Tag: The Creed

The start of the Creed we profess at Mass is not simply the expression of my “I,” but rather it is the “I” of the Church. To proclaim the Creed is to say “I hold to the faith that Christ has given to his Church.” This statement of belief becomes personal that expresses I hold to something greater than myself … “I hold to the deposit of faith Jesus has given to the whole Church.”

To believe is not simply to hold to something irrationally, but it is to exclaim that I hold to a truth that is reasonable, though not knowable to reason alone. To make the faith of the Church our own, we are saying, “This is the deepest reality, the deepest truth of my life. It is not something I simply say at Mass, it is the cornerstone of my very existence.”

The first object of our faith, the deepest ground of our existence, is stated first in the Creed: that we “believe in One God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” The Creed doesn’t simply stop at “one God” but already begins its reflection that God is a Trinity. The maker of heaven and earth is not some impersonal force, but rather a Person — a Father who creates out of tender love and care. The Father, then, is someone who enters into relationship with every aspect of our being. As creator, every moment is upheld by him, and we are always one small act away from entering into a relationship with him, borne out of thanksgiving for the goodness of his creation.

To believe is to act on the deepest and most important fact of our lives: that we are in relationship with the God who loves and cares for us in the totality of our existence.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

In speaking of Christ, the Creed uses two words that we are not used to: “begotten” and “consubstantial.” Although unfamiliar, these terms can help us appreciate who Jesus is.

The Father eternally begets the Son, which means that for all eternity the Father gives his being to the Son. To put it differently, there is never a “moment” in which the Son doesn’t exist. He is not created, but eternally comes from the Father. The relationship that God has with his creation, therefore, is rooted more firmly and eternally in his relationship with his Son. This reveals to us that God is an eternal relationship. The Father exists for the Son, and the Son for the Father, through the bond of the Holy Spirit. Thus when God creates, all creation is rooted in this relationship of God.

The fact that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father is confirmed by the term “consubstantial.” The word “con” is rooted in the Latin for “with,” and substance refers to what makes up an entity. Consubstantial, as used in the Creed, refers to the Son as “with the same substance” of the Father. Substance is the very being of God. Whatever is of God is completely and totally in the Son as it is in the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This Son of the Father is the one who takes on human flesh so that he may come to rescue humanity from the bonds of sin and death. He takes on a humanity that is totally ours from his mother Mary. By entering into the world, the Son comes to repair what is broken, namely, that relationship with the Father. He comes to lift up creation once again into proper relationship with God, but this time with something new: to have by adoption what he has by nature: to share the substance, the very life of God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read part one in the series here.