Why Believe? Volume 2

Will believing what the Church teaches make me happy?

Chapter 1
The essential personal drama of each human life is an interior one, at the level of the conscience. In response to our sins, God unfailingly offers his mercy.

Chapter 2
The contemporary moral landscape is characterized by a relativism and individualism that are logically defective and incapable of providing true happiness.

Chapters 3–6
Each human person is a unique unity of body and soul, each of which makes an essential contribution to our character and happiness. From this perspective, we are able to understand the proper relationship of emotions and reason, the rightful and good purpose of human sexuality, and the essential and beneficial role of the family in human life.

Chapters 7–9
The paradox of human life is that even when we know what will make us happy, we sometimes fail to choose according to that knowledge. The defects in our characters—ultimately stemming from Original Sin—can be healed by Divine Grace offered by the sacraments and by our efforts to live according to that Grace and under the direction of God’s law. The resulting good changes to our characters are the virtues, theological and moral, that enable us to live happy lives here that will prepare us to be happy in heaven with God.

Chapters 10–14
The essential principle or cause of human happiness is love: the love of God and the love of neighbor. We live that love most effectively in the Church founded by Christ, with the help of his sacraments and the illumination provided by the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture and the example of the saints. The love we experience—by giving and receiving—enables us to bear the suffering that results from sin and to live in the hopeful expectation of life after death.

Chapter 15
The happy life is founded upon a mature commitment to Jesus Christ as teacher and Lord, a commitment that manifests itself in prayer and good works, especially the work of evangelization.