Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi
Title of Series: "What Catholics Believe: The Faith Professed"

Part 2: "Belief in God: Our Fundamental Life Decision"

November 2nd, 2006
First Thursday

In our meeting in October, we spoke about Faith. I emphasized that Faith, our Faith, is fundamentally a response word. Faith is at once a response to a person, to the person Jesus, AND, it is a response to the message that Jesus teaches in and through His Church. It is "the what" of our belief and -- at the same time -- it is "the personal surrender" to our God, two sides of the same coin. To believe is at once a human act and an act continually inspired by the Holy Spirit. Both are required for the faith response.

Today we begin our focus on the Creed -- what it is that we actually believe, the object of our profession after we assert: “I believe” or “We believe.” It treats primarily the "what" of our belief. Specifically, it is the first article: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.”

The remaining meditations this year will continue to focus section by section on the Creed -- the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed which we recite every Sunday. My references are primarily the two catechisms -- the 1992 text of the Holy See and the recently published United States Catechism for Adults. We will ponder the “object” of our faith a little at a time, to give us a chance to ponder it. My title for this November meditation is: “Belief in God: Our Fundamental Life Decision.”

In a most beautiful recent homily this September in Regensburg, Germany, Benedict XVI spoke of the creed. He spoke of the Apostles Creed as a “summa” of everything we believe. Describing the Apostles Creed as divided into 12 articles referring to the 12 apostles, he stated that the Apostles Creed is actually divided into three main sections, an expansion of the Baptismal formula. It is the ancient Baptismal Creed of Rome.

Hence, he asserts that “the Creed is not a collection of propositions; it is not a theory. It is anchored in the event of Baptism -- a genuine encounter between God and man. In the mystery of Baptism, God stoops to meet us; he comes close to us and in turn brings us closer to one another. Baptism means that Jesus Christ adopts us as his brothers and sisters, welcoming us as sons and daughters into God’s family.” For Benedict, the creed is thus primarily an encounter with Christ and not just the contents of our faith.

Perhaps you have not reflected or meditated on the Faith, our Faith, the "contents" of the Faith in recent years. It is so easy to take the faith for granted, to forget that it is more than an academic or theoretical exercise. Each Sunday, after the homily, we recite the Nicene Creed -- often almost without thinking about it. How often do we contemplate that our profession of faith is a fundamental life decision which we renew each Sunday and one which has consequences as to how we live our lives and the choices we make? To this end, our Holy Father Benedict XVI said the following at a conference in northern Italy this past month: "… our faith is well founded; but it is necessary that this faith become part of our lives. A great effort must therefore be made in order for all Christians to transform themselves into 'witnesses,' ready and able to shoulder the commitment of testifying -- always and to everyone -- to the hope that animates them." We should never forget that “believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.” CCC 154

The Apostles Creed is Trinitarian in format. It has 12 articles in three sections -- one focusing on the Father, the second on the Son and the third on the Holy Spirit. Throughout this year, we will study each of the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed.

Let us begin:

Article One: "I Believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.”

Focus, if you will, on four words -- God, Father, Almighty and Creator.

l.) God

“I” believe in God -- "we" believe in one God. Each Sunday we make this significant affirmation of our faith in one God as a community of believers at Mass. How often do we ponder its implications for us in our lives, this belief in ONE GOD. The catechism teaches that this first affirmation of the Apostles Creed is also the most fundamental. All other articles depend on this first one and help us to know God  better as He progressively reveals Himself to us in creation and as Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Revelation tells us that he is living and personal, profoundly close to us in creating and sustaining us.” USCCA 51 “The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life.” CCC 261

Even though we profess a belief in God, and most Americans do, there is still a fundamental “holy” mystery about Him, about the sense of the sacred -- particularly in our increasingly secular society.  Our God is at once close at hand, present to us in the peace of our prayer and in sacramental encounters, and at the same time seemingly distant. Through the prophet Isaiah, God continues to invite us to "turn to [Him] and be saved."

Where is it that you meet God in your life? Where do you become reassured of His constant and mysterious presence and love for You? He revealed Himself to the chosen people slowly and progressively throughout their history. Do you approach Him like Moses at the burning bush, on the threshold of the Exodus and the Sinai covenant, and ask Him His name. Knowing a name of a person, in the biblical understanding of name, communicates the essence, the very identity and the meaning of a person's life. In effect, one's name encompasses the person. God is, after all, not an anonymous force or a vague destiny. He is a living God. He has a history of speaking to His people, to the people He has chosen which has been inspired and recorded in the Bible. God is a person; He has a name and an identity.

God responded to Moses "I am Who am." Only God can define Himself by saying "I am." In revealing this mysterious name, which means Yahweh, He reveals Himself uniquely as the God who is always there, faithfully present to His people from the very beginning and throughout the future, the one true, compassionate and living God.

