Benedict XVI embarks on audiences about the virtue of faith

Traditionally, based on St. Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 13, the theological virtues have been ordered faith, hope, and then love: "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor 13:13). Pope Benedict XVI has been working his way, so to speak, through the virtues in the opposite order, beginning with an encyclical focused on love, or charity ("Deus Caritas Est"), in December 2005, then one about hope ("Spe Salvi"), given in November 2007. Now, having marked the start of the Year of Faith last week—a year coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II—he has commenced a series of general audiences on faith. The three theological virtues are not, of course, in competition, even though charity, as St. Paul wrote, is the greatest, as God is love and we are called to live eternally in communion with the source of love, the Trinity.

My guess is that the Holy Father wished to begin with the end, the ultimate goal of life and creation: communion in charity with the Father, Son, and Holy. Then he turned to virtue that keeps us pressing on and focused on that heavenly goal while on pilgrimage on earth: hope. And now he focuses out attention on the "rubber meets the road" virtue of faith, which is the gateway into life in Christ, a gift that must be freely accepted, then appropriated, and then continually deepended and enriched through the sacraments, the Word of God, right practice, and the transformation of the mind and heart. Below is the Vatican Information Service report on today's general audience commencing the catechesis on faith.

Vatican City,  (VIS) - During his general audience this morning,
Benedict XVI began a new series of catecheses which will cover the
period of the Year of Faith. The Year, he said, is intended "to renew
our enthusiasm at believing in Jesus Christ, ... to revive the joy of
walking along the path He showed us, and to bear concrete witness to the
transforming power of the faith".

With his catecheses over
coming months the Holy Father hopes to help people understand that the
faith "is not something extraneous and distant from real life, but the
very heart thereof. Faith in a God Who is love and Who came close to
mankind by taking human flesh and giving Himself on the cross to save us
and open the doors of heaven for us, is a luminous sign that only in
love does man's true fullness lie", he said. "Where there is domination,
possession and exploitation, ... man is impoverished, degraded and
disfigured. Christian faith, industrious in charity and strong in hope,
does not limit life but makes it human".

"God has revealed
Himself with words and actions throughout the long history of His
friendship with man. ... He came forth of heaven to enter the world of
men as a man, that we might meet and hear Him; and from Jerusalem the
announcement of the Gospel of salvation has spread to the ends of the
earth. The Church, born of Christ’s side, has become the herald of a new
hope. ... Yet, from the very beginning, the problem of the 'rule of
faith' arose; in other words, the faithfulness of believers to the truth
of the Gospel ... to the salvific truth about God and man to be
safeguarded and handed down".

The essential formula of the faith,
the Pope explained, is to be found in the Creed, in the Profession of
the Faith, whence develops "the moral life of Christians, which there
has its foundation and its justification. ... It is the Church’s duty to
transmit the faith, to communicate the Gospel, so that Christian truths
may become a light guiding the new cultural transformations, and
Christians may be able to give reasons for the hope that is in them.

"We
are living today in a society that has changed profoundly, even with
respect to the recent past, a society in continuous flux", the Holy
Father added. "The process of secularisation and a widespread nihilist
mentality, in which everything is relative, have left a strong imprint
on the collective mentality. ... And while individualism and relativism
seem to dominate the hearts of so many of our contemporaneous, it cannot
be said that believers remain completely immune from these dangers. ...
Surveys carried out on all the continents in preparation for the
current Synod of Bishops on new evangelisation have revealed some of
these dangers: the faith lived passively or privately, the rejection of
education in the faith, the rupture between faith and life".

Benedict
XVI went on: "Christians today often do not even know the central core
of their Catholic faith, the Creed, thus leaving the way open to certain
forms of syncretism and religious relativism, with no clarity about
which truths must be believed and the salvific uniqueness of
Christianity. ... We must go back to God, to the God of Jesus Christ, we
must rediscover the message of the Gospel and cause it to enter more
deeply into our minds and our daily lives.

"In these catecheses
during the Year of Faith I would like to help people make this journey,
in order to regain and understand the central truths of faith about God,
man, the Church, and all social and cosmic reality, by reflecting upon
the affirmations contained in the Creed. And I hope to make it clear
that these contents or truths of the faith are directly related to our
life experience. They require a conversion of existence capable of
giving rise to a new way of believing in God".

Among his
greetings at the end of his catechesis the Pope addressed Polish
pilgrims. "Yesterday", he told them, "on the anniversary of the election
of John Paul II to the See of Peter, we remembered him as a great guide
in the faith, who introduced the Church into the third millennium".

Finally,
in Italian, he had words of greeting for representatives of the "Acting
all together for the Dignity of the Fourth World" Movement, who were in
St. Peter's Square to mark the United Nations International Day for the
Eradication of Poverty. "I encourage you in your commitment to protect
the dignity and rights of people forced to suffer the scourge of
poverty, against which humankind must struggle without cease", said
Benedict XVI.

Encyclicals: