In the Confessional a window depicts the theological virtue of faith “by which we believe in God and believe all that He has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because He is truth itself. (Father John Corapi, in commenting on this theological virtue, said that “faith is something we’re given, not something we all decide on or agree on.” In other words, he said, we have “faith in all—not in part, not by consensus—“ that the Church teaches.) By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God’…The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But ‘faith apart from works is dead’: when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of His Body. The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it…” (See the CCC 1814-1816)
Considering what the Catechism tells us about faith, how wise were the people who decided that the window illustrating faith should light the confessional!
Our window illustrates faith with a cross. Around 100 AD Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “As for me, my spirit is now all humble devotion-- the cross which so greatly offends the unbelievers, but is salvation and eternal life to us.”
Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy Divine Son became man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.
