In 3 sentences: This document discusses the key characteristics of the Christian faith according to Catholic teaching. It explains that faith is total commitment to God, informed by both Scripture and Church tradition, and lived out both personally and as part of the universal Church community. While faith is a gift from God, it also requires human cooperation through ongoing acts of study, prayer, and obedience to develop one's relationship with the Triune God over a lifetime.

1. Our Christian Faith
Ang Ating Pananampalatayang Kristiyano
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2. Faith in God
•Bakit tayo may Faith kay God? -- Dahil si God mismo
ang nagturo sa atin sa pamamagitan ng Kanyang mga
salita at gawa sa kasaysayan ng kanyang pagliligtas sa
atin.
•Bakit nga ba kinailangan tayong iligtas? Iligtas
saan? -- Review:
•We were created to live with and for God for eternity.
•We were not created to die.
•Death is the result of sin. (Original Sin; Fall of Adam
and Eve, our first parents.)
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4. Sin - Disobedience to God
•Adam and Eve lived in purity and innocence.
•They were tempted by the devil to seek knowledge and
greatness for themselves.
•They disobeyed God and because of this, God banished
them from Eden.
•Original Sin
•Sin that Adam committed
•A consequence of this first sin, the hereditary stain
which we inherited from our first parents
•Adam and Eve lost “sanctifying grace”
•Sin separated man from God.
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5. Salvation History
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6. The Father’s Plan
•Gal 4:4-6 But when the time had fully come, God sent
forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to
redeem those who were under the law, so that we
might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you
are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, crying, Abba! Father!
•Incarnation of Jesus - pagkakatawang tao
•Redemption - pagliligtas sa kasalanan at kamatayan
•Adoption - we become sons and daughters of God
through the Sacrament of Baptism where we
received the Holy Spirit.
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7. The Father’s Plan
•John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.
•2 He was in the beginning with God;
•3 all things were made through Him, and without Him
was not anything made that was made.
•4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
•5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
has not overcome it.
•Jesus, Second Person in the Trinity, Son of
God was with God, was God was THE WORD
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8. The Father’s Plan
• John 1:10-14 Jesus was born simply and in poor circumstances.
10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet
the world knew Him not.
• Jesus was rejected by the Jews. 11 He came to His own home,
and His own people received Him not.
• In Baptism we become children of God. 12 But to all who
received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become
children of God; 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
• Incarnation of Jesus. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as
of the only Son from the Father.
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10. The Father’s Plan
• Eph. 1:3-10 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places,
• The Baptized as predestined by God. 4 even as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
blameless before Him. 5 He destined us in love to be His sons through
Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will,
• The Baptized are redeemed and forgiven. 6 to the praise of his glorious
grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of His grace 8which He lavished upon us.
• Jesus, by His sacrifice, reunited us with God. 9 For He has made
known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will, according to
His purpose which He set forth in Christ10 as a plan for the fullness of
time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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12. Characteristics of
Christian Faith
(Mga Katangian ng Ating
Pananampalatayang Kristiyano)
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13. Total and Absolute
• Pangkalahatan at Ganap.
• Psalm 146 tells us:
• We cannot put our total faith in people who are but creatures of
God. 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who
cannot save.
• But we can and should put our total faith in an all powerful God.
5-6 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope
is in the Lord their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the
sea, and everything in them
• We can put our faith in an eternal God. 10 The Lord reigns
forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.
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15. Total and Absolute
• Pangkalahatan at Ganap.
• Jeremiah 17:5-8
• God condemns those who prefer human knowledge to the
wisdom of God. 5 This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one
who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
• Futility of faith in human knowledge (unreliable). 6 That person
will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity
when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the
desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
• Fruitfulness of faith in God. (reliable) 7 “But blessed is the one
who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. 8 They will be
like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It
has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
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16. Total and Absolute
• Therefore, on faith in God calls for total and absolute commitment.
CCC150
• Kababawan (foolishness) ang ipagkatiwala ang ating sarili sa kakayanan
lamang ng mga tao at ang limitadong kaalaman ng mga tao.
• Si God ay eternal (walang simula at walang katapusan). Siya ang dahilan
at may likha ng lahat. Kumpara sa tao na isa lamang likha ng Diyos.
• Jesus - tunay na Diyos pero tunay na tao rin, ang pinakaperpektong
example ng total commitment to God na ipinakita Niya sa kanyang
Passion, Death at Resurrection.
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17. Trinitarian
• We believe in a Triune God. - God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit.
• Our Faith -- is our friendship with Jesus Christ, our friendship with God
the Father through His Son, and our friendship with their Holy Spirit.
• Through Jesus, we have come to know the Father (Parable of the
Merciful Father, Parable of the Lost Sheep).
• Through Jesus, we have come to know the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17)
16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may
be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him
because He abides with you and will be in you.
• Holy Spirit is in the Church. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, gives
voice to the Church. It is the HS that directs our Church and that is why
our religion is called “HOLY”.
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18. Loving and Missionary
• Our Faith is loving because God is love. 1 John 4:8 The one who
does not love does not know God, for God is love.
