Week 1

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There are four sections of the Nicene Creed, each dealing with one of the major dogmas of our faith: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and God’s Holy Church.

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A dogma is an essential and unchanging truth of the Catholic faith proclaimed by the Church to be divinely revealed, and must be believed by all Catholics.

 

The Creed begins with:

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says, “Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God, the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works.” (CCC 198).

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We believe in one God in three Persons. We do not believe in three Gods. God reveals Himself to us as “Father”, and so we are His children. He invites us to have a personal relationship with Him.

 

Our belief in a God who is Almighty means that God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (present in all places at all times).

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As we read in the Catechism, “God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.’” (CCC 293, quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas).

 

God the Father creates everything from nothing – everything that we can see (such as the earth, stars, trees, everything around us) as well as all things that we cannot see (such as Heaven, angels, our souls and
everything in the spiritual realm).

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Week 2​​​

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In the next section of the Nicene Creed, we profess:

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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.

 

This section of the Creed describes the nature of Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It was written to counter the Arian heresy which arose in the 4th century, based on the ideas of Arius, a priest from Alexandria, Egypt, who taught that Jesus was not divine, but rather a created being. Although Arius was excommunicated by the bishops of Egypt in 319, he continued to teach this error and gathered a significant group of followers, including some clergy. As a result, the Arian heresy spread throughout much of the Eastern and Western Roman empires. 

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As mentioned earlier, the bishops called the Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381 to clarify the nature of Jesus and thus refute the false teaching spread by the Arian heresy.

 

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ

By professing that we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, we are affirming that Jesus is God. The Hebrew word, adonai, meaning “Lord”, was used by the Jewish people when they referred to God since they considered the name of God too holy to be spoken. The use of the word “Lord” also echoes the Apostle Thomas’ profound declaration of faith: “My Lord and my God!” upon encountering the Resurrected Jesus (John 20:28). 

 

the Only Begotten Son of God

In John 3:16, we read, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whomsoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Jesus is begotten by God the Father, not created. God creates other creatures such as angels, human beings and animals.

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In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis distinguishes between begetting and creating:

“To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers…. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes…say, a statue….What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man.”

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The Nicene Creed, in saying that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, directly rejects Arianism as this statement clearly affirms that Jesus is truly God and is not created by God.

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In addition, the Creed states that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, which shows that Jesus is the Son of God in a different way than our being called children of God: we are created by God and  invited to be his adopted sons and daughters through the Sacrament of Baptism.

 

born of the Father before all ages

The Arian heresy claimed that Jesus was created by God at a specific time in history. The statement, “born of the Father before all ages”, clearly indicates that the Son is begotten by the Father before all time. He has no beginning. There was never a time when the Son and the Father did not co-exist.

  

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,

begotten, not made

These statements continue to emphasize that Jesus is fully God, begotten by the Father, equal in divinity to the Father.

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In the Bible, light is often used to describe God (e.g. Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my salvation…”), and Jesus is described as “true God” (1 John 5:20: “…Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life.”).

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These statements along with the rest of this section show that Jesus is not of a lower status than God, but he is God, equal in divinity to the Father.

 

consubstantial with the Father

Consubstantial, the English translation of the Latin word  “consubstantialis”, means “of the same substance or essence”.

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“Consubstantial with the Father” means that Jesus shares the same divine nature as the Father, the same substance, and is thus equal to the Father. This phrase shows that Father and Son are not two different gods; neither is each a “part” of God, which together add up to one God. Jesus is equal to, yet distinct from, the Father as he is of the same substance as the Father.

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There is no ambiguity about the nature of Jesus when we profess that he is consubstantial with the Father.

 

through him all things were made

All creation was made through Jesus, the Eternal Word of God, as noted in John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)

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Week 3

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We move on to the next section of the Nicene Creed, wherein we profess:

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For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.

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As the previous section of the Nicene Creed affirms the divinity of Jesus, this next section affirms his human nature and explains why he became man.

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Through original sin and our personal sins, we are separated from God, and there is nothing we can do to bridge this gap between God and humanity. We need a saviour to restore our relationship with God. To fulfill God’s plan for our salvation, Jesus came down from heaven and took on human nature.

