The Papal Flag
 

Faith – The acceptance of the word of another, trusting that one knows what the other is saying and is honest in telling the truth. The basic motive of all faith is the authority (or right to be believed) of someone who is speaking. This authority is an adequate knowledge of what he or she is talking about, and integrity in not wanting to deceive. It is called divine faith when the one believed is God, and human faith when the persons believed are human beings.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Fall – The original sin of Adam and Eve by which they lost the divine friendship and preternatural gifts for themselves and all their human progeny.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Fasting  - A from of penance that imposes limits on the kind or quantity of food or drink. From the first century Christians have observed fasting days of precept, notably during the season of Lent in commemoration of Christ’s passion and death. In the early Church there was less formal precept and therefore greater variety of custom, but in general fasting was much more severe than in the modern Church. In the East and West the faithful abstained on fasting days from wine as well as from flesh-meat, both being permitted only in cases of weak health. The ancient custom in the Latin Church of celebrating Mass in the evening during Lent was partly due to the fact that in many places the first meal was not taken before sunset.
The modern Church regulations on fasting, until 1966, prescribed taking only one full meal a day, along with some food for breakfast and a collation. Days of fast and abstinence for the universal Church were Ash Wednesday, the Fridays and Saturdays of Lent, Ember days, and the vigils of certain feasts. Days of fast only were the rest of the days of Lent, except Sundays. Special indults affected different nations and were provided for by canon law.

With the constitution Paenitemini of Paul VI in 1966, the meaning of the law of fasting remained, but the extent of the obligation was changed. Thus “the law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening, while observing approved local custom as far as quantity and quality of food are concerned.” To the law of fast are bound those of the faithful who have completed their eighteenth year and up until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Prescribed days of fast and abstinence for the whole Church are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Nevertheless, as with abstinence, so with fasting or other forms of penance, “It is up to the bishops, gathered in their episcopal conferences, to establish the norms . . . which they consider the most opportune and efficacious” (Paenitemini, III). In the Eastern rites it is the right of the patriarch, together with the synod or supreme authority of every rite, to determine the days of fast and abstinence in accordance with the decree of the Second Vatican Council for Eastern Churches.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Father  - Theologically, a father is the principal one who produces of his own substance another person like himself. There is, consequently, a Father within the Trinity, who begets God the Son. But the triune God is himself spoken of as a Father, with respect to the rational beings whom he made to share in his own possession of knowledge and love. Among human beings a father is the male parent of his own children and, ultimately, the ancestor of all his progeny. In Church usage the term is applied to the early spokesmen and defenders of Christianity, bishops who attend regional and especially ecumenical councils, and priests in general or specific priests in their role as confessors or spiritual counselors of the faithful.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Fathers of the Church  - Saintly writers of the early centuries whom the Church recognizes as her special witnesses of the faith. Antiquity, orthodoxy, sanctity, and approval by the Church are their four main prerogatives. They are commonly divided into the Greek and Latin fathers. It is now generally held that the last of the Western Fathers (Latin) closed with St. Isidore of Seville (560–636), and the last of the Eastern Fathers (Greek) was St John Damascene (675-749).
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Fifteen Marks of the Church  - The fifteen features of the true Church developed by St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), cardinal, Archbishop of Capua, and Doctor of the Church. As a contemporary of the original Protestant Reformers, he expanded the traditional four marks to fifteen, as follows: 1. the Church’s name, Catholic, universal, and worldwide, and not confined to any particular nation or people; 2. antiquity in tracing her ancestry directly to Jesus Christ; 3. constant duration in lasting substantially unchanged for so many centuries; 4. extensiveness in the number of her loyal members; 5. episcopal succession of her bishops from the first Apostles at the Last Supper to the present hierarchy; 6. doctrinal agreement of her doctrine with the teaching of the ancient Church; 7. union of her members among themselves and with their visible head the Roman Pontiff; 8. holiness of doctrine in reflecting the sanctity of God; 9. efficacy of doctrine in its power to sanctify believers and  inspire them to great moral achievement; 10. holiness of life of the Church’s representative writers and defenders; 11. the glory of miracles worked in the Church and under the Church’s auspices; 12. the gift of prophecy found among the Church’s saints and spokesmen; 13. the opposition that the Church arouses among those who attack her on the very grounds that Christ was opposed by his enemies; 14. the unhappy end of those who fight against her; and 15. the temporal peace and earthly happiness of those who live by the Church’s teaching and defend her interests.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Filioque  - A term meaning “and from the Son,” which over the centuries became the center of controversy between the Eastern Churches separated from Rome and the Catholic Church. The Eastern Christians first objected to the insertion of this phrase in the Nicene Creed, which now states that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The last three words had not been in the original creed but were added later, with the approval of Rome. After the ninth century the Eastern leaders challenged not only the addition but the doctrine itself, whether the Holy Spirit proceeded not only from the Father but also from the Son. In recent years the issue has become more historical than doctrinal, since those who believe in Christ’s divinity, whether Eastern or Western Christians, all accept the fact that the Third Person proceeds from the Second as well as the First Person of the Trinity. Given this common faith, the verbal expression has become secondary.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

