The library
Liturgy and Sacraments

Baptism

The first door of the Christian life: rebirth through water and the Spirit, which wipes away sin and brings one into the Body of Christ.

Doctrine and Dogma

Grace

The free favour by which God gives man a share in his own life and makes him his child: the source from which sanctifying grace and actual grace flow.

Doctrine and Dogma

Sanctifying Grace

The created gift by which God lets the soul share in his own life, makes it his child, and disposes it for heaven.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Peace of Christ

The peace Christ gives by reconciling man with God, born of the Cross, and which abides in the heart of trial.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Theological Virtues

The three virtues infused by God, faith, hope and charity, which make man able to live in relationship with him.

Doctrine and Dogma

Faith

The first of the theological virtues: by it, man holds fast to God and holds true all that he has revealed, because God is truth itself.

Doctrine and Dogma

Hope

The second of the theological virtues: by it, man desires eternal life as his happiness and awaits with confidence the goods God has promised.

Doctrine and Dogma

Charity

The greatest of the theological virtues: by it, man loves God above all things, because he is the supreme good, and his neighbour as himself for the love of God.

Doctrine and Dogma

Actual Grace

The passing help God gives the soul to do good, enlightening the mind and strengthening the will toward salvation.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Church

The assembly God gathers in Christ to form one People: the Body of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit, and the means of salvation offered to all.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Trinity

The central mystery of the faith: one God in three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, equal and eternal, in one divine life.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Father

The first Person of the Trinity: the origin without origin, creator of all things, revealed by the Son, and the Father who adopts men as his children.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Son

The second Person of the Trinity: the eternal Word begotten of the Father, true God, made man in Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Holy Spirit

The third Person of the Trinity: true God, the love of the Father and the Son, the Lord who gives life, poured out at Pentecost and present in the souls of the faithful.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Word

The Son of God named as the eternal Word of the Father: his perfect expression, by whom all things were made, and who became flesh in Jesus Christ.

Doctrine and Dogma

The Immaculate Conception

Mary preserved from original sin from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace of God and in view of the merits of Christ: the first and most perfect of the redeemed.

Figures and Saints

Mary

The Virgin chosen by God to be the Mother of his Son: Mother of God, ever-Virgin, taken up into heaven, and given as mother to all believers.

Scripture and Exegesis

The New Ark

Mary read as the Ark of the new covenant: she carries within her the presence of God, the Word made flesh, which the ark of old foreshadowed.

Doctrine and Dogma

Queen of Heaven

Mary crowned Queen of heaven and earth, associated with the reign of her Son: mother of the King after the manner of the queen mothers of David, and interceding for her people.