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us four reasons why Jesus became man (CCC 457-460):

i) To save us by reconciling us to God.

ii) That we might know God’s love

iii) To show us the way to Heaven, to be our model for holiness.

iv) To make us partakers in God’s divine nature through grace and the Sacraments. Through Baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us, and we become adopted children of God.

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Jesus humbled himself to share in our humanity. We call this the Mystery of the Incarnation, one of the central mysteries of our faith. The word “incarnate” means “to take on flesh”. The Incarnation refers to Jesus taking on human nature while still retaining his divine nature.

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At the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel said to the Virgin Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). Mary responded with her fiat, her yes to what God was asking of her: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38).

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Jesus, God the Son, took on human nature when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

 

Through the Incarnation, Jesus is simultaneously fully God and fully man in all things but sin. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).

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The fully human nature of Jesus is evident in the Gospels. Some examples are:

• He was born a child, developed, and grew into a man. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” (Luke 2:52).

• He experienced human emotions like joy and sadness. “Jesus began to weep” at the death of his friend, Lazarus. (John 11:35).

• He suffered thirst and hunger. “He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.” (Matthew 4:2).

• He got tired and rested. “But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.” (Mark 4:38).

• He endured temptation. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Matthew 4:1).

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives this comprehensive explanation of the union of two natures, human and divine, in the one Person of Jesus Christ:

“The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.” (CCC 464).

 

During the profession of the Nicene Creed, we bow our heads when we say “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary” out of reverence, honoring the Mystery of the Incarnation : that Jesus, the Son of God, took on human nature and became man for our salvation, so that we might have eternal life.

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Week 4​​

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We learned in the previous section of the Nicene Creed that Jesus came down from heaven and took on human nature to fulfill God’s plan for our salvation.

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In the next section of the Nicene Creed, we profess:

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For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.

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These statements explain how our salvation is accomplished – through Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. This is called the Paschal Mystery, which is at the heart of the Christian faith.

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The word “Paschal” is derived from the Hebrew word for “Passover”. The Jewish feast of Passover, which recounts God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, is a foreshadowing of Christ’s crucifixion and death through which all of humanity is delivered from the slavery of sin.

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Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from 26 AD to 36 AD. Including Pilate’s name in the Creed establishes Jesus’ suffering and death at a particular point in history. It was not a myth or a legend, but an actual event which took place at a specific time and place in human history.

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Roman crucifixion, often preceded by scourging (flogging), was a horrible form of execution designed to inflict terrible pain, suffering, and humiliation onto criminals who would eventually die through the painful process of asphyxiation.

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Jesus, the Son of God, chose to undergo this suffering and death by crucifixion, offering himself on the cross as a sacrifice to God the Father. He did this out of love and obedience, fulfilling the Father’s will for our salvation.

 

Jesus’ death on the cross was not a punishment from God, but rather a sacrifice to show his love for us. Jesus himself said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13).

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As we learned earlier, Jesus, though fully God was also fully man. Thus, he suffered all the physical, emotional and spiritual torments of the journey to the cross and the crucifixion. He suffered death, with separation of his soul from his body: “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.” (Matthew 27:50).

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Jesus’ lifeless body was taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb, carved out of a rock, with a large stone placed against the entrance.

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Jesus did not remain in the realm of the dead. In all four Gospels, we read about his resurrection from the dead on the third day, appearing first to Mary Magdalene, then Peter and the other disciples.

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Jesus rose from the dead not by resuscitation or in a manner similar to the raising of Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Those cases, though miraculous, restored the dead persons to earthly life from which they would die again at some point in the future. In his risen state, Jesus has a glorious, incorruptible body which is not limited to space and time. His glorious resurrected body will never die. (CCC 646).

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By inviting the disciples to see and touch his body, and by eating with them, Jesus shows them that he is not a ghost, and that his risen glorious body is the same body that had been crucified, still having the marks of his Passion:

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“He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”” (Luke 24:38-39)

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“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.” (Luke 24:41-43).

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“Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”” (John 20:27).

 

The phrase ‘in accordance with the Scriptures' indicates that the Paschal Mystery is a fulfillment of the prophecies foretold in the Old Testament for God’s plan of salvation for humanity. After his resurrection, Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death to the disciples on the road to Emmaus:

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‘”Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” (Luke 24:26-27).

