As Father has mentioned at Mass, we are celebrating 1,700years since the council of Nicaea, from which we get the Nicene Creed which we profess every Sunday. In my opinion, The Creed is one of the most underrated parts of the Mass.

One time, I was altar serving at very full mass at a large parish. After the homily I was in the sacristy behind the altar, so I had no view of the sanctuary. I was listening closely to what was going on in the Mass, and when it came time to profess the creed, I remember hearing hundreds of voices profess the words of the creed in a loud unified manner-almost a roar. It was a very moving moment, one that I sometimes like to recreate by closing my eyes during the creed. It continues to be a consoling experience, especiallyas I’ve studied the creed and have a heightened appreciation for what is being professed. I hope to break open the beauty and importance of the creed in thisarticle, and hopefully you’ll find the weekly profession greatly beautiful too..

I’d like to highlight three aspects of the Nicene Creed: The seriousness and drama of the creed, the Holy Spirit and the creed, and the theology of the creed.

First, the seriousness and drama:

I note this because I notice the way our society sometimes approaches the question of God is distinctly un-serious. Today there is sometimes an attitude that the sciences demand the full rigor of our intellect, yet in matters of faith we throw out a flippant line of “Well who really knows inthe end anyhow?” The underlying philosophy here is that truth can be arrived atin the sciences, real truth that can actually better society and improve lives, while faith is more or less a therapeutic pseudo-science more concerned with feelings and inspiration and is thus not an arena that requires intellectual precision.

Just a surface level understanding of the Council of Nicaea completely dispels this misconception. Assembled at the council of Nicaea in 325 were some of the most brilliant men on Earth, some of the brightest intellectuals to ever live. We have access to some of their writings, and these men drop more philosophy and theology in one treatise than I probably will in my whole life. At the council were over 300 bishops and theologians, men who haddeep familiarity with the writings of Plato and Aristotle in their original language, as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of the Scriptures and many commentaries thereof. These men could easily call to mind lengthy quotations from different books of scripture and simultaneously apply advanced philosophical criticism woven in unbroken chains of thought, often from memory. At Nicaea we are in the presence of true genius.

Not only this, but there is also a serious intellectual rigor, precision, and exactitude being applied to the subject of theology. Entire treatises are written, scrutinized, and peer-reviewed about single words. The Greek philosophical concepts of ousia, prosipon, and hypostasis are explicated ad nauseum amongst some of the most brilliant minds on earth. There is also a remarkable boldness here: Before these men is the challenge of defining the ultimate and highest object of thought, God Himself. This council (and consequently our faith that flows from it) is perhaps the most audacious intellectual endeavor in man’s history.

There is also great drama. Men’s entire lives were at stake. Men suffered greatly for the ideas they were professing and defending. There was legitimate longstanding debate, dogmatic definitions were authoritatively decreed, and there was thus a right and wrong side. Those on the wrong side of the declarations were anathematized, that is formally denounced by the Church. Somewere obstinate in their discredited ideas, and their writings were burned andthey were sent into exile having lost their job, status, and livelihood. Even after the council there were more debates and squabbles on matters of doctrineand even the great orthodox heroes of the Council like St. Athanasius were defamed by their opponents and ousted from their offices and exiled.  

Second, The Holy Spirit and the Creed.

Another beautiful aspect of the creed is the clear work of the Holy Spirit in early church. I draw attention to this aspect because there is often some misunderstanding heretoo. We can have a tendency to accept unwaveringly the pedagogy from Jesus’ mouth, but look with suspicion on the subsequent development of doctrine in the Church’s history. The objection is sometimes posed that the dogmatic development after Jesus’ ascension is the work of man, whereas the scriptures are from God. I posit that that line is a little more blurry than that, and that’s not a problem. I think one of the more beautiful aspects of the Catholic Church is just how much of a synergy it is between man and God.    

Some falsely believe that Jesus came and spoke with divine authority and then left, and since then men have been more or less making things up. This could not be further from the truth. God’s providential care and guidance of the Church does not end at the ascension. The Holy Spirit’s guidance continues today. God has actually given to His Church the promise of the Holy spirit to protect her from error in matters of faith.

Lumen Gentium, a beautiful document from the Second Vatican Council reflecting on the nature of the Church, states

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they never theless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held. This is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith.[1]

In the unity of the body of Christ, with the teachingauthority transmitted from Jesus to the apostles to subsequent bishops, underthe guidance of the Holy Spirit, man can proclaim infallible doctrine. So atNicaea, are men using their own minds and learning to define dogma and beliefsof the Church? Yes. Does that mean that God is somehow uninvolved? No. In factNicaea is a beautiful instance of God and man working together in the unity ofthe Church. One of the most thoroughly Catholic ways of approaching almostevery theological quandary is the response “both and”. Nicaea is both men usingtheir reason to define dogmas of belief, and also this is The Holy Spiritrevealing the mystery being defined and preserving the Church from error. Wewill this theme of “both and” emerge later in the theology of the creed.  

