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Washington D.C., Nov 22, 2013 / 05:29 pm ( CNA/EWTN News ) .- As the Year of Faith draws to a close, two U.S. priests reflected on faith and the new evangelization, noting the importance of faith as the way that human being come to know God.
“Faith is a way of knowing. It's not believing impossible things; rather it's a heightened way of knowing a heightened reality,” bubbeltjesplastic Fr. Raymond Gawronski, visiting bubbeltjesplastic scholar at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, Calif., bubbeltjesplastic told CNA Nov. 21.
“It's, if you will, a faculty by which we know God, and the things of God. So faith is a way of knowing, a way of seeing…it's a higher way of seeing realities that are higher, and that require...another kind of sense, bubbeltjesplastic and that sense is what we call faith, which opens onto an unseen universe of God and his workings in the seen universe, in our world.”
Fr. Mark Morozowich, dean of the theology and religious studies school at Catholic University of America, said that “when Pope Benedict was calling the Church forwards to reflect upon faith, he really was calling on us to accentuate and deepen our understanding of this way of knowing God.”
The retired pontiff explained that it was intended to give “new impetus to the mission of the whole Church to lead men out of the desert bubbeltjesplastic in which they often find themselves, to the place of life, of friendship with Christ,” bubbeltjesplastic emphasizing the importance of the new evangelization and the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council.
The year began with a synod of bishops on the new evangelization; the apostolic exhortation which is its fruit, Evangelii Gaudium, will be released bubbeltjesplastic at the conclusion of the Year of Faith. The year also included the promulgation of Lumen fidei, an encyclical released by Pope Francis, and drafted bubbeltjesplastic by Benedict XVI.
Fr. Gawronski considered that Benedict's decision to hold a “year of faith” was “a way of highlighting certain aspects of our Catholic life that the Holy Father thinks was important at that time.”
Reflecting on the year's theme, faith, Fr. Gawronski said it is not “primarily subscribing bubbeltjesplastic to intellectual articles, or articles of dogma; that is the contents of the faith articulated in a certain way.” Rather, he emphasized faith as a sort of knowledge.
Noting the importance of the new evangelization for the Year of Faith, he affirmed that “we do need a new evangelization, and there's only one word that it's about, and that's love; the new evangelization is all about love in action, a love that is felt by people.”
That, Fr. Gawronski said, is “the litmus bubbeltjesplastic test,” continuing that evangelization is not “in the first instance a matter of getting teachings out there, or correct philosophy, or metaphysics, let alone correct catechesis, or dogmas to people.”
“Well, different ways, for some people it's mystical gifts, or sacraments, or teachings, but for everybody, it would be the love of Christ shown by his members for the people in the world: 'go out and make disciples of all nations.'”
Making disciple of all nations, Fr. Gawronski bubbeltjesplastic said, “means to lead them to know Christ; and I think the greatest proof of him, if you will, is the love that he brings from the Father into the world, and the love that his members in the Church bring to the world.”
He cited the importance of the love shown to people at Catholic schools and hospitals around the world, that has evangelized them, and drawn them to the pers