gives man: as the Author of all that is good; as Redeemer; and as Sanctifier. It develops these in the three chapters on our baptismal faith in the one God: the almighty Father, the Creator; his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; and the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, in the Holy Church (Section Two).

The last part of the Catechism deals with the meaning and importance of Prayer in the life of believers (Section One). It concludes with a brief commentary on the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer (Section Two), for indeed we find in these the sum of all the good things which we must hope for, and which our heavenly Father wants to grant us.

"It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the Mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made Flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature." 2

In order to gather together scattered humanity God calls Abram from his country, his kindred and his Father's house, 16 and makes him Abraham, that is, "the father of a multitude of nations". "In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." 17

After the patriarchs, God formed Israel as his people by freeing them from slavery in Egypt. He established with them the covenant of Mount Sinai and, through Moses, gave them his law so that they would recognize him and serve him as the one living and true God, the provident Father and just judge, and so that they would look for the promised Saviour. 20

"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our Fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." 26 Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. St. John of the Cross, among others, commented strikingly on Hebrews 1:1-2:

This living transMission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, "the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes." 37 "The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her Prayer." 38

The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beLoved Son. and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness." 39

In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: "Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the Flesh of human weakness, became like men." 63

But St. John goes even further when he affirms that "God is Love": 44 God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has Revealed his innermost secret: 45 God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

Christians are baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" 53 Before receiving the sacrament, they respond to a three-part question when asked to confess the Father, the Son and the Spirit: "I do." "The Faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity." 54

Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names, 55 for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.

The divine perSons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary." 86 "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son." 87 They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds." 88 The divine Unity is Triune.

The divine perSons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance." 89 Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship." 90 "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son." 91

St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called "the Theologian", entrusts this summary of Trinitarian Faith to the catechumens of Constantinople: Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendour. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me. . 92

"O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!" 93 God is eternal blessedness, undying life, unfading light. God is Love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the Glory of his blessed life. Such is the "Plan of his loving kindness", conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: "He destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son", through "the spirit of sonship". 94 This plan is a "Grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. 95 It unfolds in the work of Creation, the whole history of Salvation after the fall, and the Missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church. 96

The whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine perSons. For as the Trinity has only one and the same natures so too does it have only one and the same operation: "The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of Creation but one principle." 97 However, each divine person performs the common work according to his unique personal property. Thus the Church confesses, following the New Testament, "one God and Father from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are". 98 It is above all the divine Missions of the Son's Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that show forth the properties of the divine persons.

Being a work at once common and perSonal, the whole divine economy makes known both what is proper to the divine persons, and their one divine nature. Hence the whole Christian life is a Communion with each of the divine persons, without in any way separating them. Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him. 99

The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. 100 But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: "If a man Loves me", says the Lord, "he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him": 101

The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three perSons, the "consubstantial Trinity". 83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God." 84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature." 85

The Church uses (I) the term "substance" (rendered also at times by "essence" or "nature") to designate the divine being in its unity, (II) the term "perSon" or "hypostasis" to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and (III) the term "relation" to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the relationship of each to the others.

The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian Faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". 56 The whole history of Salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin". 57

This paragraph expounds briefly (I) how the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity was Revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated the doctrine of the Faith regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by the divine Missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, God the Father fulfils the "Plan of his loving goodness" of Creation, redemption and sanctification.

The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). "Theology" refers to the Mystery of God's inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and "economy" to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is Revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human perSons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.

Many religions invoke God as "Father". the deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world. 59 Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born Son". 60 God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is "the Father of the poor", of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection. 61

By calling God "Father", the language of Faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, 62 which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. the language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: 63 no one is father as God is Father.

Jesus Revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." 64

Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one only God with him. 66 The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father". 67

Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since Creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the Disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth". 68 The Holy Spirit is thus Revealed as another divine perSon with Jesus and the Father.

The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is Revealed in his Mission in time. the Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father. 69 The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus' glorification 70 reveals in its fullness the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.

The apostolic Faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father." 71 By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity". 72 But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son's origin: "The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature. . . Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,. . . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son." 73 The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: "With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified." 74

The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)". the Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration... And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son." 75

At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son. 77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial Communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason", 78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle", 79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds. 80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of Faith in the reality of the same Mystery confessed.

