ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE CREED
January 26, 2020
Deacon Dennis Walters

Today  oday we begin a six-week series on the Creed, both the version that we say at Mass and when we recite the Rosary. Today, I want to focus on where the Creed came from, and how it’s built.

Essentially, THE CREED IS A LIST OF CORE BELIEFS that anyone claiming to be a Christian must accept. We recite it absentmindedly, but it contains some stupendous teachings, such as that the one God is actually three Persons, that one of these Persons became human, and that He died and rose from the dead, as will we. Where did these beliefs come from?

Humans have an instinctive confidence that what they see around them is real. They may express that confidence in technical propositions, such as the “law of gravity,” but these imply that people trust what their senses tell them. Plus, they have a sense that something exists beyond what their senses tell them, and so they intuitively raise questions about God. Yet reason only gets so far. “The heavens tell the glory of God” and the physical creation points to his existence, but human reason easily misses the mark. Which is why Christians rely on what God tells us about himself.

A CREED IS A STATEMENT OF FAITH, but it’s important to be clear what faith is. As Scripture understands it, faith is not a blind leap. It’s a deliberate choice to trust that my ground is strong enough to support my weight. That’s why the prophet Isaiah can tell King Ahaz that God is trustworthy, and that “If your faith is not firm, you will not be firm.” When it comes to the Christian Creed, we’re involved in a choice to trust that Scripture and the Church have things right. When we say, “I believe,” we’re entrusting ourselves to a reality. We’re asserting that such is the way reality is and how it works.

Many religions seem to get along without a formal creed, though they do hold to some core tenets. Islam believes that there is no God but Allah, and Buddhism stresses the need for Enlightenment, but these religions focus more on behavior than on doctrine. Even Judaism has no formal creed. So why do Christians need one?

IN CHRISTIANITY, A CREED SERVES FOUR PURPOSES. First, it’s confessional. That is, you commit yourself to these statements, and to the community that believes them. Second, it’s liturgical. Recitation of the Creed is prayer, an act of worship. Third, it’s symbolic in the sense of the Greek word symbolon, a gathering together, a token for distinguishing Christians from non-Christians. Fourth, it’s normative. It provides a “rule of faith” in two senses: it defines the content of the faith by including what we believe and leaving out what we don’t; and it identifies boundaries for what we do or avoid doing (for example, if Jesus is the judge of living and dead, I’d better control my behavior).

I said a moment ago that Judaism has no formal creed, but that needs to be qualified. In Exodus, God revealed to Moses the divine Name, Yahweh, I AM, a God who exists, is a Person, and is Other than we. Moses later formulated that belief in the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, the Lord alone” (Dt. 6:4). That belief led to the covenant law, as in the Ten Commandments, especially the first three.

Reflecting on their experience of Jesus, the apostles developed that simple belief considerably. The New Testament as a whole agrees with the Jewish belief that God is one, but that He is not solitary; He has a kind of three-ness about Him. The beginning of John’s gospel states that the eternal Word is actually God and became human. At Pentecost, Peter announced Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, his position at God’s right hand, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, concluding that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah. The Gospels frequently mention the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and sometimes show all three together (as at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan).

So the trinitarian formula used in baptizing catechumens (“I baptize you in the name [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) suggested the trinitarian structure of the Creed, which provided an easy way to remember the essentials of the faith. The earliest creeds were developed by bishops for instructing catechumens and were often short; for example: I believe in God almighty, and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, and in the resurrection of the body [in] the holy Catholic Church.

Such a simple “rule of faith” raised more questions than it answered and led to a variety of heresies, such as the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same Person (Modalism), that Jesus’ body was unreal because matter is evil (Gnosticism), or that the Son of God is created by the Father as a sort of demigod (Arianism). Starting in 325 A.D. and for the next 56 years, the Church fathers hammered out a creed that answered these questions but was simple enough to be easily memorized.

The Nicene Creed was compiled from various local creeds, and was refined in the East over 56 years as the creed that we recite today. This Creed is based entirely on Scripture – except for one word: homoousios (consubstantial) – which we’ll explain in another homily. The “Apostles Creed” began evolving in West as early as the mid-2nd century, and reached its final form by the end of the 4th century. Both creeds contain short “articles” or statements of faith. And both are structured into three main parts: a short section on the Father, a longer section on the Son and his saving work, and a final section on the Holy Spirit (with appendixes about the Church and judgment).

