A creed is a statement of belief. It comes from the Latin word credo which means “I believe.”
Reciting a creed is an opportunity to personally profess the truths of the Catholic faith that unite all of us as one body, the Church.
Catholics regularly recite the Nicene Creed together at Mass and the Apostle’s Creed is said while praying the Rosary. The Athanasian Creed is a creed that is less familiar to most Catholics.
The story of salvation is our story too:
If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.
Romans 10: 9-10
Do you really believe?:
Jesus is alive and active in this moment:
As on the day of our Baptism, when our whole life was entrusted to the “standard of teaching”, let us embrace the Creed of our life-giving faith. To say the Credo with faith is to enter into communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also with the whole Church which transmits the faith to us and in whose midst we believe.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 197
The privilege and responsibility of articulating our belief:
Professing faith and combating heresy:
The personal response of faith is integrated in the Church’s Profession of Faith, expressed in the Creed. We all recite the Creed in the Mass. Recited by the entire assembly, the Creed manifests the common response to what is heard together from the Word of God. There is an essential nexus between listening and faith. They are linked. Indeed, this — faith — does not arise from human imagination, but, as Saint Paul recalls, “comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ”. Thus, faith is nourished by what is heard and leads to the Sacrament. In this way, reciting the Creed enables the liturgical assembly to “call to mind and confess the great mysteries of the faith … before these mysteries are celebrated in the Eucharist”.
Pope Francis, General Audience, February 14, 2018
We bow (and sometimes even genuflect) during the creed at Mass:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Do you want to know who you are?:
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