God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely Created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reaSon, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to Love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by Sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by Love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been Faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's Faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by profesSing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and Prayer. 6

Quite early on, the name catechesis was given to the totality of the Church's efforts to make disciples, to help men believe that Jesus is the Son of God so that believing they might have life in his name, and to educate and instruct them in this life, thus building up the body of Christ. 7

"Catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole of the Church's life. Not only her geographical extension and numerical increase, but even more her inner growth and correspondence with God's plan depend essentially on catechesis." 10

This work is intended primarily for those responsible for catechesis: first of all the bishops, as teachers of the Faith and pastors of the Church. It is offered to them as an instrument in fulfilling their responsibility of teaching the People of God. Through the bishops, it is addressed to redactors of catechisms, to priests, and to catechists. It will also be useful reading for all other Christian Faithful.

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 second part of the Catechism explains how God's Salvation, accomplished once for all through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, is made present in the sacred actions of the Church's liturgy (Section One), especially in the seven sacraments (Section Two).

The third part of the Catechism deals with the final end of man Created in the Image of God: beatitude, and the ways of reaching it - through right conduct freely chosen, with the help of God's law and Grace (Section One), and through conduct that fulfils the twofold commandment of charity, specified in God's Ten Commandments (Section Two).

We begin our profession of Faith by saying: "I believe" or "We believe". Before expounding the Church's faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of God's commandments and in Prayer, we must first ask what "to believe" means. Faith is man's response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).

The desire for God is written in the human Heart, because man is Created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the Truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their Prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:

But this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 # 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. 3 Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of Sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call. 4

"Let the Hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice." 5 Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, "an upright heart", as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.

Created in God's Image and called to know and Love him, the perSon who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the Truth. These "ways" of approaching God from Creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

The human perSon: with his openness to Truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material", 9 can have its origin only in God.

The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone calls God". 10

Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a perSonal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him the Grace of being able to welcome this revelation in Faith.(so) the proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

"Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the Created world by the natural light of human reaSon." 11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the Image of God". 12

In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reaSon alone:

This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God's revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also "about those religious and moral Truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reaSon, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error". 14

In defending the ability of human reaSon to know God, the Church is expresSing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.

Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.

All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, Created in the Image and likeness of God. the manifold perfections of creatures - their Truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures" perfections as our starting point, "for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator". 15

God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, Imagebound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God --"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"-- with our human representations. 16 Our human words always fall short of the Mystery of God.

Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is uSing human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude"; 17 and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him." 18

By natural reaSon man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. 1 Through an utterly free decision, God has Revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the Mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beLoved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

"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

God, who "dwells in unapproachable light", wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely Created, in order to adopt them as his Sons in his only-begotten Son. 3 By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.

The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously "by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other" 4 and shed light on each another. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the perSon and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

"God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in Created realities. and furthermore, wishing to open up the way to heavenly Salvation - he manifested himself to our first parents from the very beginning." 6 He invited them to intimate Communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent Grace and justice.

This revelation was not broken off by our first parents' Sin. "After the fall, (God) buoyed them up with the hope of Salvation, by promising redemption; and he has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing." 7

After the unity of the human race was shattered by Sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. the Covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the "nations", in other words, towards men grouped "in their lands, each with (its) own language, by their families, in their nations". 9

The Covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel. 13 The Bible venerates several great figures among the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchisedek - a figure of Christ - and the upright "Noah, Daniel, and Job". 14 Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to "gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad". 15

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

The people descended from Abraham would be the trustee of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people, called to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church. 18 They would be the root on to which the Gentiles would be grafted, once they came to believe. 19

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

Israel is the priestly people of God, "called by the name of the Lord", and "the first to hear the word of God", 21 The people of "elder brethren" in the Faith of Abraham.

Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of Salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their Hearts. 22 The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations. 23 Above all, the poor and humble of the Lord will bear this hope. Such holy women as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Judith and Esther kept alive the hope of Israel's salvation. the purest figure among them is Mary. 24

"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:

God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth": 29 that is, of Christ Jesus. 30 Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth:

"Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own perSon and promulgated with his own lips. In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the Gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving Truth and moral discipline." 32

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

"Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit." 42

"The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ." 47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in Communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

"Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it Faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely Revealed is drawn from this Single deposit of Faith." 48

"By this appreciation of the Faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of Truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (Magisterium),. . . receives. . . the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. . . the People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life." 56

"It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the Salvation of souls." 62

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

Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one Single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely: 64

For this reaSon, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the Faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body. 66

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

God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely Revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." 69

God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more." 71

The inspired books teach the Truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, Faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our Salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." 72

Still, the Christian Faith is not a "religion of the book". Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, "not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living". 73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open (our) minds to understand the Scriptures." 74

In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words. 75

Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reaSon of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and Heart, open Since his Passover. 79

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 ).

The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs. 1. the allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crosSing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism. 84 2. the moral sense. the events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction". 85 3. the anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. 86

"It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God." 88

Indeed, "the economy of the Old Testament was deliberately SO oriented that it should prepare for and declare in prophecy the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men." 93 "Even though they contain matters imperfect and provisional, 94 The books of the OldTestament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God's saving Love: these writings "are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of Prayers; in them, too, the Mystery of our Salvation is present in a hidden way." 95

Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. the Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism).

"The Word of God, which is the power of God for Salvation to everyone who has Faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the writings of the New Testament" 96 which hand on the ultimate Truth of God's Revelation. Their central object is Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church's beginnings under the Spirit's guidance. 97

We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels: 1. the life and teaching of Jesus. the Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, Faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal Salvation, until the day when he was taken up." 99 2. the oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of Truth, now enjoyed." 100 3. the written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus." 101

The Church, as early as apostolic times, 104 and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God's works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the perSon of his incarnate Son.

Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfilment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone." 108 Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God's plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

"and such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigour, and the children of the Church as strength for their Faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life." 109 Hence "access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian Faithful." 110

By his Revelation, "the invisible God, from the fullness of his Love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company." 1 The adequate response to this invitation is Faith.

By Faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. 2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of faith". 3

To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in Faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its Truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. the Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

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

The Old Testament is rich in witnesses to this Faith. the Letter to the Hebrews proclaims its eulogy of the exemplary faith of the ancestors who "received divine approval". 10 Yet "God had foreseen something better for us": the Grace of believing in his Son Jesus, "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith". 11

The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of Faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." 12 Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." 13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed. 14

Throughout her life and until her last ordeal 15 when Jesus her Son died on the cross, Mary's Faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfilment of God's word. and so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith.

Faith is first of all a perSonal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole Truth that God has Revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature. 17

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

One cannot believe in Jesus Christ without sharing in his Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to men who Jesus is. For "no one can say "Jesus is Lord", except by the Holy Spirit", 22 who "searches everything, even the depths of God. . No one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God." 23 Only God knows God completely: we believe in the Holy Spirit because he is God.

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

Believing is possible only by Grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the Truths he has Revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reaSon. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a Communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by Faith the full submission of... intellect and will to God who reveals", 26 and to share in an interior communion with him.

In Faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine Grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine Truth by command of the will moved by God through grace." 27

What moves us to believe is not the fact that Revealed Truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reaSon: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived". 28 So "that the submission of our Faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit." 29 Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind". 30

Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, Revealed Truths can seem obscure to human reaSon and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives." 31 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." 32

"Faith seeks understanding": 33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has Revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increaSingly set afire by Love. the Grace of faith opens "the eyes of your Hearts" 34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the centre of the revealed Mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his Gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood." 35 In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe." 36

Faith and science: "Though faith is above reaSon, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can Truth ever contradict truth." 37 "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. the humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are." 38

To be human, "man's response to God by Faith must be free, and... therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will. the act of faith is of its very nature a free act." 39 "God calls men to serve him in spirit and in Truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience, but not coerced. . . This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ Jesus." 40 Indeed, Christ invited people to faith and conversion, but never coerced them. "For he bore witness to the truth but refused to use force to impose it on those who spoke against it. His Kingdom... grows by the Love with which Christ, lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself." 41

Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our Salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. 42 "Since "without Faith it is impossible to please (God) " and to attain to the fellowship of his Sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life 'But he who endures to the end.'"]

Faith is an entirely free Gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain perSons have made shipwreck of their faith." 44 To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; 45 it must be "working through charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church. 46

Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below. Then we shall see God "face to face", "as he is". 47 So faith is already the beginning of eternal life: When we contemplate the blesSings of faith even now, as if gazing at a reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy. 48

Now, however, "we walk by Faith, not by sight"; 49 we perceive God as "in a mirror, dimly" and only "in part". 50 Even though enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test. the world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it.

Faith is a perSonal act - the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. the believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our Love for Jesus and for our neighbour impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in the faith.

"I believe" (Apostles' Creed) is the Faith of the Church professed perSonally by each believer, principally during Baptism. "We believe" (Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers. "I believe" is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both "I believe" and "We believe".

It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my Faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: "Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you", as we Sing in the hymn Te Deum; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: "I believe", "We believe". It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: "What do you ask of God's Church?" and the answer is: "Faith." "What does faith offer you?" "Eternal life." 54

Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of Faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation." 55 Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

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:

"We guard with care the Faith that we have received from the Church, for without ceaSing, under the action of God's Spirit, this deposit of great price, as if in an excellent vessel, is constantly being renewed and causes the very vessel that contains it to be renewed." 62

Through the centuries many professions or symbols of Faith have been articulated in response to the needs of the different eras: the creeds of the different apostolic and ancient Churches, 8 e.g., the Quicumque, also called the Athanasian Creed; 9 The professions of faith of certain Councils, such as Toledo, Lateran, Lyons, Trent; 10 or the symbols of certain popes, e.g., the Fides Damasi 11 or the Credo of the People of God of Paul VI. 12

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.

"I believe in God": this first affirmation of the Apostles' Creed is also the most fundamental. the whole Creed speaks of God, and when it also speaks of man and of the world it does so in relation to God. the other articles of the Creed all depend on the first, just as the remaining Commandments make the first explicit. the other articles help us to know God better as he Revealed himself progressively to men. "The Faithful first profess their belief in God." 2

These are the words with which the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed begins. the confession of God's oneness, which has its roots in the divine revelation of the Old Covenant, is inseparable from the profession of God's existence and is equally fundamental. God is unique; there is only one God: "The Christian Faith confesses that God is one in nature, substance and essence." 3

To Israel, his chosen, God Revealed himself as the only One: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one LORD; and you shall Love the LORD your God with all your Heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." 4 Through the prophets, God calls Israel and all nations to turn to him, the one and only God: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.. . To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 'Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.'" 5

Jesus himself affirms that God is "the one Lord" whom you must Love "with all your Heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength". 6 At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is "the Lord". 7 To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian Faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God. Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as "Lord and giver of life" introduce any division into the One God:

God Revealed himself to his people Israel by making his name known to them. A name expresses a perSon's essence and identity and the meaning of this person's life. God has a name; he is not an anonymous force. To disclose one's name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally.

God Revealed himself progressively and under different names to his people, but the revelation that proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants was the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush, on the threshold of the Exodus and of the covenant on Sinai.

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.

In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM HE WHO IS", "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God is Mystery. It is at once a name Revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God", his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men. 11

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.

