Credo: I Believe

“What is essential, most beautiful, most attractive and at the same time most necessary for us is faith in Jesus Christ.” – International Theological Commission 2025 document commemorating 1,700 year anniversary of Council of Nicaea.

Do you believe? What do you believe? Do you believe what you believe is real?

Do you believe what you believe is really real?

If you’ve never allowed yourself to explore one, some, or all four of the above questions, now might be the time to do so. Welcome to the month of June. Welcome to the conclusion of the 2025 Easter season and the Solemnity of Pentecost. Welcome to a month during which our homilies and bulletin communication will center around the profession of faith that we make together every time we gather for the Mass on a Sunday or Solemnity.

This year is a Jubilee Year of Hope and it also commemorates the 1,700 year anniversary of the opening of the Council of Nicaea, the Church’s first ecumenical council. The first 300 years of Christianity were tumultuous to say the least. The faith was not legal to practice. Persecution of Christians was calculated and widespread. And the prevalence of errors and misunderstandings about the person of Jesus Christ were causing disunity among the faithful.

Thanks be to God that the Church recognized a need for clarity and got to work defining the content of Christian belief. This was a task begun at Nicaea, continued later in the fourth century at Constantinople, and proclaimed in the centuries to follow as the unifying statement of faith among believers. There, of course, continues great debate among theologians, scholars, and Christians of different traditions about the content of what we now call the Nicene Creed. However, as the Catholic rite of Baptism reminds us, “This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You will notice the word Credo displayed in print and visually throughout the month. This word, in Latin, means “I believe.” It is pronounced, “Cray-doh.”  Our hope is that throughout this month we can all, as a parish family, come to a deeper appreciation of the meaning and power of this first word and the remaining 222 words of the Creed that we profess every week. 

The feasts that we will celebrate this month will hopefully be a great reminder of several key elements of the Creed, especially the four marks of the Church. We begin this weekend with Pentecost Sunday reminding us that the Church is One by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us be attentive and curious about the Nicene Creed this month as we allow the words that we profess with our lips to inform the lives of faith, hope, and love that we live in the world.

Gracias a Dios.