At the same time, God remains a holy mystery. At the burning bush, Moses took off his sandals out of respect and veiled his face in the presence of God's holiness. How do we show respect in the presence of our God? Do we genuflect before the tabernacle? Are we silent in His presence? We are not His equals. He is all-holy and faithful despite our imperfections and sin as He was faithful to Israel despite their repeated sinfulness and the lack of faithfulness of His people -- our God "rich in mercy."

Above all else, the answer to God's identity is love. Love is another name for God. Israel came to understand this reality throughout her long history. Sheer gratuitous love -- that is God. God's love is everlasting. It is the love that ultimately sent His Son to die for us that we might share His eternal life. His very being is steadfast love.

2.) Father

Jesus called God "Father." And the catechism teaches that He revealed God as Father "in an unheard of sense.” The new Adult catechism says that “Jesus reveals God as Father in a new sense.” USCCA 52 Father in Aramaic is translated "abba" -- daddy dear. What a contrast to Moses where the emphasis was on the "otherness" of God -- take off your shoes you are on sacred ground and you can not look on my face and live.

The catechism teaches that despite the paternal tenderness of our God which certainly can be expressed by the image of motherhood, despite the truth that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes, despite the fact that God is neither man nor woman for God is God, Jesus taught us that God is Father in a very unique way. No one is Father as God is Father. He is eternally Father by his relationship to His only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to His Father. "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." (Mt. 11:27)

In this section on God as Father, the catechism immediately places its  emphasis on God as Triune, God who is Father but God who is also Son and Holy Spirit. The catechism speaks of the Holy Trinity, this most fundamental and challenging truth of our faith, in a very profound way. It is central to the catechism and central to our faith -- the triune nature of God.

Every aspect of our sacramental and prayer life is influenced by the Trinitarian dimension of our faith. It begins at Baptism. You remember, if not from your own baptism, certainly from baptisms that you have attended. The priest or deacon asks a series of questions -- "Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?" He then asks questions about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit. After each question, the response is "I do." It is a Trinitarian formula. The person is then baptized with this formula: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." At that moment, we are called to share in the very life of the Godhead forever -- becoming children of God the Father, members of the body of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit. Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ and made holy by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The life of the Trinity is alive in each of us.

In his book entitled, “Prayer: the Great Conversation,” speaking of the permeating presence of God in prayer, Peter Kreeft wrote that "God the Father is outside us. God the Son Jesus is God beside us. And God the Holy Spirit is God inside us. The Father is the home garage, the Son the road, and the Holy Spirit is the car. Or the Holy Spirit is the fuel, the Son the car and the Father is the home we're driving to." (p. 50)

"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. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the 'hierarchy of the truths of faith.'" (CCC 234)

The catechism teaches: "The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but only one God in three persons...The divine persons do not divide the one divinity but each of them is God wholly and entirely: 'The Father is that which the Son is, the Son is that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit i.e., by nature one God.'" (CCC 253)

This sublime mystery is inaccessible to reason alone. Traces of the mystery of the Holy Trinity are hidden in His work of creation and His revelation in the Old Testament. But it is the sending of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that revealed fully the Triune nature of God. We would not have understood God as Father if it had not been for Jesus or God the Holy Spirit if He had not spoken of the Advocate who would be sent. "But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." (Jn 16:7)

St. Augustine teaches that the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son. In the power of the Holy Spirit, you and I are actually brought into the very intimate life of God, the Godhead -- that relationship between the Father and the Son. Community occurs in the Trinity and models communal love for us. If God is a community of persons, then we should also be. That is how God is revealed to others in and through each of us and our love for each other -- precisely in relationship. Cardinal Walter Kasper writes: “Only because God is love within himself can he be love for us…Love is that which reconciles unity and multiplicity; it is the uniting unity in the threeness.” “God of Jesus Christ,” p. 296

In fact, the whole of the Christian life is an invitation to communion with the unity of the Blessed Trinity here on earth in the obscurity of faith and after death in eternal light: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word," says the Lord, "and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him." (Jn 14:23)

3.) Almighty

"Of all the divine attributes, only God's omnipotence is named in the Creed." (CCC 268) His might is universal, loving and mysterious. Mary's Magnificat beautifully confirms this quality of God when she says that "the Almighty has done great things for me...He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty." (Lk l: 49-53)

And yet in the face of the "almighty" power of God, the catechism speaks of the mystery of the apparent powerlessness of God. Our faith in God is put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil and suffering. How often do we ask how such bad things can happen to good people -- a young son killed in a car accident, a husband loosing his wife in a tragic accident. Where is God the almighty in all of this?

