Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St Joseph. I teach at the Dominican House of Studies and I work as an assistant director for the Tomistic Institute and this is Pines with Aquinas.

Sometimes when we are debating, like faith or doctrine,

we feel like we have to react and say something contrary to whoever we're disagreeing with.

So say like you're Catholic and you're engaged in debate with a Protestant.

And a Protestant says, we're justified by faith.

You think to yourself, wait a second, we disagree, so maybe

we're justified by something else and then you pipe up and say we are justified by

works. Or maybe you're debating a Protestant on something of Sacramento theology and this

Protestant individual says faith excuse me sacraments are symbols and you think

yourself wait we disagree on this so I have to say something contrary sacraments

are not symbols.

Okay, in situations like that, when we take our cues from reaction or contrariety,

oftentimes we stumble into untruths

or we stumble into falsities. as it turns out we are justified by faith

but a faith breathing forth love that is to say a faith informed by charity

which charity is made manifest and communicable in works, but ultimately were justified by faith and charity.

Or when it comes to the sacraments, as it turns out, the sacraments are symbols.

It's just that they are not mere symbols.

They are symbols that is signs which cause what they signify.

They affect a change in our lives

by the work having been worked, by the power of God alone and

through the instrumental causality of our Lord's sacred humanity. So in this year

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