First Cause - God as the first cause of all things, because he is the first in the series of all other causes. Also, God as immediately operating in all finite causality, as the underlying cause on which all other causes constantly depend for their activity
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

First Communion  - The precept of the Church that requires children to receive Holy Communion, along with the sacrament of penance, on reaching the age of reason. First issued by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the practice was all but discontinued for centuries, due to the inroads of Jansenism. Pope St Pius X restored the practice and restated the precept, which he also explained how necessarily related are the two sacraments of penance and the Eucharist. “The age of discretion,” he said, “both for confession and for Holy Communion is the time when a child begins to reason.” This means that “a full and perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine is not necessary either for first confession or first Communion.” Moreover, “the obligation of the precept of confession and Communion which binds the child particularly affects those who have charge of him, namely, parents, confessor, teachers, and the pastor” (Quam Singulari, August 8, 1910)
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Flag, Papal - The gold and white standard of the Vatican is known as the Papal Flag. Its insignia is a triple crown with two keys. While the triple crown is no longer used by the Pope, it is still retained as a symbol on this flag. The papal flag may be found in many Roman Catholic Churches and is used in various processions; it is carried to the left of the national flag. Insofar as the Vatican is a temporal city-state, the flag represents the nation.
© Fireside New American Bible

Font - A large bowl of a permanent nature for baptismal water at which Baptism is administered. There should also be a receptacle to receive the surplus water from the person’s head, both bowls having drains which run into the earth. The base of the font should be below the level of the floor, and it should be surmounted by a ciborium. The term is sometimes applied to the receptacles for Holy Water used at the entrances of churches and at the doorways in monasteries, convents, homes, etc.
© Fireside New American Bible

Forgiveness - Pardon or remission of an offense. The Catholic Church believes that sins forgiven are actually removed from the soul (John 20) and not merely covered over by the merits of Christ. Only God can forgive sins, since he alone can restore sanctifying grace to a person who has sinned gravely and thereby lost the state of grace. God forgives sins to the truly repentant either immediately through an act of perfect contrition or mediately through a sacrament. The sacraments primarily directed to the forgiveness of sins are baptism and penance, and secondarily, under certain conditions, also the sacrament of anointing.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Fortitude  - A cardinal virtue and one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, fortitude assists man in facing evil and controlling his fears. Fortitude also enables us to pursue good and to resist recklessness, which distorts a sense of values. Patience and perseverance are closely identified with fortitude and should be practiced to strengthen fortitude.
© Fireside New American Bible

Firmness of spirit. As a virtue, it is a steadiness of will in doing good in spite of difficulties faced in the performance of one’s duty.

There are two levels to the practice of fortitude: one is the suppression of inordinate fear and the other is the curbing of recklessness. The control of fear is the main role of fortitude. Hence the primary effect of fortitude is to keep unreasonable fears under control and not allow them to prevent one from doing what one’s mind says should be done. But fortitude or courage also moderates rashness, which tends to lead the headstrong to excess in the face of difficulties and dangers. It is the special virtue of pioneers in any endeavor.

As a human virtue, fortitude is essentially different from what has come to be called animal courage. Animals attack either from pain, as when they are wounded, or from fear of pain, as when they go after humans because they are angered, whom they would leave alone if they were unmolested. They are not virtuously brave, for they face danger from pain or rage or some other sense instinct, not from choice, as do those who act with foresight. True courage is from deliberate choice, not mere emotion.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications

Free will – The faculty or capability of making a reasonable choice among several alternatives. Freedom of will underlies the possibility and fact of moral responsibility.
© Fireside New American Bible

The power of the will to determine itself and to act of itself, without compulsion from within or coercion from without. It is the faculty of an intelligent being to act or not act, to act this way or another way, and is therefore essentially different from the operations of irrational beings that merely respond to a stimulus and are conditioned by sensory objects.
© Modern Catholic Dictionary, Eternal Life Publications