Faith

Father Hardon’s writings on faith explore the foundation of Christian life and the believer’s relationship with God. These articles examine Catholic doctrine, trust in God, spiritual growth, perseverance, and the role of faith in salvation and daily living.

The Crisis of Faith

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Every rational human being believes. When we believe we accept the word of another person. Someone knows that something is true, either from experience or reason, and we accept what he tells us because we trust that he knows what he is talking about and is not deceiving us. […]

Faith in the Life of a Priest

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. If there is anything we can safely say about the Church in the modern world, it is the fact that many things we used to take for granted we can no longer casually assume. Not too many years ago it would have been, if not strange, at least a […]

Our Supernatural Knowledge of God

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Remember the master theme that we are looking at now is our knowledge of God. We have already seen something of what the Scripture tells us about our natural rational knowledge of God. Why natural? Because, we can acquire knowledge of God by the use of our natural native […]

Our Love of God

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. As we have been doing, so here, we will now enter on our second major master theme of the spiritual life in Sacred Scripture. The theme is “Our Lord Our God.” Remember our previous theme was “Our Knowledge of God”, both our natural and our supernatural knowledge of God […]

The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Paul M. Quay, S.J., was one of the most brilliant students that I taught in a Jesuit theologate. He already had a doctorate in physics before he began his study of theology. Over the years, until his premature death, he did not publish extensively. But certainly, The Mystery Hidden […]

Crisis of Faith and the Eucharist

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Introduction: Heretics are seldom identified as such in our modern times. Instead they, and their fellow heretics call themselves dissenters. A heresy starts out as an idea. Erroneous ideas have played havoc with the truth about the Eucharist. 70% of Catholics in America today are deeply infected with these […]

Lesson Four: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. After professing our faith in Christ as the only-begotten Son of God, we declare that He was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary”. Christ’s Divinity, therefore, means that He has the same uncreated nature as God the Father. Christ’s humanity means that He has the […]

A Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The preservation of our Catholic faith depends on the written word. This is not an accident of history but a fact of divine providence. Within one generation of Christ’s death and resurrection, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were written and in circulation. By the end of the […]

Defending the Catholic Faith

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. We are not accustomed to defending the faith in an age of ecumenism and of the promotion of Christian unity. When everybody seems to be talking about unity, why should anyone bring up the embarrassing subject of divisions in Christianity? But true ecumenism does not exclude the defense of […]

Behold We Go Up to Jerusalem

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Easter is the most important feast in Christianity. In fact, it is the pivot of the ecclesiastical year, around which everything in the Church’s calendar revolves. Already in the first century of the Christian era, Sunday replaced Saturday as the Lord’s Day, a weekly commemoration of Easter. Yet in […]

Lesson One – The Apostles Creed

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. This first lesson will be a short one. It covers only the factual information of what the Apostles’ Creed is and what are the principal truths it contains. Since this is a manual for catechists, all the lessons—beginning with the first—will be aimed at keeping you share with others […]

The Apostles Creed

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Apostles Creed was originally a profession of faith required of converts to Christianity before they were baptized. As a formula of belief, it goes back in substance, if not in words, to the twelve Apostles. Following Christ’s declaration that “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” […]

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