October 22

Our Creed
We don’t just profess belief in the Incarnation. We say we believe
that God took flesh at a precise moment in time, and in a definite
place. That’s the reason for that odd detail in our creed. Think
about it: We’re the only religion to remember our founder’s
executioner by name every time we profess our faith. In fact, I
don’t think there’s another profession of faith in any religion that
mentions specific historical personages.
Pontius Pilate and Mary are mentioned by name in the creed.
Why? The reference to Mary, his mother, guarantees Christ’s
humanity. The reference to Pilate, who condemned him to death,
guarantees his historicity. It ensures that we can never reduce the
Incarnation to an abstract concept, a metaphor, a pretty idea. It
ensures that we can never regard Jesus Christ as some kind of
ideal archetype or mythical figure. He was truly a man and truly
God. And once he had a place he called home on this earth.
Also, we believe that this historical event, which happened more
than 2,000 years ago, represents a personal intervention by God
“for us and for our salvation.” God entered history for you and me,
for all humanity. To be a Catholic is to be unique among the
world’s believers. To be a Catholic means believing that you are a
part of a vast historical project. And it’s not our project. It’s God’s.
Being Catholic means believing that since the beginning of time
God has been working out his own hidden purposes in the history
of nations and in the biography of every person. He’s still unfolding
his purposes today, and each of us here has a part to play in
his divine plan.
“He chose us before the foundation of the world, to be holy. In
love, he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ.”
St. Paul wrote that to the first Christians. He meant those words
for us, too. Before the foundation of the world, God had each of us
in mind. He made us out of love. He made us for a reason. To be
holy, to be his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. To help
him in his plan to share his love with the whole world.
In his first homily as pope, Benedict XVI said the same thing. He
said: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.
Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is
willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” This is a
wonderful truth. Each of us is the result of an act of the creative
imagination of God. Again, no other religion makes anywhere
near these kind of claims about the meaning of human life — and
not just “human life” in general, but each and every human life.
God willed each of us to be here. He loves us personally. What
does God need or want us to be doing?
The creed not only tells us about the past. It also speaks of the
future. We believe Jesus Christ will come again in glory to usher in
a kingdom that will have no end. We anticipate that kingdom in
every Eucharist, when he comes to us in bread and wine. We live
in joyful hope for the coming of the “end” of history —when “time
no longer shall be,” as the Book of Revelation says. Until that day,
we live in the era of the Church. If the Incarnation represents the
past and the second coming represents the future, the Church is
always the “present” tense of God’s plan for history and for each
of our lives.
Fr. Dan