ARCHDIOCESE OF COTABATO
PRIMER ON THE YEAR OF FAITH
AND ON THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
1. What is the Year of Faith?
On 11 October 2011 Pope Benedict XVI issued his Apostolic
Letter, Porta Fidei, Door of Faith (PF),
and declared a Year of Faith from 11 October 2012 to 24 November 2013. The Year
of Faith would be “a good opportunity to usher the whole Church into a time of
particular reflection and rediscovery of the faith” [PF, no 4]. It would be a
year “to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating
the faith” [PF, no. 6]. The Year of Faith is a “summons to an authentic and
renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world,” a year to intensify
the renewal of the Church [ibid.].
2. What is the
significance of the starting and ending dates of the Year of Faith?
The starting date, October 11, 2012, is the 50th
anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Vatican II
(1962-1964). This Council led to the deepening and greater understanding of our
faith and to the comprehensive renewal of the Church as it confronted the many
changes of our times. The same date is the 20th anniversary of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) which is the summary of our Christian
faith. The ending date, November 24, 2013, is the Feast of Christ the King who
is the center of our profession of faith.
3. What is faith?
“Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God.
At the same time… it is an assent to the whole truth that God has revealed” [CCC,
no. 150; CBCP-ECCE, Catechecism for Filipino Catholics (CFC), 1997, nos.
114-15]. Faith, therefore, is a personal acceptance of God as the source of
everything that we are and have. It also means to obey God. To obey comes from
the Latin word ob-audire, to hear or
to listen. Faith means to “submit freely to the word” of God [CCC, no. 144] who in many ways speaks to us, such as
in the Sacred Scriptures, in the Church, in the celebration of the Liturgy, in
prayer, or in ordinary situations of life.
