The Church’s simplicity is expressed in a beauty and message that is timeless, attractive and accessible to both children and adults, the educated and the uninitiated. It is this kind of intricate simplicity that comes to mind when one thinks of the Year of Faith. Imagine, the Catholic Church is setting aside a year to concentrate on the faith that Jesus Christ built it on. How simple, yet how deeply meaningful. The Year of Faith has appeal to everyone in the Church, and even those not of the Church, who may wonder what this faith is all about anyway.
We all know the meaning of faith at some level of knowledge and experience. We are baptized into the faith and we profess it every Sunday in the Creed when we say, “I believe.” Yet do we know faith on a deeper level? Do we know and experience faith in a deep and personal manner that will change our lives and the way we look at the world?
What is the Year of Faith?
At certain times in the history of the Church, popes have called upon the faithful to dedicate themselves to deepening their understanding of a particular aspect of faith. In 1967, Pope Paul VI announced a Year of Faith commemorating the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of Sts Peter and Paul. The 1967 Year of Faith called upon the Church to recall the supreme act of witness by these two saints so that their martyrdom might inspire the present day Church to collectively and individually make a sincere profession of faith.
In his Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei (Door of Faith) dated 11 October 2011, Pope Benedict XVI set aside a special year for Catholics throughout the world to rediscover, and share with others, the precious gift of faith entrusted to the Church and the personal gift of faith that we have each received from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Father declared that the Year of Faith is a “summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the One Savior of the World” (Porta Fidei, 6). In other words, the Year of Faith is an opportunity for Catholics to experience a conversion – to turn back to Jesus and enter into a deeper relationship with Him. The Pope has described this conversion as opening the “door of faith” (Acts 14:27). The “door of faith” is opened at one’s baptism, but during this year, Catholics are called to open it again, walk through it and rediscover and renew their relationship with Christ and His Church.
When is the Year of Faith?
Pope Benedict XVI has declared that the Catholic Church will celebrate the Year of Faith from 11 October 2012, to the solemnity of Christ the King on 24 November 2013. The beginning of the Year of Faith coincides with the grateful remembrance of two great events that marked the face of the Church in our day: the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (11 October 1962) and the 20th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (11 October 1992).
Where will it take place?
The Year of Faith will have a universal reach and is an invitation to everyone in the Church to celebrate and renew their faith – individually, in our homes, among our families, in parishes, in schools, at the workplace, in our diocese, country and across our global Catholic community - so that everyone may feel a strong need to know better and to transmit to future generations the faith of all times.
Catechesis in the Year of Faith
In the 50 years that have elapsed since the Second Vatican Council began, we have seen many great changes in such areas as communication, global understanding and the place of the Church in modern society.
Pope Benedict is convinced that the Second Vatican Council, if interpreted and implemented according to the mind of the Church stretching back to the Apostles, can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church’. (Porta Fidei, 5).
The Year of Faith gives us a wonderful opportunity to once again make a leap of quality in our faith. It presents us with the opportunity to recapture the enthusiasm for our faith that was evident in the early days after the completion of the Second Vatican Council. This is why an important component of the Year of Faith will be reflection and rediscovery of the riches contained in the texts of Vatican II.
During this important year, we are also called to rediscover and deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ through a study of the basic content of the faith. A most excellent way to do this would be to make a concerted effort to read and understand the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict describes as a ‘precious and indispensable tool and one of the most important fruits of the Second Vatican Council’. (Porta Fidei, 11)
To put it simply, Vatican II renews our faith and the Catechism explains it. The Year of Faith is a precious opportunity to live, deepen, celebrate and share the powerful truth of the Gospel.
How does the Year of Faith affect the average Catholic?
Although there will be many public celebrations and common confessions of faith, the specific aim of the Year of Faith is that each one of us may rediscover “the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the counter with Christ.” (Porta Fidei, 2)
Therefore, every baptised Catholic is called through baptism to be a disciple of Christ and proclaim the Gospel. The Year of Faith is an opportunity for each and every Catholic to renew their baptismal call by living out the everyday moments of their lives with faith, hope and love. This everyday witness is necessary for proclaiming the Gospel to family, friends, neighbours and society. In order to witness to the Gospel, Catholics must be strengthened through celebrating weekly Sunday Mass and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
A call to live our faith
The Year of Faith is a personal call to each and every one of us to bring down our faith from the long forgotten shelf, brush away the dust and say ‘What would I do without my faith?’
As evidenced by even a cursory reading of the Acts of the Apostles, from the day of Pentecost onwards, the Church has never seen the gift of faith as a private relationship with Christ, to be enjoyed in some spiritual exclusivity. Immediately after their anointing by the Holy Spirit, the apostles leave the Upper Room and begin to evangelise the people gathered in Jerusalem for the special feast.
We can only grow in our own faith if we are actively sharing it with others. Faith shared is faith increased, as we mutually witness to build each other up in Christ.
Perhaps this truth explains why the Holy Father places so much emphasis on evangelization in his writings in announcing the Year of Faith. An integral part of belief in Jesus Christ and His Gospel is to confess it to others, in the best sense of that term. Catholic faith held in silent privacy and strict individualism soon evaporates into no faith at all.
When the Holy Father uses the word ‘new evangelisation’ in his apostolic letter, he does not mean that we need to learn and share a new Gospel message. The Gospel message of Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he is inviting every member of the Church to do is seek new ways – means and methods – of sharing the eternal message of Jesus Christ. He is challenging each one of us to consider what new steps we might take to respectfully make our faith visible and heard in our daily lives.
Catholic evangelism is not an aggressive proselytism. We do not need to be talking religion constantly or tediously quoting the Bible or the Catechism. If we seek to proclaim Jesus, first of all we need to actively live out our faith, firmly rooted in the Scriptures, the Sacraments, daily prayer, parish involvement, service to the poor and sick and living a moral life.
Secondly, we need to be able to articulate our Catholic faith in an intelligent and attractive fashion when the opportunity arises. While many Catholics live in a deep life of prayer and holiness, too few are able to explain the faith in a simple yet complete way. That is why adult formation, spiritual reading, Bible study, familiarity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church cannot be the leisurely options of just a few interested individuals.
We all need to explain what we believe and why we believe it. Catholicism is a remarkably logical system of belief and thought, so if we understand the basic principles of belief concerning God, Jesus, the Church, the Sacraments, the nature and purpose of sexuality, the dignity of the human person, we can see the reasoning of Catholic teaching, especially in the area of morality and ethics.
As Jesus tells us, we are the light of the world; no one lights a lamp and then puts in under a basket; a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. An integral part of our faith is to share it with others.
This is the year the Pope has proclaimed, so simple, so deep. When the Year of Faith is launched in our archdiocese this weekend, let us be prepared to know, love and proclaim our faith, and act with the courage of faith that has made many saints!
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