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Today's word is faith.
Faith, yes yes.
Which I know in Greek is called Pistis.
Right, but in Hebrew?
Well, the word that usually is translated with
this Italian word is Emunà.
But which means something a little bit different
Because Emunà derives from a root which means
to be still, to be stable, to be fixed, so to be worthy of trust,
to be a point of reference, etc,
while Pistis from Greek derives from Pisteo
which rather means to hold true, to have true.
So it is a little bit more connected
to the concepts rather than..
Yes, exactly, well, this is quite typical
of the Greek language which always a little bit..
tends to be stationary, this is true. Even if we
don't have to exaggerate in contrasting the
Greek mentality to the Hebrew mentality,
but it is true that the word Emunà..
But Emunà has something to do with Ammelin?
Yes of course, it has the same root.
In Hebrew, it is the reliability, so the constancy,
the fact that we can, we can be certain
of a person, of a thing, of a reality, and what is being
said in the famous text of the prophet Abacuc
who says: " the just will live for his faith".
So, his faith understood in this sense,
that is the constancy, his certainty. But be careful,
faith, the Emunà, is not only the faith of man,
but it is also the faith of God, that s, also
God has faith from this point of view..
What do you mean?
I mean that we can trust in God, God is a certain support.
You mean faithful in this sense.
Faithful. Then, obviously, the fact that in the
new Testament the word faith,
Pistis, helps to translate this Hebrew word,
but we also have its semantic aspect, which is,
which derives from the verb Pisteo, to believe,
namely to hold true, I believe you, I hold your
words for true, right? So, faith also becomes
the fact that I adhere to certain concepts, I adhere to
certain truths, to certain fixed points, and this gives origin
to the fact that we basically use the word faith,
fides in Latin, and Pistis in Greek,
the first Fides Que, and the other Fides Qua.
I mean, the faith that we believe.
Yes
"We believe in one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth",
and the faith with which we believe.
Namely the attitude of faith that I have...
The attitude of faith that I have towards the people
and so even more towards God that reveals himself.
So, if the apostles say: "Increase your faith ",
what kind of faith are they talking about?
Right, what kind of faith are they talking about?
Somebody would say that they actually are not talking about
the faith that we believe, so about the
directives of faith, also because it is difficult to
think that we can increase...
Right, either you believe or you don't!
I mean, if I believe in God, it is not that...
I cannot believe a little bit in God.
Right, I can not believe a little bit in God,
or a little bit that Jesus Christ is the son of God,
and a little bit right? Evidently, either I
believe or I don't believe, so, either I adhere
to a thing, or I do not adhere, while to
increase faith means to increase our reliability on you.
But we always have to be careful to the fact that,
it is right to keep this category, this distinction between
the faith that we believe, and the faith with which we believe
but we don't have to exaggerate it,
because we see that today's Gospel,
the Gospel of this Sunday, but generally the
evangelical attitude, the attitude of the sacred Scriptures
towards faith, is the fact that faith is always
an answer, namely the faith with
which one believes, so the...
...Trust...
The trust, right, is always the answer to
the fact that there is somebody worthy of trust,
and so that the concept in reality is not a concept,
it is a presence, so, it is Jesus who is the faithful,
who is there, or is there talking, and the disciples
ask to trust more in him because they recognize
in him the presence of God, if they would not
recognize the presence of God, the statement would be stupid.
On the contrary, now in the present world,
in the present ways of certain settings,
of certain politically correct proposals of
the catechesis and of the ecclesiastic environment,
it is my opinion that often we tend to
distinguish the two things, so we forget about
what is dividing us, that is, what is dividing
that is, what is dividing us would be the directives of faith,
but we go to what unites us, and so, what unites us?
It would be our reliability, our trust, our kindness.
But at this point it is something totally suspended in the void
which does not have any biblical reference,
, because for the Bible one thing is clear, that we give
faith to somebody, we give faith to a presence.
And we gave it through believing in what he says.
Yes. so I can not trust somebody by putting
between parenthesis who that somebody is.
Right.
I cannot trust in God and say that basically my God
and your God are the same thing and
what God says about himself ..
Means nothing.
Means nothing. The important thing is to be kind,
so, trust, reliability, derives from the
faith understood in the sense of believing in...
Things that..
Things that God says. It is true that the two things
always need to be joined, because somebody can
also believe in the things that God says,
and then in reality not rely on God. It is the famous paradox
of St James about the monotheistic devil, right?
Who?
The apostle James says:
"You believe that there is only one God?
You are right, even the devil believes it".
Ah, right!