Next week, we’ll take up the section on the Father.

BEHOLD, THE LAMB OF GOD
January 19, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

A testimony can be a statement of a truth about something or someone, or it can be a public expression of a religious experience. John the Baptist gives testimony to Jesus by pointing out that he is the Lamb of God (vv. 29, 36); a man who was before me (v. 30); the One on Whom the Holy Spirit remained (v. 33); and the Son of God (v. 34)

John “was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’” Why the Lamb?

The central feature of the Jewish Passover feast was the lamb which was eaten during the Passover meal. It recalled the lamb which the families of the Israelites ate on the eve of their escape from Egypt and whose blood was painted on the doorposts of their houses. When the angel of God came to destroy all the firstborn, it “passed over” the houses of the Israelites which had been smeared with the lamb’s blood. This became then a symbol of liberation and one of the most important celebrations in the Jewish calendar.

For us, however, there is now a new symbol of liberation, a new Lamb. Jesus is both the offerer of the sacrifice and its victim, and his death and resurrection inaugurate a New Covenant between God and his people.

It is perhaps significant that in all the gospel accounts of the Last Supper there is no mention of a lamb being eaten during the meal. Because there was, of course, a new Lamb, who told his companions to take and eat, take and drink the bread and wine “handed over for you.” And it is through the blood of this Lamb that we find salvation and liberation

The title “Lamb of God” also recalls the suffering servant, led like a lamb to the slaughter, which we read about in Isaiah (53:7,10). In Revelation, too, we read of the victorious apocalyptic lamb who will destroy the evil in the world (5-7; 17:14).The Baptist then indicates the superiority of Jesus over himself. “He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man existed before me.’” In the context of the Prologue that we read earlier, this is an intimation of Jesus’ preexistence as the Word with God (for, chronologically, John was slightly older than Jesus).

John also explains why he was baptizing: it was to make Jesus known to the people of Israel. His baptism did not have the power to forgive sin; this would be the prerogative of Jesus and his disciples. (He also says that until then he had not known Jesus, which conflicts with the other gospels, where he is presented as a close relative.)

He then continues to talk about the baptism of Jesus, whereas the event itself is described in Matthew and Luke. He says he personally saw the Spirit of God come down on Jesus like a dove, and it stayed with him, indicating the enduring relationship between God and his Father. The dove is a symbol of new life, recalling the dove which brought the olive branch back to Noah’s ark and indicated that the Flood was over.

At the same time, the One who told John to baptize with water also said that the One on whom the Spirit came down would in turn baptize with the Holy Spirit. And the Baptist concludes: “Now I have seen and give witness that he is the Son of God.” Here we have another title of Jesus.

Each one of us also has received the same Spirit in our baptism. It was that Spirit which inspired Jesus in all his Messianic work, climaxing in his death on the cross. May the same Spirit inspire us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and join with him in his work to build the Kingdom.   

WHY WERE YOU BAPTIZED?
January 12, 2020
Deacon Dennis Walters

I ’m guessing that most of you were baptized as infants. It would be interesting to know why your parents had you baptized. Some may have feared that if you weren’t, and should die before you were, you might go to Limbo or even Hell. Others may have had you baptized because family expected it, or because the Church requires it. A devout parent might have presented you for baptism to remove the guilt of Original Sin. In any case, the experience of sin is something you wouldn’t have had as an infant; you’d have had to learn that the hard way.

But if you were baptized as an adult, experience would have taught you what sin is — namely, that there is something wrong with you, something you can’t always control, that impels you to do bad things, that produces shame and guilt even when you do well, that leaves you feeling alone, unloved and unlovable. You would have sought baptism because it represents the need for a change in your life, one that includes God.

Such was the case with those who came to John the Baptist at his call to repent. “Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan” (Mat. 3:56). In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI explains that the Judaism of Jesus’ day had a practice that included individual enumeration of sins. “Baptism itself was a confession of sins and the attempt to put off an old, failed life and to receive a new one.” Immersion in the current of a river symbolized both the flushing away of sin and the promise of a new start.

