Our faith incorporates what we believe about God, what we believe about Jesus, what we believe about salvation, what we believe about the sacraments, and what we believe about church. Many of these beliefs come right out of the ancient creeds. They are shared by all Christians, and are not controversial. These I will pass over rather quickly. But other articles of our faith have become quite controversial and have resulted in divisions, schisms, hatreds, wars, and untold deaths. That this should happen in a religion which was supposed to be characterized by “These Christians, how they love one another!” is indeed scandalous. One of the major purposes of this treatise is to attempt (once again) to point a way toward healing of these divisions and a return to the unity of the catholic faith.
We believe in one loving and merciful God in three divine persons. We believe that God created the universe, loves each of us, and desires for each of us to be happy, both now and for eternity. There is much more theologians have said about the nature of God, but none of it is essential. All we really need to know about God can be found in the words of Jesus in the Gospels.
We believe that Jesus is the Messiah (Definition), the Son of God; that he said and did the things related in the gospels; that he died for us, and that he rose from the dead. We believe that he will come again.
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