During the first centuries the Church sought to clarify her Trinitarian Faith, both to deepen her own understanding of the faith and to defend it against the errors that were deforming it. This clarification was the work of the early councils, aided by the theological work of the Church Fathers and sustained by the Christian people's sense of the faith.

of all the divine attributes, only God's omnipotence is named in the Creed: to confess this power has great bearing on our lives. We believe that his might is universal, for God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything. God's power is loving, for he is our Father, and mysterious, for only Faith can discern it when it "is made perfect in weakness". 103

"Often, too, the Church is called the building of God. the Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the comer-stone. On this foundation the Church is built by the apostles and from it the Church receives solidity and unity. This edifice has many names to describe it: the house of God in which his family dwells; the household of God in the Spirit; the dwelling-place of God among men; and, especially, the holy temple. This temple, symbolized in places of worship built out of stone, is praised by the Fathers and, not without reaSon, is compared in the liturgy to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. As living stones we here on earth are built into it. It is this holy city that is seen by John as it comes down out of heaven from God when the world is made anew, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 148

How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all Salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

The Missionary mandate. "Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of Salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men": 339 "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; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age." 340

The origin and purpose of Mission. the Lord's missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal Love of the Most Holy Trinity: "The Church on earth is by her nature missionary since, according to the Plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit." 341 The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the Communion between the Father and the Son in their Spirit of love. 342

Jesus is the Father's Emissary. From the beginning of his ministry, he "called to him those whom he desired; .... and he appointed twelve, whom also he named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach." 368 From then on, they would also be his "emissaries" (Greek apostoloi). In them, Christ continues his own Mission: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." 369 The apostles' ministry is the continuation of his mission; Jesus said to the Twelve: "he who receives you receives me." 370

Jesus unites them to the Mission he received from the Father. As "the Son can do nothing of his own accord," but receives everything from the Father who sent him, so those whom Jesus sends can do nothing apart from him, 371 from whom they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out. Christ's apostles knew that they were called by God as "ministers of a new covenant," "servants of God," "ambassadors for Christ," "servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." 372

"Christ, sent by the Father, is the source of the Church's whole apostolate"; thus the fruitfulness of apostolate for ordained ministers as well as for lay people clearly depends on their vital union with Christ. 378 In keeping with their vocations, the demands of the times and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostolate assumes the most varied forms. But charity, drawn from the Eucharist above all, is always "as it were, the soul of the whole apostolate." 379

Finally, it belongs to the sacramental nature of ecclesial ministry that it have a perSonal character. Although Chnst's ministers act in Communion with one another, they also always act in a personal way. Each one is called personally: "You, follow me" 397 in order to be a personal witness within the common Mission, to bear personal responsibility before him who gives the mission, acting "in his person" and for other persons: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ..."; "I absolve you...."

The Good Shepherd ought to be the model and "form" of the bishop's pastoral office. Conscious of his own weaknesses, "the bishop . . . can have compassion for those who are ignorant and erring. He should not refuse to listen to his subjects whose welfare he promotes as of his very own children.... the Faithful ... should be closely attached to the bishop as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ is to the Father": 428

"Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvellously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit maybe produced in them. For all their works, Prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit - indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born - all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord. and so, worshipping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives." 434

The intercession of the saints. "Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness.... They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus.... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped." 493

By her complete adherence to the Father's will, to his Son's redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church's model of Faith and charity. Thus she is a "preeminent and . . . wholly unique member of the Church"; indeed, she is the "exemplary realization" (typus) 508 of the Church.

"All generations will call me blessed": "The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship." 513 The Church rightly honors "the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of 'Mother of God,' to whose protection the Faithful fly in all their dangers and needs.... This very special devotion ... differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration." 514 The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian Prayer, such as the rosary, an "epitome of the whole Gospel," express this devotion to the Virgin Mary. 515

The Christian Creed - the profession of our Faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in God's creative, saving, and sanctifying action - culminates in the proclamation of the Resurrection of the dead on the last day and in life everlasting.