 

“The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life.” (CCC 654). Christ’s victory over sin and death is evidenced in his resurrection. Because of his suffering, death and resurrection, we have the hope of eternal life.

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Week 5

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After Jesus rose from the dead (as we learned in the previous section of the Creed), he spent forty days with his Apostles, teaching them about the Kingdom of God. What happened next is what we profess in the subsequent section of the Nicene Creed:

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He ascended into heaven

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This statement describes the Ascension of Jesus, which is the elevation of his risen, glorious body into heaven. Saint Luke describes Jesus’ Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles:

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As [the Apostles] were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)

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Through the Ascension, Jesus brings something permanently to heaven which did not exist there before: his humanity: “Jesus' final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory…” (CCC 659).

 

It is Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, body and soul, which brought humanity into heaven and permits us to have access to the Father:

 

Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the "Father's house", to God's life and happiness. Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us. (CCC 661)  

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In heaven, Jesus is the eternal priest who intercedes on our behalf. To intercede means “to go between, to mediate”. Jesus is our mediator with the Father, eternally offering himself as a sacrifice of love to the Father (CCC 662). At each Mass, we participate in this eternal sacrifice taking place in heaven. In this way, the Ascension completes the Paschal Mystery  through which Jesus accomplishes his saving work.

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Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he promised to send the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, to embolden them in their mission to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Just as he promised to the Apostles, he assures each of us, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Thus, Jesus’ Ascension is not about his absence on earth, but about his ongoing presence through the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist.​

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Jesus ascended into heaven to “prepare a place for us” (John 14:2-3). We hope to one day be with him forever, as we pray in the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer on the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord:

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Mediator between God and man,
judge of the world and Lord of hosts,
he ascended not to distance himself from our lowly state
but that we, his members, might be confident of following
where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.

 

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  : The Paschal Mystery refers to Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, for our salvation. See above section for more details.

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Week 6

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In the next section of the Nicene Creed, we profess what happened to Jesus after he ascended into heaven:

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and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

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When we profess that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, we may view the terms seated and right hand as metaphors and not take them literally. God the Father does not have left and right hands as we think of them.

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In Scripture, the term right hand denotes:

• Closeness or intimacy: “I keep the Lord always before me;
  because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” (Psalm 16:8)

• Victory: “And he brought them to his holy hill,
  to the mountain that his right hand had won.” (Psalm 78:54)

• Authority: “The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make                                                                      your enemies your footstool.’” (Psalm 110:1)

• Honor: “daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;
  at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.” (Psalm 45:9)

• Protection: “Give victory with your right hand, and answer us,
  so that those whom you love may be rescued.” (Psalm 60:5)

• Power: “the right hand of the Lord is exalted;

        the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.” (Psalm 118:16)

 

Thus, Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father refers to his being enthroned next to the Father in a position of honor, glory, power, authority and judgement. It also signifies the “inauguration of the Messiah's kingdom…” (CCC 664). Jesus is Messiah and King, ruling over all creation, over a kingdom which has no end. As Jesus says, “But from now on the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69).

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Week 7

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In the previous sections of the Creed, we discussed Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. In our reflection this week, we examine the Second Coming of Jesus, as we profess:

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He will come again in glory

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Scripture tells us that Jesus will physically return to earth in splendor and glory: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27). But why, if we proclaim Jesus is Lord, will it be necessary for him to return again in glory? Isn’t he already King?

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The Catechism explains this paradox of Christ’s reign being already here and not yet:

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Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the King's return to earth. This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ's Passover (CCC 671).

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Through his Death and Resurrection, Jesus has once and for all defeated death and Satan, “but all the things of this world are not yet subjected to him…” (CCC 680), so we are obliged to wage a daily battle against evil and fight the final battle.

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The Second Coming of Jesus will occur at the end of the world as we know it, with the establishment of a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) and God’s permanent Kingdom. Jesus tells us that no one knows when this will occur except the Father: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32).

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Jesus warns us to be vigilant in keeping his Commandments during this time of waiting so that we are not caught off guard when he returns:

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Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time will come. Watch therefore—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch (Mark 13:33, 35-37).

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The time immediately before this will be a time of great hardship for Christians and the Church: “Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers” (CCC 675).

