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 The Apostles Creed This is the Apostles Creed, as used in the Roman Catholic Church's liturgy. This creed is considered to be a faithful summary of the Apostles' teaching. It is the ancient baptismal symbol of the Church at Rome. (See Catechism, 194.) The Apostles Creed is one of the creeds that can be found in the Handbook of Prayers edited by James Socias. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin...

 The Creed Of The People Of God: The Essentials Of Catholic Belief By Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI wrote the Creed of the People of God in 1968 in order to proclaim the basic and essential beliefs of the Catholic faith as received from Christ. This Creed is an outstanding summary of the Catholic faith. It is brief. It covers the absolute essentials. Pope Paul VI was careful to include certain elements of the faith that were being challenged in the modern world—it speaks particularly well to "the spiritual condition of our time". I'll even read it for you!...

  Basic Tenets of Catholicism The basic tenets of Catholicism are the fundamental beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. Are you looking for a quick & simple guide to basic Catholicism? Here's a primer on Catholic Church doctrine — the essential tenets of Catholicism. This page is intended as for those who are just starting out in the Catholic faith. It's a quick-reference guide to Catholicism for beginners, perfect for those working on understanding Catholicism. NOTE: I've also added another page containing Pope Paul VI's Creed of the People of God. Pope Paul VI wrote that Creed in 1968 to...

APPENDIXSYMBOLS AND PROFESSIONS OF FAITHTHE APOSTLES' CREED (DATE UNKNOWN)I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic...

AND LIFE EVERLASTING.AMEN."No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor. 2, 9).After this life there is one of two eternities that awaits each individual: an eternity of happiness in heaven as reward for remaining faithful to God, or an eternity of misery in hell for having rejected him.The joy of heaven, once obtained, can never be lost. It consists of the Beatific Vision, that is, in seeing, possessing and loving God as He is for all eternity: "For now we see in a...

 THE RESURRECTIONOF THE BODY"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!" (Job 19, 25-27).According to God's original plan for humanity, Adam and Eve and their descendants were to live in Paradise on earth until they attained a certain level of grace through a life of meritorious acts. Thereupon, each person would be assumed body...

 THE FORGIVENESSOF SINS"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" (Eph. 1, 3; 7)."All authority," said Christ to His disciples, "in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (St. Matt. 28, 18). Included in this was the power to forgive sins. The following incident in the Gospels testifies to Christ’s power to forgive sins:"When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven. Then some of the scribes said...

THE COMMUNIONOF SAINTS"If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12, 26-27).The Communion of Saints is the union that exists between all the members of the Church on earth, in heaven, and in purgatory. Those members on earth comprise the Church Militant; those in heaven, the Church Triumphant; those in purgatory, the Church Suffering.These three Churches, strictly speaking, form but one Church existing in three different states whose Head is Jesus Christ: "so we,...

  THE HOLY CATHOLICCHURCH"…you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim. 3, 15).The Holy Catholic Church is the society of the redeemed, the visible Kingdom of God upon earth, comprising all baptized persons who believe and profess the teachings of Jesus Christ, and who at the same time are in communion with His representative, the Pope of Rome. Just as there is only one God, one Lord and one Baptism, so is the Church "one and unique as...

I BELIEVE IN THEHOLY SPIRIT"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever..." (St. John 14, 16).The Holy Spirit is a distinct Person yet the same Lord and God as the Father and the Son. During the period of theological heresies that racked the early Church the divinity of the Holy Spirit was specifically denied, particularly by Macedonius of Constantinople, compelling the Church to add the words "the Lord, the giver of life…with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified" to the Nicene Creed. Sacred Scripture contains...

 FROM THENCE HE SHALLCOME TO JUDGE THELIVING AND THE DEAD"This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1, 11).At the last day Jesus Christ shall come again with great power and glory to judge all mankind: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another...And these will go away into eternal...

 HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN; SITTETH AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY"So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God"(St. Mark 16, 19).After His Resurrection, Christ returned to His Apostles and "presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1, 3). During these forty days, Christ laid the foundations for the Church He was to leave behind by bestowing on His Apostles all that was necessary for...

 HE DESCENDED INTO HELL,THE THIRD DAY HE ROSEAGAIN FROM THE DEAD"The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day" (St. Matt. 17, 22-23). At the moment of Our Lord’s death His soul descended into that part of hell called otherwise known as the Limbo of the Patriarchs or Abraham's Bosom - the place where the souls of the Just who died before Christ were detained: "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster,...

SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUSPILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED,DIED AND WAS BURIED"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Is. 53, 3).The great mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ was to redeem the world, to reconcile humanity to an offended God and restore us to His friendship. To achieve this, Our Lord had to satisfy the Divine Justice for our sins - He chose to suffer and die in our place.As the Son of God every act of Our Lord was an act of a Divine Person. Therefore, every single act of suffering on Christ’s part, every...

