Franciscan Father Greg Friedman walks us through the Nicene Creed—helping readers understand its development as a profession of faith, our core beliefs as Catholic Christians, and the changes made to the creed’s wording in the Roman Missal, Third Edition.
By: Greg Friedman, OFM
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The new English translation of the Mass, introduced in 2011, invited Catholics to take a second look at the Nicene Creed. Phrases such as “consubstantial with the Father” and “incarnate of the Virgin Mary” replaced more familiar words we’d been using for decades.
Our creed was born in fierce debates about what we believe. The ancient words invite our Amen to the faith forged by the early Church. It’s like a handshake across the centuries—“a sign of recognition and communion between believers” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #188).
I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
We live in a secular age. The media avoid endorsing religion or belief in a power that controls “things visible and invisible.” God is largely absent from official public debate. We become skeptical when politicians play up their religion only to disappoint us later with scandals. Science, too, seems to dominate our culture. Recent discoveries about the origins of the universe avoid mention of a “maker of heaven and earth.”
Yet, when disaster strikes, people ask, “Where is God?” Even when they express doubts about a loving creator, their words betray a longing for God.
The faith of ancient Israel stood out among the beliefs of its neighbors, who worshipped many gods. Abraham and his nomadic tribe came to know God as one, loving, and willing to travel with them. Theirs was a personal God, who invites people into relationship.
Our creed assures us that, like Abraham, we’re invited into relationship with God. Our God—creator, all-powerful, eternal—is also personal and loving.
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.
By Jesus’ time, Israel’s belief in one God was well-established. And so it challenged many to accept Jesus as divine. In Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin, the high priest accuses Jesus of blasphemy because he claims to be God’s Son. Professing faith in “the Only Begotten Son of God” shook the faith of many of Jesus’s contemporaries.
As Christians moved into the world of Greek philosophers, understanding Jesus as divine remained a challenge. Arius, a fourth-century priest, denied Christ’s divinity and lit a theological wildfire that swept through the Christian world. Arius held that the Son of God didn’t exist “before all ages”; Jesus was a created being, not divine.
The Arian heresy divided the Church. The Council of Nicaea (325) issued a statement of faith, or creed. It proclaimed that “the Son of God is ‘begotten, not made, of the same substance . . . as the Father’ ” (CCC #465). The Greek expression for “of the same substance” is translated into the Latin for consubstantial.
The tongue-twister “consubstantial with the Father” describes Jesus. We profess that “through him all things were made.” Creation testifies to how much God is in love with us, as fully revealed in Jesus.
Our understanding of Jesus and the Trinity was defined over centuries. Following the Council of Nicaea, other Church councils worked to further explain the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit.
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.
We bow as we profess our faith in the Incarnation, indicating its centrality to Christianity. Jesus “is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother” (CCC #469). The Love which created everything entered our world and became part of it.
If we’re ever tempted to discount our humanity, this action of God makes us stop and reevaluate. The Incarnation tells us how much God loves us. By becoming one of us, God gives us the chance to share in divinity. We discover in Jesus what, with God’s grace, we can become. No wonder we bow in respect at these words!
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.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
As a priest presider at liturgy, I’m wary of using the term paschal mystery. I wonder if most folks in the pew know what it means. This section of the creed explains the paschal mystery—Jesus’s great act of love. John’s Gospel says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13). Jesus did just that “for our sake.”
Jesus’s act of love wasn’t simply that of a battlefield hero who dies to save his buddies. The word paschal gives us a clue. Jesus has a passover from death to life. What he does through his life, death, and resurrection is linked to the liberating action of God, who freed his people from slavery in Egypt and made a covenant of love with them. God leads us to new life and deeper relationship.
Through Jesus’s passover from death to life, we’re brought into a new covenant. The resurrection establishes Jesus as risen Lord, one who now invites us into a “kingdom [which] will have no end.” We must live each day prepared for that day when Christ “will come again in glory.”
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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.
Friendship brings with it a network of other relationships. Jesus invited his friends and followers into an even deeper relationship?the community of love which is the mystery of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our creed spells out that relationship and more.
When Jesus promised “new life” to his followers, he wanted them to live the way of love and forgiveness he’d modeled in his life and ministry. After his resurrection, Jesus shared the Holy Spirit so his followers could forgive and heal in his name.
