What I Believe as a Catholic: Part One

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J.M.J.

makeuseof.com

Sometimes, people ask you hard questions. They're hard because you don't know what to say in return. You feel as if the answer should come easily and succinctly, but it's eluding you.

Someone asked me a question like that last fall, towards the end of a long car ride. 

"What do you believe?"

We had been starting to discuss religion. I was Catholic, the driver wasn't. I didn't really know how to reply in a way that he would understand. Honestly, I didn't know how to reply in a way that I would understand either! Every day I lived my life a certain way because of what I believed in as a Catholic but to explain it seemed so hard.

I realized I had to say something, so I said, 

"No one has really asked me that before. I haven't really discussed what I believe with non-Catholics. Catholics don't really talk about what they believe. They don't all agree on everything but it's just not something we talk about." I started to feel sheepish.

Then, I got a bit of inspiration from the Holy Spirit.

"You know what I believe? You know as we sit in Mass (we had been attending Mass together for nearly a year), they say that prayer "I believe in God, the Father Almighty...," the Creed?

A nod from the driver.

I was gaining confidence now. "Well, everything in there pretty much sums up what I believe as a Catholic."

That was easy. And yet, how do you really explain? I felt that I had barely scratched the surface. 

And so, dear readers, I will attempt in this first of a series to explain to you, whether you are Catholic or not, what I believe as one. I will use the Creed to help me. I will post the Creed in its entirety here, then begin discussing the first part.

The Nicene Creed
I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
usccb.org

I'm going to take this line by line because it's just that important.

I believe in one God

I believe in one God. Many religions worship more than one God. I call them gods with a lower-case g. Whenever we idolize something other than God, we are making something into a god of sorts, and this is wrong. There are a lot of good things in this world, but any of them to excess become a negative thing. Think about this from a practical standpoint, if you will. Ice cream is good. You eat one cone or one serving and you feel satisfied. Clean out a carton of ice cream and you feel overindulged. The same goes for anything else that is good that we do too much of. It starts to choke out the important things in our lives. It starts to show God that we care more about that thing than we do Him. You may be thinking, "I don't do that! I would never tell God that!" You may not tell Him that specifically, but that's what your actions are saying, loud and clear. If you were on a date and you kept checking your phone, you wouldn't verbally be telling your date that whatever was so "important" on your phone was more important than him or her, but I promise you that they will think that, and for good reason.

God bless you!
Stephanie