To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. the Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and Salvation. the Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's Cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood. 334

"The Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect." 295 In her members perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired: "Strengthened by so many and such great means of Salvation, all the Faithful, whatever their condition or state - though each in his own way - are called by the Lord to that perfection of sanctity by which the Father himself is perfect." 296

"The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and goodness, created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life," 150 to which he calls all men in his Son. "The Father . . . determined to call together in a holy Church those who should believe in Christ." 151 This "family of God" is gradually formed and takes shape during the stages of human history, in keeping with the Father's Plan. In fact, "already present in figure at the beginning of the world, this Church was prepared in marvellous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and the old Advance. Established in this last age of the world and made manifest in the outpouring of the Spirit, it will be brought to glorious completion at the end of time." 152

The remote preparation for this gathering together of the People of God begins when he calls Abraham and promises that he will become the Father of a great people. 157 Its immediate preparation begins with Israel's election as the People of God. By this election, Israel is to be the sign of the future gathering of All nations. 158 But the prophets accuse Israel of breaking the covenant and behaving like a prostitute. They announce a new and eternal covenant. "Christ instituted this New Covenant." 159

It was the Son's task to accomplish the Father's Plan of Salvation in the fullness of time. Its accomplishment was the reason for his being sent. 160 "The Lord Jesus inaugurated his Church by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Reign of God, promised over the ages in the scriptures." 161 To fulfill the Father's will, Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. the Church "is the Reign of Christ already present in Mystery." 162

"When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that he might continually sanctify the Church." 174 Then "the Church was openly displayed to the crowds and the spread of the Gospel among the nations, through preaching, was begun." 175 As the "convocation" of all men for Salvation, the Church in her very nature is Missionary, sent by Christ to all the nations to make Disciples of them. 176

"The Church . . . will receive its perfection only in the Glory of heaven," 179 at the time of Christ's glorious return. Until that day, "the Church progresses on her pilgrimage amidst this world's persecutions and God's consolations." 180 Here below she knows that she is in exile far from the Lord, and longs for the full coming of the Kingdom, when she will "be united in glory with her king." 181 The Church, and through her the world, will not be perfected in glory without great trials. Only then will "all the just from the time of Adam, 'from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,' . . . be gathered together in the universal Church in the Father's presence." 182

Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. the whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for Mission and service that flow from them. 208

On entering the People of God through Faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people's unique, priestly vocation: "Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people 'a Kingdom of priests to God, his Father.' the baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood." 209

Christ "is the head of the body, the Church." 225 He is the principle of Creation and redemption. Raised to the Father's Glory, "in everything he (is) preeminent," 226 especially in the Church, through whom he extends his reign over all things.

The Church is one because of her source: "the highest exemplar and source of this Mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of PerSons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit." 259 The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made Flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the Cross, . . . restoring the unity of all in one people and one body." 260 The Church is one because of her "soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful Communion of the Faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity." 261 Unity is of the essence of the Church:

"Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time." 277 Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must always Pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his Disciples: "That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, . . . so that the world may know that you have sent me." 278 The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit. 279

Concern for achieving unity "involves the whole Church, Faithful and clergy alike." 287 But we must realize "that this holy objective - the reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ - transcends human powers and gifts." That is why we place all our hope "in the Prayer of Christ for the Church, in the Love of the Father for us, and in the power of the Holy Spirit." 288

"The Church . . . is held, as a matter of Faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as 'alone holy,' Loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the Glory of God." 289 The Church, then, is "the holy People of God," 290 and her members are called "saints." 291

United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains "hidden with Christ in God." 558 The Father has already "raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 559 Nourished with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the Body of Christ. When we rise on the last day we "also will appear with him in Glory." 560

Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his anguish as he faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free subMission to his Father's will. 572 The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing. 573

In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore the Christian can experience a desire for death like St. Paul's: "My desire is to depart and be with Christ. " 577 He can transform his own death into an act of obedience and Love towards the Father, after the example of Christ: 578

"Christ, indeed, always associates the Church with himself in this great work in which God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. the Church is his beLoved Bride who calls to her Lord and through him offers worship to the eternal Father." 12

It is on this harmony of the two Testaments that the Paschal catechesis of the Lord is built, 15 and then, that of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church. This catechesis unveils what lay hidden under the letter of the Old Testament: the Mystery of Christ. It is called "typological" because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the "figures" (types) which announce him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled. 16 Thus the flood and Noah's ark prefigured Salvation by Baptism, 17 as did the cloud and the Crossing of the Red Sea. Water from the rock was the figure of the spiritual gifts of Christ, and manna in the desert prefigured the Eucharist, "the true bread from heaven." 18

The assembly should prepare itself to encounter its Lord and to become "a people well disposed." the preparation of Hearts is the joint work of the Holy Spirit and the assembly, especially of its ministers. the Grace of the Holy Spirit seeks to awaken Faith, conversion of heart, and adherence to the Father's will. These dispositions are the precondition both for the reception of other graces conferred in the celebration itself and the fruits of new life which the celebration is intended to produce afterward.

