The Nicene Creed

     Do you take for granted the words you proclaim when you are at Mass when saying the Nicene Creed? Are you truly thinking about what you are saying? It is our Creed. Our open oath to what we believe in and stand for. Personally, I think it is rushed through as part of the Mass and truly wish it was said with the command for everyone to close their eyes and really think about what they are saying. The words in the Nicene Creed are a beautiful chant and oath of praise and belief to God which we vow before the Heavenly Court of Heaven and should be thought of with a lot more reverence. It tells God that we are vowing to believe that He is the True God, together with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, United as One. 

     Are Nicene Creed has in so many words, "gone through the mill", as disagreements about the debate of Jesus, the Son of God, was not God, but a god-like creature. This error was quickly adopted by many Christians because of a man named Arius, a popular priest of Alexandria, who thought that the Son indeed was begotten of the Father, but that there must have been a time when the Son did not exist. A time before He was begotten. He taught, Jesus, the Son of God, was the firstborn of all creation, but only as a creature, not God. 

     To tame this teaching, Emperor Constantine called all of the bishops of the world to meet in Nicaea. In 325 a.d., the very first worldwide ecumenical council took place. The council of Nicaea, helped repair a Christian world harmed and driven into a disagreement over a single but crucial Greek letter that separated doctrinal truth from heresy. Thus causing the split and changing of the words as it used to be. At Constantinople, the council fathers added to the Creed, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. A beautiful addition, that, to me was needed in defining the Trinity. While the Church fathers clearly followed Scripture in identifying the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ, the way they expressed the nature of the relation between the persons of the Trinity differed. Greek fathers, such as Saint Athanasius, St Basil the great, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, preferred to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father "through" the Son. A point of disagreement that the Latin fathers, Tertullian, St Hilary of Poitiers, and Saint Augustine, tended to say that the Spirit proceeded from the Father "and" the Son, still is disagreed upon to this day between the East and the West. 

     Our Nicene Creed is one of the Catholic Church's most foundational statements of Faith and summary of Orthodox belief. It expresses the deepest of mysteries, the Holy Trinity. 

     Close your eyes and think of each word that you are proclaiming to God before all people. Memorize this Creed and let it resound to the Heavens, as the Angels sing every word before the Throne of God along with our voices in unison to praise God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as One in the Blessed Trinity.