Faced with God's fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance. Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the presence of God's holiness. 13 Before the Glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cries out: "Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips." 14 Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims: "Depart from me, for I am a Sinful man, O Lord." 15 But because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him: "I will not execute my fierce anger. . . for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst." 16 The apostle John says likewise: "We shall. . . reassure our Hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." 17

Out of respect for the holiness of God, the people of Israel do not pronounce his name. In the reading of Sacred Scripture, the Revealed name (YHWH) is replaced by the divine title "Lord" (in Hebrew Adonai, in Greek Kyrios). It is under this title that the divinity of Jesus will be acclaimed: "Jesus is LORD."

After Israel's Sin, when the people had turned away from God to worship the golden calf, God hears Moses' Prayer of intercession and agrees to walk in the midst of an unFaithful people, thus demonstrating his Love. 18 When Moses asks to see his Glory, God responds "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name "the Lord" [YHWH]." 19 Then the LORD passes before Moses and proclaims, "YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and Faithfulness"; Moses then confesses that the LORD is a forgiving God. 20

The divine name, "I Am" or "He Is", expresses God's Faithfulness: despite the Faithlessness of men's Sin and the punishment it deserves, he keeps "steadfast Love for thousands". 21 By going so far as to give up his own Son for us, God reveals that he is "rich in mercy". 22 By giving his life to free us from sin, Jesus reveals that he himself bears the divine name: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will realize that "I AM"." 23

Over the centuries, Israel's Faith was able to manifest and deepen realization of the riches contained in the revelation of the divine name. God is unique; there are no other gods besides him. 24

The revelation of the ineffable name "I AM WHO AM" contains then the Truth that God alone IS. the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it the Church's Tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.

God, "HE WHO IS", Revealed himself to Israel as the one "abounding in steadfast Love and Faithfulness". 27 These two terms express summarily the riches of the divine name. In all his works God displays, not only his kindness, goodness, Grace and steadfast love, but also his trustworthiness, constancy, Faithfulness and Truth. "I give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness." 28 He is the Truth, for "God is light and in him there is no darkness"; "God is love", as the apostle John teaches. 29

"The sum of your word is Truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever." 30 "and now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true"; 31 this is why God's promises always come true. 32 God is Truth itself, whose words cannot deceive. This is why one can abandon oneself in full trust to the truth and Faithfulness of his word in all things. the beginning of Sin and of man's fall was due to a lie of the tempter who induced doubt of God's word, kindness and Faithfulness.

God's Truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole Created order and governs the world. 33 God, who alone made heaven and earth, can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself. 34

God is also Truthful when he reveals himself - the teaching that comes from God is "true instruction". 35 When he sends his Son into the world it will be "to bear witness to the truth": 36 "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true." 37

In the course of its history, Israel was able to discover that God had only one reaSon to reveal himself to them, a Single motive for choosing them from among all peoples as his special possession: his sheer gratuitous Love. 38 and thanks to the prophets Israel understood that it was again out of love that God never stopped saving them and pardoning their unFaithfulness and Sins. 39

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

God's Love is "everlasting": 41 "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you." 42 Through Jeremiah, God declares to his people, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my Faithfulness to you." 43

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.

Believing in God, the only One, and loving him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life.

It means coming to know God's greatness and majesty: "Behold, God is great, and we know him not." 46 Therefore, we must "serve God first". 47

It means living in thanksgiving: if God is the only One, everything we are and have comes from him: "What have you that you did not receive?" 48 "What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me?" 49

It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: everyone is made in the Image and likeness of God. 50

It means making good use of Created things: Faith in God, the only One, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to him, and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from him: My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you. My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you. 51

It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity. A Prayer of St. Teresa of Jesus wonderfully expresses this trust:

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 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.

The Trinity is a Mystery of Faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are Revealed by God". 58 To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of Creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reaSon alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

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

For this reaSon the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the Image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the Glory of God and the very stamp of his nature". 65

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

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

From the beginning, the Revealed Truth of the Holy Trinity has been at the very root of the Church's living Faith, principally by means of Baptism. It finds its expression in the rule of baptismal faith, formulated in the preaching, catechesis and Prayer of the Church. Such formulations are already found in the apostolic writings, such as this salutation taken up in the Eucharistic liturgy: "The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." 81

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 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.

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.

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

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

The Holy Scriptures repeatedly confess the universal power of God. He is called the "Mighty One of Jacob", the "Lord of hosts", the "strong and mighty" one. If God is almighty "in heaven and on earth", it is because he made them. 105 Nothing is impossible with God, who disposes his works according to his will. 106 He is the Lord of the universe, whose order he established and which remains wholly subject to him and at his disposal. He is master of history, governing Hearts and events in keeping with his will: "It is always in your power to show great strength, and who can withstand the strength of your arm? 107

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.

God's almighty power is in no way arbitrary: "In God, power, essence, will, intellect, wisdom, and justice are all identical. Nothing therefore can be in God's power which could not be in his just will or his wise intellect." 110

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

Only Faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God's almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ's power. 113 The Virgin Mary is the supreme model of this faith, for she believed that "nothing will be impossible with God", and was able to magnify the Lord: "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." 114

"Nothing is more apt to confirm our Faith and hope than holding it fixed in our minds that nothing is impossible with God. Once our reaSon has grasped the idea of God's almighty power, it will easily and without any hesitation admit everything that [the Creed] will afterwards propose for us to believe - even if they be great and marvellous things, far above the ordinary laws of nature." 115

"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.

Creation is the foundation of "all God's saving plans," the "beginning of the history of Salvation" 117 that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the Mystery of Christ casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which "in the beginning God Created the heavens and the earth": from the beginning, God envisaged the Glory of the new creation in Christ. 118

The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin: is the universe governed by chance, blind fate, anonymous necessity, or by a transcendent, intelligent and good Being called "God"? and if the world does come from God's wisdom and goodness, why is there evil? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for it? Is there any liberation from it?

Since the beginning the Christian Faith has been challenged by responses to the question of origins that differ from its own. Ancient religions and cultures produced many myths concerning origins. Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of God (Pantheism). Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation arising from God and returning to him. Still others have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked, in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (Deism). Finally, others reject any transcendent origin for the world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed (Materialism). All these attempts bear witness to the permanence and universality of the question of origins. This inquiry is distinctively human.

Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. the existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reaSon, 122 even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why Faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this Truth: "By faith we understand that the world was Created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear." 123

The Truth about Creation is so important for all of human life that God in his tenderness wanted to reveal to his People everything that is salutary to know on the subject. Beyond the natural knowledge that every man can have of the Creator, 124 God progressively Revealed to Israel the Mystery of creation. He who chose the patriarchs, who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who by chooSing Israel Created and formed it, this same God reveals himself as the One to whom belong all the peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself; he is the One who alone "made heaven and earth". 125

Thus the revelation of Creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the Covenant of the one God with his People. Creation is Revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful Love. 126 and so, the Truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigour in the message of the prophets, the Prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People. 127

Among all the Scriptural texts about Creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. the inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the Truths of creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of Sin and the hope of Salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.

"In the beginning God Created the heavens and the earth": 128 three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew bara - always has God for its subject). the totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the heavens and the earth") depends on the One who gives it being.

"In the beginning was the Word. . . and the Word was God. . . all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." 129 The New Testament reveals that God Created everything by the eternal Word, his beLoved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth.. . all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." 130 The Church's Faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the "giver of life", "the Creator Spirit" (Veni, Creator Spiritus), the "source of every good". 131

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.

Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental Truth: "The world was made for the Glory of God." 134 St. Bonaventure explains that God Created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it", 135 for God has no other reaSon for creating than his Love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand." 136 The First Vatican Council explains:

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

We believe that God Created the world according to his wisdom. 141 It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God's free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: "For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." 142 Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: "O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all"; and "The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made." 143 God creates "out of nothing"

We believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create, nor is Creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance. 144 God creates freely "out of nothing": 145

Since God could create everything out of nothing, he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to sinners by creating a pure Heart in them, 148 and bodily life to the dead through the Resurrection. God "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." 149 and since God was able to make light shine in darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of Faith to those who do not yet know him. 150

Because God creates through wisdom, his Creation is ordered: "You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight." 151 The universe, Created in and by the eternal Word, the "Image of the invisible God", is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the "image of God" and called to a perSonal relationship with God. 152 Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work. 153 Because creation comes forth from God's goodness, it shares in that goodness - "and God saw that it was good. . . very good" 154 - for God willed creation as a Gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world. 155

God is infinitely greater than all his works: "You have set your Glory above the heavens." 156 Indeed, God's "greatness is unsearchable". 157 But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures' inmost being: "In him we live and move and have our being." 158 In the words of St. Augustine, God is "higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self". 159

With Creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence:

Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. the universe was Created "in a state of journeying" (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call "divine providence" the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history. the sacred books powerfully affirm God's absolute sovereignty over the course of events: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases." 162 and so it is with Christ, "who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens". 163 As the book of Proverbs states: "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established." 164

And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a "primitive mode of speech", but a profound way of recalling God's primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world, 165 and so of educating his people to trust in him. the Prayer of the Psalms is the great school of this trust. 166

God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures' co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God's greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of "subduing" the earth and having dominion over it. 168 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of Creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbours. Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their Prayers and their sufferings. 169 They then fully become "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his Kingdom. 170

The Truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from Faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." 171 Far from diminishing the creature's dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God's power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes." 172 Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God's Grace. 173

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.

But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. 174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as Creation has not reached perfection. 175

Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential Love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have Sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. 176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive." 178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the Sins of all men - God, by his Grace that "abounded all the more", 179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

"We know that in everything God works for good for those who Love him." 180 The constant witness of the saints confirms this Truth:

We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God "face to face", 184 will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and Sin - God has guided his Creation to that definitive sabbath rest 185 for which he Created heaven and earth.

The Apostles' Creed professes that God is "Creator of heaven and earth". the Nicene Creed makes it explicit that this profession includes "all that is, seen and unseen".

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

The profession of Faith of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirms that God "from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then (deinde) the human creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body." 187

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

Angels have been present Since Creation and throughout the history of Salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham's hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples. 194 Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself. 195

From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of angels. When God "brings the firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship him.'" 196 Their Song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church's praise: "Glory to God in the highest!" 197 They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them from the hands of his enemies as Israel had been. 198 Again, it is the angels who "evangelize" by proclaiming the Good News of Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection. 199 They will be present at Christ's return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgement. 200

In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the Roman Canon's Supplices te rogamus. . .["Almighty God, we pray that your angel..."]; in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).

From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. 202 "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life." 203 Already here on earth the Christian life shares by Faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.

God himself Created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine "work", concluded by the "rest" of the seventh day. 204 On the subject of Creation, the sacred text teaches the Truths Revealed by God for our Salvation, 205 permitting us to "recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God." 206

Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. the world began when God's word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history are rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun. 207

Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection. For each one of the works of the "six days" it is said: "and God saw that it was good." "By the very nature of Creation, material being is endowed with its own stability, Truth and excellence, its own order and laws." 208 Each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God's infinite wisdom and goodness. Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature, to avoid any disordered use of things which would be in contempt of the Creator and would bring disastrous consequences for human beings and their environment.