The Holy Spirit gives a spiritual understanding of the Word of God to those who read or hear it, according to the dispositions of their Hearts. By means of the words, actions, and symbols that form the structure of a celebration, the Spirit puts both the Faithful and the ministers into a living relationship with Christ, the Word and Image of the Father, so that they can live out the meaning of what they hear, contemplate, and do in the celebration.

The Epiclesis ("invocation upon") is the intercession in which the priest begs the Father to send the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, so that the offerings may become the body and blood of Christ and that the Faithful by receiving them, may themselves become a living offering to God. 23

The Holy Spirit's transforming power in the liturgy hastens the coming of the Kingdom and the consummation of the Mystery of Salvation. While we wait in hope he causes us really to anticipate the fullness of Communion with the Holy Trinity. Sent by the Father who hears the epiclesis of the Church, the Spirit gives life to those who accept him and is, even now, the "guarantee" of their inheritance. 25

In every liturgical action the Holy Spirit is sent in order to bring us into Communion with Christ and so to form his Body. the Holy Spirit is like the sap of the Father's vine which bears fruit on its branches. 26 The most intimate cooperation of the Holy Spirit and the Church is achieved in the liturgy. the Spirit who is the Spirit of communion, abides indefectibly in the Church. For this reaSon the Church is the great sacrament of divine communion which gathers God's scattered children together. Communion with the Holy Trinity and fraternal communion are inseparably the fruit of the Spirit in the liturgy. 27

The epiclesis is also a Prayer for the full effect of the assembly's Communion with the Mystery of Christ. "The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" 28 have to remain with us always and bear fruit beyond the Eucharistic celebration. the Church therefore asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit to make the lives of the Faithful a living sacrifice to God by their spiritual transformation into the image of Christ, by concern for the Church's unity, and by taking part in her Mission through the witness and service of charity.

"Adhering to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, to the apostolic traditions, and to the consensus . . . of the Fathers," we profess that "the sacraments of the new law were . . . all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord." 31

The ordained ministry or ministerial priesthood is at the service of the Baptismal priesthood. 38 The ordained priesthood guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church. the saving Mission entrusted by the Father to his incarnate Son was committed to the apostles and through them to their successors: they receive the Spirit of Jesus to act in his name and in his person. 39 The ordained minister is the sacramental bond that ties the liturgical action to what the apostles said and did and, through them, to the words and actions of Christ, the source and foundation of the sacraments.

Christ sent his apostles so that "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." 41 "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." 42 The Mission to baptize, and so the sacramental mission, is implied in the mission to evangelize, because the sacrament is prepared for by the word of God and by the Faith which is assent to this word:

Celebrated worthily in Faith, the sacraments confer the Grace that they signify. 48 They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. the Father always hears the Prayer of his Son's Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.

"Accordingly, just as Christ was sent by the Father so also he sent the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit. This he did so that they might preach the Gospel to every creature and proclaim that the Son of God by his death and Resurrection had freed us from the power of Satan and from death and brought us into the Kingdom of his Father. But he also willed that the work of Salvation which they preached should be set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical life revolves." 9

In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal Mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father "once for all." 8 His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. the Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is - all that he did and suffered for all men - participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. the event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.

This Mystery of blessed Communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the Kingdom, the Father's house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the Heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who Love him." 601

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in Glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of Creation and of the entire economy of Salvation and understand the marvellous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. the Last Judgment will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God's Love is stronger than death. 626

"When we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature and our enterprise . . . according to the command of the Lord and in his Spirit, we will find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father an eternal and universal Kingdom." 641 God will then be "all in all" in eternal life: 642

Jesus Christ himself is the "Amen." 648 He is the definitive "Amen" of the Father's Love for us. He takes up and completes our "Amen" to the Father: "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the Glory of God": 649

In the Symbol of the Faith the Church confesses the Mystery of the Holy Trinity and of the Plan of God's "good pleasure" for all Creation: the Father accomplishes the "mystery of his will" by giving his beLoved Son and his Holy Spirit for the Salvation of the world and for the Glory of his name. 1

The liturgy is also a participation in Christ's own Prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy, all Christian Prayer finds its source and goal. Through the liturgy the inner man is rooted and grounded in "the great Love with which [the Father] loved us" in his beloved Son. 11 It is the same "marvelous work of God" that is lived and internalized by all prayer, "at all times in the Spirit." 12

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us before him in Love to be his Sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious Grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." 3

Blessing is a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father; his blessing is both word and gift. 4 When applied to man, the word "blessing" means adoration and surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving.

