Fundamentals of Catholicism: Creed, Commandments

PREFACE

Confusion is an apt word to describe the intellectual climate of our time. This is true, in my view, not only of Western culture in general, but also of the thinking of very many Catholics—in Europe, in North America and in South America.

While teaching a college course a few years ago on the fundamentals of the Catholic faith to about forty students, I came to the realization that over ninety percent of them did not understand the most basic tenets of their Catholic faith. Subsequently I suggested in a few short articles that we needed something like Remedial Catholicism in our colleges and universities, just as we offer remedial courses in English and mathematics.

Gradually I came to the realization that there should be more teaching and preaching about the basics of Catholicism. About that time Charles W. Carruth, editor of the Arlington Catholic Herald, Arlington, Virginia, asked me to begin writing a series of columns for the diocesan newspaper. First, I secured permission from Twin Circle to reprint a series on the Creed that I had written a few years before. When they were almost exhausted, I decided to complement them with a series on the moral teachings of the Church by taking each of the Ten Commandments. Those articles compose Volume I of this series.

After completing the scries on the Ten Commandments, it seemed to me good to work my way through the entire body of doctrinal teaching of the Catholic faith. Those articles, which appeared in the Herald over a period of about four years, cover the following doctrinal areas: in Volume II you will find the treatment of God, Trinity, Creation, Christ and Mary; in Volume III you will find the treatment of Grace, Church, Seven Sacraments and Eschatology or the Last Things.

What I have tried to do in these short articles is to present faithfully the traditional Catholic teaching on all the important points of doctrine and morals.

Who were these articles written for? They were written primarily for ordinary Catholic lay men and women who are looking for some direction in the present sea of confusion, and who would like to know more about the Catholic faith that they profess. I have covered all the basic theses of Catholic theology and have tried to express them in non-technical language, as far as this was possible.

The original purpose of the articles, therefore, was to help concerned Catholics reach a deeper understanding of their faith. But it seems to me that they could rightly be given to non-Catholics who are seriously interested in Catholicism. These volumes can help the non-Catholic understand the Catholic faith better—and perhaps even come to embrace it. Also, because of the nature of the short essays, they might be used by priests as the basis of simple sermons on the essentials of the faith.

These articles did not just come out of my head. They are based on the traditional treatises of theology that all priests study in the seminary. I am indebted, therefore, to my professors in the seminary and to many books that I have consulted in the course of writing these essays. The books that I have relied on primarily for guidance are the following:

Holy Bible

Enchiridion Symbolorum, Denzinger-Schoenmetzer

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott

Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas

Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas

New Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Catechism, John A. Hardon, SJ.

The Teaching of Christ, Ronald Lawler et al.

Dictionary of Theology, Louis Bouyer

Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., Editor

I wish to thank first of all Charles W. Carruth for his help and encouragement. It was due to him that all of these articles appeared in the Arlington Catholic Herald as a weekly column, beginning in January 1976. My thanks go also in a special way to Most Reverend Thomas J. Welsh, Bishop of Arlington, who read the articles in his own newspaper and kindly consented to write the Introduction to these volumes. Finally, I want to thank Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and his devoted collaborators at Ignatius Press for their diligence and patience in the production of these three volumes.

It is my earnest hope and prayer that these short essays on the fundamentals of Catholic faith will assist many—both Catholics and non-Catholics—to acquire a better understanding of the inexhaustible treasure of Catholic truth. With the help of God’s grace, understanding should lead to love, love to acceptance, and acceptance to fearless Christian living in our age of confusion. For, nothing is more effective in rooting out the darkness of error and confusion than the brilliant white light of Catholic truth.

KENNETH BAKER, S.J.

October 15, 1981

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

New York, N.Y.

INTRODUCTION

Pilgrims to the Shrine of Lourdes in France close their day of prayer with a torchlight procession that begins near the Grotto and winds along the walkways to circle back and end in front of the Basilica. All the while in languages from around the world they sing over and over again the Lourdes Hymn, this group or that one, leading the verses in French or Italian or Polish and everyone joining in the refrain. When, finally, all are close together in front of the church, they chant in Latin the Gregorian Creed. It is an inspirational moment that reminds all present of their one faith. I thank Fr. Kenneth Baker for beginning this three-volume work by a beautiful series of articles on the Creed. They reminded me of that faith experience at Lourdes and pointed up the special quality of his writing.

To know, love and serve God. That was a simple and easily memorized formula of yesteryear. This work of Fr. Baker speaks in the same arresting simplicity and rewards the persistent prober in the same way.

If one asks the question: is there need today for a straightforward series on the fundamentals of faith, an easy answer would be that there must be since Pope John Paul II has been so often busy about that very thing. When he visited the United States in October 1979 he spoke to the bishops at length about fundamentals. He congratulated them on their teachings in defense of life, on indissolubility of marriage, on celibacy, on morality. His encyclicals have stressed the fundamentals that Christ is the Redeemer of mankind and that God is rich in mercy. His message in Mexico was that there can be no real approach to the solution of the problems of mankind unless we first understand who God is. Everywhere the large M for Mary on his coat of arms points to him kneeling in prayer at Mary’s shrine in Czestochowa, Knock, Loreto and Guadalupe. Only a would-be assassin’s bullets kept him from Lourdes. He knows that the law of praying and the law of faith are one. His fundamental prayer literally around the world has been to Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church.

