Lumen Fidei: Claiming the Community

In paragraph 45 of Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis makes a point about the Profession of Faith that I hadn’t previously considered: the Creed isn’t simply a statement of abstract belief, to which we give assent. In it, we are making claims about God and claims about our relationship to Him and to other Christians; and we are truly claiming a place in that community:

The creed does not only involve giving one’s assent to a body of abstract truths; rather, when it is recited the whole of life is drawn into a journey towards full communion with the living God. We can say that in the creed believers are invited to enter into the mystery which they profess and to be transformed by it.

How so?

To understand what this means, let us look first at the contents of the creed. It has a trinitarian structure: the Father and the Son are united in the Spirit of love. The believer thus states that the core of all being, the inmost secret of all reality, is the divine communion. The creed also contains a christological confession: it takes us through all the mysteries of Christ’s life up to his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven before his final return in glory. It tells us that this God of communion, reciprocal love between the Father and the Son in the Spirit, is capable of embracing all of human history and drawing it into the dynamic unity of the Godhead, which has its source and fulfillment in the Father.

In reciting the Creed we claim that the Triune God is communion within His deepest self; that He wants to extend that communion to mankind through Christ; and in the final clause we state our belief in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which we belong.

We are not simply saying, “This is true.” We are saying, “God is gathering His people, and I am one of them.” We are not only assenting to facts, we are also assenting to God’s will—and that assent has great power.

At mass today I will recite the Creed a little more intentionally, claiming communion with God not only with my words but also with my will.

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