Liturgy of the Word: The Creed

The Creed is a summary statement of the faith used in the early church as a rule or standard for Christian belief. The Creed is not itself from Scripture but it summarizes the story of Scripture. It moves from creation to Christ’s Incarnation, death and resurrection, to the sending of the Holy Spirit, to the era of the church and finally the Second Coming. The Creed carries us through the entire story of salvation history and includes all three divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who are the principal actors in this drama.

In the Old Testament the practice of prayerfully reciting a creed has deep biblical roots. In ancient history there was belief in many gods. The Creed was developed by the Israelites to proclaim that there was only one True God. The Creed grounds us in reality and reminds us that our beliefs and choices do matter. It proclaims that the universe is not here by random chance, but brought into existence by the one True God, “the maker of heaven and earth” and is moving in a certain direction according to God’s plan. The Creed reminds us that at the end of our lives we will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ who “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” And at that moment, all of our life choices will be weighed in a balance before the divine Judge, and we will receive our just reward or punishment for how we lived.

So, each week when we profess our faith at Mass in the Creed, we publicly stand before the whole congregation and the Almighty God and plant the flag with Jesus. We solemnly declare that we will strive to not live like the rest of the world, but to give our wholehearted allegiance to the Lord: “I believe in one God...” A Hebrew word for belief is ‘aman,’ from which we derive the word ‘Amen’. There has been a recent change in vocabulary. The phrase “consubstantial with the Father” clarifies that the Son is of the same substance as the Father. “By the power of the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man” refers to the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In other words, the Eternal Son of God who is of the same substance as the Father actually took on human flesh. So today as we profess our faith in the Creed, remember that we are invited each week to surrender more of our lives to God.