Faith

Virtue

The Faith of the Fathers

By faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than that of Cain, and according to it he was declared right by having God attested to his gifts; for it, though dead speak again.
By faith, Enoch was taken away, so that he did not see death; and he was ot found, because God had taken him away. In fact, before being taken elsewhere, he was declared a person who is welcome to God. Without faith, it is impossible to be pleasing to him; those who in fact approach God must believe that he exists and reward those who seek him.

By faith, Noah, warned of things still unseen, taken from sacred fear built an ark for the salvation of his family; and for this faith condemned the world and received justice in faith by faith.
By faith, Abraham, called by God, obeyed for a place to be inherited, and left without knowing where he was going. By faith, he stayed in his promise as in a foreign region, inhabiting under the tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, coerced with the same promise. In fact, he expected the city to be firmly founded, whose architect and builder is God himself.

By faith, even He will be, though out of age, given the chance to become a mother because he believed the one who promised him to be faithful. For this reason, from a single man, and also already marked by death, a large offspring was born like the stars of the sky and the sand that is along the seafront and cannot be counted.
All of them died in faith. Without having obtained the promised goods, they saw them and greeted them only far away, claiming to be foreigners and pilgrims on earth. Anyone who speaks this, shows that he is looking for a homeland. If they had thought of what they were leaving, they would have had the chance to come back; now instead they aspire to a better home, that is to the heavenly one. For this God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has given them a city.

By faith, Abraham was put to the test, offered Isaac, and he himself, who had received the promises, offered his only son, of whom he had been told: In Isaac, you will have a descendent who will bring your name. For he thought that God was able to rise again from the dead; for this reason he also reigned as a symbol.
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau also in view of future goods. By faith, Jacob, dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and bowed down, leaning on the end.
By faith, Joseph at the end of life remembered the exodus of the children of Israel and made arrangements about his own bones. By faith, Moses, newly born, was kept hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the baby was beautiful; and they did not fear the king's edict.

By faith, Moses became an adult, refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, preferring to be abused with the people of God rather than enjoying a short time of sin. He esteemed greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt to be despised for Christ; he had in fact the fixed look on the reward.
By faith, he left Egypt without fear of the king's wrath; in fact it remained firm, as if to see the invisible

By faith, he celebrated Easter and blew his blood, for the one who exterminated the firstborn did not touch the Israelites.
By faith, they passed the Red Sea through a dry land. The Egyptians tried to do it, but they drowned.
By faith, the walls of Jericho fell, after they had made their turn for seven days.
By faith, Raab, the prostitute, did not perish with the unbelievers because he had welcomed the explorers with kindness.
And what shall I say again? I would miss the time if I wanted to tell Gideon, Barak, Samson, lefte, David, Samuel and prophets. By faith, they conquered kingdoms, exercised justice, obtained what was promised, closed the lions' lips, extinguished the violence of fire, escaped the sword of the sword, strengthened their weakness, became strong in war, rejected invasions of foreigners. Some women had their dead for resurrection. Others were then tortured, not accepting their offerings to be liberated, to obtain a better resurrection. Others, finally, suffered insults and scourges, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, tortured, cut into two, were killed by swords, went around covered with sheepskin and goatskins, needy, troubled, abused - the world was not worthy of them! -, wandering for deserts, on the mountains, among the caves and on the shores of the earth.
All of them, even though they were approved because of their faith, did not receive what God had promised: for God had prepared for us something better so that they would not perfection without us.

Perseveres in faith
We too, surrounded by such a multitude of witnesses, having deposited all that is of weight and the sin that sits upon us, we go with perseverance in the race that is ahead of us, keeping our gaze on Jesus, the one who gives origin to the faith and the door to completion.
He, in exchange for the joy that was before him, was subjected to the cross, despising dishonor, and sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. Think carefully of him who has borne against himself such a great hostility of sinners, for there tired of losing your mind. You have not yet resisted the blood in the struggle against sin and have already forgotten the exhortation to you as your children: My son, do not despise the Lord's correction and do not lose heart when you have taken him; because the Lord corrects him as he loves and strikes anyone who recognizes him as a child.

We too, surrounded by such a multitude of witnesses, having deposited all that is of weight and the sin that sits upon us, we go with perseverance in the race that is ahead of us, keeping our gaze on Jesus, the one who gives origin to the faith and the door to completion. He, in exchange for the joy that was before him, was subjected to the cross, despising dishonor, and sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. Think carefully of him who has borne against himself such a great hostility of sinners, for there tired of losing your mind. You have not yet resisted the blood in the struggle against sin and have already forgotten the exhortation to you as your children: My son, do not despise the Lord's correction and do not lose heart when you have taken him; because the Lord corrects him as he loves and strikes anyone who recognizes him as a child.

So refresh your inert hands and knees, and walk right with your feet, for the limp foot is not crippled, but rather heals.