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Since Christ is our head and we are the Body of Christ, it follows that we will also undergo sufferings, misunderstandings and adversity as he did before we can enter the kingdom of Heaven:

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The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection (CCC 677).

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Even though “the triumph of Christ's kingdom will not come about without one last assault by the powers of evil” (CCC 680), we wait for the Second Coming of Christ not in fear but in hope because at the end of time “the Kingdom will be fulfilled…by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil” (CCC 677).

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Until his Second Coming in glory, we encounter Christ in every Eucharist received where he is hidden under the appearances of bread and wine.

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Our hope in Christ is strengthened as we trust in his promises: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13) and “When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).

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With joyful anticipation, we “look forward to his Second Coming”   each time we pray the Memorial Acclamation at Mass: We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again.

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 : From the third Eucharistic Prayer

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Week 8

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At the Second Coming of Christ on the Last Day, he will judge everyone – those who are living and those who have died. This is known as the Last Judgment, which is the subject of the next statements of the Nicene Creed:

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[He will come again in glory]

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.

 

At the Last Judgement, “the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts will be brought to light” (CCC 678). All aspects of our lives will be known; nothing will be hidden. Everyone will be held accountable for their thoughts, words and actions, and for the good they did or failed to do towards their neighbour.

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The criteria for this judgement, which determines one’s eternal destiny, will be faith in God and love towards God and neighbour:

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Our attitude to our neighbor will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love. On the Last Day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (CCC 678).

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In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus gives us a vivid description of the Last Judgement: the righteous – those who responded to God’s grace by helping their neighbour who was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or imprisoned – will enter eternal life, while those who did not show charity and love towards their neighbour will suffer eternal punishment.

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Jesus Christ is judge over all people, an authority given to him by the Father: “Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world” (CCC 679).

 

Yet, Jesus came to offer salvation to humanity by reconciling us to the Father through his death and resurrection:

 

The Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself (CCC 679).

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God does not impose his gift of salvation upon us nor does he oblige us to accept it. When we choose to reject God’s love, mercy and grace, choosing instead self-centered desires, God respects our free will. We then judge ourselves, freely choosing to separate ourselves from God “and can even condemn [ourselves] for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love” (CCC 679), namely by dying in a state of unrepented mortal sin.

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While the thought of spending eternity separated from God’s love should frighten us all, Jesus offers us his inexhaustible Divine Mercy as he revealed to Saint Faustina: “Proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God” (Diary of Saint Faustina, 301).

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Since we are all sinners and we do not know the moment of our death, we ought to avail ourselves of God’s mercy and grace by frequenting the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist while we still have the opportunity on Earth. By striving to live a life in accordance with the teachings of Christ, we aim to make him the centre of our lives, conforming our will to his, with the hope that we too can join Saint Paul in saying at the end of our life: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

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We profess that his kingdom will have no end, by which we believe that Jesus’ triumph over sin, death and the devil will usher in his eternal and everlasting kingdom as fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament and as foretold by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation:

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You shall call his name Jesus…and of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:31, 33).

 

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This concludes the second section of the Nicene Creed which summarizes our beliefs in God the Son. Next week, we will begin reflecting on God the Holy Spirit, which is the third section of the Creed.

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Week 9

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We now begin our reflections on the third section of the Nicene Creed, which encapsulates our beliefs in God the Holy Spirit:

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

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When we profess that we believe in the Holy Spirit, we affirm our belief in who the Holy Spirit is and what he accomplishes.

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The word “Spirit” comes from the Hebrew word ruah which means breath, air or wind, but this does not mean that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. Instead, he is a divine person, the third person of the Holy Trinity. He knows each of us and loves us just as profoundly as Jesus and Our Father do.

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The dogma of the Holy Trinity is explained in the Catechism:

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The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”. The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire (CCC 253).

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The divine persons are really distinct from one another. “God is one but not solitary”. “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another (CCC 254).

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Recall that a dogma is an essential and unchanging truth of the Catholic faith proclaimed by the Church to be divinely revealed, and believed by all Catholics.

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Consubstantial means “of the same substance or essence”. The Holy Spirit shares the same divine nature as the Father and the Son, and is thus equal in divinity to the Father and to the Son. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three different Gods, nor is each a fraction of God totalling up to one God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, yet equal to each other as each is of the same divine substance. “The divine Unity is Triune” (CCC 254).