Third, The Theology of the creed.

Theology, when done right, always ends in sublime beauty, anencounter with God. Theology brings us face to face with the inexhaustibleriches of the mystery of who God is. The same holds true for the theology ofthe Nicaean Creed.

A little background information is helpful here, especially concerning the heresies, or false teachings, at the time. The heresy of the day at the time of Nicaea was Arianism. Arianism denied the divinity of God the Son. One thing I’ve learned studying Church history is that heresies all start with a degree of truth, but then proceed to overemphasize certain aspects of thefaith and result in wrong conclusions. Arianism began as a well-intentionedattempt to preserve the absolute primacy and transcendent eternal nature of Godthe Father. Those in the Arian school argued that God must be eternal, that iswithout beginning nor end, absolutely transcendent beyond time, and absolutelyunchanging. A notion of God without these attributes simply would not be God.And they would be right…

Then there’s Jesus. Jesus refers to Himself as the Son ofGod, as the way the truth and the life, and in John’s Gospel Jesus continuallyrefers to His relationship with the Father who sent him. The Arains read thisand inferred that although there is a special relationship with Jesus and God theFather, we cannot say that Jesus and the Father are the same nature. The Fatheris God and Jesus is something lesser. The Arian would furthermore claim thatJesus’ being the Son begotten of the Father implies a beginning to the Son, atime when he wasn’t. If there was a time when The Son wasn’t, this would bydefinition make him not God. The Arian concludes that Jesus is indeed sent fromGod, but not the same substance as the eternal unchanging immutable God.

It is amidst this controversy that we get perhaps the boldest,most loaded and important word ever put to paper: Consubstantial. Jesus, the baby born of Mary, who had to be nursed and cleaned and raised by Mary, who ate, drank, got tired, bruised, and died on this earth, is God. He is the same substance, the same stuff as the Eternal Father. What is Jesus? Fully man andfully God. (Our beloved “both and” again!)

All this is very theoretical, and maybe at this point you’rewondering why you are still reading this. Why does this matter? Is this justsome intellectual gymnastics for theologians? No. This has massiveimplications. Why? Look no further than the very next words of the creed. Youmay gloss over it without noting its import, but right after we profess thisunfathomable mystery that Jesus and The Father are consubstantial, we can thensay that:

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.

Those words “For us” deserve a reflection. The Son, beingGod, is the divine Son of God for all eternity. He was the Divine Son in allhis divine glory before that fateful day in Nazareth when a young woman said “be it done unto me according to thy word.” He is God before the incarnation, and as God is already worthy of glory and exaltation. Whatabout after his life and work on earth? What was the result of Jesus’ missionof obedience to the Father? St Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians:

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yoursin Christ Jesus,

⁶ Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

⁷ Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

⁸ he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death,

even death on a cross. ^[2]

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. ^[3]

God the Father greatly exalts Jesus. Jesus, through his passion death and resurrection, merits eternal glory and exaltation. But as S tPaul says, Jesus is in the form of God (consubstantial) with The Father, and being God, eternal glory and honor already belonged to Jesus before his mission on earth. That means that Jesus did not gain anything from his life, passion,and redemption that he didn’t already have. Thus we profess that it is trulyand utterly for us and our salvation that Jesus comes to us, dies for us, and accomplishes our salvation.

We are now face to face with a beautiful truth- The entire “theo-logic” (or God’s logic) behind Jesus’ life and our salvation is love. We find that this divine love for us is absolutely altruistic. Theologians call this the mystery of divine self-giving- That God, already perfect in Himself, creates us, sustains us, dies for us, recreates us, and bestows his own divine life upon us purely out of love. Every interaction between God and us is thus an action of love. In this we catch a glimpse of the interiority of the Trinity itself- The Father Son and Holy Spirit in an eternal self-emptying relation ofdivine love.

Next Sunday, after the homily, remember that we stand on theshoulders of giants and profess a faith given by almighty God and developed inSacred Tradition. Our very ability to know and profess the Creed is itselfevidence of The Holy Spirit working and moving among us. Finally we professbelief not in theological systems or ideas, but in the Father Son and HolySpirit- three divine persons. Persons that have created us, sustain us in every moment, bequeath their love for us at each mass, and want to bring us intotheir eternal life of infinite joy and love. Now that’s something I can believein…

[1]Lumen Gentium, 25.

^[2]New American Bible, Revised Edition (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011), Php 2:5–8.

^[3]New American Bible, Revised Edition (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011), Php 2:9–11.