He or she cannot truthfully recite the words of the creed without being changed, without becoming part of that history of love which embraces us and expands our being, making it part of a great fellowship, the ultimate subject which recites the creed, namely, the Church. All the truths in which we believe point to the mystery of the new life of faith as a journey of communion with the living God.
Faith, prayer, and the Decalogue
Two other elements are essential in the faithful transmission of the Church’s memory. First, the Lord’s Prayer, the “Our Father.” Here Christians learn to share in Christ’s own spiritual experience and to see all things through his eyes. From him who is light from light, the only-begotten Son of the Father, we come to know God and can thus kindle in others the desire to draw near to him.
Similarly important is the link between faith and the Decalogue. Faith, as we have said, takes the form of a journey, a path to be followed, which begins with an encounter with the living God. It is in the light of faith, of complete entrustment to the God who saves, that the Ten Commandments take on their deepest truth, as seen in the words that introduce them: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex 20:2). The Decalogue is not a set of negative commands, but concrete directions for emerging from the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced by his mercy, and then to bring that mercy to others. Faith thus professes the love of God, origin and upholder of all things, and lets itself be guided by this love in order to journey toward the fullness of communion with God. The Decalogue appears as the path of gratitude, the response of love, made possible because in faith we are receptive to the experience of God’s transforming love for us. And this path receives new light from Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5–7).
These, then, are the four elements that comprise the storehouse of memory the Church hands down: the profession of faith, the celebration of the sacraments, the path of the Ten Commandments, and prayer. The Church’s catechesis has traditionally been structured around these four elements; this includes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is a fundamental aid for that unitary act with which the Church communicates the entire content of her faith: “all that she herself is, all that she believes” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 8).
1 Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter, Lumen Fidei, June 29, 2013.
Chapter 41
A Traveling Companion
A sacrament is not “a magical rite” but rather the instrument God has chosen in order to continue to walk beside man as his travelling companion through life. Faced with God’s humility, we should have the courage to let him write history, which in that way becomes “reliable.” In the history of God’s people, there are beautiful moments, which bring great joy, and there are also terrible moments of suffering, martyrdom, and sin. In good and bad moments alike, one thing always remains the same: the Lord is there. He never abandons his people, for the Lord, on that day of sin, of the first sin, made a decision; he made a choice, to make history with his people.
God, who has no history, since he is eternal, wanted to make history, to walk close to his people. But there is more: he wanted to make himself one of us and as one of us to walk with us in Jesus. And this speaks to us. It tells us about the humility of God who is so very great and powerful precisely in his humility.
Walking with God’s people, walking with sinners, even walking with the proud: how much the Lord did in order to help the proud hearts of the Pharisees. He wanted to walk. Humility. God always waits; God is beside us. God walks with us. He is humble. He waits for us always. Jesus always waits for us. This is the humility of God. The Church joyfully sings of the humility of God who accompanies us. The Lord Jesus also accompanies us in our personal lives with the sacraments. A sacrament is not a magical rite, it is an encounter with Jesus Christ. We encounter the Lord. And he is by our side and accompanies us: a traveling companion. The Holy Spirit also accompanies us and teaches us all that we do not know in our hearts. If God entered into our history, let us also enter a little into his history, or at least ask of him the grace to let him write history. May he write our history. It is reliable one.
1 Pope Francis, Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus St. Martha, September 24, 2013, as reported by L’Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, n. 40, October 2, 2013.
Chapter 51
The Foundational Sacrament
Baptism is the sacrament on which our very faith is founded and which grafts us as a living member onto Christ and his Church. Together with the Eucharist and Confirmation it forms what is known as “Christian initiation,” like one great sacramental event that configures us to the Lord and turns us into a living sign of his presence and of his love.
Yet a question may stir within us: is Baptism really necessary to live as Christians and follow Jesus? After all, isn’t it merely a ritual, a formal act of the Church in order to give a name to the little boy or girl? This question can arise. And on this point what the Apostle Paul writes is illuminating: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3–4). Therefore, it is not a formality! It is an act that touches the depths of our existence. A baptized child and an unbaptized child are not the same. A person who is baptized and a person who is not baptized are not the same. We, by Baptism, are immersed in that inexhaustible source of life which is the death of Jesus, the greatest act of love in all of history; and thanks to this love we can live a new life, no longer at the mercy of evil, of sin, and of death, but in communion with God and with our brothers and sisters.
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