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The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them (CCC 234).

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The Holy Trinity comes to dwell within us when we receive the Sacrament of Baptism. “Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 233). “By the grace of Baptism…we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity” (CCC 265).  Thus, Baptism is the door through which we can receive all the other Sacraments.

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The Holy Spirit is operative in all acts of faith. As Saint Paul writes, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3) and “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6).

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This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us (CCC 683).

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Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit just as he promised him to his Apostles:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth….You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you (John 14:15-17).

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It is comforting to know that “the Holy Spirit will come and we shall know him; he will be with us for ever; he will remain with us. The Spirit will teach us everything, remind us of all that Christ said to us and bear witness to him. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will glorify Christ” (CCC 729).

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Just as he works within each of us, the Holy Spirit is operative in the life of the whole Church. “The mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 737).

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The Catechism (CCC 688) presents to us the ways the Holy Spirit is active in the Church and in our lives: 

• in the Scriptures he inspired;

• in the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses;

• in the Church's Magisterium, which he assists;

• in the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ;

• in prayer, wherein he intercedes for us;

• in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up;

• in the signs of apostolic and missionary life;

• in the witness of saints through whom he manifests his holiness and continues the work of salvation.

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What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the body of Christ, which is the Church. The Holy Spirit does in the whole Church what the soul does in all the parts of one body.

Saint Augustine, Sermon 267

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Week 10

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This week, we will continue our reflections on the Holy Spirit by considering how the Holy Spirit is revealed to us through many images in Scripture. These symbols can be seen depicted in churches and in other religious art. They figure prominently in the celebration of the Sacraments:

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• Water. “The symbolism of water signifies the Holy Spirit’s action in Baptism…that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 694). “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians12:13).

• Anointing. The symbolism of anointing with oil signifies an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as seen in the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38).

• Fire “symbolizes the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit’s actions….In the form of tongues ‘as of fire’, the Holy Spirit rests on the disciples on the morning of Pentecost and fills them with himself” (CCC 696).

• Cloud and light. “These two images [of a cloud that is both obscuring and luminous] occur together in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit [in the Old and New Testaments]” (CCC 697):

  • “When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses” (Exodus 33:9).

  • “And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10-11).

  • “And the angel said to [Mary], ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God’” (Luke 1:35).

  • At the Transfiguration, “a cloud came and overshadowed [Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James and John]…and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’” (Luke 9:34-35).

  • At Jesus’ Ascension, “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).

• “The seal is a symbol close to that of anointing. ‘The Father has set his seal’ on Christ and also seals us in him” (CCC 698). The Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders confer an indelible (permanent, unerasable) mark on the candidate’s soul. These three Sacraments once conferred cannot be undone and cannot be repeated.

• “The hand. Jesus heals the sick and blesses little children by laying hands on them. In his name the apostles will do the same” (CCC 699). It is through the laying on of hands that the Holy Spirit was given to people in the early Church: “…the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands…” (Acts 8:18); “And when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6). In the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders, the Holy Spirit is invoked through the laying on of hands. At every Mass, at the epiclesis, the priest calls upon the Holy Spirit when he extends his hands over the bread and wine which will become the Body and Blood of Christ.

• The dove is perhaps the most common symbol of the Holy Spirit. We encounter this symbol at Jesus’ baptism when “he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove” (Mark 1:10). “Christian iconography traditionally uses a dove to suggest the Spirit” (CCC 701).

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Week 11

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We continue our reflections on the Holy Spirit in the subsequent lines of the Nicene Creed:

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I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

 

This section was added to the Nicene Creed by the Church at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 to refute the Pneumatomachian heresy, also known as Macedonianism. This heresy denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit, considering it to be created by God the Son, and thus subordinate to the Father and the Son. A heresy is a belief held by a Christian which contradicts a teaching of the Church.

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We will reflect on this section in two consecutive articles. These articles will build on and extend what we presented in Week 9 on the dogma of the Holy Trinity.

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In this first article, we will explore the line “the Lord, the giver of life”.