But what of Jesus, who had no need for baptism from sin? Benedict imagines Jesus blending “into the gray mass of sinners waiting on the banks of the Jordan.” As his turn arrives, John recognizes him and objects, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” To which Jesus gives a puzzling answer: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat. 3:14-15).

Pope Benedict comments: “In Jesus’ world, righteousness is man’s answer to the Torah, acceptance of the whole of God’s will, the bearing of the ‘yoke of God’s kingdom,’ as one formulation had it. There is no provision for John’s baptism in the Torah, but this reply of Jesus is his way of acknowledging it as an expression of an unrestricted Yes to God’s will, an obedient acceptance of his yoke.” In other words, Jesus steps into the position of sinners and takes their guilt upon himself, and at the same time commits himself to his Father’s will to the end: “Not my will, but yours be done.” What he later accepted at Gethsemane he first commits himself to by his immersion at the Jordan. That explains, Benedict says, “why in his own discourses Jesus uses the word baptism to refer to his death on the cross.”

John’s baptism was called a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” Its effectiveness depended entirely on the decision of the sinner to change his life; he expected that the sin confessed was forgiven in hopes that he could live differently from then on. John knew that the sinner’s choice was important, but that it was not enough. He had predicted that the one who was coming after him would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. That baptism would be a two-sided affair; it would not depend only on the will of the sinner who hoped to change his life, but also on the activity of God who would restore the holiness that was broken by sin. It would be a baptism that would effect real change, purifying sin — both Original and actual — and installing the presence of the Holy Spirit in the human heart as in a temple. That baptism was to make a practical difference in one’s life. Those who were baptized as adults recognize that this sacrament does make a practical difference in their lives. They have experienced a before and an after. Before, there was compulsive wrongdoing, guilt and frustration, and distance from God. After, all is new: God is real and near; with guilt and shame removed, they are free to pursue righteousness and holiness. No wonder converts are excited about their faith.

Those of us who were baptized as infants don’t have that advantage. For us, there is no before that we can remember, and the after feels like how things have always been. Parents and catechists explain the faith to us, but all too often the compulsive wrongdoing, guilt, frustration, and distance from God are just the way life goes. Very often, we’re not excited about our faith. In truth, we’re often bored or frustrated with it. We need conversion. We need to place ourselves among that “gray mass of sinners waiting on the banks of the Jordan.” We need to admit to ourselves where our lives have fallen short and actively seek to change in John’s words, to repent because the kingdom of God is at hand. We need to renew our baptism, which came to us in the Holy Spirit and fire. If it seems that the fire is little more than a pilot light, we can stir it into flame by our “unrestricted Yes to God’s will.”

Here’s a homework assignment. Today, see if you can find a record of your baptism, one that notes the date and the place. Then ask yourself: Does my baptism make a practical difference in the way I live, or is my life just like everyone else’s? Jesus accepted his baptism with an “unrestricted Yes.” As his disciple, pray that your Yes follows his.

THE LIGHT OF A STAR
January 5, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

The light which attracted the Magi from the East was more than a natural light. They were
drawn by the Holy Spirit to seek the newborn Christ, “the true light which enlightens
everyone”, as St. John says, or, as Jesus would later say of himself, “I am the light of the world.”
Yes, the One who is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” had come into
the world to bring about the world’s salvation. The visit of the Magi from far at the birth of
Jesus was a world-changing event which symbolizes the attractiveness of Jesus and the Gospel
to people everywhere, to people of every nation, language, race, culture, and epoch of history.
The journey they undertook was neither easy nor free of danger and, as we saw, it provoked
King Herod, who saw the newborn Child as a threat. Pope Francis might say of the Magi that
they left “their comfort zone” so as to seek and ultimately to find the Lord. They exchanged the
lesser lights of wealth and comfort for the true light, ‘for the glory of God shining on the face of
the newborn Christ’. They enter into the stable, there to worship the Child as they offered him
gifts… Gifts that symbolize the mission God the Father entrusted to his Son: gold to
acknowledge his universal kingship; frankincense to acknowledge his divinity; and myrrh to
acknowledge his humanity. What the religious and political leaders of Israel missed the Wise
Men from East found, and in a very unlikely place, in the poorest and most humble of
situations. When they saw Mary and Joseph and the Child in poverty, the wise men, far from
being disappointed, were overjoyed and they worshipped him!

