Credo: A 12-part series on the creed
Editor's note: This article is the ninth of 12 in a new series on the Creed by Deacon Matthew Newsome. Explore the series.
When the English novelist Evelyn Waugh was asked why he was Catholic, he reportedly replied, “What else is there?” I believe I know what he meant. I had a “what else is there?” moment leading to my own conversion.
I was raised in a non-church-going family, so my introduction to the Catholic faith took place when I dated my wife, who was raised Catholic. I attended Mass with her at first because her faith was important to her, and she was important to me; but I was open to whatever truth and goodness was to be found there.
Being inquisitive, I began reading all I could about the Catholic Church, its history, teachings and traditions. At a certain point I came to understand that Jesus was a real historical figure, that the best accounts we have of His life are the four gospels, and that according to those gospels He established a Church with the authority to carry out His saving mission. To me, it seemed clear that if one wanted to be a Christian, one ought to join the Church that Christ established, and all the evidence I saw pointed to that being the Catholic Church.
I therefore found myself faced with a choice: become a Catholic or become an atheist. Protestantism was no longer a viable option for me as it lacked historical connection to Christ. Atheism offered me nothing, and seemed to require an even greater leap of faith to believe that the universe somehow brought itself into being out of nothingness, with no purpose. So I found myself, like Peter, looking at Jesus and saying, “Master, to whom shall we go?” (Jn 6:68). Or, as Evelyn Waugh succinctly put it, “What else is there?”
In response to Peter’s rhetorical question, Jesus reminds him, “Did I not choose you twelve?” (Jn 6:70). One of the identifying characteristics of the Church established by Christ is that it is built upon the foundation of the Apostles. Out of His many disciples, Jesus chose 12 as leaders of His Church (see Mt 10:1-4). He endowed them with certain authority, including the power to govern (Mt 16:19, 18:18), the power to teach in His name (Lk 10:16), and the power to forgive sins (Jn 20:23). While all the
Apostles received this governing, teaching and sanctifying authority, Peter also had the special role of “strengthening the brethren” (Lk 22:32). He alone was given the keys of the kingdom, signifying his chiefly office in the Church (Mt 16:18).
Jesus promised to be with the Church for all time (Mt 28:20), and that the power of death would not overcome it (Mt 16:18). This means that the Church Jesus established must still be around today. So which Church do we find that continues to govern with authority, has taught consistently in Christ’s name for the past 2,000 years, and sanctifies the faithful through the sacraments, united around the successor of St. Peter? It can be none other than the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church,” as the Creed states.
In Greek, the word for “church” is “ecclesia,” which means an assembly, or a calling out. This is the word used in the gospel when Jesus tells Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16:18). We have been called out from the world as followers of Jesus Christ. We are no longer citizens of the world, but of the kingdom of God. The word “catholic” comes from the Greek “katholikos” which means “of the whole” or “universal.” It signifies that the Church founded by Christ is not just for one people, tribe or nation, but for the whole world. This is why Christ commissioned the Church to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19) and to be His witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The earliest recorded use of the name “Catholic Church” is found in St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrnians (c. 110 AD). St. Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John and the successor of Peter in Antioch. Interestingly, it was also in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians” (Acts 11:26).
There are two other names for the Catholic Church that speak to the Church’s identity and mission. The Church is called both the “Body of Christ” and the “Bride of Christ.” These names both speak to the same reality. The Church is Christ’s body precisely because she is His bride, and the “two have become one body” (see Gen 2:24). To be a member of the Body of Christ is to be a member of the same Body that suffered and died for the sake of the world. Therefore Christians are called to take up our cross daily and follow Christ (Lk 9:23). It is also the same Body that rose from the tomb and ascended into heaven. Therefore the sure hope of Christians is in the Resurrection. “If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we persevere we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim 2:11b-12a).
We are wedded to Christ through our participation in the sacraments. We are incorporated into His Body in baptism, we receive His Spirit in confirmation, and we are nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. These sacred signs are the means given to us by Christ of being grafted onto Him, just as branches are grafted onto a vine and receive life from the vine. The life we receive from Christ is nothing other than the divine life of sanctifying grace.
Union with God is the essence of heaven, as we shall see as we approach the end of this series on the Creed. This is why the Church teaches that “outside the Church there is no salvation.”
This does not mean one must be a registered member of a Roman Catholic parish to be saved. But it does mean that there is no salvation outside of God’s grace, and God’s grace comes to us, however it comes, only through Jesus Christ. Anyone who receives it therefore is a part of Christ and a member of His Body, the Church. Jesus tells us, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).