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The Lord

Recall that the Hebrew word, adonai, meaning “Lord”, was used by the Jewish people when they referred to God (the Father) since they considered the name of God too holy to be spoken. In an earlier section of the Nicene Creed, when we profess that we “believe in one Lord Jesus Christ”, we affirm that Jesus is God. By professing that the Holy Spirit is “Lord”, we affirm that the Holy Spirit is God, equal in divinity to the Father and to the Son.

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The One whom the Father has sent into our hearts, the Spirit of his Son, is truly God. Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, in both the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of love for the world (CCC 689).

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There are several references in Scripture where the Holy Spirit is revealed as God, such as:

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And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us…saying,

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds” (Hebrews 10:15-16).

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Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?...You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3-4).

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By attributing the title Lord to the Holy Spirit, the Church affirms the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity.

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The giver of life

We profess that the Holy Spirit is the giver of life. Since only God can give life, this statement further affirms that the Holy Spirit is God, and that he gives life just as the Father and Son give life.

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“The Word of God and his Breath are at the origin of the being and life of every creature: It belongs to the Holy Spirit to rule, sanctify, and animate creation, for he is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son” (CCC 703). Consider the creation of man as described in Genesis 2:7:

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Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

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As we profess in the Nicene Creed, the Word (Jesus) was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit – another instance of the powerful life-giving nature of the Holy Spirit.

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The Holy Spirit not only gives physical life but also spiritual life. We would be spiritually dead if not for one of the greatest gifts that Jesus has given us – reconciling us to God through the forgiveness of our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This gift was given by Jesus to the Apostles through the Holy Spirit after his Resurrection from the dead. “…[Jesus] breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:22-23).

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On the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ Resurrection, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place upon Mary and the Apostles.

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There appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:3-4).

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This event led to the Apostles spreading the Gospel, the source of eternal life, to all parts of the world.

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In the Nicene Creed, the term “giver of life” is a translation of the Latin vivificantem which means “the one who makes alive” which implies more than a series of one-time acts, but rather an ongoing active process by which the Holy Spirit infuses us with God’s divine life.  “The Holy Spirit, whom Christ the head pours out on his members, builds, animates and sanctifies the Church” (CCC 747).

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The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with his grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may "bear much fruit" (CCC 737).

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Just as the Apostles were empowered at Pentecost to spread the Gospel and be a witness to Christ, we too have received the same Holy Spirit through our Baptism and Confirmation and are called to do the same. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (CCC 733). “Christ who, as the head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among his members to nourish, heal,…to give them life, send them to bear witness…” (CCC 739).

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The Holy Spirit continues his life-giving action in our lives through the Sacraments, the moral teachings of the Church, and prayer (CCC 739 – 741).

 

Through the gift of grace, which comes from the Holy Spirit, man enters a "new life," is brought into the supernatural reality of the divine life itself and becomes a "dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit,"

a living temple of God.

Pope John Paul II, Dominum et vivificantem, Encyclical Letter, (May 18, 1986), paragraph 58

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Week 12

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After reflecting on “the Lord, the giver of life” in Week 11, we will now continue with the subsequent lines of the Nicene Creed:

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Who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

 

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son

As explained in our earlier articles on the Nicene Creed (Week 9 and Week 11), the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, consubstantial with the Father and the Son.

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In the Nicene Creed we profess that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. Jesus is begotten by God the Father, not created. 

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The Holy Spirit is not begotten by the Father in the same way as the Son, but rather proceeds from the Father and the Son. “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds" (CCC 254).

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The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration” (CCC 246).

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The word “spiration” is derived from the Latin word spirare, which means “to breathe”. This describes not a physical breathing, but rather a spiritual act of the Holy Spirit eternally manifesting from the mutual love of the Father and the Son.

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That the Holy Spirit is a person and not an impersonal force is affirmed by using the pronoun “who” in the Nicene Creed – who proceeds, who is adored, who is glorified. This is evidenced by Jesus describing the Holy Spirit as a person, using the pronouns “he” and “him”.

 

But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me (John 15:26).

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Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you (John 16:7).

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In Scripture, the Holy Spirit acts in ways that a person acts:

• He speaks. “And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down, and accompany them without hesitation; for I have sent them’” (Acts 10:19-20).

• He decides. “…the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’” (Acts 13:2).

• He teaches. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

• He intercedes for us. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

• He loves. “…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

• “Jesus calls [the Holy Spirit] the ‘Paraclete’, literally, ‘he who is called to one's side,’” (CCC 692) demonstrating the divine personhood of the Holy Spirit.

