Day 26: Communion of Believers (185-192)

• Hey we get to read The Nicene Creed AND The Apostles’ Creed today!!

• Yes, they are different

• AND…

• They are the introduction to this new section we are going into

• Section 2: The Creed

• We are still in Part One: The Profession of Faith

• The Creed is Section 2, The Profession of the Christian Faith

• The Creed is divided into THREE MAIN AREAS

• CHAPTER 1: GOD, THE FATHER

• CHAPTER 2: GOD, THE SON

• CHAPTER 3: GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT

• If you have the Ascension Edition of the Catechism you can see that Chapter 1: God, the Father is from Paragraphs 185-421

• A BIG CHUNK OF CHANGE!!

• Of course, Fr. Mike has been reading ahead to brush up on what we are going to talk about

• We will get to DIVE DEEPLY into the IDENTITY of God, the Father in a few days

• We will do that again with God, the Son

• And also with God, the Holy Spirit

• Fr. Mike gets pretty excited about these sorts of things (Or haven’t you noticed? 😉)

• We will also talk about a couple different words you need to listen for in Paragraphs 185-192

• The first is CREED which means CREDO, which means I BELIEVE

• That’s why we call them CREEDS

• The first words are typically I BELIEVE or WE BELIEVE

• Also, the word SYMBOL

• Have you ever stopped to wonder what the word SYMBOL means?

• Well, the Greek word SYMBOLON means HALF OF A BROKEN OBJECT

• Like a seal that was broken, kind of like those “friendship necklaces” that said “friends forever” (I have NO IDEA what Fr. Mike is talking about! I mean, I remember SLAP BRACELETS!! 😉)

• You would keep half the necklace

• Your best friend would keep the other half of the necklace

• So that’s kind of the idea of the SYMBOLON

• So the idea we have SYMBOLS OF FAITH is because we recognize that what we PROFESS is IN US

• WOW!!

• THAT IS REALLY INCREDIBLE!!

• THAT IS REALLY BEAUTIFUL!!

• It is a sign of recognition and communion between believers as well

• It essentially is the “best friends forever” broken necklace

• We can walk up to any other Catholic Christian and say, “Wait a second! You believe what I believe! Why? How do we know this? Because we share the same CREED!”

• We are also going to look at the term ARTICLE

• Yes we know what ARTICLE means

• We will learn that ARTICLE means ARTICULATE

• OH THAT MAKES SENSE!!

• THESE ARTICLES…ARTICULATE…WHAT WE BELIEVE!!

• We will begin LOOKING AT…

• We will begin EXAMINING…

• We will begin WADING INTO…

• THE CREED!!

• Not just The Creed itself…

• BUT…

• WHO The Creed is talking about

• Today and tomorrow we are talking about the REALITY of creeds

• WHERE do they come from?

• WHY do we need them?

• So let's say a prayer right now.!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in heaven, we give you praise. We thank you so much for bringing us to this day, bringing us to Day 26. We're so grateful that you've allowed us to walk with each other and to be guided by you. We ask you to send your Holy Spirit so that we can not only hear the Creed, but we can profess the Creed, not only that we can understand it, but so that we can live it, not only so that we can we can have confidence in what we say about you, but so that we can have you, because you are the object of our longing. You are the object of our love. You are everything. And words cannot capture your reality. So we just ask that you step into our lives, in a new way, in a fresh way, in a deeper way, and capture our hearts. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• Yesterday was MCNUGGET DAY

• Today is GET THE WHOLE CHICKEN DAY!!

• We recited BOTH creeds

• The Apostles’ Creed

• The Nicene Creed

• The Apostles’ Creed is the ESSENTIAL CREED that can be traced back to the Apostles

• It is SHORTER than the Nicene Creed

• BUT…

• It DOES NOT CONTRADICT the Nicene Creed

• The Nicene Creed DOES NOT CONTRADICT the Apostles’ Creed

• It is an EXPANSION of the Apostles’ Creed

• WHY did it get expanded?

• Paragraph 192 says, “Through the centuries many professions or symbols of faith have been articulated in response to the needs of the different eras…”

• SO…

• The Apostles’ Creed sums up what Christians believed FROM THE BEGINNING

• But now as we get to 325 AD and The Council of Nicaea

• It was convened in response to this challenge…

• How do we REALLY understand Jesus being divine?

• We will DIVE DEEPLY into this over the next couple of weeks

• In the Apostles’ Creed it says, “...Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord…”

• Ok…

• “...who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”

• Alright…

• So that’s what we know

• Jesus is the SON OF GOD

• Jesus is OUR LORD

• Jesus was CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

• Jesus was BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY

• But people said, “What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of God? Does it mean that He is part God and part human like Hercules?”

• So in 325 AD The Council of Nicaea comes together in response to this challenge

• The Creed gets EXPANDED

• The Nicene Creed says, “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made…”

• You can see that they were making it VERY VERY CLEAR what we believe as CHRISTIANS

• When we say Jesus is the SON OF GOD

• We mean Jesus is CO-EQUAL with the FATHER

• We mean Jesus is CO-ETERNAL with the FATHER

• SO POWERFUL!!

• When we get to the Holy Spirit, it’s the same thing

• IN FACT…

• The Nicene Creed is the shorthand way of saying it

• It’s actually The Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed (Whew!! Try saying THAT three times fast, eh? 😉)

• Because this all was articulated in both 325 AD at The Council of Nicaea and in 381 AD in The Council of Constantinople

• That’s a little explanation on the difference between the two creeds

• Why do we keep expanding them? 🤔

• BECAUSE THEY KEEP BEING CHALLENGED!!