We know that Matthew presents Jesus Christ as king, as sovereign.  Everything in Matthew
focuses on His majesty, on His sovereignty, on His great personage as the ruler, the one who
has the right to reign, the Messiah, the anointed one, the promised king. In the Gospel of Mark,
he presents Him as servant, suffering servant of Yahweh, Mark has no genealogy at all because
the lineage of a servant is irrelevant. And Luke presents Him as the Son of man. He takes his
genealogy all the way back and starts with Adam. And John, the fourth gospel who presents
Christ as the Son of God, bypasses all human genealogy and simply says, “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  And so, he goes immediately
from the begging of his Gospel back to eternity and establishes the eternal essence of Christ.
 Now as we look at verses 1 to 12, I want you to see five acts in this incredible narration that is
played out in chapter 2; they are “Arrival,”.  Number two, “Agitation.”  Number three,
“Acting.”  Number four, “Adoration,” and number five, “Avoidance.” First of all, we come to
“Arrival.”  Let’s look at verses 1 and 2.  “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the
days of Herod the king, behold, there came magi.” They asked Where is the new born King? we
saw the agitation in verse 3.  “When Herod the King heard these things, he was troubled.” And
all Jerusalem with him.  Herod who was an Edomite, who had been given his job by the Roman
government because it wasn’t long after this that he got all the babies under two years of age
in Bethlehem and the surrounding area and murdered all of them.t was panicky because he felt
he was going to lose his job even though he was 70 years old and already nearly sick unto
death. Because it wasn’t long after this that he got all the babies under two years of age in

Bethlehem and the surrounding area and murdered all of them. At the enquiry of the Herod
politicians and the theologians together researched the scriptures from them he knew that this
was more than a human king himself.  He knew this was the Messiah, the anointed one.  He
made the connection in his mind.  He was living in a day when the hope of deliverance through
the arrival and work of the promised Messiah was in the hearts on the lips of many, and he
knew the king of the Jews and the Messiah of Israel were one in the same. All he did was want
to get rid of the child. Let’s look at the acting verse 7.  “Then Herod, when he had privately
called the wise men.  If he had another public meeting with these guys everybody would really
know something was up.  So he had a private one and he “inquired of them diligently what time
the star appeared. In Verse 8. His hypocrisy(Acting) continues “, “Go and search diligently for
the young child; and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and
worship him also.” The journey is complete for the Magi in verse 9 and 10, “When they saw the
star,” “they Rejoiced.”  they worshipped (adoration); they gave him gifts.  They gave some
pretty good stuff – gold, frankincense, and myrrh. finally, verse 12, the avoidance.  And God
took over these wonderful Magi.  He wanted them to take the message of the king back to
Persia where they came from, the message of the new born, the Messiah, the anointed
one.  And so, they were warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod to tell
him about the baby, and they departed to their own country another way.

Now the name Bethlehem needs an explanation.  It means “house of bread.”   House of bread,
a fitting name for the place where the very bread of life was born.  Now this little village sits in a
fertile countryside and was very productive. this little town of Bethlehem has had a long and
very interesting history.  If you go all the way back to the Book of Genesis, you will find that in
Bethlehem, Jacob buried Rachel and set a pillar or a marker by her grave. We find also that
when Ruth married Boaz in the Book of Ruth, she lived in the town of Bethlehem. But above all,
the town of Bethlehem was the home and the city of the great king of Israel by the name of
David.  And that is what is characteristically known about Bethlehem.  It is ever and always the
City of David. Dear brothers and sisters, we are called to become ‘a light brightly shining’ –
shining the with truth and love of Christ, shining with the attractiveness and joy of the Gospel.
M our Christian discipleship be a witness to true light of the world. May God bless us and keep
us always in his love!

COURTROOM OR CONFESSIONAL
December 29, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

On the last Sunday of the year, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. The Church encourages us to look to the Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for inspiration, example and encouragement. They were a model family in which both parents helped each other, understood and accepted each other, and took good care of their Child so that He might grow up not only in  human knowledge, but also as a Child of God. We too truly desire and pray that everyone in our family is respected, cherished, nurtured, supported and united in the bond of love.

