Highlights of the Introduction

Highlights of the Introduction

The light of Faith: this is how the Church's tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus...Those who believe, see; they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ, the morning star which never sets.

Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.

There is an urgent need...to see once again that faith is a light. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love. Faith becomes a light of our way, guiding our journey through time. On the one hand, it is a light coming from the past...of the memory of the life of Jesus. Faith is also a light coming from the future and opening before us the vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves...

The Year of Faith was inaugurated on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council...a council on faith, inasmuch as it asked us to restore the primacy of God in Christ to the centre of our lives.

In God's gift of faith, a supernatural infused virtue...a great love has been offered to us...to light up our way to the furture. But what is it like, this road which faith opens up before us? What is the origin of this light which brightens the journey of life?