O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.
The Act of Faith is one of the three great prayers by which a Christian exercises the theological virtues — faith, hope, and charity — poured into the soul at Baptism. Together with the Act of Contrition, these Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity have for centuries been taught in the catechism and prayed in the morning and evening, and especially before receiving the Sacraments, so that the virtues given by God may be stirred into living flame.
What makes it an act of faith is its motive, stated plainly at the end: "because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived." Catholic faith does not rest on the strength of one’s own understanding, nor on feeling, nor on the trustworthiness of men, but on the authority of God Himself, who is Truth and cannot lie. We believe what the Church proposes not because we have proved it, but because God has revealed it — and God can neither be mistaken nor deceive us.
Its content is a summary of the faith: the mystery of the Blessed Trinity (one God in three Persons), the Incarnation and Redemption (the Son became man and died for our sins), and the Last Judgment (He will come to judge the living and the dead) — and then, in one sweeping act, "all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches." The First Vatican Council defined this same doctrine: that faith is a supernatural virtue by which we believe what God has revealed, "on account of the authority of God Himself who reveals them."
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.