 

We may sometimes mistakenly think of the Holy Spirit becoming present only at Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ Resurrection. The Holy Spirit, because he is equal in divinity to the Father and to the Son, has no beginning. There was never a time when the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit did not co-exist in a relationship of love: “The Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the plan for our salvation” (CCC 686).

 

Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified

This statement reaffirms that the Holy Spirit is a person equal in divinity to the Father and to the Son.

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When Jesus gives the Apostles their mission, he tells them to “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” (Matthew 28:19), he makes no distinction in status between the three persons of the Holy Trinity.  

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To adore is to give the love, reverence and praise due to God. When we adore and worship God, we acknowledge his majesty, limitless mercy, and love. When we glorify God, we acknowledge his perfection and holiness. Because the Holy Spirit is God, he is deserving of the same worship and praise as one would give to the Father and to the Son.

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The hymn Tantum Ergo Sacramentum consists of the last two verses of Pange Lingua, a hymn composed by Saint Thomas Acquinas for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. It is often sung when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to show adoration and reverence towards the Eucharist. It is noteworthy that even when contemplating the mystery of the Eucharist, Saint Thomas Acquinas concluded the hymn with honor and praise to the Holy Trinity:

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Genitori, Genitoque                                                                   
Laus et iubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.

(Original Latin)

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In summary, the following section was added to the Nicene Creed by the Church at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit and thus refute the false teaching spread by the Pneumatomachian heresy:

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified

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 : See the explanations in Week 2

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Week 13

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We continue our reflections on the Holy Spirit with the next line of the Nicene Creed:

 

Who has spoken through the prophets

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The word prophet comes from the Greek word prophetes which means “to speak for”. Prophets are those chosen by God to communicate his will and truth to people with the aim of preparing them for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. “Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts” (CCC 64). Examples of prophets in the Bible include Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jonah, Jeremiah, among others.

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The Church teaches that “God is the author of Sacred Scripture” (CCC 105), of all the books contained in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments.

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By “prophets” the faith of the Church here understands all whom the Holy Spirit inspired in living proclamation and the composition of the sacred books, both of the Old and the New Testaments (CCC 702).

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“The Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the plan for our salvation” (CCC 686).

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From the beginning until "the fullness of time," the joint mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah. Neither is fully revealed [in the Old Testament] but both are already promised, to be watched for and welcomed at their manifestation. So, for this reason, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit, "who has spoken through the prophets," wants to tell us about Christ (CCC 702).

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Throughout the writings of the Old Testament, we see God’s plan of salvation unfold through his covenants, promises, Mosaic Law, prophesies and theophanies (manifestations of God where he reveals himself in a visible or sensory way, like in a vision or a dream).

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Christian tradition has always recognized that God's Word allowed himself to be seen and heard in these theophanies, in which the cloud of the Holy Spirit both revealed him and concealed him in its shadow (CCC 707).

 

Even when it may have appeared that God had forgotten his people, his plan of salvation was still mysteriously at work.

The forgetting of the Law and the infidelity to the covenant end in death: it is the Exile, apparently the failure of the promises, which is in fact the mysterious fidelity of the Savior God and the beginning of a promised restoration, but according to the Spirit. The People of God had to suffer this purification. In God's plan, the Exile already stands in the shadow of the Cross (CCC 710).

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The prophets of the Old Testament and the writers of the Psalms also describe for us the necessary disposition of our hearts as we await the coming of the Messiah:

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The People of the "poor" — those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God's mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah — are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit's hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ's coming. It is this quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit is making ready "a people prepared for the Lord" (CCC 716).

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Moving into the New Testament, we encounter John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and the cousin of Jesus. “In John…the Holy Spirit completes the work of ‘making ready a people prepared for the Lord’” (CCC 718).  “In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah” (CCC 719).

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Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies spoken in the Old Testament through the Holy Spirit. When writing about the birth of Jesus, Saint Matthew refers to the prophecy foretold by the prophet Isaiah about his conception:

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All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet [Isaiah]: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” which means, God with us (Matthew 1:22-23).

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Jesus began his public ministry by reading aloud to the people in the synagogue in Nazareth from the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).