The Holy Spirit is “the Lord, the giver of life,” the love of Father and Son expressed perfectly. This third divine person is to be “adored and glorified.” The Spirit was present in the words of the prophets of old, reminded Jesus’s apostles of all he said and did, and is now given to us in the Church.
I believe in one, holy,
catholic and apostolic Church.
People often ask me, “Father, why does the Church . . . ?” I know they’re referring to the Church’s leadership. But I want to say, “You are the Church!”
To understand what we are as Church, the creed gives us four “marks of the Church”:
One, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
There is one way for us to really know Jesus and what he’s about?in the Church, its sacraments and teachings. Though made up of different people and expressions of Catholic life, the Church is a unity because God is one, and we profess Jesus as “one Lord.”
It may be difficult for some to call the Church holy because of the failings of some Christians. The Church’s holiness is about what all of us are together as Church, as the “Body of Christ.” We belong to the Church in order to become holy, to share the life of Jesus through the sacraments.
Being catholic means Jesus is fully present in the Church, which fulfills Jesus’s command to carry his message to the ends of the earth. Although retold in many languages and cultures, the message of love and forgiveness remains constant.
The Church’s teaching is reliable because it’s apostolic—connected to Jesus through his apostles and those who came after to continue his work.
Once we think about these four ways to describe the Church, perhaps it will be easier to say, “We are the Church.”
I confess one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins . . .
I love baptizing babies—with the water, fragrant oil, white garment, lighted candle, and proud family members gathered around. The crying baby doesn’t hurt the effect, either!
As parents seek to give themselves to their children and as a community gathers to embrace new members (infant and adult), we understand how God’s life flows through us. That life has power to sustain us. In joyful celebrations, we sing our gratitude. In sad times, we trust God’s love. In moments of sinfulness, we seek forgiveness.
As a Church, we “confess one baptism” and all that the life of Jesus, given in the sacraments, means to us.
. . . and I look forward tothe resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.
I’ve celebrated the lives of many Catholics in the funeral liturgy. Family and friends often talk about the faith of their loved one: “Mom always prayed her rosary.” “Dad made sure we went to Mass.” “She was a faithful parish volunteer.”
Expressions like these say how much we belong to Jesus. They also point to how much we “look forward” to the “life of the world to come.” We live our lives here and now, knowing there’s more!
We may not be able to describe the “resurrection of the dead” in terms we can comprehend. But we recognize what awaits us when we see Catholics who live their faith fully.
In the end, the creed calls us back to its beginning: Love. The God who made “heaven and earth” in love, embraced all creation in Jesus Christ, loved us even to the gift of his life, and sent the Spirit of love into the world—that God awaits us in the life of the world to come.
In the end, we say Amen to love!
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Creed = Symbol of Faith = Symbolon
With the introduction of the revised translation of the Mass (2011), the word consubstantial got a lot of attention, but another term went largely unnoticed. An instruction notes, “At the end of the Homily, the Symbol or Profession of Faith or Creed . . . is either sung or said” (Roman Missal, Third Edition).
The term symbol intrigued me. It’s part of a longer phrase, “symbol of faith,” meaning “a summary of the principal truths of the faith . . . [which] serves as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis” (CCC #188).
In ancient times, two people doing business at a distance would each possess a broken half of the same object, such as a clay seal. A messenger would carry one half. When fitted with the other half, it proved that the bearer was trustworthy. The broken object was known in Greek as a symbolon (see CCC #188).
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St. Francis and the Incarnation
St. Francis understood these words of the creed: “[Jesus] came down from heaven” and entered our humanity. Following Jesus’s lead, this 13th-century saint “came down” from the safety of the walls of Assisi to live with and serve lepers in poverty. He promoted the Christmas crib to bring home the meaning of Jesus’s birth, the Incarnation. He embraced all creation because God is joined to it in Jesus.
Greg Friedman, OFM, has produced resources for faith formation, served in pastoral ministry, and hosted a national Catholic radio program. His most recent books are Saints for Advent and Saints for Lent. His film Assisi Pilgrimage has been shown on network television.
NEXT: Jesus's "Mighty Deeds" of Healing in Mark's Gospel (by John Barker, OFM)
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