From the very beginning God blessed all living beings, especially man and woman. the covenant with Noah and with all living things renewed this blessing of fruitfulness despite man's sin which had brought a curse on the ground. But with Abraham, the divine blessing entered into human history which was moving toward death, to redirect it toward life, toward its source. By the Faith of "the Father of all believers," who embraced the blessing, the history of Salvation is inaugurated.

In the Church's liturgy the divine blessing is fully Revealed and communicated. the Father is acknowledged and adored as the source and the end of all the blessings of Creation and Salvation. In his Word who became incarnate, died, and rose for us, he fills us with his blessings. Through his Word, he pours into our Hearts the Gift that contains all gifts, the Holy Spirit.

The dual dimension of the Christian liturgy as a response of Faith and Love to the spiritual blessings the Father bestows on us is thus evident. On the one hand, the Church, united with her Lord and "in the Holy Spirit," 5 blesses the Father "for his inexpressible gift 6 in her adoration, praise, and thanksgiving. On the other hand, until the consummation of God's Plan, the Church never ceases to present to the Father the offering of his own gifts and to beg him to send the Holy Spirit upon that offering, upon herself, upon the Faithful, and upon the whole world, so that through Communion in the death and Resurrection of Christ the Priest, and by the power of the Spirit, these divine blessings will bring forth the fruits of life "to the praise of his glorious Grace." 7

"Seated at the right hand of the Father" and pouring out the Holy Spirit on his Body which is the Church, Christ now acts through the sacraments he instituted to communicate his Grace. the sacraments are perceptible signs (words and actions) accessible to our human nature. By the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit they make present efficaciously the grace that they signify.

A sacramental celebration is a meeting of God's children with their Father, in Christ and the Holy Spirit; this meeting takes the form of a dialogue, through actions and words. Admittedly, the symbolic actions are already a language, but the Word of God and the response of Faith have to accompany and give life to them, so that the seed of the Kingdom can bear its fruit in good soil. the liturgical actions signify what the Word of God expresses: both his free initiative and his people's response of faith.

To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo . . . Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church. 138

"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." 443 By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin", when "he bore the sin of many", and who "shall make many to be accounted righteous", for "he shall bear their iniquities". 444 Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father. 445

Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." 474

"We bring you the good news that what God promised to the Fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus." 488 The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our Faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal Mystery along with the Cross:

By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his Disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. 508 Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ's humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father's divine realm. 509 For this reaSon too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their Faith. 510

Christ's Resurrection is an object of Faith in that it is a transcendent intervention of God himself in Creation and history. In it the three divine perSons act together as one, and manifest their own proper characteristics. the Father's power "raised up" Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son's humanity, including his body, into the Trinity. Jesus is conclusively Revealed as "Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead". 514 St. Paul insists on the manifestation of God's power 515 through the working of the Spirit who gave life to Jesus' dead humanity and called it to the glorious state of Lordship.

The Fathers contemplate the Resurrection from the perspective of the divine perSon of Christ who remained united to his soul and body, even when these were separated from each other by death: "By the unity of the divine nature, which remains present in each of the two components of man, these are reunited. For as death is produced by the separation of the human components, so Resurrection is achieved by the union of the two." 519

The truth of Jesus' divinity is confirmed by his Resurrection. He had said: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he." 523 The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that he was truly "I AM", the Son of God and God himself. So St. Paul could declare to the Jews: "What God promised to the Fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'" 524 Christ's Resurrection is closely linked to the Incarnation of God's Son, and is its fulfilment in accordance with God's eternal Plan.

The Paschal Mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's Grace, "so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. 526 It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ's brethren, as Jesus himself called his Disciples after his Resurrection: "Go and tell my brethren." 527 We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully Revealed in his Resurrection.