God wills the interdependence of creatures. the sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow: the spectacle of their countless diversities and inequalities tells us that no creature is self-sufficient. Creatures exist only in dependence on each other, to complete each other, in the service of each other.

The hierarchy of creatures is expressed by the order of the "six days", from the less perfect to the more perfect. God Loves all his creatures 209 and takes care of each one, even the sparrow. Nevertheless, Jesus said: "You are of more value than many sparrows", or again: "of how much more value is a man than a sheep!" 210

The sabbath - the end of the work of the six days. the sacred text says that "on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done", that the "heavens and the earth were finished", and that God "rested" on this day and sanctified and blessed it. 213 These inspired words are rich in profitable instruction:

In Creation God laid a foundation and established laws that remain firm, on which the believer can rely with confidence, for they are the sign and pledge of the unshakeable Faithfulness of God's Covenant. 214 For his part man must remain Faithful to this foundation, and respect the laws which the Creator has written into it.

Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. Worship is inscribed in the order of creation. 215 As the rule of St. Benedict says, nothing should take precedence over "the work of God", that is, solemn worship. 216 This indicates the right order of human concerns.

The sabbath is at the Heart of Israel's law. To keep the commandments is to correspond to the wisdom and the will of God as expressed in his work of Creation.

"God Created man in his own Image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." 218 Man occupies a unique place in Creation: (I) he is "in the image of God"; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created "male and female"; (IV) God established him in his friendship.

Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and Love his Creator". 219 He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for himself", 220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was Created, and this is the fundamental reaSon for his dignity: What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good. 221

Being in the Image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a perSon, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into Communion with other persons. and he is called by Grace to a Covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of Faith and Love that no other creature can give in his stead.

God Created everything for man, 222 but man in turn was created to serve and Love God and to offer all Creation back to him: What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honour? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his Salvation that he did not spare his own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to himself and made him sit at his right hand. 223

Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity, for "from one ancestor (God) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth": 226

The human perSon, Created in the Image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. the biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." 229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human perSon. 230 But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, 231 that by which he is most especially in God's Image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.

The human body shares in the dignity of "the Image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human perSon that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit: 232

The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is Created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection. 235

Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. 236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. 237 "Spirit" signifies that from Creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to Communion with God. 238

The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the Heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the perSon decides for or against God. 239

Man and woman have been Created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human perSons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. 240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the Image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.

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

God Created man and woman together and willed each for the other. the Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." 242 None of the animals can be man's partner. 243 The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of Love and Communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." 244 Man discovers woman as another "I", sharing the same humanity.

Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he Created them to be a Communion of perSons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", 245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." 246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents co-operate in a unique way in the Creator's work. 247

In God's plan man and woman have the vocation of "subduing" the earth 248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the Image of the Creator "who Loves everything that exists", 249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.

The "mastery" over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. the first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence 254 that subjugates him to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reaSon.

The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden. 255 There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden, 256 but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible Creation.

This entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God's plan, will be lost by the Sin of our first parents.

God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine, 257 and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For "the Mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the "mystery of our religion". 258 The revelation of divine Love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of Grace. 259 We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our Faith on him who alone is its conqueror. 260

Sin is present in human history; any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God, for only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity's rejection of God and opposition to him, even as it continues to weigh heavy on human life and history.

Only the light of divine Revelation clarifies the reality of Sin and particularly of the sin committed at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to Created perSons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another.

With the progress of Revelation, the reality of Sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story's ultimate meaning, which is Revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 261 We must know Christ as the source of Grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. the Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came to "convict the world concerning sin", 262 by revealing him who is its Redeemer.

Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. 266 Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". 267 The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed Created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing." 268

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

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.

The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his Kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature - to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great Mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who Love him." 275

God Created man in his Image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. the prohibition against eating "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." 276 The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" 277 symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of Creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his Heart and, abuSing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. 278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

In that Sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully "divinized" by God in Glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to "be like God", but "without God, before God, and not in accordance with God". 279

Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the Grace of original holiness. 280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted Image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives. 281

After that first Sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the history of Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses. and even after Christ's atonement, sin raises its head in countless ways among Christians. 287 Scripture and the Church's Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man's history:

Although it is proper to each individual, 295 original Sin does not have the character of a perSonal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's Grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

The Church's teaching on the transmission of original Sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's Grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. the first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. the Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) 296 and at the Council of Trent (1546). 297

After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall. 304 This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers.

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

But why did God not prevent the first man from Sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible Grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away." 307 and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'" 308

'But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.' 1 This is 'the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God': 2 God has visited his people. He has fulfilled the promise he made to Abraham and his descendants. He acted far beyond all expectation - he has sent his own 'beLoved Son'. 3

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

In catechesis "Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God,. . . is taught - everything else is taught with reference to him - and it is Christ alone who teaches - anyone else teaches to the extent that he is Christ's spokesman, enabling Christ to teach with his lips. . . Every catechist should be able to apply to himself the mysterious words of Jesus: 'My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.'" 16

From this loving knowledge of Christ springs the desire to proclaim him, to "evangelize", and to lead others to the "yes" of Faith in Jesus Christ. But at the same time the need to know this faith better makes itself felt. To this end, following the order of the Creed, Jesus' principal titles - "Christ", "Son of God", and "Lord" (article 2) - will be presented. the Creed next confesses the chief mysteries of his life - those of his Incarnation (article 3), Paschal Mystery (articles 4 and 5) and glorification (articles 6 and 7).

Jesus means in Hebrew: "God saves." At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel gave him the name Jesus as his proper name, which expresses both his identity and his mission. 18 Since God alone can forgive Sins, it is God who, in Jesus his eternal Son made man, "will save his people from their sins". 19 in Jesus, God recapitulates all of his history of Salvation on behalf of men.

In the history of Salvation God was not content to deliver Israel "out of the house of bondage" 20 by bringing them out of Egypt. He also saves them from their Sin. Because sin is always an offence against God, only he can forgive it. 21 For this reaSon Israel, becoming more and more aware of the universality of sin, will no longer be able to seek salvation except by invoking the name of the Redeemer God. 22

The name "Jesus" signifies that the very name of God is present in the perSon of his Son, made man for the universal and definitive redemption from Sins. It is the divine name that alone brings Salvation, and henceforth all can invoke his name, for Jesus united himself to all men through his Incarnation, 23 so that "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." 24

The name of the Saviour God was invoked only once in the year by the high priest in atonement for the Sins of Israel, after he had sprinkled the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood. the mercy seat was the place of God's presence. 25 When St. Paul speaks of Jesus whom "God put forward as an expiation by his blood", he means that in Christ's humanity "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." 26

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

The name of Jesus is at the Heart of Christian Prayer. All liturgical prayers conclude with the words "through our Lord Jesus Christ". the Hail Mary reaches its high point in the words "blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." the Eastern prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, says: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a Sinner." Many Christians, such as St. Joan of Arc, have died with the one word "Jesus" on their lips.

The word "Christ" comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means "anointed". It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that "Christ" signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for prophets. 29 This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to inaugurate his Kingdom definitively. 30 It was necessary that the Messiah be anointed by the Spirit of the Lord at once as king and priest, and also as prophet. 31 Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet and king.

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

Many Jews and even certain Gentiles who shared their hope recognized in Jesus the fundamental attributes of the messianic "Son of David", promised by God to Israel. 38 Jesus accepted his rightful title of Messiah, though with some reserve because it was understood by some of his contemporaries in too human a sense, as essentially political. 39

Jesus accepted Peter's profession of Faith, which acknowledged him to be the Messiah, by announcing the imminent Passion of the Son of Man. 40 He unveiled the authentic content of his messianic kingship both in the transcendent identity of the Son of Man "who came down from heaven", and in his redemptive mission as the suffering Servant: "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 41 Hence the true meaning of his kingship is Revealed only when he is raised high on the cross. 42 Only after his Resurrection will Peter be able to proclaim Jesus' messianic kingship to the People of God: "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." 43

In the Old Testament, "Son of God" is a title given to the angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings. 44 It signifies an adoptive sonship that establishes a relationship of particular intimacy between God and his creature. When the promised Messiah-King is called "son of God", it does not necessarily imply that he was more than human, according to the literal meaning of these texts. Those who called Jesus "son of God", as the Messiah of Israel, perhaps meant nothing more than this. 45

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

Very often in the Gospels people address Jesus as "Lord". This title testifies to the respect and trust of those who approach him for help and healing. 62 At the prompting of the Holy Spirit, "Lord" expresses the recognition of the divine Mystery of Jesus. 63 In the encounter with the risen Jesus, this title becomes adoration: "My Lord and my God!" It thus takes on a connotation of Love and affection that remains proper to the Christian tradition: "It is the Lord!" 64

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 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 so that thus we might know God's Love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." 72 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." 73

The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": 78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into Communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." 79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." 80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." 81

Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word became flesh", 82 The Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our Salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church Sings the Mystery of the Incarnation:

Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian Faith: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." 85 Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she Sings "the Mystery of our religion": "He was manifested in the flesh." 86

The unique and altogether Singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this Truth of Faith against the heresies that falsified it.

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 Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human perSon joined to the divine person of God's Son. OppoSing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man." 89 Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh." 90

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

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of perSonal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity." 93 Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of Glory, and one of the Holy Trinity." 94

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

Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed", 97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ's human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine perSon of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from "one of the Trinity".

This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man", 101 and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. 102 This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave". 103

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

At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus "we see our God made visible and so are caught up in Love of the God we cannot see." 114 The individual characteristics of Christ's body express the divine perSon of God's Son. He has made the features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a holy Image, for the believer "who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted". 115

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 Annunciation to Mary inaugurates "the fullness of time", 119 The time of the fulfilment of God's promises and preparations. Mary was invited to conceive him in whom the "whole fullness of deity" would dwell "bodily". 120 The divine response to her question, "How can this be, Since I know not man?", was given by the power of the Spirit: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you." 121

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

"God sent forth his Son", but to prepare a body for him, 125 he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary": 126

Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary. At the very beginning there was Eve; despite her disobedience, she receives the promise of a posterity that will be victorious over the evil one, as well as the promise that she will be the mother of all the living. 128 By virtue of this promise, Sarah conceives a Son in spite of her old age. 129 Against all human expectation God chooses those who were considered powerless and weak to show forth his Faithfulness to his promises: Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther; and many other women. 130 Mary "stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive Salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established." 131

To become the mother of the Saviour, Mary "was enriched by God with Gifts appropriate to such a role." 132 The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of Grace". 133 In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her Faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace.

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of Grace" through God, 134 was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

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. . ."

At the announcement that she would give birth to "the Son of the Most High" without knowing man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary responded with the obedience of Faith, certain that "with God nothing will be impossible": "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." 139 Thus, giving her consent to God's word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. EspouSing the divine will for Salvation wholeHeartedly, without a single sin to restrain her, she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son; she did so in order to serve the Mystery of redemption with him and dependent on him, by God's Grace: 140

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

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

People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Mark's Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus' virginal conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers, Jews and pagans alike; 151 so it could hardly have been motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age. the meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the "connection of these mysteries with one another" 152 in the totality of Christ's mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover. St. Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this connection: "Mary's virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord's death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in God's silence." 153

The deepening of Faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. 154 In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." 155 and so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin". 156

Jesus is Mary's only Son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: "The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the Faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother's Love." 160

The eyes of Faith can discover in the context of the whole of Revelation the mysterious reaSons why God in his saving plan wanted his Son to be born of a virgin. These reasons touch both on the person of Christ and his redemptive mission, and on the welcome Mary gave that mission on behalf of all men.

