Chapter 6pp. 178-185

Practice pp. 235, #1-3

Faith is a gift coming from God. (of course our entire being, our planet, everything, is also a gift coming from God…)

Belief (in God) is a conscious and free human act.

Peter’s response to Christ’s question about who He was is an early example of what faith is and how we respond to it: Peter was not praised for figuring out who Christ was. Peter was accepting and articulating the gift of faith. Believing is possible only by grace, but it requires a

response.

The church is the people of God. The magisterium is what the Church teaches. The idea of the Church as the people of God

can be found in 1 Peter: We have been called together, Jew and Gentile We are all one according to spirit, not flesh A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a

purchased people. We are a church of the faithful journeying

toward god. Remember we are also hierarchical which

implies the need for us to practice obedience.

Common priesthood: shared by all the faithful We all share in this by virtue of our baptism. We are called as priests to offer sacrifices, of

ourselves (possessions, work, prayer, suffering, relationships with others, every thought, word, and deed)

The ministerial priesthood: ordained leaders at the service of the faithful. It is the means by which Christ builds up and

leads His Church.

Laity: All the faithful except those in Holy Orders. We laity have a completely secular nature. Our vocation is to seek the kingdom of God by engaging

in temporal affairs and to order them according to the plan of God.

We live in the world, in all of the secular professions and occupations.

We live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life.

We work for the sanctification of the world from within, the way yeast works on flour through water from within.

We are the front line shock troops, taking the word of God to places that don’t really care about it any more.