Paul VI, Wednesday Audience, 21st June 1967

During the last Year of Faith Pope Paul VI dedicated a number of audiences to the theme of Faith. We publish below an extract from one of those audiences.

Today it is important for everyone to speak about faith. Faith is the beginning of an authentic relationship with God; it is our criterion of judgement and the spiritual energy that gives form to our spiritual trajectory and orders our actions. (The just man lives by faith). Faith is our treasure, which makes us Christians, and gives us a role as believers surrounded by our brothers and sisters who long to know God and to know what it is to be authentically human. Faith is our strength and our comfort, helping us to resolve the fundamental problems of existence. It is our certainty and our consolation.

But faith is also our first duty before God, who speaks to us and wishes us to believe Him. Faith is our duty before our mother and teacher, the Church, who hands on to us the doctrines of our faith and helps her children to know and in turn to hand on the faith in prayer and in works. It is also our duty before the world which at every step asks us: what do you believe? And waits upon our act of witness.

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