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

Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary's womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new Creation: "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven." 162 From his conception, Christ's humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God "gives him the Spirit without measure." 163 From "his fullness" as the head of redeemed humanity "we have all received, Grace upon grace." 164

By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through Faith. "How can this be?" 165 Participation in the divine life arises "not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God". 166 The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit's Gift to man. the spousal character of the human vocation in relation to God 167 is fulfilled perfectly in Mary's virginal motherhood.

Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her Faith "unadulterated by any doubt", and of her undivided Gift of herself to God's will. 168 It is her faith that enables her to become the mother of the Saviour: "Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ." 169

At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: "the Church indeed. . . by receiving the word of God in Faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth Sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse." 170

Many things about Jesus of interest to human curiosity do not figure in the Gospels. Almost nothing is said about his hidden life at Nazareth, and even a great part of his public life is not recounted. 172 What is written in the Gospels was set down there "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." 173

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

Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. "By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man." 193 We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model:

The coming of God's Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the "First Covenant". 195 He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the Hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming.

St. John the Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare his way. 196 "Prophet of the Most High", John surpasses all the prophets, of whom he is the last. 197 He inaugurates the Gospel, already from his mother's womb welcomes the coming of Christ, and rejoices in being "the friend of the bridegroom", whom he points out as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the Sin of the world". 198 Going before Jesus "in the spirit and power of Elijah", John bears witness to Christ in his preaching, by his Baptism of conversion, and through his martyrdom. 199

To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the Kingdom. 205 For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God". 206 Only when Christ is formed in us will the Mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. 207 Christmas is the mystery of this "marvellous exchange":

The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Saviour of the world. the great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee. 212 In the magi, representatives of the neighbouring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of Salvation through the Incarnation. the magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations. 213 Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Saviour of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. 214 The Epiphany shows that "the full number of the nations" now takes its "place in the family of the patriarchs", and acquires Israelitica dignitas 215 (is made "worthy of the heritage of Israel").

The presentation of Jesus in the temple shows him to be the firstborn Son who belongs to the Lord. 216 With Simeon and Anna, all Israel awaits its encounter with the Saviour - the name given to this event in the Byzantine tradition. Jesus is recognized as the long-expected Messiah, the "light to the nations" and the "Glory of Israel", but also "a sign that is spoken against". the sword of sorrow predicted for Mary announces Christ's perfect and unique oblation on the cross that will impart the Salvation God had "prepared in the presence of all peoples".

The flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents 217 make manifest the opposition of darkness to the light: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not." 218 Christ's whole life was lived under the sign of persecution. His own share it with him. 219 Jesus' departure from Egypt recalls the exodus and presents him as the definitive liberator of God's people. 220

During the greater part of his life Jesus shared the condition of the vast majority of human beings: a daily life spent without evident greatness, a life of manual labour. His religious life was that of a Jew obedient to the law of God, 221 a life in the community. From this whole period it is Revealed to us that Jesus was "obedient" to his parents and that he "increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man." 222

Jesus' public life begins with his baptism by John in the Jordan. 228 John preaches "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of Sins". 229 A crowd of Sinners 230 - tax collectors and soldiers, Pharisees and Sadducees, and prostitutes - come to be baptized by him. "Then Jesus appears." the Baptist hesitates, but Jesus insists and receives baptism. Then the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, comes upon Jesus and a voice from heaven proclaims, "This is my beLoved Son." 231 This is the manifestation ("Epiphany") of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and Son of God.

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.

The Gospels speak of a time of solitude for Jesus in the desert immediately after his baptism by John. Driven by the Spirit into the desert, Jesus remains there for forty days without eating; he lives among wild beasts, and angels minister to him. 241 At the end of this time Satan tempts him three times, seeking to compromise his filial attitude toward God. Jesus rebuffs these attacks, which recapitulate the temptations of Adam in Paradise and of Israel in the desert, and the devil leaves him "until an opportune time". 242

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.

Jesus' temptation reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes to him and the way men wish to attribute to him. 244 This is why Christ vanquished the Tempter for us: "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without Sinning." 245 By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the Mystery of Jesus in the desert.

"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

Christ stands at the Heart of this gathering of men into the "family of God". By his word, through signs that manifest the reign of God, and by sending out his disciples, Jesus calls all people to come together around him. But above all in the great Paschal Mystery - his death on the cross and his Resurrection - he would accomplish the coming of his Kingdom. "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." Into this union with Christ all men are called. 250

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

By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death, 274 Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless he did not come to abolish all evils here below, 275 but to free men from the gravest slavery, Sin, which thwarts them in their vocation as God's Sons and causes all forms of human bondage. 276

The coming of God's Kingdom means the defeat of Satan's: "If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." 277 Jesus' exorcisms free some individuals from the domination of demons. They anticipate Jesus' great victory over "the ruler of this world". 278 The kingdom of God will be definitively established through Christ's cross: "God reigned from the wood." 279

From the beginning of his public life Jesus chose certain men, twelve in number, to be with him and to participate in his mission. 280 He gives the Twelve a share in his authority and 'sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal." 281 They remain associated for ever with Christ's kingdom, for through them he directs the Church:

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

Jesus entrusted a specific authority to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 287 The "power of the keys" designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: "Feed my sheep." 288 The power to "bind and loose" connotes the authority to absolve Sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgements, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through the ministry of the apostles 289 and in particular through the ministry of Peter, the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom.

From the day Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Master "began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things. . . and be killed, and on the third day be raised." 290 Peter scorns this prediction, nor do the others understand it any better than he. 291 In this context the mysterious episode of Jesus' Transfiguration takes place on a high mountain, 292 before three witnesses chosen by himself: Peter, James and John. Jesus' face and clothes become dazzling with light, and Moses and Elijah appear, speaking "of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem". 293 A cloud covers him and a voice from heaven says: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" 294

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

On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus' baptism proclaimed "the Mystery of the first regeneration", namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration "is the sacrament of the second regeneration": our own Resurrection. 300 From now on we share in the Lord's Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. the Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ's glorious coming, when he "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body." 301 But it also recalls that "it is through many persecutions that we must enter the Kingdom of God": 302

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.

The Paschal Mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the centre of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God's saving plan was accomplished "once for all" 313 by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.

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

In the eyes of many in Israel, Jesus seems to be acting against essential institutions of the Chosen People: - submission to the whole of the Law in its written commandments and, for the Pharisees, in the interpretation of oral tradition; - the centrality of the Temple at Jerusalem as the holy place where God's presence dwells in a special way; - Faith in the one God whose Glory no man can share.

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he presented God's law, given on Sinai during the first Covenant, in light of the Grace of the New Covenant:

Jesus, Israel's Messiah and therefore the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven, was to fulfil the Law by keeping it in its all embracing detail - according to his own words, down to "the least of these commandments". 330 He is in fact the only one who could keep it perfectly. 331 On their own admission the Jews were never able to observe the Law in its entirety without violating the least of its precepts. 332 This is why every year on the Day of Atonement the children of Israel ask God's forgiveness for their transgressions of the Law. the Law indeed makes up one inseparable whole, and St. James recalls, "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." 333

This principle of integral observance of the Law not only in letter but in spirit was dear to the Pharisees. By giving Israel this principle they had led many Jews of Jesus' time to an extreme religious zeal. 334 This zeal, were it not to lapse into "hypocritical" casuistry, 335 could only prepare the People for the unprecedented intervention of God through the perfect fulfilment of the Law by the only Righteous One in place of all Sinners. 336

The Jewish people and their spiritual leaders viewed Jesus as a rabbi. 340 He often argued within the framework of rabbinical interpretation of the Law. 341 Yet Jesus could not help but offend the teachers of the Law, for he was not content to propose his interpretation alongside theirs but taught the people "as one who had authority, and not as their scribes". 342 In Jesus, the same Word of God that had resounded on Mount Sinai to give the written Law to Moses, made itself heard anew on the Mount of the Beatitudes. 343 Jesus did not abolish the Law but fulfilled it by giving its ultimate interpretation in a divine way: "You have heard that it was said to the men of old. . . But I say to you. . ." 344 With this same divine authority, he disavowed certain human traditions of the Pharisees that were "making void the word of God". 345

Going even further, Jesus perfects the dietary law, so important in Jewish daily life, by revealing its pedagogical meaning through a divine interpretation: "Whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him. . . (Thus he declared all foods clean.). . . What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the Heart of man, come evil thoughts. . ." 346 In presenting with divine authority the definitive interpretation of the Law, Jesus found himself confronted by certain teachers of the Law who did not accept his interpretation of the Law, guaranteed though it was by the divine signs that accompanied it. 347 This was the case especially with the sabbath laws, for he recalls, often with rabbinical arguments, that the sabbath rest is not violated by serving God and neighbour, 348 which his own healings did.

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

Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward Sinners with God's own attitude toward them. 367 He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet. 368 But it was most especially by forgiving Sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 369 By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God's equal, or is speaking the Truth and his perSon really does make present and reveal God's name. 370

The historical complexity of Jesus' trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. the perSonal Sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles' calls to conversion after Pentecost. 385 Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept "the ignorance" of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders. 386 Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd's cry: "His blood be on us and on our children!", a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence. 387 As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council: . . .

Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the Mystery of God's plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus (was) delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." 393 This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God. 394

To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each perSon's free response to his Grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." 395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of Salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. 396 "He died for our Sins in accordance with the Scriptures"

The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of Salvation through the putting to death of "the righteous one, my Servant" as a Mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of Sin. 397 Citing a confession of Faith that he himself had "received", St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our Sins in accordance with the scriptures." 398 In particular Jesus' redemptive death fulfils Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering Servant. 399 Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering Servant. 400 After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles. 401

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

By giving up his own Son for our Sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent Love, prior to any merit on our part: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our Sins." 408 God "shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." 409

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

After agreeing to baptize him along with the Sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". 422 By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover. 423 Christ's whole life expresses his mission: "to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 424

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

Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through "the Lamb of God, who takes away the Sin of the world", 439 and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to Communion with God by reconciling him to God through the "blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of Sins". 440

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 cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men". 452 But because in his incarnate divine perSon he has in some way united himself to every man, "the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal Mystery" is offered to all men. 453 He calls his disciples to "take up [their] cross and follow (him)", 454 for "Christ also suffered for (us), leaving (us) an example so that (we) should follow in his steps." 455 In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. 456 This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering. 457 Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven. 458

"By the Grace of God" Jesus tasted death "for every one". 459 In his plan of Salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only "die for our Sins" 460 but should also "taste death", experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. the state of the dead Christ is the Mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, 461 reveals God's great sabbath rest 462 after the fulfilment 463 of man's salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe. 464

Since the "Author of life" who was killed 467 is the same "living one [who has] risen", 468 The divine perSon of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death:

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. 479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom": 480 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell." 481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him. 482

Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." 484 Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." 485 Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." 486

"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:

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 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.

