Page 20 - Visions - Program Preview

Believe
1. People Are Religious
People are religious beings by nature . That means they are searching for God, just as God is always calling them . People need to be close to God . In fact, their reason for being is to love and serve God . In serving God they find happiness .
If people observe the beauty and order of nature, use their reason, and listen to their conscience, they can grow certain about the existence of God, who is the origin and the end of everything .
2. God’s Revelation to People
God has communicated with people through deeds and words . Our first parents spoke with God and, after their fall from grace, they received the promise that
they and their descendants would have another opportunity for salvation . Later, God destroyed all the earth and its creatures with a great flood because of people’s wickedness . Only Noah, his family, and pairs
of animals were spared . After the flood, God set a rainbow in the sky as an agreement, or covenant, that the world and its creatures would never again be destroyed by water .
After many more generations, God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him .
He was to be the father of the people to whom God would reveal the commandments through Moses . The Hebrews agreed to follow God’s commandments, and God agreed to be their God and to watch over them .
God’s full revelation to people comes, however, through Jesus, God’s own Son . Jesus is God’s New Covenant with people, and this covenant will last forever . It is through Jesus that people will gain the salvation that God promised our first parents .
3. Jesus’ Word for All Generations
The teaching and wisdom Jesus gave to his Apostles have been passed on by the Apostles’ preaching and writing under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit . Jesus’ words have been passed on through the generations and will continue to be passed on until he comes again .
The Word of God includes both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition . They are related but different from each other . Sacred Scripture is, of course, the books of the Old and New Testament . God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors . Because he acts in and through these human authors, we know their writings are without error . The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27
In the fourth century,
Saint Jerome translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin.
Photo credit: CIRIC
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