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“Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4:21). Through this, Jesus is saying that he is the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah, and he proclaims the Good News of salvation using the language of the Jubilee Year of ancient Israel.

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Thus it would be appropriate for us to close with words from Pope Francis’ Papal Bull designating 2025 as a Jubilee Year:

Jesus made those words his own at the beginning of his ministry, presenting himself as the fulfilment of the “year of the Lord’s favour”.

Pope Francis, Spes Non Confundit, Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025,

(May 9, 2024), paragraph 10

 

This concludes our reflections on the third section of the Nicene Creed which summarizes our beliefs in God the Holy Spirit. Next week, we will begin reflecting on God’s Holy Church, which is the fourth and last section of the Creed.

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Week 14

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Through our reflections of the Nicene Creed in our previous installments, we have encountered the core Christian beliefs about the Holy Trinity and each Divine Person of the Trinity. The final set of statements in the Creed center on Christ’s Church.

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In the first statement of this fourth section of the Creed, we profess:

 

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church

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Before we reflect on these four “marks of the Church” – that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic – we will explore what constitutes the Church and why we profess our belief in it.

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The Church "is the visible plan of God's love for humanity," because God desires "that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one Temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 776, quoting Pope Paul VI).

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We will explore what each of these terms mean:

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1) The Church is the People of God

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At all times and in every race, anyone who fears God and does what is right has been acceptable to him. He has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness (CCC 781).

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“One becomes a member of this people not by a physical birth, but by…faith in Christ, and Baptism” (CCC 782). Everyone - regardless of race, culture, age, social stature - is invited to be baptized and follow the teachings of Christ, to belong to the People of God, “citizens of a kingdom which is of a heavenly rather than of an earthly nature” (Pope Paul VI, Lumen Gentium 13).

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This people has for its origin God the Father; for its head Jesus Christ; for its hallmark the dignity and freedom of the sons of God; for its law the new commandment of love; for its mission to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world; and for its destiny the Kingdom of God, already begun on earth (Compendium of the Catholic Church, 154).

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2) The Church is the Body of Christ

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Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him: "Abide in me, and I in you.... I am the vine, you are the branches." And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (CCC 787).

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The comparison of the Church with the body casts light on the intimate bond between Christ and his Church. Not only is she gathered around him; she is united in him, in his body (CCC 789).

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All members of the Church, the Body of Christ, are united to each other as parts of a body are united, supporting each other, caring for one another and working towards a common goal, bringing all people into the Body of Christ. As Saint Paul says:

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For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Corinthians 12:12, 26).

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3) The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit

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“The Holy Spirit, whom Christ the head pours out on his members, builds, animates, and sanctifies the Church” (CCC 747). “The Holy Spirit makes the Church the temple of the living God”, as Saint Paul often refers to it (CCC 797).

 

The Church is both visible and spiritual:

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The Church is in history, but at the same time she transcends it. It is only with the eyes of faith that one can see her in her visible reality and at the same time in her spiritual reality as bearer of divine life (CCC 770).

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If the Church were merely a human organization or institution, it would be absurd to say that we, as Catholics, believe in it. Rather, “the Church finds her origin and fulfillment in the eternal plan of God” (Compendium of the Catholic Church 149).

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Just as God's will is creation and is called "the world," so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called "the Church” (CCC 760, quoting Clement of Alexandria).

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It was the Son's task to accomplish the Father's plan of salvation in the fullness of time…. Jesus inaugurated his Church by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Reign of God, promised over the ages in the scriptures (CCC 763).

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The Church is born primarily of Christ's total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the cross. The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus (CCC 766).

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The Church is essential for humanity as she continues Jesus’ saving mission in the world. Through the Sacraments she makes available to us, we encounter Christ and grow in a relationship with him.

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The Church's first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men's communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race (CCC 775).

 

Now that we understand a bit more about the mystery of the Church and its divine origins, it should be clearer to us why it is necessary for Catholics to profess a belief in the Church, the conduit for the means of salvation.

 

In subsequent articles, we will be exploring the four “marks” – one, holy, catholic and apostolic – which “indicate essential features of the Church and her mission” (CCC 811) which is to “…[proclaim and establish] among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is on earth the seed and the beginning of that kingdom” (CCC 768).