During Lent, I am reading one chapter of Scripture every day, starting with John’s Gospel. Reading one of the Gospels sequentially gives one a full picture of the Good News, the whole story of Jesus Christ, each with a different perspective.
Mark is the shortest Gospel, beginning with the appearance of John the Baptist in the desert.
Matthew begins with the birth of Christ and is the only one who mentions the visit of the Magi and the flight into Egypt.
Luke begins with the conception of John and Jesus, the only Gospel which contains the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the revelation to the shepherds.
John starts even further back, before the creation of the world, beginning with’ “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In John, we see a high Christology, an emphasis on the divinity of Jesus Christ and His miraculous power.
Believing extraordinary things
This foray into the Bible reminds me that we Catholics believe some extraordinary things!
God has always been and always will be, created everything out of nothing and holds all of creation in being.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully divine and fully human, two natures in one divine person. He was born of the Virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus reveals the mystery of the Trinity; God is radically one and yet is three Divine Persons.
We believe that Jesus performed miracles, raising the dead, healing the sick, casting out demons, multiplying food, walking on water, calming the storm, able to read hearts.
Through Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, the entire human race is offered eternal salvation, invited to believe in Jesus Christ and to accept the mystery of eternal life and the forgiveness of our sins.
This fact implies that we will live forever in another spiritual dimension, with God or without God, depending on how we live this earthly existence and either embrace and practice faith in Christ or not.
We believe that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and contains the fullness of God’s revelation to us.
We assert that through the power of the sacraments, God comes to dwell in us through sanctifying grace, beginning with Baptism, uniting Himself to us in a saving and loving relationship.
We affirm that the bread and wine at Mass become the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit offered by the priest, to feed us with His abiding presence.
We are convicted that the Lord definitively forgives all of our sins in the healing mercy of the Sacrament of Penance.
We believe that bishops can validly ordain men to be priests and deacons, and that priests (and in certain sacraments, deacons) become the necessary instruments for the celebration of the sacraments.
We believe that God is guiding the course of human events, as well as the particulars of our own lives, that history is moving towards the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God and the final judgment on this world.
We assert that God has willed each of us to be and that our deepest identity is that we are beloved children of God, created in the divine image and that we possess an immortal soul.
We assert that, when we pray, God listens and speaks to us, and that our prayers for others have powerful efficacy, both for the living and the dead.
We believe
During my recent trip to Israel and Turkey, our group went to Nicaea, a small city in Turkey now called Iznik and almost completely Muslim, where the Emperor Constantine summoned the bishops of the Church in 325 to resolve the Arian heresy, which was the false claim that Jesus is not divine, and which was violently rupturing both the Roman Empire and the Church.
The bishops presumably met at the house of Constantine, the foundations of which are still existent, but partially submerged in an expanding lake.
Our group went to the ancient ruins by the lakeshore, prayed the Nicene Creed together, and pondered the mystery of our Catholic Faith.
We believe many miraculous and amazing things as Catholics.
Many people may struggle to fully believe all of our doctrines at different times in their lives.
Many people reject the Catholic Faith altogether as a myth, a fiction, an elaborate story fabricated to make everyone feel better.
Those of us who do believe in the Lord Jesus and the faith of the Catholic Church know that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that we know God and ourselves only fully in Him.
Because we want everyone to know, love, and serve the Lord, we are urgent and zealous in our evangelizing efforts to share the Gospel with the world.
I invite you this Lent to ponder the wonder of our Faith, to learn more about it, and to pass it on to everyone you know!