But let us not approach the question backwards: there is not a need to stress fundamentals because the Pope is doing it. Rather, the Vicar of Christ is doing it because there is the need!

Some will surely say that these volumes are not for them because they received a good Catholic education, know their faith and have no special need for a simple review. For such we might point out that fundamental and simple do not mean quite the same thing. These volumes contain scries of articles stating and explaining the key doctrines of our Catholic faith. They are clear and precise but not by any means on a grade school level. They are built on the Scriptures, as is our faith, but addressed to mankind on the threshold of the twenty-first century as was Vatican II. Indeed the reading of several chapters will convince most people that their memories are not quite as sharp as they believed and that new insights on old truths are a special delight.

That point perhaps bears elaboration: even if we had a good Catholic education, profited from it and retained a lot of it, the passage of time and the changing circumstances in the world and in our lives make a review of our faith quite rewarding. We are not the people we were ten, twenty or thirty years ago at age eighteen. The old devil has produced some new challenges to the old faith. It is only when many of our loved ones have died that we learn we really need to believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

Some would say that our promotion of these volumes sounds like a save the saved campaign. Let us first respond with a word in defense of the needs of good people that they might become better since the Lord has called us to the challenge of becoming perfect as is the heavenly Father, and since today too many good things such as indissolubility in marriage or virginity outside of marriage are passed over as ideals, that is, impossible.

But then let us note and strongly that this work has even greater value for the unsure and for the uninformed or misinformed. It is at once the challenge and the beauty of our faith that we must have some grasp of all of it to appreciate and sometimes even accept some of its parts. Challenges to the Church’s teaching on sexual morality are defeated finally in the arena of our understanding of the Church as being divinely instituted and just as divinely safeguarded in this twentieth century. The manor woman face to face with crushing suffering, loneliness or disappointment and asking how can a good God. . .? will find no better answer than the mystery of sinless Mary at the foot of the Cross giving up her Son and receiving us, his executioners, in exchange.

Fr. Baker’s ability to state the truth clearly and yet with insightful newness may remind some of Frank Sheed or G. K. Chesterton. It will jolt some others free of errors firmly clutched and slip a ray of hope into some hearts all but tightly shuttered against the eternal light.

It is most especially for this last quality that I encourage the reading of these volumes. Fr. Baker, at the end of the first volume, puts it this way: It is one thing to be able to recite the Nicene Creed with understanding at Sunday Mass; it is something else to live our Catholic lives in the full realization and implementation of the Creed. In these short essays I have tried to convey more knowledge about the essentials of our Catholic faith. Knowledge is not the same thing as faith, but it is an essential part of it. Our Lord Himself said: ‘This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (Jn 17:3).

On almost every page the Catholic faith of the author comes through. It is second nature for him to offer applications of the truth to situations in the lives of young and old, applications so real and present as to force the reader to turn from the truth on the written pages to the need for it in his or her own life.

The great Pope Paul VI in his Exhortation on Evangelization, his last and perhaps greatest legacy, reminds us that the question in evangelization is not whether or not people can be saved without our preaching to them—surely they can by the merciful God—but whether we can be saved without spreading the Good News! An effect of these volumes will be to arm the reader with more truth, and like Jeremiah he will be unable to contain it. The truth of Christ impels us to share him with non-Christians. The beauty of the seven sacraments, I stress seven, will make us want to share all of them with our Protestant friends or family members. Mary, Mother of the Church, will encourage all of us to seek her intercession that we may all be one. We do believe Christ will come again. We do believe in everlasting life. It is only for lack of thinking about it that we are not doing that which Christ has left undone in filling the many mansions in our Father’s house. Fr. Baker starts us thinking and acting!

+ THOMAS J. WELSH

BISHOP OF

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

July 31, 1981

Feast of St. Ignatius

PART I

THE CREED

1

FAITH AND THE GOOD NEWS

Given the massive confusion today in religious questions, even the most fundamental ones such as the existence of God, the immortality of the human soul, the possibility of faith and the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, it can be very helpful to reflect on the basic tenets of our Catholic faith.

Since practically every article of the Nicene Creed—which we profess at Mass every Sunday—has been called into question and put in doubt in recent years by some theologians and intellectuals, I have thought it best to begin this series with a number of articles on the Creed.

Let us start with the Catholic notion of faith. At every Sunday Mass, before we step forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion, the Church bids us confess our faith in the Triune God by praying the Apostles’ Creed. We commence with the momentous words that proclaim to all men that we are believing Christians, We believe in one God. What is this faith that makes us Christians or followers of Christ? First of all, we must realize that faith is a supernatural gift from God. Before a person can believe he must receive the grace of God—and God’s grace is the free gift of himself to man. Our Lord himself says in John (6:44), No one can come to me unless my Father draws him. This applies to the first stirrings of faith in the pagan as well as to the advanced sanctity of the saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Secondly, faith is both a subjective, interior act of the mind and will of the believing person and also the objective content of what is believed. Thus, when we say that Jane has the faith, we mean that interiorly she accepts God’s revelation about himself that he has made known to her through his Church. This faith gives her security about God’s love for her. It gives her confidence and hope for the future. It fills her heart with love for the God who gives himself to man. In this sense we are talking about Jane’s interior state of mind.

But the word faith also refers to the content, or what is believed. According to St. Paul, faith, in addition to being a gift from God, also proceeds from the preaching of the Apostles and those sent by them. Here I would urge you to pick up your family Bible and read chapters 2 and 3 of the Acts of the Apostles. There you will find a brief, complete outline of Christian faith in the objective sense. The faith preached by the Apostles comes to this:

God the Father sent his own Son Jesus into the world to save mankind from sin and death as the prophets long ago foretold. Jesus was a good man who went about curing the sick but the Jewish authorities rejected him and put him to death. God raised him up on the third day and we are all witnesses to his resurrection. Therefore repent of your sins, believe this Good News, be baptized and you will be saved from the power of the devil.

Scripture tells us that after St. Peter preached the first Christian sermon on the first Pentecost, three thousand people became believers and were baptized. From that moment they became new creatures because they were freed from sin and immersed in the knowledge and love of the living God.

2

SUBMISSION TO GOD

Every article of the Creed has been attacked by someone in recent years. The man or woman of faith who can live it in the face of hostile surroundings is truly following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who was put to death for living and proclaiming the Good News of salvation.

The man of faith is an affront to the modern atheist who reduces all reality to the eyes-ears-nose-throat level. Any statement or belief that cannot be verified by that criterion, in his view, must be dogmatically rejected as mythical or superstitious. The woman who believes in God and consequently rejects the here-and-now pleasure ethic of contemporary society is bound to be an object either of derision or pity from her wiser peers who know better.

The convinced, practicing Christian is the person who walks by faith in the midst of every adversity. According to the letter to the Hebrews, faith is the confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see (II:I). If you would like to read an inspiring passage from the Bible to mark the Lord’s Day, I highly recommend this eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Here the inspired author recalls the heroes of faith in the Old Testament and reminds us of what they were able to accomplish for God because of their indomitable faith. He praises the faith of such people as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, David and many others. These men believed in God, even though they did not always see where he was leading them and, Scripture says, because of their faith they were approved by God (Heb 11:2).

Faith in God gives a person a sense of direction in his life. The person of faith is confident that everything will work out for the best, for he knows that his eternal destiny and his earthly happiness are in the hands of a loving God. Thus the believer lives in a rational, orderly universe that is under the control of an all-wise, caring God. He is not the plaything of cruel fate or of implacable, impersonal forces, which was the idea that many of the ancient Greeks had with regard to man and his destiny.

It is true that there is a certain obscurity about faith, since what is believed is accepted on the authority of another—in this instance on the authority of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Hence, when a person assents to something as true on the basis of his faith, he does so not because he sees the intrinsic reason for the proposition in question (e.g., Trinity, Incarnation, grace, Resurrection), but because God himself has testified to this truth. The merit of faith is precisely in accepting something which we cannot prove by the power of human reason.

Faith, therefore, is rightly called a submission to God. It is obedience to God in the innermost depths of man—in his mind and in his will.

God spoke to Israel and elicited faith. Jesus spoke to the Jews and many believed in him. The Gospel was written down in order to strengthen the faith of Christians and to lead others to faith. St. John says that he wrote his Gospel to help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, so that through this faith you may have life in his name (Jn 20:31).

3

THE CENTER OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

The object toward which Catholic faith is directed is God himself. For we profess in the Creed I believe in one God. The idea, however, that exists in the minds of different people in correspondence to the word God is not the same for all men and for all cultures. Many men have taken their idea of God from material things, thinking that he is the sun, the moon, the heavens, the earth, various animals, life forces, and so forth.

The Catholic Christian notion of God is based upon God’s revelation of himself to man in the Old and the New Testaments. God graciously revealed himself to man in the course of salvation history, beginning from Adam and culminating in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. But even in the Old Testament, God revealed himself gradually to mankind through Israel, his chosen people. It is not until he personally appears in the flesh in Jesus Christ that we get a more profound understanding of the one God in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The one God that Christians believe in is the same God who guided the Israelites through their long, torturous history. During that time he was preparing them for the full revelation of himself in his only Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Through the preaching, miracles, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus, a small group of believers was gathered together into the Church that professed its faith in the Triune God. By the divine assistance that small flock grew in numbers and extension so that it has by now touched practically every human culture and people on the face of the earth.

It is extremely important for Catholics to realize that the God they profess in the Creed is not just some abstract idea, like the God of the philosophers, who is logically deduced from the material world. Such a God is only an idea that may or may not refer to the eternal source of all being and reality. The more successful attempts along this line only reach God, as it were, from the outside. They tell man nothing about the inner nature of God, about God’s plan for the world, about God’s concern or unconcern for each and every person.

The God we Christians believe in has come incredibly close to