The veiled character of the Glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: "I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." 536 This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father's right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension.

This final stage stays closely linked to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. Only the one who "came from the Father" can return to the Father: Christ Jesus. 537 "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man." 538 Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the "Father's house", to God's life and happiness. 539 Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us. 540

"and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." 541 The lifting up of Jesus on the Cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it. Jesus Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, "entered, not into a sanctuary made by human hands. . . but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf." 542 There Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he "always lives to make intercession" for "those who draw near to God through him". 543 As "high priest of the good things to come" he is the centre and the principal actor of the liturgy that honours the Father in heaven. 544

This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. 441 First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and Love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience. 442

The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father's hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani, 434 making himself "obedient unto death". Jesus Prays: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. . ." 435 Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death. 436 Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the divine perSon of the "Author of life", the "Living One". 437 By accepting in his human will that the Father's will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for "he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." 438

Many of Jesus' deeds and words constituted a "sign of contradiction", 321 but more so for the religious authorities in Jerusalem, whom the Gospel according to John often calls simply "the Jews", 322 than for the ordinary People of God. 323 To be sure, Christ's relations with the Pharisees were not exclusively polemical. Some Pharisees warn him of the danger he was courting; 324 Jesus praises some of them, like the scribe of Mark 12:34, and dines several times at their homes. 325 Jesus endorses some of the teachings imparted by this religious elite of God's people: the Resurrection of the dead, 326 certain forms of piety (almsgiving, fasting and Prayer), 327 The custom of addressing God as Father, and the centrality of the commandment to Love God and neighbour. 328

Like the prophets before him Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the Temple in Jerusalem. It was in the Temple that Joseph and Mary presented him forty days after his birth. 349 At the age of twelve he decided to remain in the Temple to remind his parents that he must be about his Father's business. 350 He went there each year during his hidden life at least for Passover. 351 His public ministry itself was patterned by his pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts. 352

Jesus went up to the Temple as the privileged place of encounter with God. For him, the Temple was the dwelling of his Father, a house of Prayer, and he was angered that its outer court had become a place of commerce. 353 He drove merchants out of it because of jealous Love for his Father: "You shall not make my Father's house a house of trade. His Disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'" 354 After his Resurrection his apostles retained their reverence for the Temple. 355

Far from having been hostile to the Temple, where he gave the essential part of his teaching, Jesus was willing to pay the Temple-tax, associating with him Peter, whom he had just made the foundation of his future Church. 359 He even identified himself with the Temple by presenting himself as God's definitive dwelling-place among men. 360 Therefore his being put to bodily death 361 presaged the destruction of the Temple, which would manifest the dawning of a new age in the history of Salvation: "The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." 362

Only the divine identity of Jesus' perSon can justify so absolute a claim as "He who is not with me is against me"; and his saying that there was in him "something greater than Jonah,. . . greater than Solomon", something "greater than the Temple"; his reminder that David had called the Messiah his Lord, 371 and his affirmations, "Before Abraham was, I AM", and even "I and the Father are one." 372

Jesus asked the religious authorities of Jerusalem to believe in him because of the Father's works which he accomplished. 373 But such an act of Faith must go through a mysterious death to self, for a new "birth from above" under the influence of divine Grace. 374 Such a demand for conversion in the face of so surprising a fulfilment of the promises 375 allows one to understand the Sanhedrin's tragic misunderstanding of Jesus: they judged that he deserved the death sentence as a blasphemer. 376 The members of the Sanhedrin were thus acting at the same time out of "ignorance" and the "hardness" of their "unbelief". 377

Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic Faith in the divine Plan of Salvation in this way: "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your Fathers... with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake." 402 Man's sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death. 403 By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 404

Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. 405 But in the redeeming Love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the Cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 406 Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all", so that we might be "reconciled to God by the death of his Son". 407

At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God's Love excludes no one: "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." 410 He affirms that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many"; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique perSon of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. 411 The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer." 412

The Son of God, who came down "from heaven, not to do (his) own will, but the will of him who sent (him)", 413 said on coming into the world, "Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." "and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." 414 From the first moment of his Incarnation the Son embraces the Father's Plan of divine Salvation in his redemptive Mission: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work." 415 The sacrifice of Jesus "for the sins of the whole world" 416 expresses his loving Communion with the Father. "The Father Loves me, because I lay down my life", said the Lord, "(for) I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father." 417

