1 hour 8 min. (1 CD / 1 DVD / MP3)

What is “faith”? Is it, as many opponents of Christianity allege, just ‘make believe’ and fairy tales? Or is it, as the secular word thinks, something we believe in order to help us to ‘get by’, a kind of therapy? Or is it, as even some Christians believe, merely a kind of ‘intellectual assent’ to the truth taught by the Gospel?

In this important new presentation, given for the Year of Faith (2012-2013), Dr. Brant Pitre focuses our attention on what the Bible tells us about the mystery of faith in the life of Abraham. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in all of the Old Testament, it is Abraham who is the “the model” of what it means to have faith in God (CCC 144). Taking his cue from this teaching, Dr. Pitre walks you through the ups and downs of Abraham’s life of faith:


• The Call of Abram and his Journey in Faith
• The Faith of Abram and his “Righteousness”
• The Dark Night of Abram and the Mysterious Sacrifice of Animals
• Hagar the Concubine and Abraham’s Son Ishmael
• The Mystery of Circumcision
• The Mystery of the Sacrifice of Isaac
• How the Sacrifice of Isaac points us to the Mysteries of the Cross and the Trinity
• The Life of Abraham and the Three Ages of the Spiritual Life (Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive)


Rather than giving an abstract lecture on the mystery of faith, this presentation makes faith come alive by looking at the concrete life of Abraham, our father in faith. Along the way, you are sure to see yourself and your own journey in faith—including your own ‘dark nights’—in the life and faith of Abraham.