LITURGY LESSON: CREED

            (Given:  Holy Trinity   Sunday   May 30, 2010)

 

Today’s Liturgy Lesson is on the Creed, our Profession of Faith.  It will give us another opportunity to talk about a gesture in the Liturgy.

 

The Act of Faith that we profess right after the homily every Sunday was first expressed in the Council of Nicea in the Fourth Century.  It was built upon the profession of faith in the Apostles’ Creed  and expanded at the Council of Constantinople a few years later.  The early leaders were trying to capture the essential truths of our faith in one statement of belief.  The Creed reached its final form in the middle of the Fifth Century. By the end of the Sixth Century it was part of the Mass in most places.  Just think, Catholics in the Roman Church have been making this act of faith together for well over a thousand years!

 

The Nicene Creed was developed to halt the heresies being spread in the early Church.  The main heresy was being taught by Arius, a priest in Alexandria,  who denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ. 

 

The English version of this Creed used to begin, “I believe.” After the Vatican Council, the English version returned to the ancient practice of beginning the Creed with “We believe.” The use of “we” rather than “I” reminds me that my faith in God, though a very personal act and rooted in my own experience, is something I share with the community, and it is strengthened and enriched by its contact with the tradition and life of the community.

 

Gradually the Nicene Creed came to be recognized as the proper profession of faith f or candidates for the sacrament of Baptism. It is the profession of the Christian Faith common to the Catholic Church, to all the Eastern Churches separated from Rome and to many of the Protestant denominations today.

In order to emphasize a key element of this Creed, the Church asks us all to bow at the words

            by the power of the Holy Spirit

            he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

 

Bowing is a special honor paid to the mystery of the Incarnation. This is a bow of the body, not just of the head. In other words, we bow from the waist at the words

            “by the power of the Holy Spirit                                                        READERS: BOW

            he was born of the Virgin May, and became man”.                          WHEN YOU SAY

                                                                                                                                                       THESE WORDS.

Let’s remember to do that together today.