Lumen Fidei - page 51

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CHAPTER THREE
I DELIVERED  TO  YOU
WHAT  I  ALSO  RECEIVED
(cf. 1 Cor 15:3)
The Church, mother of our faith
37. Those who have opened their hearts to
God’s love, heard his voice and received his light,
cannot keep this gift to themselves. Since faith is
hearing and seeing, it is also handed on as word
and light. Addressing the Corinthians, Saint Paul
used these two very images. On the one hand
he says: “But just as we have the same spirit of
faith that is in accordance with scripture — ‘I be-
lieved, and so I spoke’ — we also believe, and so
we speak” (2 Cor 4:13). The word, once accept-
ed, becomes a response, a confession of faith,
which spreads to others and invites them to be-
lieve. Paul also uses the image of light: “All of
us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the
Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being
transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18).
It is a light reflected from one face to another,
even as Moses himself bore a reflection of God’s
glory after having spoken with him: “God… has
shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowl-
edge of the glory of God in the face of Christ”
(2 Cor 4:6). The light of Christ shines, as in a
mirror, upon the face of Christians; as it spreads,
it comes down to us, so that we too can share
in that vision and reflect that light to others, in