1. Lectio Divina Say a prayer to the Holy Spirit 1. Read the passage slowly and write down words, phrases or images that stick out. 2. What could God be saying to you in this passage? 3. Write a prayer of response to this passage. 4. Write how you are going to respond to this passage…how are you going to put what you have learned into practice? Luke 1:26-35

2. Faith is the only adequate response to God’s revelation to us. But what exactly is faith? “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1

3. Obedience of Faith – by faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Romans 1:1-5 Romans 16:26 Abraham is known as the “father of faith”. Obey in Latin is to “hear or listen to”.

4. Does this take away our freedom? In this obedience, we submit ourselves to God in a free decision. We know we can trust God because he is God. NO!

5. Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.

6. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior help of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.” How does one get faith? Faith is first and foremost a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him.

7. What does this mean to us? It is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed. Faith is active! must attempt to grow in your understanding of God. You

8. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." Matt 17:20 What mountains do you need to move?

9. Let it be.