Day 25: Summary of Faith

Faith is necessary for salvation. the Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16). "Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come" (St. Thomas Aquinas). CCC 183-184

Today's reading is another "In Brief" summarizing what I've gone through over the past few days. It's not a bad summation, covering such important topics as faith, trusting in & submitting our will to God, the role of the Church in this, etc. We are fallible, mortal creatures, incapable of fully comprehending the Divine and entirely reliant upon the graces He gives us, but not by ourselves. We have Christ's Church, that "pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15), a heavenly "cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1), and in this life our fellow believers to help us persevere in the faith. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the "just me, Jesus, and the Bible" is ironically antithetical to Scripture and something I always found off-putting from some Protestants. It's not what I believe God wants or what Christ instituted. I like this from the Catechism Companion, Vol I (p. 54): 

Our response to God's Revelation is faith. Faith means we do not just say yes intellectually but we give our whole allegiance to God. This is a personal relationship, but at the same time it is communal; we do not come to the Lord in isolation.

Amen.