Catholic Faith Formation Resources

"God is love." —1 John 4:8 1 "If anyone says, 'I love God,' but hates his brother [or sister], he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother [and sister] whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother [and sister]." —1 John 4:20 Love is not just a thought, feeling, or an emotion that you create or possess. Love is the essence of God's Being, whose Presence is the energy and spiritual reality that grounds, sustains, permeates, and is inherent in and at the depth of all of creation. God's love is unconditional and freely given to all who accept it. Such love is active, generative, expansive and, since it derives from the essence of our eternal God, it is never diminished nor exhausted. The paradox is that love only increases and expands the more it is given away. You are called to respond with love for God, others, yourself, and all of creati...

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work." —John 4:34 "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God." — 1 Corinthians 10:31 "For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s" (Romans 14:8). Devotion is often defined as a deep love, loyalty, and commitment you give to someone, some thing, cause, or activity. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be" (Matthew 6:21). You exist solely due to God's love and grace and for God's purpose. God, as the eternal, ultimate and underlying reality and the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all, is entitled to your steadfast love, faith, and devotion. You express your devotion to God through your loving acts of worship, prayer, and service. You dedicate yourself to growing in a deepening personal and loving r...

Another way that will help you to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to clean or purify your heart of that which defiles you, restore you to right relationships, and help align you with God's will for your life is through allowing the Holy Spirit's gift of the "fear of the Lord" (see Isaiah 11:1-3) to ground your life. Scripture teaches, “Happy the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commands” (Ps 112:1), and “the beginning of wisdom is to fear of the Lord” (Sirach 1:14; cf. Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10). Fear of the Lord is your recognition and acceptance of God’s eternal and unchanging transcendence, holiness, perfection, greatness, truth, love, goodness, and mercy on whom you can firmly depend and in whom you can place your trust. "For 'in [God] we live and move and have our being'" (Acts 17:28). It is your acknowledgment that you are not God, and that God’s “thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the L...

But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile. (Mark 7:20-23; cf. Luke 6:45; Genesis 6:5). Jesus teaches that your desires, thoughts, and actions that oppose God's will and defile you arise from within your heart rather than from external influences. That's not to say that external influences cannot tempt or test you but, rather, it is what is in your heart that determines whether you recognize these desires, thoughts and actions as being against God's will and, if so, what you do about it. Generally, the term heart denotes your soul—your spiritual center where you encounter God—and all of its faculties or dimensions such as your intellect and its capacity to reason, discern, and judge; your emotions, imagination, and your deepest feelings; ...

A “Rule of Life” offers a spiritual way to live faithfully individually, with your family, and in a community with other disciples of Christ, to continue to serve Christ's mission to foster, promote, and bring the reign of God's love, truth, goodness, justice, peace, compassion, forgiveness, healing and salvation to people "on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). In a Catholic faith community, this Rule draws its guidance and nourishment from the Holy Spirit individually and communally through: daily prayer; the reading and study of Scripture, the Catechisms, Church teachings, and other spiritual writings; attendance and active participation at Mass; reception of the Eucharist and participating in the other Sacraments; living moral and virtuous lives; growing in deeper relationships of love with our God, others, ourselves, and with creation through God's grace and the lived experience of discipleship; and through selfless and loving service in ministerin...

With the availability of mass communication, people can usually find an in-person or online community of people who agree with their subjective values, whatever these values are. But this isn't necessarily an authentic catholic Christian community. An authentic catholic Christian community is a home to people whose very being and lives are centered and surrendered to an unconditionally loving God, experienced through God's creation and through the presence, teachings and examples of Jesus Christ as reflected in Scripture, discerned through the wisdom of tradition, and guided by the promptings of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It’s a community where people exemplify mutual love, faith, hope, openness, trust, a shared purpose and mission. Authenticity invites authenticity. When we are present to others with integrity and openness, we create space for others to do the same. In this community, we encounter God not only through attending and actively participating in Mass, li...

The Mass is bracketed by two important rites: the Rite of Gathering and the Rite of Dismissal. The Rite of Gathering begins with God's call to gather together in communion, united as the Body of Christ—the "People of God"— to worship, glorify, and give thanksgiving to our God, to celebrate Christ's saving presence among us, inviting us to ackowledge our sins, to listen to God's Word, to profess our faith, offer prayers, and to share and be nourished by Christ's body and blood. 1 After the Priest gives the final blessing "May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit," the Rite of Dismissal ends the Mass with the Priest or Deacon exhorting those present to "Go forth, the Mass is ended," taken from the Latin words Ite Missa est," (literally, "Go, it is the dismissal"). The word "Mass" is from the Latin Missa , which means "to be sent," as if on a mission. Hence, the forms u...