• What do we REALLY MEAN?

• What do we REALLY BELIEVE?

• That is what the HEART OF THE CREED IS

• What do we ULTIMATELY, IN THE SIMPLEST FORM, BELIEVE?

• IN FACT…

• Paragraph 186 says, “...early on, the Church also wanted to gather the essential elements of its faith into organic and articulated summaries…”

• MAKES SENSE!!

• Have you heard of Theology of the Body?

• It was presented to the world by St. John Paul II

• There are conferences and retreats put on for students and adults

• People are BLOWN AWAY by it

• People are REALLY MOVED

• They learn a lot

• Their hearts get touched

• Then they go home and rave about Theology of the Body

• People say, “What is it?”

• Then they find that they CAN’T ARTICULATE IT

• There is no SIMPLE FORM or CONCISE WAY of capturing what is the HEART OF THE TEACHING of Theology of the Body

• They LOVE what they heard

• BUT…

• How do they convey that in a SIMPLE CONCISE ACCURATE CLEAR WAY?

• THE CREEDS HELP US DO THAT!!

• Because we could say, “I LOVE CHRISTIANITY!! I LOVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!!”

• Ok, so what do you believe?

• “OH WOW THERE IS A TON!!”

• And THAT is why we have these CREEDS

• This is a SUMMARY of the ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE FAITH

• Not that other parts aren’t important

• BUT…

• We have distilled this down to the MOST CONCENTRATED FORM

• That is what these creeds are

• Paragraph 185 says, “Whoever says ‘I believe’ says ‘I pledge myself to what we believe.’ Communion in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith.”

• Fr. Mike LOVES symbolon

• Symbols of faith is great

• A couple of days ago we talked about how we don’t believe in the WORDS THEMSELVES

• We believe in the REALITY that they represent

• We don’t believe in the Creed itself

• We believe in the REALITIES that the Creed represents

• The symbolon is such a GREAT IMAGE

• Fr. Mike recently re-learned this

• Here is this BROKEN SEAL that you would hold up to all other believers 

• They would say, “Yeah, I believe that too!”

• We can be so moved by the reality of the MARTYRS

• There are people RIGHT NOW IN THIS WORLD who are suffering for the fact that they are Christians

• There have been more martyrs in the 20th Century than in ALL OTHER PREVIOUS CENTURIES COMBINED 🤯 🤯 🤯

• Martyrdom is NOT a thing of the PAST

• IN FACT…

• Martyrdom is a thing of the PRESENT

• There are many people in the world right now who are suffering

• Why?

• Because they believe EXACTLY WHAT YOU AND I  BELIEVE

• For most of us who get to listen to this we get to say, “Yeah I believe that!”

• “I want to live that!”

• “I want to pursue the Lord God with my whole heart, mind, soul, and strength!”

• “I want to love the Lord God with everything!”

• There are people who believe EXACTLY WHAT YOU AND I BELIEVE!!

• Because of that, they are now being PERSECUTED

• Because of that, they are now being TORTURED

• They are in the midst of INCREDIBLE INJUSTICE

• The only difference between them and us is THEIR SITUATION

• The only difference between them and us is THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM

• Because they believe EXACTLY WHAT WE BELIEVE

• We can hold up that SYMBOLON to them and it would MATCH WITH OURS

• SO WE NEED TO PRAY FOR THEM!!

• FOR SURE!!

• The Creed is divided up into THREE PARTS

• Paragraph 190 says, “And so the Creed is divided into three parts: ‘the first part speaks of the fist divine Person and the wonderful work of creation…’”

• God the Father is the Creator!!

• “...the next speaks of the second divine Person and the mystery of his redemption of men…”

• Jesus Christ redeems us!!

• “...the final part speaks of the third divine Person, the origin and source of our sanctification…”

• The Holy Spirit!!

• We will hear this later on that what Jesus the Redeemer, the second person of the Trinity, made POSSIBLE, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, makes ACTUAL

• So we get to PROFESS THIS FAITH

• Tomorrow we get to dive into MORE things in both Creeds

• VERY EXCITING!!

• The day after tomorrow we are going to dive into I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!

Scripture References & Reflections

- compiled by Andrew Adamany

Bible Translation - RSVCE

CCC 185 "Whoever says "I believe" says "I pledge myself to what we believe." Communion in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith."

Romans 15:5–6

"May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 4:1–6

"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all."

Revelation 7:9–10

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!”

CCC 186"From the beginning, the apostolic Church expressed and handed on her faith in brief formula normative for all. But already very early on, the Church also wanted to gather the essential elements of her faith into organic and articulated summaries, intended especially for candidates for Baptism"

Romans 10:8–10

"But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved."

1 Corinthians 15:3–5

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve."

1 Timothy 3:16

"Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: 

He was manifested in the flesh, 

vindicated in the Spirit, 

seen by angels, 

preached among the nations, 

believed on in the world, 

taken up in glory."

CCC 189 "The first "profession of faith" is made during Baptism. The symbol of faith is first and foremost the baptismal creed. Since Baptism is given "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", the truths of faith professed during Baptism are articulated in terms of their reference to the three persons of the Holy Trinity."

Matthew 28:19–20

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

Acts 8:12

"But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women."

Acts 16:29–34

"And trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, with all his family. Then he brought them up into his house, and set food before them; and he rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God."