The first reading is a commentary on the fourth commandment: "Honor your father and your mother." It reminds children of their duty to honor their parents - even when it becomes difficult. He also mentions the five-fold reward which God promises to those who honor their father and mother. The first reward is ‘riches’ and the second, a long life. Forgiveness of sins and God’s prompt answer to prayers are the fourth and fifth rewards. He reminds children that God blesses them if they obey, revere and show compassion to their father. Today I have included 2 stories from 2 popes on family life.

Pope Francis said, “Grandparents are a treasure.” Pope Francis said that as a child, he heard a story of a family with a mother, father, many children and a grandfather. The grandfather, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, would drop food on the dining table and smear it all over his face when he ate. His son considered it disgusting. Hence, one day he bought a small table and set it off to the side of the dining room so the grandfather could eat, make a mess and not disturb the rest of the family. One day, the Pope said, the grandfather’s son came home and found one of his sons playing with a piece of wood. “What are you making?” he asked his son. “A table,” the son replied. “Why?” the father asked. “It’s for you, Dad. When you get old like grandpa, I am going to give you this table.” Ever since that day, the grandpa was given a prominent seat at the dining table and all the help he needed to eat by his son and daughter-in-law. “This story has done me such good throughout my life,”said the Pope, who celebrated his birthday on December 17th. “Grandparents are a treasure,” he said. “Often old age isn’t pretty, right? There is sickness and all that, but the wisdom our grandparents have is something we must welcome as an inheritance. A society or community that does not value, respect and care for its elderly members doesn’t have a future because it has no memory, it’s lost its memory,” Pope Francis added.

Pope Paul VI on Dying of Loneliness: In an audience, Pope Paul VI told how one day, when he was Archbishop of Milan, he went out on a parish visit. During the course of the visit he found an old woman living alone. “How are you?” he asked her. “Not bad,”she answered. “I have enough food, and I’m not suffering from the cold.” “You must be reasonably happy then?” he said. “No, I’m not,” she said as she started to cry. “You see, my son and daughter-in-law never come to see me. I’m dying of loneliness.” Afterwards he was haunted by the phrase, “I’m dying of loneliness.” And the Pope concluded: “Food and warmth are not enough in themselves. People need something more. They need our presence, our time, our love. They need to be touched, to be reassured that they are not forgotten.”

Both these stories from the Popes are one great fact that we know, "Like father like son." It is an old saying, and very true. If the parents fail to do what is right and just in the sight of God, they can hardly complain if their children turn out disobedient to God and to them. The young learn more from example than from precept. If parents give their children the example of a life of obedience to the laws of God and their country, the children will in turn carry out their duties to God, to their parents and to their fellowmen.

The Feast of the Holy Family reminds us that, as the basic unit of the universal Church, each family is called to holiness. In fact, Jesus Christ has instituted two Sacraments in His Church to make society holy - the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Sacrament of Marriage. Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, Jesus sanctifies the priest as well as his parish. Similarly, in the Sacrament of Marriage, Jesus sanctifies not only the spouses but also the entire family. The husband and wife attain holiness when they discharge their duties faithfully, trusting in God, and drawing on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit through personal and family prayer, meditative reading of the Bible, and devout participation in Holy Mass. Families become holy when Christ Jesus is present in them. Jesus becomes truly present in the parish Church through the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.

Let me close my homily with advice from a senior judge of the supreme court to a newly-wedded couple. He congratulated the bride and groom on their marriage and told them, “See that you never convert your family into a courtroom; instead let it be a confessional.” If the husband and wife start arguing like attorneys in an attempt to justify their behavior, their family becomes a court of law and nobody wins. On the other hand, if the husband and the wife - as if in a confessional - are ready to admit their faults and try to correct them, the family becomes a Heavenly one. On the Feast of the only perfect Family that ever lived on this earth, all parents might examine themselves and see how well they are fulfilling the grave responsibility which God has placed on them. Let us pray for the grace of caring for one another in our own families, for each member of the parish family, and for all families of the universal Church. May God bless all our families in the New Year.