"So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God." 531 Christ's body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. 532 But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the Kingdom, his Glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. 533 Jesus' final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God's right hand. 534 Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul "as to one untimely born", in a last apparition that established him as an apostle. 535

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

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

"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 God's plan has entered into its fulfilment. We are already at "the last hour". 553 "Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect." 554 Christ's Kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the Church. 555 . . . until all things are subjected to him

Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great Glory" by the King's return to earth. 556 This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ's Passover. 557 Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the Sons of God." 558 That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return by saying to him: 559 Maranatha! "Our Lord, come!" 560

The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. 568 St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your Sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." 569 St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" 570 The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's Salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", 571 will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all". 572

Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the Faith of many believers. 573 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrImage on earth 574 will unveil the "Mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the Truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. 575

The Church will enter the Glory of the Kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. 578 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. 579 God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this pasSing world. 580

Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgement of the Last Day in his preaching. 581 Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of Hearts be brought to light. 582 Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God's Grace as nothing be condemned. 583 Our attitude to our neighbour will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine Love. 584 On the Last Day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." 585

"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.

"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 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.

Besides the proper name of "Holy Spirit," which is most frequently used in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles, we also find in St. Paul the titles: the Spirit of the promise, 21 The Spirit of adoption, 22 The Spirit of Christ, 23 The Spirit of the Lord, 24 and the Spirit of God 25 - and, in St. Peter, the Spirit of Glory. 26

Anointing. the symbolism of anointing with oil also signifies the Holy Spirit, 30 to the point of becoming a synonym for the Holy Spirit. In Christian initiation, anointing is the sacramental sign of Confirmation, called "chrismation" in the Churches of the East. Its full force can be grasped only in relation to the priMary anointing accomplished by the Holy Spirit, that of Jesus. Christ (in Hebrew "messiah") means the one "anointed" by God's Spirit. There were several anointed ones of the Lord in the Old Covenant, pre-eminently King David. 31 But Jesus is God's Anointed in a unique way: the humanity the Son assumed was entirely anointed by the Holy Spirit. the Holy Spirit established him as "Christ." 32 The Virgin Mary conceived Christ by the Holy Spirit who, through the angel, proclaimed him the Christ at his birth, and prompted Simeon to come to the temple to see the Christ of the Lord. 33 The Spirit filled Christ and the power of the Spirit went out from him in his acts of healing and of saving. 34 Finally, it was the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. 35 Now, fully established as "Christ" in his humanity victorious over death, Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit abundantly until "the saints" constitute - in their union with the humanity of the Son of God - that perfect man "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ": 36 "the whole Christ," in St. Augustine's expression.

Cloud and light. These two Images occur together in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. In the theophanies of the Old Testament, the cloud, now obscure, now luminous, reveals the living and saving God, while veiling the transcendence of his Glory - with Moses on Mount Sinai, 43 at the tent of meeting, 44 and during the wandering in the desert, 45 and with Solomon at the dedication of the Temple. 46 In the Holy Spirit, Christ fulfills these figures. the Spirit comes upon the Virgin Mary and "overshadows" her, so that she might conceive and give birth to Jesus. 47 On the mountain of Transfiguration, the Spirit in the "cloud came and overshadowed" Jesus, Moses and Elijah, Peter, James and John, and "a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!'" 48 Finally, the cloud took Jesus out of the sight of the disciples on the day of his ascension and will reveal him as Son of man in glory on the day of his final coming. 49

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

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 Word of God and his Breath are at the origin of the being and life of every creature: 63

"God fashioned man with his own hands [that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit] and impressed his own form on the flesh he had fashioned, in such a way that even what was visible might bear the divine form." 65

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."

Against all human hope, God promises descendants to Abraham, as the fruit of Faith and of the power of the Holy Spirit. 68 In Abraham's progeny all the nations of the earth will be blessed. This progeny will be Christ himself, 69 in whom the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will "gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." 70 God commits himself by his own solemn oath to giving his beLoved Son and "the promised Holy Spirit . . . [who is] the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it." 71

Theophanies (manifestations of God) light up the way of the promise, from the patriarchs to Moses and from Joshua to the visions that inaugurated the missions of the great prophets. Christian tradition has always recognized that God's Word allowed himself to be seen and heard in these theophanies, in which the cloud of the Holy Spirit both Revealed him and concealed him in its shadow.

This divine pedagogy appears especially in the Gift of the Law. 72 God gave the letter of the Law as a "pedagogue" to lead his people towards Christ. 73 But the Law's powerlessness to save man deprived of the divine "likeness," along with the growing awareness of Sin that it imparts, 74 enkindles a desire for the Holy Spirit. the lamentations of the Psalms bear witness to this.

The Law, the sign of God's promise and Covenant, ought to have governed the Hearts and institutions of that people to whom Abraham's Faith gave birth. "If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, . . . you shall be to me a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation." 75 But after David, Israel gave in to the temptation of becoming a kingdom like other nations. the Kingdom, however, the object of the promise made to David, 76 would be the work of the Holy Spirit; it would belong to the poor according to the Spirit.

The forgetting of the Law and the infidelity to the Covenant end in death: it is the Exile, apparently the failure of the promises, which is in fact the mysterious fidelity of the Savior God and the beginning of a promised restoration, but according to the Spirit. the People of God had to suffer this purification. 77 In God's plan, the Exile already stands in the shadow of the Cross, and the Remnant of the poor that returns from the Exile is one of the most transparent prefigurations of the Church.

The prophetic texts that directly concern the sending of the Holy Spirit are oracles by which God speaks to the Heart of his people in the language of the promise, with the accents of "Love and fidelity." 85 St. Peter will proclaim their fulfillment on the morning of Pentecost. 86 According to these promises, at the "end time" the Lord's Spirit will renew the hearts of men, engraving a new law in them. He will gather and reconcile the scattered and divided peoples; he will transform the first Creation, and God will dwell there with men in peace.

The People of the "poor" 87 - those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God's mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah - are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit's hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ's coming. It is this quality of Heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit is making ready "a people prepared for the Lord." 88

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." 89 John was "filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb" 90 by Christ himself, whom the Virgin Mary had just conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary's visitation to Elizabeth thus became a visit from God to his people. 91

John the Baptist is "more than a prophet." 94 In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah. 95 He proclaims the imminence of the consolation of Israel; he is the "voice" of the Consoler who is coming. 96 As the Spirit of Truth will also do, John "came to bear witness to the light." 97 In John's sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfills the longing of the angels. 98 "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.... Behold, the Lamb of God." 99

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

Finally, through Mary, the Holy Spirit begins to bring men, the objects of God's merciful Love, 107 into Communion with Christ. and the humble are always the first to accept him: shepherds, magi, Simeon and Anna, the bride and groom at Cana, and the first disciples.

"God is Love" 124 and love is his first Gift, containing all others. "God's love has been poured into our Hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." 125

He, then, gives us the "pledge" or "first fruits" of our inheritance: the very life of the Holy Trinity, which is to Love as "God (has) loved us." 127 This love (the "charity" of 1 Cor 13) is the source of the new life in Christ, made possible because we have received "power" from the Holy Spirit. 128

By this power of the Spirit, God's children can bear much fruit. He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear "the fruit of the Spirit: . . . Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." 129 "We live by the Spirit"; the more we renounce ourselves, the more we "walk by the Spirit." 130

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

These "mighty works of God," offered to believers in the sacraments of the Church, bear their fruit in the new life in Christ, according to the Spirit. (This will be the topic of Part Three.)

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sighs too deep for words." 134 The Holy Spirit, the artisan of God's works, is the master of Prayer. (This will be the topic of Part Four.)

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

The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. 139 Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. 140 By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. the equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."

In Christian usage, the word "Church" designates the liturgical assembly, 141 but also the local community 142 or the whole universal community of believers. 143 These three meanings are inseparable. "The Church" is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ's Body.

In Scripture, we find a host of interrelated Images and figures through which Revelation speaks of the inexhaustible Mystery of the Church. the images taken from the Old Testament are variations on a profound theme: the People of God. In the New Testament, all these images find a new center because Christ has become the head of this people, which henceforth is his Body. 144 Around this center are grouped images taken "from the life of the shepherd or from cultivation of the land, from the art of building or from family life and marriage." 145

"The Church is, accordingly, a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ. It is also the flock of which God himself foretold that he would be the shepherd, and whose sheep, even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of Shepherds, who gave his life for his sheep. 146

"The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing. 147

"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

"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

Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was Created for the sake of the Church." 153 God created the world for the sake of Communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "convocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church. the Church is the goal of all things, 154 and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels' fall and man's Sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the Love he wanted to give the world:

The gathering together of the People of God began at the moment when Sin destroyed the Communion of men with God, and that of men among themselves. the gathering together of the Church is, as it were, God's reaction to the chaos provoked by sin. This reunification is achieved secretly in the Heart of all peoples: "In every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable" to God. 156

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

So that she can fulfill her mission, the Holy Spirit "bestows upon [the Church] varied hierarchic and charismatic Gifts, and in this way directs her." 177 "Henceforward the Church, endowed with the gifts of her founder and Faithfully observing his precepts of charity, humility and self-denial, receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is on earth the seed and the beginning of that kingdom." 178

"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

It is in the Church that Christ fulfills and reveals his own Mystery as the purpose of God's plan: "to unite all things in him." 189 St. Paul calls the nuptial union of Christ and the Church "a great mystery." Because she is united to Christ as to her bridegroom, she becomes a mystery in her turn. 190 Contemplating this mystery in her, Paul exclaims: "Christ in you, the hope of Glory." 191

In the Church this Communion of men with God, in the "Love [that] never ends," is the purpose which governs everything in her that is a sacramental means, tied to this pasSing world. 192 "[The Church's] structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's members. and holiness is measured according to the 'great Mystery' in which the Bride responds with the Gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom." 193 Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church's mystery as "the bride without spot or wrinkle." 194 This is why the "Marian" dimension of the Church precedes the "Petrine." 195

The Greek word mysterion was translated into Latin by two terms: mystenum and sacramentum. In later usage the term sacramentum emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of Salvation which was indicated by the term mystenum. In this sense, Christ himself is the Mystery of salvation: "For there is no other mystery of God, except Christ." 196 The saving work of his holy and sanctifying humanity is the sacrament of salvation, which is Revealed and active in the Church's sacraments (which the Eastern Churches also call "the holy mysteries"). the seven sacraments are the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the Grace of Christ the head throughout the Church which is his Body. the Church, then, both contains and communicates the invisible grace she signifies. It is in this analogical sense, that the Church is called a "sacrament."

"The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament - a sign and instrument, that is, of Communion with God and of unity among all men." 197 The Church's first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men's communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race. In her, this unity is already begun, Since she gathers men "from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues"; 198 at the same time, the Church is the "sign and instrument" of the full realization of the unity yet to come.

As sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument. "She is taken up by him also as the instrument for the Salvation of all," "the universal sacrament of salvation," by which Christ is "at once manifesting and actualizing the Mystery of God's Love for men." 199 The Church "is the visible plan of God's love for humanity," because God desires "that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit." 200

"At all times and in every race, anyone who fears God and does what is right has been acceptable to him. He has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness. He therefore chose the Israelite race to be his own people and established a Covenant with it. He gradually instructed this people.... All these things, however, happened as a preparation for and figure of that new and perfect covenant which was to be ratified in Christ . . . the New Covenant in his blood; he called together a race made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in the Spirit." 201

The People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history: - It is the People of God: God is not the property of any one people. But he acquired a people for himself from those who previously were not a people: "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." 202 - One becomes a member of this people not by a physical birth, but by being "born anew," a birth "of water and the Spirit," 203 that is, by Faith in Christ, and Baptism. - This People has for its Head Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah). Because the same anointing, the Holy Spirit, flows from the head into the body, this is "the messianic people." - "The status of this people is that of the dignity and freedom of the Sons of God, in whose Hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple." - "Its law is the new commandment to Love as Christ loved us." 204 This is the "new" law of the Holy Spirit. 205 - Its mission is to be salt of the earth and light of the world. 206 This people is "a most sure seed of unity, hope, and Salvation for the whole human race." -Its destiny, finally, "is the Kingdom of God which has been begun by God himself on earth and which must be further extended until it has been brought to perfection by him at the end of time." 207

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

"The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office," above all in the supernatural sense of Faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it "unfailingly adheres to this faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints," 210 and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ's witness in the midst of this world.

Finally, the People of God shares in the royal office of Christ. He exercises his kingship by drawing all men to himself through his death and Resurrection. 211 Christ, King and Lord of the universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came "not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 212 For the Christian, "to reign is to serve him," particularly when serving "the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the Image of her poor and suffering founder." 213 The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with Christ.

Believers who respond to God's word and become members of Christ's Body, become intimately united with him: "In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe, and who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ in his Passion and glorification." 220 This is especially true of Baptism, which unites us to Christ's death and Resurrection, and the Eucharist, by which "really sharing in the body of the Lord, . . . we are taken up into Communion with him and with one another." 221

"What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church." 243 "To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined one with the other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members." 244 The Holy Spirit makes the Church "the temple of the living God": 245

The Holy Spirit is "the principle of every vital and truly saving action in each part of the Body." 247 He works in many ways to build up the whole Body in charity: 248 by God's Word "which is able to build you up"; 249 by Baptism, through which he forms Christ's Body; 250 by the sacraments, which give growth and healing to Christ's members; by "the Grace of the apostles, which holds first place among his Gifts"; 251 by the virtues, which make us act according to what is good; finally, by the many special graces (called "charisms"), by which he makes the Faithful "fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the Church." 252

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:

From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God's Gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the Church's members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. "Holding a rightful place in the Communion of the Church there are also particular Churches that retain their own traditions." 263 The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church's unity. Yet Sin and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity. and so the Apostle has to exhort Christians to "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." 264

What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity "binds everything together in perfect harmony." 265 But the unity of the pilgrim Church is also assured by visible bonds of Communion: - profession of one Faith received from the Apostles; -common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments; - apostolic succession through the sacrament of Holy Orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God's family. 266

In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full Communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame." 269 The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism 270 - do not occur without human Sin:

"Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of Truth" 273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of Grace; Faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior Gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements." 274 Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of Salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blesSings come from Christ and lead to him, 275 and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity." 276

"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, the Church is sanctified by him; through him and with him she becomes sanctifying. "All the activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end, to the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God." 292 It is in the Church that "the fullness of the means of Salvation" 293 has been deposited. It is in her that "by the Grace of God we acquire holiness." 294

By canonizing some of the Faithful, i.e., by solemnly pro claiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God's Grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by propoSing the saints to them as models and intercessors. 303 "The saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult moments in the Church's history." 304 Indeed, "holiness is the hidden source and infallible measure of her apostolic activity and missionary zeal." 305

"All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God.... and to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic Faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God's Grace to Salvation." 320

"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." 325 The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own Mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, 326 "the first to hear the Word of God." 327 The Jewish Faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the Sonship, the Glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", 328 "for the Gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." 329

and when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of Salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the Faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day." 330

The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and Images, for the God who is unknown yet near Since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and Truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life." 332

In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the Image of God in them:

"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that Faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." 338

Missionary motivation. It is from God's Love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, "for the love of Christ urges us on." 343 Indeed, God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth"; 344 that is, God wills the Salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.

On her pilgrImage, the Church has also experienced the "discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted." 348 Only by taking the "way of penance and renewal," the "narrow way of the cross," can the People of God extend Christ's reign. 349 For "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of Salvation to men." 350

By her very mission, "the Church . . . travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God." 351 Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ, 352 continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are "a sign of God's presence in the world," 353 and leads to the foundation of local churches. 354 It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people's culture. 355 There will be times of defeat. "With regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic." 356

The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel. 359 Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better "those elements of Truth and Grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God." 360 They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil "for the Glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man." 361

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

"In order that the mission entrusted to them might be continued after their death, [the apostles] consigned, by will and testament, as it were, to their immediate collaborators the duty of completing and consolidating the work they had begun, urging them to tend to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had appointed them to shepherd the Church of God. They accordingly designated such men and then made the ruling that likewise on their death other proven men should take over their ministry." 374

The Church is ultimately one, holy, catholic, and apostolic in her deepest and ultimate identity, because it is in her that "the Kingdom of heaven," the "Reign of God," 380 already exists and will be fulfilled at the end of time. the kingdom has come in the perSon of Christ and grows mysteriously in the Hearts of those incorporated into him, until its full eschatological manifestation. Then all those he has redeemed and made "holy and blameless before him in Love," 381 will be gathered together as the one People of God, the "Bride of the Lamb," 382 "the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the Glory of God." 383 For "the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." 384

"The Christian Faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in Christ through Baptism, have been constituted as the people of God; for this reaSon, Since they have become sharers in Christ's priestly, prophetic, and royal office in their own manner, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world, in accord with the condition proper to each one." 385

The very differences which the Lord has willed to put between the members of his body serve its unity and mission. For "in the Church there is diversity of ministry but unity of mission. To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying and governing in his name and by his power. But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly office of Christ; they have therefore, in the Church and in the world, their own assignment in the mission of the whole People of God." 387 Finally, "from both groups [hierarchy and laity] there exist Christian Faithful who are consecrated to God in their own special manner and serve the salvific mission of the Church through the profession of the evangelical counsels." 388

"How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? and how are they to hear without a preacher? and how can men preach unless they are sent?" 390 No one - no individual and no community - can proclaim the Gospel to himself: "Faith comes from what is heard." 391 No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. the one sent by the Lord does not speak and act on his own authority, but by virtue of Christ's authority; not as a member of the community, but speaking to it in the name of Christ. No one can bestow Grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ. From him, they receive the mission and faculty ("the sacred power") to act in perSona Christi Capitis. the ministry in which Christ's emissaries do and give by God's grace what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a "sacrament" by the Church's tradition. Indeed, the ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament.

"This college, in so far as it is composed of many members, is the expression of the variety and universality of the People of God; and of the unity of the flock of Christ, in so far as it is assembled under one head." 407

"The individual bishops are the visible source and foundation of unity in their own particular Churches." 408 As such, they "exercise their pastoral office over the portion of the People of God assigned to them," 409 assisted by priests and deacons. But, as a member of the episcopal college, each bishop shares in the concern for all the Churches. 410 The bishops exercise this care first "by ruling well their own Churches as portions of the universal Church," and so contributing "to the welfare of the whole Mystical Body, which, from another point of view, is a corporate body of Churches." 411 They extend it especially to the poor, 412 to those persecuted for the Faith, as well as to missionaries who are working throughout the world.

Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task "to preach the Gospel of God to all men," in keeping with the Lord's command. 415 They are "heralds of Faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers" of the apostolic faith "endowed with the authority of Christ." 416

In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the Faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a "supernatural sense of faith" the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, "unfailingly adheres to this faith." 417

The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the Covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of profesSing the true Faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the Truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. the exercise of this charism takes several forms:

"The term 'laity' is here understood to mean all the Faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church. That is, the Faithful, who by Baptism are incorporated into Christ and integrated into the People of God, are made sharers in their particular way in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ, and have their own part to play in the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the World." 430

"By reaSon of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will.... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the Glory of the Creator and Redeemer." 431

Since, like all the Faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of Salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it. 433 The participation of lay people in Christ's priestly office

"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 Faithful should "distinguish carefully between the rights and the duties which they have as belonging to the Church and those which fall to them as members of the human society. They will strive to unite the two harmoniously, remembering that in every temporal affair they are to be guided by a Christian conscience, Since no human activity, even of the temporal order, can be withdrawn from God's dominion." 451

Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. the perfection of charity, to which all the Faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God. 454

The religious state is thus one way of experiencing a "more intimate" consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God. 455 In the consecrated life, Christ's Faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is Loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the Glory of the world to come. 456

"From the God-given seed of the counsels a wonderful and wide-spreading tree has grown up in the field of the Lord, branching out into various forms of the religious life lived in solitude or in community. Different religious families have come into existence in which spiritual resources are multiplied for the progress in holiness of their members and for the good of the entire Body of Christ." 457

From the very beginning of the Church there were men and women who set out to follow Christ with greater liberty, and to imitate him more closely, by practicing the evangelical counsels. They led lives dedicated to God, each in his own way. Many of them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became hermits or founded religious families. These the Church, by virtue of her authority, gladly accepted and approved. 458

Without always profesSing the three evangelical counsels publicly, hermits "devote their life to the praise of God and Salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous Prayer and penance." 460

"Virgins who, committed to the holy plan of following Christ more closely, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite, are betrothed mystically to Christ, the Son of God, and are dedicated to the service of the Church." 462 By this solemn rite (Consecratio virginum), the virgin is "constituted . . . a sacred person, a transcendent sign of the Church's Love for Christ, and an eschatological Image of this heavenly Bride of Christ and of the life to come." 463

Religious life derives from the Mystery of the Church. It is a Gift she has received from her Lord, a gift she offers as a stable way of life to the Faithful called by God to profess the counsels. Thus, the Church can both show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior's bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time.

By a "life perfectly and entirely consecrated to [such] sanctification," the members of these institutes share in the Church's task of evangelization, "in the world and from within the world," where their presence acts as "leaven in the world." 471 "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel." They commit themselves to the evangelical counsels by sacred bonds and observe among themselves the Communion and fellowship appropriate to their "particular secular way of life." 472

Already dedicated to him through Baptism, the perSon who surrenders himself to the God he Loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God's service and to the good of the Church. By this state of life consecrated to God, the Church manifests Christ and shows us how the Holy Spirit acts so wonderfully in her. and so the first mission of those who profess the evangelical counsels is to live out their consecration. Moreover, "Since members of institutes of consecrated life dedicate themselves through their consecration to the service of the Church they are obliged in a special manner to engage in missionary work, in accord with the character of the institute." 474

In the Church, which is like the sacrament - the sign and instrument - of God's own life, the consecrated life is seen as a special sign of the Mystery of redemption. To follow and imitate Christ more nearly and to manifest more clearly his self-emptying is to be more deeply present to one's contemporaries, in the Heart of Christ. For those who are on this "narrower" path encourage their brethren by their example, and bear striking witness "that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes." 475

Communion of the sacraments. "The fruit of all the sacraments belongs to all the Faithful. All the sacraments are sacred links uniting the Faithful with one another and binding them to Jesus Christ, and above all Baptism, the gate by which we enter into the Church. the communion of saints must be understood as the communion of the sacraments.... the name 'communion' can be applied to all of them, for they unite us to God.... But this name is better suited to the Eucharist than to any other, because it is primarily the Eucharist that brings this communion about." 481

The three states of the Church. "When the Lord comes in Glory, and all his angels with him, death will be no more and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating 'in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is"': 490

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

Communion with the saints. "It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all Grace, and the life of the People of God itself" 496 :

In the one family of God. "For if we continue to Love one another and to join in praiSing the Most Holy Trinity - all of us who are Sons of God and form one family in Christ - we will be Faithful to the deepest vocation of the Church." 499

Since the Virgin Mary's role in the Mystery of Christ and the Spirit has been treated, it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. "The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer.... She is 'clearly the mother of the members of Christ' ... since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head." 500 "Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church." 501

"Mary's function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power. But the Blessed Virgin's salutary influence on men . . . flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it." 511 "No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the Faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source." 512

"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

It is through the sacrament of Penance that the baptized can be reconciled with God and with the Church:

After his Resurrection, Christ sent his apostles "so that repentance and forgiveness of Sins should be preached in his name to all nations." 524 The apostles and their successors carry out this "ministry of reconciliation," not only by announcing to men God's forgiveness merited for us by Christ, and calling them to conversion and Faith; but also by communicating to them the forgiveness of Sins in Baptism, and reconciling them with God and with the Church through the power of the keys, received from Christ: 525

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.

God Revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively. Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as a consequence intrinsic to Faith in God as Creator of the whole man, soul and body. the creator of heaven and earth is also the one who Faithfully maintains his Covenant with Abraham and his posterity. It was in this double perspective that faith in the resurrection came to be expressed. In their trials, the Maccabean martyrs confessed:

The Pharisees and many of the Lord's contemporaries hoped for the resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it he answers, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?" 540 Faith in the resurrection rests on faith in God who "is not God of the dead, but of the living." 541

What is "riSing"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.

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 a consequence of Sin. the Church's Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man's sin. 569 Even though man's nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin. 570 "Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned" is thus "the last enemy" of man left to be conquered. 571

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

Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrImage, of the time of Grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny. When "the Single course of our earthly life" is completed, 584 we shall not return to other earthly lives: "It is appointed for men to die once." 585 There is no "reincarnation" after death.

The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord"; 586 to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us "at the hour of our death" in the Hail Mary; and to entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.

Those who die in God's Grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they "see him as he is," face to face: 596

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

Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his Mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. the Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly Glory "the beatific vision":

In the Glory of heaven the blessed continue joyfully to fulfill God's will in relation to other men and to all Creation. Already they reign with Christ; with him "they shall reign for ever and ever." 603

All who die in God's Grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal Salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

This teaching is also based on the practice of Prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their Sin." 607 From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. 608 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to Love him. But we cannot love God if we Sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. 611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from Communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal Sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." 615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was Created and for which he longs.

God predestines no one to go to hell; 618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal Sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily Prayers of her Faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance": 619

In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man's relationship with God will be laid bare. 624 The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each perSon has done or failed to do during his earthly life:

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

The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them "the acceptable time, . . . the day of Salvation." 627 It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the "blessed hope" of the Lord's return, when he will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed." 628

At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. the universe itself will be renewed:

Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, "new heavens and a new earth." 630 It will be the definitive realization of God's plan to bring under a Single head "all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth." 631

In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among men. 632 "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." 633

For man, this consummation will be the final realization of the unity of the human race, which God willed from Creation and of which the pilgrim Church has been "in the nature of sacrament." 634 Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, "the holy city" of God, "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." 635 She will not be wounded any longer by Sin, stains, self-Love, that destroy or wound the earthly community. 636 The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual Communion.

"We know neither the moment of the consummation of the earth and of man, nor the way in which the universe will be transformed. the form of this world, distorted by Sin, is passing away, and we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, in which happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the Hearts of men." 639

"Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come. That is why, although we must be careful to distinguish earthly progress clearly from the increase of the Kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital concern to the kingdom of God, insofar as it can contribute to the better ordering of human society." 640

"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

In Hebrew, amen comes from the same root as the word "believe." This root expresses solidity, trustworthiness, Faithfulness. and so we can understand why "Amen" may express both God's Faithfulness towards us and our trust in him.

In the book of the prophet Isaiah, we find the expression "God of Truth" (literally "God of the Amen"), that is, the God who is Faithful to his promises: "He who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth [amen]." 645 Our Lord often used the word "Amen," sometimes repeated, 646 to emphasize the trustworthiness of his teaching, his authority founded on God's truth.

Thus the Creed's final "Amen" repeats and confirms its first words: "I believe." To believe is to say "Amen" to God's words, promises and commandments; to entrust oneself completely to him who is the "Amen" of infinite Love and perfect Faithfulness. the Christian's everyday life will then be the "Amen" to the "I believe" of our baptismal profession of Faith:

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 wonderful works of God among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude to the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect Glory to God. He accomplished this work principally by the Paschal Mystery of his blessed Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and glorious Ascension, whereby 'dying he destroyed our death, riSing he restored our life.' For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth 'the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church."' 3

The word "liturgy" originally meant a "public work" or a "service in the name of/on behalf of the people." In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in "the work of God." 5 Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church.

In the New Testament the word "liturgy" refers not only to the celebration of divine worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active charity. 6 In all of these situations it is a question of the service of God and neighbor. In a liturgical celebration the Church is servant in the Image of her Lord, the one "leitourgos"; 7 she shares in Christ's priesthood (worship), which is both prophetic (proclamation) and kingly (service of charity):

As the work of Christ liturgy is also an action of his Church. It makes the Church present and manifests her as the visible sign of the Communion in Christ between God and men. It engages the Faithful in the new life of the community and involves the "conscious, active, and fruitful participation" of everyone. 9

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

"The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the font from which all her power flows." 13 It is therefore the privileged place for catechizing the People of God. "Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men." 14

"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

From the beginning until the end of time the whole of God's work is a blesSing. From the liturgical poem of the first Creation to the canticles of the heavenly Jerusalem, the inspired authors proclaim the plan of Salvation as one vast divine blessing.

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.

The divine blesSings were made manifest in astonishing and saving events: the birth of Isaac, the escape from Egypt (Passover and Exodus), the Gift of the promised land, the election of David, the presence of God in the Temple, the purifying exile, and return of a "small remnant." the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, interwoven in the liturgy of the Chosen People, recall these divine blessings and at the same time respond to them with blessings of praise and thanksgiving.

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

"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

"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

"In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. With all the warriors of the heavenly army we Sing a hymn of Glory to the Lord; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until he, our life, shall appear and we too will appear with him in glory." 13

In the liturgy the Holy Spirit is teacher of the Faith of the People of God and artisan of "God's masterpieces," the sacraments of the New Covenant. the desire and work of the Spirit in the Heart of the Church is that we may live from the life of the risen Christ. When the Spirit encounters in us the response of faith which he has aroused in us, he brings about genuine cooperation. Through it, the liturgy becomes the common work of the Holy Spirit and the Church.

Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy. A better knowledge of the Jewish people's Faith and religious life as professed and lived even now can help our better understanding of certain aspects of Christian liturgy. For both Jews and Christians Sacred Scripture is an essential part of their respective liturgies: in the proclamation of the Word of God, the response to this word, Prayer of praise and intercession for the living and the dead, invocation of God's mercy. In its characteristic structure the Liturgy of the Word originates in Jewish prayer. the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical texts and formularies, as well as those of our most venerable prayers, including the Lord's Prayer, have parallels in Jewish prayer. the Eucharistic Prayers also draw their inspiration from the Jewish tradition. the relationship between Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy, but also their differences in content, are particularly evident in the great feasts of the liturgical year, such as Passover. Christians and Jews both celebrate the Passover. For Jews, it is the Passover of history, tending toward the future; for Christians, it is the Passover fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Christ, though always in expectation of its definitive consummation.

In the liturgy of the New Covenant every liturgical action, especially the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, is an encounter between Christ and the Church. the liturgical assembly derives its unity from the "Communion of the Holy Spirit" who gathers the children of God into the one Body of Christ. This assembly transcends racial, cultural, social - indeed, all human affinities.

The Word of God. the Holy Spirit first recalls the meaning of the Salvation event to the liturgical assembly by giving life to the Word of God, which is proclaimed so that it may be received and lived:

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.

"By the saving word of God, Faith . . . is nourished in the Hearts of believers. By this faith then the congregation of the Faithful begins and grows." 21 The proclamation does not stop with a teaching; it elicits the response of faith as consent and commitment, directed at the Covenant between God and his people. Once again it is the Holy Spirit who gives the Grace of faith, strengthens it and makes it grow in the community. the liturgical assembly is first of all a Communion in faith.

Anamnesis. the liturgical celebration always refers to God's saving interventions in history. "The economy of Revelation is realized by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other.... (The) words for their part proclaim the works and bring to light the Mystery they contain." 22 In the Liturgy of the Word the Holy Spirit "recalls" to the assembly all that Christ has done for us. In keeping with the nature of liturgical actions and the ritual traditions of the Churches, the celebration "makes a remembrance" of the marvelous works of God in an anamnesis which may be more or less developed. the Holy Spirit who thus awakens the memory of the Church then inspires thanksgiving and praise (doxology).

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

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.

Sacraments are "powers that comes forth" from the Body of Christ, 33 which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are "the masterworks of God" in the new and everlasting Covenant.

As she has done for the canon of Sacred Scripture and for the doctrine of the Faith, the Church, by the power of the Spirit who guides her "into all Truth," has gradually recognized this treasure received from Christ and, as the Faithful steward of God's mysteries, has determined its "dispensation." 34 Thus the Church has discerned over the centuries that among liturgical celebrations there are seven that are, in the strict sense of the term, sacraments instituted by the Lord.

The sacraments are "of the Church" in the double sense that they are "by her" and "for her." They are "by the Church," for she is the sacrament of Christ's action at work in her through the mission of the Holy Spirit. They are "for the Church" in the sense that "the sacraments make the Church," 35 Since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the Mystery of Communion with the God who is Love, One in three perSons.

Forming "as it were, one mystical perSon" with Christ the head, the Church acts in the sacraments as "an organically structured priestly community." 36 Through Baptism and Confirmation the pRiestly people is enabled to celebrate the liturgy, while those of the Faithful "who have received Holy Orders, are appointed to nourish the Church with the word and Grace of God in the name of Christ." 37

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:

"The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ and, finally, to give worship to God. Because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose Faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it. That is why they are called 'sacraments of faith."' 44

This is the meaning of the Church's affirmation 49 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: "by the very fact of the action's being performed"), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that "the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God." 50 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the perSonal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.

The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for Salvation. 51 "Sacramental Grace" is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. the Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. the fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the Faithful partakers in the divine nature 52 by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.

The Church celebrates the Mystery of her Lord "until he comes," when God will be "everything to everyone." 53 Since the apostolic age the liturgy has been drawn toward its goal by the Spirit's groaning in the Church: Marana tha! 54 The liturgy thus shares in Jesus' desire: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you . . . until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God." 55 In the sacraments of Christ the Church already receives the guarantee of her inheritance and even now shares in everlasting life, while "awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the Glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus." 56 The "Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come . . . Come, Lord Jesus!"' 57

The book of Revelation of St. John, read in the Church's liturgy, first reveals to us, "A throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne": "the Lord God." 1 It then shows the Lamb, "standing, as though it had been slain": Christ crucified and risen, the one high priest of the true sanctuary, the same one "who offers and is offered, who gives and is given." 2 Finally it presents "the river of the water of life . . . flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb," one of most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit. 3

"Recapitulated in Christ," these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his plan: the heavenly powers, all Creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand), 4 especially the martyrs "slain for the word of God," and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb, 5 and finally "a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues." 6

But "the members do not all have the same function." 12 Certain members are called by God, in and through the Church, to a special service of the community. These servants are chosen and consecrated by the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the perSon of Christ the head, for the service of all the members of the Church. 13 The ordained minister is, as it were, an "icon" of Christ the priest. Since it is in the Eucharist that the sacrament of the Church is made fully visible, it is in his presiding at the Eucharist that the bishop's ministry is most evident, as well as, in Communion with him, the ministry of priests and deacons.

Signs of the human world. In human life, signs and symbols occupy an important place. As a being at once body and spirit, man expresses and perceives spiritual realities through physical signs and symbols. As a social being, man needs signs and symbols to communicate with others, through language, gestures, and actions. the same holds true for his relationship with God.

God speaks to man through the visible Creation. the material cosmos is so presented to man's intelligence that he can read there traces of its Creator. 16 Light and darkness, wind and fire, water and earth, the tree and its fruit speak of God and symbolize both his greatness and his nearness.

Inasmuch as they are creatures, these perceptible realities can become means of expresSing the action of God who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God. the same is true of signs and symbols taken from the social life of man: washing and anointing, breaking bread and sharing the cup can express the sanctifying presence of God and man's gratitude toward his Creator.

Signs of the Covenant. the Chosen People received from God distinctive signs and symbols that marked its liturgical life. These are no longer solely celebrations of cosmic cycles and social gestures, but signs of the covenant, symbols of God's mighty deeds for his people. Among these liturgical signs from the Old Covenant are circumcision, anointing and consecration of kings and priests, laying on of hands, sacrifices, and above all the Passover. the Church sees in these signs a prefiguring of the sacraments of the New Covenant.

Signs taken up by Christ. In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of Creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. 17 He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures. 18 He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover, 19 for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.

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.

The liturgy of the Word is an integral part of sacramental celebrations. To nourish the Faith of believers, the signs which accompany the Word of God should be emphasized: the book of the Word (a lectionary or a book of the Gospels), its veneration (procession, incense, candles), the place of its proclamation (lectern or ambo), its audible and intelligible reading, the minister's homily which extends its proclamation, and the responses of the assembly (acclamations, meditation psalms, litanies, and profession of faith).

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.

Song and music fulfill their function as signs in a manner all the more significant when they are "more closely connected . . . with the liturgical action," 22 according to three principal criteria: beauty expressive of Prayer, the unanimous participation of the assembly at the designated moments, and the solemn character of the celebration. In this way they participate in the purpose of the liturgical words and actions: the Glory of God and the sanctification of the Faithful: 23

The harmony of signs (Song, music, words, and actions) is all the more expressive and fruitful when expressed in the cultural richness of the People of God who celebrate. 25 Hence "religious Singing by the Faithful is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises as well as in liturgical services," in conformity with the Church's norms, "the voices of the Faithful may be heard." But "the texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine. Indeed they should be drawn chiefly from the Sacred Scripture and from liturgical sources." 26

The sacred Image, the liturgical icon, principally represents Christ. It cannot represent the invisible and incomprehensible God, but the incarnation of the Son of God has ushered in a new "economy" of images:

All the signs in the liturgical celebrations are related to Christ: as are sacred Images of the holy Mother of God and of the saints as well. They truly signify Christ, who is glorified in them. They make manifest the "cloud of witnesses" 29 who continue to participate in the Salvation of the world and to whom we are united, above all in sacramental celebrations. Through their icons, it is man "in the image of God," finally transfigured "into his likeness," 30 who is Revealed to our Faith. So too are the angels, who also are recapitulated in Christ:

"The beauty of the Images moves me to contemplation, as a meadow delights the eyes and subtly infuses the soul with the Glory of God." 32 Similarly, the contemplation of sacred icons, united with meditation on the Word of God and the Singing of liturgical hymns, enters into the harmony of the signs of celebration so that the Mystery celebrated is imprinted in the Heart's memory and is then expressed in the new life of the Faithful.

From the time of the Mosaic law, the People of God have observed fixed feasts, beginning with Passover, to commemorate the astonishing actions of the Savior God, to give him thanks for them, to perpetuate their remembrance, and to teach new generations to conform their conduct to them. In the age of the Church, between the Passover of Christ already accomplished once for all, and its consummation in the Kingdom of God, the liturgy celebrated on fixed days bears the imprint of the newness of the Mystery of Christ.

When the Church celebrates the Mystery of Christ, there is a word that marks her Prayer: "Today!" - a word echoing the prayer her Lord taught her and the call of the Holy Spirit. 34 This "today" of the living God which man is called to enter is "the hour" of Jesus' Passover, which reaches across and underlies all history:

Sunday is the pre-eminent day for the liturgical assembly, when the Faithful gather "to listen to the word of God and take part in the Eucharist, thus calling to mind the Passion, Resurrection, and Glory of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God who 'has begotten them again, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead' unto a living hope": 40

Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a "year of the Lord's favor." 42 The economy of Salvation is at work within the framework of time, but Since its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated "as a foretaste," and the Kingdom of God enters into our time.

"In celebrating this annual cycle of the mysteries of Christ, Holy Church honors the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, with a special Love. She is inseparably linked with the saving work of her Son. In her the Church admires and exalts the most excellent fruit of redemption and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless Image, that which she herself desires and hopes wholly to be." 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

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 Liturgy of the Hours is intended to become the Prayer of the whole People of God. In it Christ himself "continues his priestly work through his Church." 50 His members participate according to their own place in the Church and the circumstances of their lives: priests devoted to the pastoral ministry, because they are called to remain diligent in prayer and the service of the word; religious, by the charism of their consecrated lives; all the Faithful as much as possible: "Pastors of souls should see to it that the principal hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and on the more solemn feasts. the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually." 51

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.

The Liturgy of the Hours, which is like an extension of the Eucharistic celebration, does not exclude but rather in a complementary way calls forth the various devotions of the People of God, especially adoration and worship of the Blessed Sacrament.

The worship "in Spirit and in Truth" 53 of the New Covenant is not tied exclusively to any one place. the whole earth is sacred and entrusted to the children of men. What matters above all is that, when the Faithful assemble in the same place, they are the "living stones," gathered to be "built into a spiritual house." 54 For the Body of the risen Christ is the spiritual temple from which the source of living water springs forth: incorporated into Christ by the Holy Spirit, "we are the temple of the living God." 55

When the exercise of religious liberty is not thwarted, 56 Christians construct buildings for divine worship. These visible Churches are not simply gathering places but signify and make visible the Church living in this place, the dwelling of God with men reconciled and united in Christ.

A Church, "a house of Prayer in which the Eucharist is celebrated and reserved, where the Faithful assemble, and where is worshipped the presence of the Son of God our Savior, offered for us on the sacrificial altar for the help and consolation of the Faithful - this house ought to be in good taste and a worthy place for prayer and sacred ceremonial." 57 In this "house of God" the Truth and the harmony of the signs that make it up should show Christ to be present and active in this place. 58

The altar of the New Covenant is the Lord's Cross, 59 from which the sacraments of the Paschal Mystery flow. On the altar, which is the center of the Church, the sacrifice of the Cross is made present under sacramental signs. the altar is also the table of the Lord, to which the People of God are invited. 60 In certain Eastern liturgies, the altar is also the symbol of the tomb (Christ truly died and is truly risen).

The chair (cathedra) of the bishop or the priest "should express his office of presiding over the assembly and of directing Prayer." 63 The lectern (ambo): "The dignity of the Word of God requires the Church to have a suitable place for announcing his message so that the attention of the people may be easily directed to that place during the liturgy of the Word." 64

The gathering of the People of God begins with Baptism; a Church must have a place for the celebration of Baptism (baptistry) and for fostering remembrance of the baptismal promises (holy water font). The renewal of the baptismal life requires penance. A church, then, must lend itself to the expression of repentance and the reception of forgiveness, which requires an appropriate place to receive penitents. A church must also be a space that invites us to the recollection and silent Prayer that extend and internalize the great prayer of the Eucharist.

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.

From the first community of Jerusalem until the parousia, it is the same Paschal Mystery that the Churches of God, Faithful to the apostolic Faith, celebrate in every place. the mystery celebrated in the liturgy is one, but the forms of its celebration are diverse.

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.

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua), 4 and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from Sin and reborn as Sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word." 5

This sacrament is also called "the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit," for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one "can enter the Kingdom of God." 7

Since the beginning of the world, water, so humble and wonderful a creature, has been the source of life and fruitfulness. Sacred Scripture sees it as "oveshadowed" by the Spirit of God: 12

Finally, Baptism is prefigured in the crosSing of the Jordan River by which the People of God received the Gift of the land promised to Abraham's descendants, an Image of eternal life. the promise of this blessed inheritance is fulfilled in the New Covenant.

In his Passover Christ opened to all men the fountain of Baptism. He had already spoken of his Passion, which he was about to suffer in Jerusalem, as a "Baptism" with which he had to be baptized. 22 The blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus are types of Baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of new life. 23 From then on, it is possible "to be born of water and the Spirit" 24 in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

From the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your Sins; and you shall receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit." 26 The apostles and their collaborators offer Baptism to anyone who believed in Jesus: Jews, the God-fearing, pagans. 27 Always, Baptism is seen as connected with Faith: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household," St. Paul declared to his jailer in Philippi. and the narrative continues, the jailer "was baptized at once, with all his family." 28

Hence Baptism is a bath of water in which the "imperishable seed" of the Word of God produces its life-giving effect. 32 St. Augustine says of Baptism: "The word is brought to the material element, and it becomes a sacrament." 33

The proclamation of the Word of God enlightens the candidates and the assembly with the Revealed Truth and elicits the response of Faith, which is inseparable from Baptism. Indeed Baptism is "the sacrament of faith" in a particular way, Since it is the sacramental entry into the life of faith.

The baptismal water is consecrated by a Prayer of epiclesis (either at this moment or at the Easter Vigil). the Church asks God that through his Son the power of the Holy Spirit may be sent upon the water, so that those who will be baptized in it may be "born of water and the Spirit." 40

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.

Since the beginning of the Church, adult Baptism is the common practice where the proclamation of the Gospel is still new. the catechumenate (preparation for Baptism) therefore occupies an important place. This initiation into Christian Faith and life should dispose the catechumen to receive the Gift of God in Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist.

The catechumenate, or formation of catechumens, aims at bringing their conversion and Faith to maturity, in response to the divine initiative and in union with an ecclesial community. the catechumenate is to be "a formation in the whole Christian life . . . during which the disciples will be joined to Christ their teacher. the catechumens should be properly initiated into the Mystery of Salvation and the practice of the evangelical virtues, and they should be introduced into the life of faith, liturgy, and charity of the People of God by successive sacred rites." 47

Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original Sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. 50 The sheer gratuitousness of the Grace of Salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. the Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth. 51

Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them. 52

Baptism is the sacrament of Faith. 54 But faith needs the community of believers. It is only within the faith of the Church that each of the Faithful can believe. the faith required for Baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop. the catechumen or the Godparent is asked: "What do you ask of God's Church?" the response is: "Faith!"