In other words: what else is there?
— Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the author of “The Devout Life: A Modern Guide to Practical Holiness with St. Francis de Sales,” available from Sophia Institute Press.
Credo: A 12-part series on the creed
Editor's note: This article is the eighth of 12 in a new series on the Creed by Deacon Matthew Newsome. Explore the series.
In the eighth article of the Apostles’ Creed we profess our belief in the Holy Spirit. What is a spirit? A spirit is a personal, non-corporeal being. Let’s break that down. It is a being, meaning that it is something that exists – spirits are not imaginary. It is non-corporeal, meaning that it is not physical. Spirits do not have matter; they are not made up of atoms or anything else in the material world. And it is personal, meaning spirits have rational intellects and free will.
Humans have spirits and physical bodies. Angels are pure spirits. But who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, but not in the same way souls are the spirits of human beings.
Humans have spirits, but we are not spirits, just like we have bodies but we are not bodies. We are spirit/body composites. God is not a composite being. God is one. You cannot break God down into parts.
God is also a Trinity. There are three Persons in God, but not three parts. Each Person of the Trinity is fully and wholly God, and all three are spirits. The Father is spirit. The Son is spirit. (The body He assumed at the Incarnation belongs to His human nature, not His divine nature.) And the Holy Spirit is spirit. When we confess in the Nicene Creed that “with the Father and Son He is adored and glorified” we affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit by saying He is worthy of the same worship given to the Father and the Son.
So what makes the Holy Spirit different from the Father and Son, since all three are spirits? The Catechism defines the Holy Spirit as, “the personal love of Father and Son for each other… at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the divine plan for our salvation.” It is relatively easy for us to imagine the Father and the Son, as these are natural images for us (we all either have, are, or know human fathers and sons). But the Spirit is described variously as a wind, a flame and a dove. This can make it seem like the Spirit is harder for us to relate to, but in truth, the Spirit is most active in the world and in the life of the Church.
The Holy Spirit is active in the work of creation itself. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Gen 1:1-2). The Holy Spirit gives order and purpose to the world, so that when God looks upon all He has made, He finds it “very good” (Gen 1:31).
The Holy Spirit is also active in a particular way in the creation of Man. “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). The word “breath” in Hebrew is “ruach” or “neshemah,” which in Latin is “spiritus.” God’s Spirit is the source of our life. Without it, we return to dust and ashes.
The Holy Spirit renews creation. “When You send forth Your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:29-30). In the same way, the Spirit renews and strengthens us. God tells us, “Take courage, for I am with you. My Spirit continues in your midst; do not fear” (Hag 1:4).
The Holy Spirit is also active in Jesus’ ministry. The Spirit overshadows Mary at the Incarnation (Lk 1:35). The Spirit anoints Jesus at His baptism (Lk 3:21) and leads Him into the desert to engage in spiritual combat with the devil (Lk 4:1-2). Jesus returns to Galilee saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor” (Lk 4:18).
On the day of the Resurrection, Jesus breathed on the Apostles saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:22).
It is the Holy Spirit who enables the Apostles to continue the redemptive work of Christ in the world. The Holy Spirit empowers the Church for its evangelizing mission. At Pentecost, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” (Acts 2:4).
The Holy Spirit also confirms each Christian as a member of the Church. “When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who … laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14, 17). The sacrament of confirmation is our anointing, our participation in Pentecost, our share in the apostolic mission to make disciples of all nations.
The Holy Spirit “comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” (Rom 8:26). Jesus teaches that
“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24). The Holy Spirit empowers our worship, “through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”
In the Mass, at the epiclesis, the priest calls down the Holy Spirit to “graciously make holy the gifts we bring to you for consecration” (Eucharistic Prayer III).
The Spirit makes us children of God. St. Paul writes that we have received “a Spirit of adoption… the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children heirs, heirs of God and coheirs with Christ” (see Rom 8:14-17).
Finally, the Holy Spirit calls us to the consummation of our union with God in heaven. St. John writes in Revelation, “I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’” (Rev 21:2).
In the fourth century, St. Basil the Great summarized the work of the Holy Spirit this way: “Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God ‘Father’ and to share in Christ’s grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory.” It is most fitting, therefore, for every Christian to pray,
“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your love.”
Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the author of “The Devout Life: A Modern Guide to Practical Holiness with St. Francis de Sales,” available from Sophia Institute Press.