166 Faith is a personal act
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the free response of
the human person
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to the initiative of God who reveals
himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can
believe alone, just as no one can live alone.
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You have not given yourself
faith as you have not given yourself
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life. The believer has received faith from
others and should hand it on to others. Our love forJesus
and for our neighbour impels us to speak to others about our
faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of
believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the
faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in
the faith.
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167 I believe
(Apostles Creed) is the faith of the
Church professed
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personally by each believer, principally
during Baptism. We believe
(Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is the faith of the
Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more
generally by the liturgical assembly of believers. I
believe is also the
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Church, our mother, responding
to God by faith as she teaches us
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to say both I believe and
We believe.
I.
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Lord, Look upon the Faith
of Your Church
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i68 It is the Church that believes first,
and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith. Everywhere,
it is the Church that first confesses the Lord:
Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims
you, as we sing in the hymn Te Deum; with her and
in her, we are won over and brought to confess: I
believe, We believe. It is through the
Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by
Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of
Baptism asks the
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catechumen: What do you
ask of Gods Church? And the answer
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is: Faith. What does faith
offer you? Eternal life.54
169 Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive
the life of faith through the Church,
she is our mother: We believe the
Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the
Church as if
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she were the author of our
salvation.55 Because she is our mother,
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she is also our teacher in the
faith.
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II.
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The Language of Faith
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170 We do not believe in formulae, but in
those realities they
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