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the will and a violation of God's law in a serious matter. The mortal sins listed represent only
objectively serious matter; if one or both of the other conditions necessary for the commission of
a mortal sin be lacking in a particular case, the guilt would not be incurred. In prudent doubt,
a confessor should be asked for a solution.

It is recommended that once a week during each month, the examen for that month be read carefully
and thoughtfully. On some occasions this would be best done before confession. The ejaculatory
prayer of the month should be said frequently every day.


Bracketed numbers [ ] following prayers indicate the number of the indulgence according to the
New Official List of Indulgences Preces et Pia Opera, dated December 31, 1937, by The Sacred
Penitentiary Apostolic in Rome.

FAITH

Faith is the theological virtue, infused by God, by which we firmly assent to all the
truths that God has revealed to mankind because God cannot deceive or be deceived.
Faith is the foundation of all justification the beginning of all supernatural virtue, the
starting point of sanctification and perfection. "Without faith it is impossible to please
God."

While faith is infused as a free gift by God, it nevertheless is given in strict accordance with
the nature of man, and after it has been given it requires intelligent cooperation lest it be
weakened or lost. This cooperation means three things:

1) Every Catholic must pray for the preservation and increase of his faith. Ordinarily, prayer
is necessary for the attainment of any
grace from God; since faith is the greatest
grace, one who has received it must pray
throughout life for perseverance and strengthening in his faith

2) Every Catholic must strive to be faithful to the obligations imposed through faith. To offend
God deliberately and repeatedly is to run the risk of some day finding that faith has been lost
through failure to cooperate with God's grace.

3) Every Catholic must use his mind both to understand the motives for believing God's word, which
are perfectly satisfactory to human reason, and to know the truths revealed by faith, in which
nothing contradictory, nothing inconsistent, nothing intellectually incredible is to be found.
On the negative side, this means that every Catholic is bound to preserve himself, in so far as
possible, from every influence that would prove dangerous to his faith.

Therefore all sins against faith center about either the denial of one's faith, or the neglect
of means to preserve and increase it, or the deliberate entrance into occasions that might
destroy it.


I. MORTAL SINS

1. denied that I was a Catholic, or expressed my disbelief in any doctrine of the Catholic faith?

2. Have I affiliated myself, even for a short time, with a non-Catholic sect or religious body?

3. Have I suggested or encouraged doubts about the Catholic faith in the minds of others?

4. Have I seriously expressed the opinion that all religions are equally good or equally
true or equally pleasing to God?

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