Thursday, May 11, 2017

QUOTATION: Believing

Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Believing is not an act of the understanding alone, not simply an act of the will, not just an act of feeling, but an act in which all the spiritual powers of man are at work together. Still more: man in his own self, and of himself, cannot bring about this believing at all; it has of its nature the character of a dialogue. It is because the depth of the soul – the heart—has been touched by God’s word that the whole structure of spiritual powers is set in motion and unites in the Yes of believing.

--Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith and Theology”, Address on the occasion of the conferring of an honorary doctorate of theology by the Theological Faculty of Wroclaw/Breslau, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith