Pastor’s Letter: May 4, 2025

Pastor’s Letter: May 4, 2025

2 May 2025 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

May the joy of Easter continue to be a gift to all your hearts! As is usual here at St. Philomena, it was a wonderfully full week with many blessings.  It was a great gift to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday last weekend—and great to join with so many parishes in praying together! We are continuing to be joyful over the members of our OCIA class who received Sacraments at the Easter Vigil…we celebrated three more baptisms, a wedding…and by the time you are reading this we will be celebrating 59 young people receiving their First Communion—what a great joy to be in a place full of such life and growth!

Some of you might be wondering, what more could we possibly celebrate this spring? Well, how about a significant anniversary for one of our key summaries of the Catholic Faith? If you haven’t heard yet, this year the Church is celebrating the 1700^th Anniversary of the Nicene Creed—the Creed that we pray at most weekend Masses. The celebration will stretch over the months of May, June, and July, which corresponds to the dates of the Council of Nicea that met during those months in the year 325AD…of course the Council that gave our Creed both its formulation and its name. During this time period, look for some notes about the Creed in both my column and in the weekend homilies!

“I believe in one God…”  We likely recognize these words as the beginning of the Creed which we say together after the homily.  Besides needing to stand up and stretch our legs after the homily, why do we have the Creed?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “a Creed is a summary of the principal truths of the Church written as a profession of faith.  Our Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that a Creed is a “brief, normative summary statement or profession of Christian faith.” Quite literally creeds are prayers of belief. The word “Creed” comes from the Latin “Credo,” which means “I believe.” Within our Church history it is no surprise that the name of this summary of Faith is the same as its first words. For example, Church documents are almost always named for the first few words.

As the Catholic Encyclopedia continues, in the Catholic Church “there are four ‘Creeds,’ each an expression of the same truths that were developed historically:  (1) The Apostles’ Creed is a development of the Apostles’ practice (Acts 8:37) of having persons who desired baptism profess their faith. (2) The Nicene Creed was put forth by the fathers of the Church at Nicaea in A.D. 325…it is popularly known as the ‘Creed of the Trinity.’   (3) The Athanasian Creed is attributed to St. Athanasius [died in 373 A.D.]… (4) The Creed of Pius IV was published first in 1564…and restates the truths of the Nicene Creed and the doctrines defined by the Council of Trent.”

As the Diocese of Peoria taught back during the Year of Faith, “The Creed, or Profession of Faith, stems from the Ancient church.  This statement of belief was not originally written to be recited at Mass; it was rather intended as a prerequisite ‘contract’ for adult baptism. One would profess these essential truths of the faith before being admitted into the church through baptism.” In a very similar way to how our modern OCIA class (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, formerly known as RCIA) works, adults interested in becoming Christian would learn and study the truths of our Faith. When the time came for them to enter the Church, they would “profess” a summary of what we believe. This was a way of checking that they really did know the Faith (kind of like an oral exam) and that they were willing to live it out in the world.

Fr. Guy Oury says, “The Fathers of the Church recommended that Christians recite [the Creed] daily, morning and evening, as a renewal of their faith and safeguard against doctrinal error.” Ok, show of hands…how many of you say the Creed when you get out of bed each morning?!?! Jokes aside, the Fathers were really onto something here. Because the Creed is a great summary of the truths of the Faith (more on that next week), knowing the Creed is a wonderful way to “know the basics” of the faith and to keep them fresh in our minds and hearts.

With people running around saying the Creed to themselves throughout the day as the Fathers recommended, it was only natural that Christians began to say the Creed when they gathered together. And what is our most important gathering together? Of course, it’s the Mass! So, Christians would say the Creed together at the Mass, recalling the truths that faithful Christians believe in. This was helpful for each individual, but was also a great symbol of Christian unity: we all speak together the truths that we all believe (individually and together). If you are open to a unique spiritual challenge this week, maybe try praying through the Creed at another time outside weekend Mass and think about the words and what they mean.

Know of my prayers and blessing this week!

In Christ

Father Luke