In their book, “Believing: Understanding the Creed,” a book co-authored by Fr. Gerry O'Collins and Mary Venturini, they proffer an answer to this perplexing challenge about the omnipotence of our God: "One of the most simple answers must be that God is not a celluloid Superman who holds up crumbling dams, pastes back the earthquake cracks, forces missiles off their path, stops helicopters crashing to the ground and kills the terrible tyrant just in time to save mankind from disaster. Superman is the modern projection of human wishes and needs, of our longing for supernatural happenings. God is not. Superman would certainly have escaped from the cross, saved the two thieves along with him, rustled up the trembling apostles to defeat the Roman legions and converted the world to instant goodness. God did not and left us limited human beings wondering why." (p. 33-34)

Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God's almighty power, a faith which unceasingly holds that nothing is impossible with God -- even a God who embraces suffering Himself, raises suffering to the level of our redemption and remains almighty nonetheless. God seems always to be on the side of suffering. The greatest paradox is that His omnipotence is manifested precisely in the fact that He freely accepted suffering out of love for you and me. “He shows almighty power by converting us from our sins and by restoring us to grace.” USCCA 62

As I wrote a year ago in an article in America magazine entitled: Challenge and Opportunity: John Paul II on the Gift of Christian Suffering: “Suffering makes sense and has power only when we see in it the mystery of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a mystery upon which we meditate. Apart from Jesus, and without our sharing in that mystery, it remains only a problem without a solution. To understand this fundamental mystery of our faith, above all, to experience in suffering the power of the Lord precisely in our weakness, in our struggles, in the struggles and suffering of others, takes time. It is a gradual process.” America, October 31,  2005, p, 21

4.) Creator

In sovereign freedom and out of nothing (ex nihilo), God has brought about and constantly maintains in existence all that exists. This is the Christian understanding of creation. "The whole creation proclaims the greatness of your glory."

"In Him, we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28) The catechism teaches that “God alone created the universe freely, directly and without any help.” CCC 317 And "out of nothing" -- Maccabees teaches: "Look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed." (2 Macc 7:22-23, 28)

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen.1:1) This is the very first sentence of the Bible. The question of creation has plagued humanity from the very beginning -- where do we come from, what is our end? Although there are many theories, scientific and mythological, the Christian sees in creation the first and universal witness to God's almighty love and His wisdom. Creation also witnesses the first proclamation of God's "plan of His loving goodness," which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ.

The catechism teaches that human intelligence with the use of reason is surely capable of finding a response to the question of origins. Venturini and O’Collins write:

“The essence of creation is not something that can be restrained within the bounds of scientific theory, however much we may long for an easy, provable formula. Each act of creation, whether a new human being, work of art or scientific theory, is unique. A part is explainable in scientific, biological or technical terms but a part is not. A great painting is no more reducible to the artist and his materials than a new-born child is just the sum of its parents. The two are bound but they are separate; the hands of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel reach for each other but they do not touch.” (p. 45)

Although the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place from all the texts about creation, God also progressively revealed the mystery of creation throughout the history of the Hebrew people. From faith in God whom they knew in their history and with whom they were bound through a special covenant, the Israelites came to recognize also God's hand in the making of the world. "Yours are the heavens, yours the earth; you founded the world and everything in it." (Psalm 89: 12)

From the creative works of art to the sublime mystery of the birth of a child, it is clear that God calls on each of us to be co-creators with Him. It is not a sign of His weakness but rather a token of God's almighty greatness and goodness. God created the world not to increase His glory but to show forth and communicate His glory.

"Because creation comes forth from God's goodness, it shares in that goodness -- 'And God saw that it was good....very good.'" (CCC 299)

This raises the question of why evil exists if God created a good and ordered world. The catechism admits that no quick answer will suffice. In fact, it states that only the Christian faith -- as a whole -- constitutes an answer to this perplexing riddle. "From the greatest moral evil ever committed -- the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men -- God, by his grace that 'abounded all the more,' brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption." (CCC 312)

The catechism teaches that with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying towards perfection -- with the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect.

Angels and human beings, as intelligent and free creatures, travel that journey by their free choice and preferential love. So important was free will, in fact a distinguishing characteristic of the human state, that God respects our freedom even to go astray. In fact, “God permits such moral evil (e.g. the evil of sin) in part out of respect for the gift of freedom with which he endowed created beings.” USCCA 57

He permits this because He respects our freedom but mysteriously God knows even how to derive good from evil. Examples: death to life; planting to collecting; late night sleep for success; woman's labor for birth; acts of forgiveness cannot exist without injury and acts of fortitude cannot exist without physical and mental suffering.

Above all, our “Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if He did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.” (CCC 324)

I would like to conclude this reflection with a quote from Benedict XVI, from that recent homily of September 12, 2006, on the creed at Regensburg, which I began this meditation. The Pope said: “As Christians, we say: ‘I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth’…With this faith we have no reason to hide, no fear of ending up in a dead end. We rejoice that we can know God! And we try to help others see the reasonableness of faith as St. Peter in his First Letter explicitly urged the Christians of his time to do, and with them, ourselves as well (cf. 3:15).”

Belief in God, after all, is our fundamental life decision.

AMEN