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The Holy Trinity

All that Christ has come to teach us, that we do believe with all the strength of our soul. Such is the summary of the Creed. The symbol or Creed expresses our response and assent to what we have just heard in the readings and in the homily. In the liturgy of the word, the Word of God, now Incarnate, has spoken to men. He will come to offer himself upon the altar in the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Creed thus becomes a wonderful link between these two parts of the Mass.

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Our Creed was not drawn up for use at Mass. In the earliest days of Christianity, a profession of faith was a prerequisite for being baptized. No doubt, the formula was quite simple, something perhaps like the profession of faith made by the Ethiopian eunuch to Philip before baptism, when he said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (Acts 8:37). That explains why in the Apostles' Creed (as well as in the original Latin text of the Creed of the Mass) we speak in the singular: "I believe..."

From this usage in the baptismal liturgy, the Creed later became an instrument to curb the heresy that threatened the principles of the faith. There arose the need to state these principles in precise and definite terms. The symbols of the faith contained the concrete propositions of belief in brief affirmations. However, the familiar statements of the Apostles' Creed did not measure up to the degree of precision needed. So, a more elaborate statement of belief or Creed was drawn up at the Council of Chalcedon (year 451). It combined the truths of the faith professed by the two earlier councils, one held in Nicaea (year 325), the other at Constantinople (year 381). It is this Nicene‑Constantinopolitan Creed, basically, that we find in our Sunday Masses.

Furthermore, there were open questions then about the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. In the climate of doctrinal unrest in the fourth century, a heretic could easily steal into the assembly of the faithful. How might this insult to the holy mysteries be prevented, except by compelling the whole congregation to state the Catholic faith and affirm their adherence to it?

Such usage of the Creed in the liturgy began in Antioch and Constantinople. Then it spread to Spain, where it was adopted in the Council of Toledo (year 589). The council specified that the Creed should be recited before the Lord's Prayer: "Let the Creed resound, so that, the true faith may be declared in song, and that the souls of believers, in accepting that faith, may be ready to partake, in Communion, of the body and blood of Christ."[1]

The Creed thus became, together with the Lord's Prayer, a preparation for Communion. From Spain, it passed to Western Europe, where it was placed after the Gospel. Rome itself did not adopt it in the Mass until the year 1014. [2]

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Nowadays, the Profession of Faith by the priest and the people is obligatory on Sundays and solemnities. It may be said also at special, more solemn celebrations.[3]

We can distinguish three parts in the Creed:

- A confession of faith in God, the Father, our Creator, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

- A confession of faith in Christ, our Lord. He is God, who by the power of the Spirit became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. At these words, all bow as a sign of reverence for the mystery. Then we focus on Christ's passion and death on the cross; his resurrection, ascension, and participation in the judgment to reign forever, as it was announced by the angel to the Virgin Mary (Lk 1:33).

- A confession of faith in the means of salvation supplied by God, the Holy Spirit, the giver of supernatural life. We declare how he works through the Church.

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We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Catholic means universal -- a reminder that the Church exists throughout the world and embraces the entire revelation of God. Those who accepted only a part of it were called heretics (from hairesis, to take a choice, to join a sect). The Church is apostolic because it traces its origins back to Christ through the apostles and always teaches the message the apostles received from him.

At an early period of history (c. AD 350), St Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, described the catholicity of the one Church with the following words:

The Church is called Catholic or universal because it has spread throughout the entire world, from one end of the earth to the other. Again, it is called Catholic because it teaches fully and unfailingly all the doctrines which ought to be brought to men's knowledge, whether concerned with visible or invisible things, with the realities of heaven or the things of earth. Another reason for the name Catholic is that the Church brings under religious obedience all classes of men, rulers and subjects, learned and unlettered. Finally, it deserves the title Catholic because it heals and cures unrestrictedly every type of sin that can be committed in soul or in body, and because it possesses within itself every kind of virtue that can named, whether exercised in actions or in words or in some kind of spiritual charism.[4]

The Church is continually sanctified by the Holy Spirit; thus, all those who believe have access through Christ to God the Father.[5] She transmits that salvation by means of the sacraments,[6] real channels of grace. Since the Creed was once said immediately before baptism, it is natural that it includes a statement of belief in "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins."

We end up declaring that our future resurrection is on the way to our final coronation as new creatures.

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The Creed is none other than the marvelous history of God's love for us. That this truth necessarily surpasses our understanding should not astonish us. Can we pretend to comprehend the infinity of God and the immensity of his purposes in human words and thoughts?

In these times of doctrinal confusion, we should be careful not to compromise the content of our faith, not even in small things. "If we give up in any point of the Christian dogma, it will be necessary to yield in another, and then in another, and thus until such concessions become normal and licit. And once we have set ourselves in motion to reject the dogma bit by bit, what will happen at the end, but to repudiate it in its entirety?"[7]

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It is worthwhile putting our lives on the line, giving ourselves completely, so as to respond to the love and the confidence that God has placed in us. It is worthwhile, above all, to decide to take our Christian life seriously. When we recite the Creed, we state that we believe in God the Father Almighty, in his Son Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. We affirm that the Church --one, holy, catholic, and apostolic-- is the body of Christ enlivened by the Holy Spirit. We rejoice in the forgiveness of sins and in the hope of the resurrection.

But do those words penetrate to the depths of our own heart? Or do they remain only on our lips? The divine message of victory, the joy and the peace of Pentecost, should be the unshakable foundation of every Christian's way of thinking and acting and living.[8]

1. Council of Toledo (A.D. 589), can. 2 (Mansi IX, 993). The creed is still prayed before the Lord's Prayer in the Mozarabic rite, sometimes used in Spain. In our time, it has been reintroduced before the Lord's Prayer in the initiation of catechumens (cf. Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum, 25‑26; 183‑187).

2. It is said that a very spirited Roman answered criticisms by retorting that since Rome had never fallen into heresy, the recitation of the Creed in the Mass was unnecessary there.

3. Cf. GIRM, no. 44.

4. Catecheses, 18, 23: PG 33:1043.

5. LG, no. 4.

6. LG, no. 11.

7. St Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, no. 23.

8. St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, Christ Is Passing By, no. 129.