• For Christians, loving God means loving our neighbor. This love
commands us to mission, to evangelize and bring to others the
Good News. 1 Cor 9:16 For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast,
since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the
gospel!”
• Missionary Spirit, a test of a person’s true faith. - If we truly believe
in Jesus, in the Kingdom of God, we should want to shout it to the
world, and help others believe in Jesus and the Kingdom of God, too.
• When we have faith in God, it means we have the Spirit of God
within us, the Holy Spirit.
• One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is spiritual joy.
• When you are very happy, you cannot help but share your joy.
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21. Informed and Communitarian
• When we are informed, and so we believe. Means we know the
events of Jesus’ life, we know Jesus’ words and teachings and we
accept that the Lord has “the words of eternal life”. John 6:68 Simon
Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words
of eternal life.”
• Catholics, sacramentalized but not evangelized.
• Why is our Church called Catholic when this word is not in the
Bible? Are all faiths equal?
• Why do we Holy Communion? Why do we go to confession?
• Does God know me? Does God love me?
• Communitarian: Holy Spirit is in Our Church. God teaches us
through the Holy Scripture and the Church’s living tradition or Holy
Tradition, handed to us from the Apostles through “Apostolic
Succession”
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22. True, but cannot be known completely
• Tiyak, ngunit nakatago (Certain, but obscure). We live in an age
where people think that if it cannot be proven through scientific
evidence, it cannot be true. Where science can only observe and find
out some things that are true, science is very limited. Science cannot
explain God because God is much bigger than science.
• Miracles - hindi maipaliwanag ng Science; miraculous healings,
Jesus raised the dead to life, made the blind see.
• Odor of Sanctity - saints said to emit a pleasant fragrance
• Love, Peace, Hope, Joy - These can not be explained or produced
by science. It cannot be observed by science. What we can observe
is the effects of love, peace, hope and joy, but these are not objects
that we can touch. (abstract)
• Faith can only be founded on firm ground/unshakeable truth.
Word of God; Holy Tradition that tells us how God intended us to
worship and love Him.
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23. Free, but we must follow
• Tayo ay may kalayaan (free will). God gave us free will not to use it
to commit sins but so that we may love and serve Him of our own
will.
• There can be no love without free will.
• In giving us free will, God gave us the ability to choose the opposite
of good, to choose evil, to disobey. Yes we can! (sabi nga ni Obama)
• But what are the results of disobeying God?
• Jesus’ teaching about final judgement (separating the sheep
from the goats) Matthew 25:46 “Then they will go away to
eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
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25. An Act, but also a Process
• Faith as an Act. When we learn about God, when we get to know
Jesus, God draws us to Him and the Holy Spirit inspires us to follow.
We then make the decision to believe in the Triune God.
• Faith as a Process. It is not one single act or decision. Faith is a
life-long commitment. God wants us to persevere in following
God’s commandments to love, honor and obey Him, to love our
neighbor because we love God ---up to the end of our life.
(Pagtitiyaga sa pagsunod sa mga utos ng Diyos, pagmamahal sa
kapwa, paggawa ng mabuti, etc).
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26. A Gift, yet our Doing
• Faith as God’s Gift to us. Do you have a birthmark or balat? We
were born with our birthmark. It is part of us just like our hand is a
part of us, or our nose is a part of us. Faith is like that. God gave it to
us in Baptism when we are “born to God”/born to God’s family which
is the Church. We have only to “wake it up.”
• “Wake Up” Call - The alarm clock wakes us up from sleep.
When we are born, our faith is sleeping. We learn about God,
we read Holy Scripture and we pray. Then through our
experiences, God awakens us from our sleep and activates the
faith that we already have in our heart. We encounter God.
• Faith as Our Doing. We cannot just wait for God to give us faith.
God wants us to want faith, to want Him. God wants us to do things
in order to find faith-- example, reading the Bible, reflecting on the life
of Jesus, going to Mass and praying. God rewards our faith-seeking
behavior.
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27. Personal, but Ecclesial
• Faith is personal. We received the gift of Faith during our Baptism. It
is a personal gift from God.
• Faith is Ecclesial. Ecclesial comes from the Latin word “Ecclesia”
which means church. We live our faith as part of the Church.
• Our Family Unit. We are also part of our domestic Church-- our
Family. It is through our family that we first learn about God.
• Catechesis. It is through Catholic teaching that we are able to
learn more about our faith in God. Knowing Him, we learn to
love Him.
• Holy Scripture. Listening to the Word of God during Mass and
hearing the sermons of the priest helps us to know God more.
• Sacraments. It is through the Church that we receive the
sacraments. God gives us graces through the sacraments. We
need this grace in order to grow in holiness and love for God.
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29. Personal, but Ecclesial, cont.
• Our Parish Community. When we participate in parish
activities, we are able to help each other grow in holiness. Our
faith is strengthened by other people’s experiences and
realizations. In turn, we also strengthen others by sharing
our faith with them. Our parish is like our big family.
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