 WHO WAS CONCEIVEDBY THE HOLY SPIRIT,BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY"When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Gal. 4, 4). The Prophet Isaias had foretold the birth of Christ to King Achaz in the eighth century BC: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, His name shall be called Emmanuel (i.e., God with us)" (Is. 7, 14).When the time decreed by God the Father for sending Christ into the world had arrived, the Archangel Gabriel was sent from heaven to obtain the consent of Mary. During their...

 AND IN JESUS CHRIST,HIS ONLY SON, OUR LORD"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (St. John 3, 16). "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (Gen. 3, 15). These words constitute what is known as the Protoevangelium, the first Gospel, or promise of a Redeemer to come. This promise formed the essential heart and hope of the religion of the Jews of the Old...

CREATOR OF HEAVENAND EARTH"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1, 1).It is in the book of Genesis that we find recorded the story of Creation. St. John writes in the first chapter of his Gospel: "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being" (1, 3). We are told that the world did not always exist, but was created in time. The visible universe, all living things, angels and men, sprang into being: "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they...

The Apostles' Creed in the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the CatechismsRobert M. Haddad   I BELIEVE IN GOD,THE FATHER ALMIGHTY ‘The fool says in his heart, "There is no God"’ (Ps. 14 [13]).In the first article of the Creed we state our belief in one infinite, self-existent Being, a supreme Spirit possessing every perfection in an infinite degree, having no beginning and no end.Being infinite, God possesses infinite power (omnipotence), knows all things (omniscience), and is present everywhere (omnipresence). Moreover, God is infinitely wise, holy, just, merciful, true and faithful. Outside of Himself all created things depend on God for...

One of the oldest Christian creeds known today is the Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles of the early church didn’t formulate the creed; rather, the Apostles’ Creed, compiled later, is comprised of a brief summary of the Apostles’ teachings. This creed, as well as other Christian creeds, is sometimes recited as a formal statement of belief. The Apostles’ Creed reads, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and...

 The Catholic Nicene Creed This is the Catholic Nicene Creed, as used in the Roman Catholic Church's liturgy. This creed is usually called just the "Nicene Creed." It is also called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, after its origin in the first two Church ecumenical Councils in 325 and 381. The Catholic Nicene Creed is one of the creeds that can be found in the Handbook of Prayers edited by James Socias. We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is, seen and unseen.We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only...

We Believe in One God...: The Nicene Creed at Mass Issue: What is the Nicene Creed? Where did it come from? When must we pray the Nicene Creed (the profession of faith) at Mass? Response: The Nicene Creed is a summary of the Deposit of Faith as handed on to the Church from Christ Himself through His Apostles. The Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) formulated the Nicene Creed as a means of condemning the Arian heresy. Because of the continued threats of Arianism, the Fathers of the First Council of Constantinople (381) reformulated the Nicene Creed to...

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If creeds are so useful for the truth they may contain, but are not authoritative for our salvation, then we might as well call Moby Dick by Herman Melville a creed. Scripture is quoted in the novel, so it contains some inerrant truth, right? People view creeds as watchdogs to protect a group from heresy, but if the creed has no real authority, then it is a toothless watchdog. One bit of prose is as good as another, provided there is some semblance of truth in it.As long as we are all free to dissent with this phrase or that...

I think President Bush's use of "coalitions of the willing" as a replacement for rigid treaties and lines of demarcation between allies and enemies makes an interesting application to our Christian cooperation with each other. This is particularly true in the sense that modern believers in Christ have factionalized themselves with their own rigid and outdated creedal "treaties," whether written or unwritten.

You should worry if your kids aren't squabbling, say the experts. Home is the lab where children can try out behaviors.There's a reason the Felicity Huffman character on ABC's hit show "Desperate Housewives" has resonated with viewers, no doubt a good many of them parents. She's the one who went from high-powered career woman to stay-at-home mom with four kids, three of them out-of-control boys who do nothing but argue, fight and generally wreak havoc wherever they go.The incessant sound of their children's bickering can drive many real-life parents to play a game of "Can you top this?" with other...

Affirmation of Faith (All stand) Let us declare our faith in God. We believe in God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. We believe in God the Son, who lives in our hearts through faith, and fills us with his love. We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us with power from on high. We believe in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Submitted for discussion, the following statement (and all that can follow from it.... "Finally, by God's grace, the central truths of the Bible were rediscovered by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Reformers." 1.) Did God lose his Truth? Or hide it? Or not allow it to be seen or known? (During the period of time in question.) 2.) Why would something that God has promised would continue, need to be "rediscovered"?3.) Did He allow a period of time to exist where his church did not? 4.) If one holds to the fact that Rome was not the true church,...