The desire to embrace his Father's Plan of redeeming Love inspired Jesus' whole life, 418 for his redemptive passion was the very reaSon for his Incarnation. and so he asked, "and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour." 419 and again, "Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?" 420 From the Cross, just before "It is finished", he said, "I thirst." 421

By embracing in his human Heart the Father's Love for men, Jesus "loved them to the end", for "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 425 In suffering and death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the Salvation of men. 426 Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." 427 Hence the sovereign freedom of God's Son as he went out to his death. 428

Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles "on the night he was betrayed". 429 On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the Salvation of men: "This is my body which is given for you." "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." 430

Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: "By 'the Father's right hand' we understand the Glory and honour of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate and his Flesh was glorified." 545

Being seated at the Father's right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah's Kingdom, the fulfilment of the prophet Daniel's vision concerning the Son of man: "To him was given dominion and Glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed." 546 After this event the apostles became witnesses of the "kingdom [that] will have no end". 547

Disfigured by sin and death, man remains "in the image of God," in the image of the Son, but is deprived "of the Glory of God," 66 of his "likeness." the promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of Salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that "image" 67 and restore it in the Father's "likeness" by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is "the giver of life."

Mary, the all-holy ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the Mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. For the first time in the Plan of Salvation and because his Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where his Son and his Spirit could dwell among men. In this sense the Church's Tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on wisdom in relation to Mary. 101 Mary is acclaimed and represented in the liturgy as the "Seat of Wisdom." In her, the "wonders of God" that the Spirit was to fulfill in Christ and the Church began to be manifested:

The Holy Spirit prepared Mary by his Grace. It was fitting that the mother of him in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" 102 should herself be "full of grace." She was, by sheer grace, conceived without sin as the most humble of creatures, the most capable of welcoming the inexpressible gift of the Almighty. It was quite correct for the angel Gabriel to greet her as the "Daughter of Zion": "Rejoice." 103 It is the thanksgiving of the whole People of God, and thus of the Church, which Mary in her canticle 104 lifts up to the Father in the Holy Spirit while carrying within her the eternal Son.

In Mary, the Holy Spirit fulfills the Plan of the Father's loving goodness. With and through the Holy Spirit, the Virgin conceives and gives birth to the Son of God. By the Holy Spirit's power and her Faith, her virginity became uniquely fruitful. 105

In Mary, the Holy Spirit manifests the Son of the Father, now become the Son of the Virgin. She is the burning bush of the definitive theophany. Filled with the Holy Spirit she makes the Word visible in the humility of his Flesh. It is to the poor and the first representatives of the gentiles that she makes him known. 106

The entire Mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of time, is contained in this: that the Son is the one anointed by the Father's Spirit since his Incarnation - Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. Everything in the second chapter of the Creed is to be read in this light. Christ's whole work is in fact a joint mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here, we shall mention only what has to do with Jesus' promise of the Holy Spirit and the gift of him by the glorified Lord.

Only when the hour has arrived for his glorification does Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit, since his Death and Resurrection will fulfill the promise made to the Fathers. 116 The Spirit of truth, the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in answer to Jesus' Prayer; he will be sent by the Father in Jesus' name; and Jesus will send him from the Father's side, since he comes from the Father. the Holy Spirit will come and we shall know him; he will be with us for ever; he will remain with us. the Spirit will teach us everything, remind us of all that Christ said to us and bear witness to him. the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will glorify Christ. He will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment.

At last Jesus' hour arrives: 117 he commends his spirit into the Father's hands 118 at the very moment when by his death he conquers death, so that, "raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father," 119 he might immediately give the Holy Spirit by "breathing" on his Disciples. 120 From this hour onward, the Mission of Christ and the Spirit becomes the mission of the Church: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." 121

The Mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This joint mission henceforth brings Christ's Faithful to share in his Communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. the Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with his Grace, in order to draw them to Christ. the Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the Mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may "bear much fruit." 132

Because the Holy Spirit is the anointing of Christ, it is Christ who, as the head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among his members to nourish, heal, and organize them in their mutual functions, to give them life, send them to bear witness, and associate them to his self-offering to the Father and to his intercession for the whole world. Through the Church's sacraments, Christ communicates his Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of his Body. (This will be the topic of Part Two of the Catechism.)

"Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the Heart-felt desire of this sacred Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church." 135 These words open the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. By choosing this starting point, the Council demonstrates that the article of Faith about the Church depends entirely on the articles concerning Christ Jesus. the Church has no other light than Christ's; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.

From the beginning until "the fullness of time," 60 The joint Mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah. Neither is fully Revealed but both are already promised, to be watched for and welcomed at their manifestation. So, for this reaSon, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit, "who has spoken through the prophets," wants to tell us about Christ. 61

The finger. "It is by the finger of God that [Jesus] cast out demons." 55 If God's law was written on tablets of stone "by the finger of God," then the "letter from Christ" entrusted to the care of the apostles, is written "with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human Hearts." 56 The hymn Veni Creator Spiritus invokes the Holy Spirit as the "finger of the Father's right hand." 57

"Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." 548 Christ's Ascension into heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority. Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion", for the Father "has put all things under his feet." 549 Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all Creation are "set forth" and transcendently fulfilled. 550

Since the Ascension Christ's coming in Glory has been imminent, 565 even though "it is not for you to know times or seaSons which the Father has fixed by his own authority." 566 . This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are "delayed". 567

Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgement on the works and Hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He "acquired" this right by his Cross. the Father has given "all judgement to the Son". 586 Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself. 587 By rejecting Grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one's works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of Love. 588

"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." 1 "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!"' 2 This knowledge of Faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son.

Through his Grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken Faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to "know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ." 4 But the Spirit is the last of the perSons of the Holy Trinity to be Revealed. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, explains this progression in terms of the pedagogy of divine "condescension":

To believe in the Holy Spirit is to profess that the Holy Spirit is one of the perSons of the Holy Trinity, consubstantial with the Father and the Son: "with the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified." 6 For this reason, the divine Mystery of the Holy Spirit was already treated in the context of Trinitarian "theology." Here, however, we have to do with the Holy Spirit only in the divine "economy."

The Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the Plan for our Salvation. But in these "end times," ushered in by the Son's redeeming Incarnation, the Spirit is Revealed and given, recognized and welcomed as a person. Now can this divine plan, accomplished in Christ, the firstborn and head of the new Creation, be embodied in mankind by the outpouring of the Spirit: as the Church, the Communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

"No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." 7 Now God's Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. the Spirit who "has spoken through the prophets" makes us hear the Father's Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in Faith. the Spirit of truth who "unveils" Christ to us "will not speak on his own." 8 Such properly divine self-effacement explains why "the world cannot receive (him), because it neither sees him nor knows him," while those who believe in Christ know the Spirit because he dwells with them. 9

The Church, a Communion living in the Faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit: - in the Scriptures he inspired; - in the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses; - in the Church's Magisterium, which he assists; - in the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ; - in Prayer, wherein he intercedes for us; - in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up; - in the signs of apostolic and Missionary life; - in the witness of saints through whom he manifests his holiness and continues the work of Salvation.

The One whom the Father has sent into our Hearts, the Spirit of his Son, is truly God. 10 Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, in both the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of Love for the world. In adoring the Holy Trinity, life-giving, consubstantial, and indivisible, the Church's Faith also professes the distinction of persons. When the Father sends his Word, he always sends his Breath. In their joint Mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable. To be sure, it is Christ who is seen, the visible image of the invisible God, but it is the Spirit who reveals him.

Jesus is Christ, "anointed," because the Spirit is his anointing, and everything that occurs from the Incarnation on derives from this fullness. 11 When Christ is finally glorified, 12 he can in turn send the Spirit from his place with the Father to those who believe in him: he communicates to them his Glory, 13 that is, the Holy Spirit who glorifies him. 14 From that time on, this joint Mission will be manifested in the children adopted by the Father in the Body of his Son: the mission of the Spirit of adoption is to unite them to Christ and make them live in him:

"Holy Spirit" is the proper name of the one whom we adore and glorify with the Father and the Son. the Church has received this name from the Lord and professes it in the Baptism of her new children. 16

The seal is a symbol close to that of anointing. "The Father has set his seal" on Christ and also seals us in him. 50 Because this seal indicates the indelible effect of the anointing with the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, the image of the seal (sphragis) has been used in some theological traditions to express the indelible "character" imprinted by these three unrepeatable sacraments.

The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit, which immediately precedes it. "Indeed, having shown that the Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness." 136 The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place "where the Spirit flourishes." 137