A Year with the Catechism. Petroc Willey, Dominic Scotto, Donald Asci, & Elizabeth Siegel
that these paragraphs mark the beginning of “articles.” There are twelve in all, corresponding to the twelve divisions of the Apostles’ Creed. CCC 194 explains the origin of this Creed and that it is “rightly considered to be a faithful summary of the apostles’ faith.”
You will see that both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, reproduced in the Catechism alongside today’s paragraphs, are structured around the three Persons of the Trinity. When we profess our faith, we are professing faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The foundation of our faith is in the divine Persons. After that we profess our faith in their acts. The Persons make up the other main structuring principle of this part of the Catechism — it is divided into three chapters. You may find it helpful to spend a little time looking back over the contents pages for Part One and identifying the chapter and article headings.
This rich section explains the character of the Creeds. They are deliberate summaries of the faith — compact, memorizable syntheses needing unpacking and explaining. That is what the Catechism does for us here, in addition to showing that the elements in the Creed are connected — that they belong together. The word “article” derives from the Latin “articulus” — a joint or connecting part of the body. Notice how the Creeds are described in CCC 186 as “organic and articulated summaries” — they are summaries in which everything is linked together, making up a single whole. Finally, notice the emphasis placed on their immense spiritual importance: read CCC 197.
Day 33
CCC 198-202
“I Believe in One God”
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the King explains to Alice how to tell a story: “‘Begin at the beginning’,, the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’” The Creed tells the story in just this way. It begins at the beginning, and the beginning is God; everything else flows from this. Notice that the same is said of the commandments: every commandment is an unpacking of the first one (see CCC 2083).
At the beginning, then, we find God. We also find his oneness. The remainder of today’s reading is concerned with this. First, the importance of this element of our faith is emphasized — believing in God’s oneness is “equally fundamental” (200) to believing in his existence. Why? The answer is given in the following paragraphs which present the two meanings of “one” God.
• “God is one” means that he is the only one (201). God has no rival; he is the “one and only God.” Because there is only one God, our lives belong entirely to him. We owe him everything. We do not divide our loyalties.
• “God is one” means that there is no division in him (202). We believe in three Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — but that does not mean we have divided God into three parts and shared him among the three. In the case of human beings, we all share in the one human nature; none of us possesses human nature in its entirety. But each divine Person possesses the whole of the divine nature fully. The word in the Tradition which expresses this is the final word in our section — God is entirely simple — from the Latin simplus, meaning undivided, not made up of parts. In the created order we find qualities separated out — wisdom, love, beauty. But in God they are one — God’s wisdom is always loving and always beautiful because he is one.
Day 34
CCC 203-213
God Reveals His Name
When we wish to know another person, we ask his or her name. To give one’s name is to allow for friendship and intimacy. Because God wants to be known by us, he gives us his name. Because he is infinitely beyond us, his name is necessarily deeply mysterious, but it nevertheless allows us to know him in his unchanging majesty.
Out of reverence for the divine Name, it was replaced by the word “Lord” in the Jewish reading of the Scriptures, and so “Lord” came to signify God’s name (209). “Jesus is Lord,” therefore, became the way in which the first Christians expressed their faith in Jesus’ divinity (see Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11).
The Catechism gives us the literal rendering of the Tetragrammaton (206) and helps us see what this implies for our understanding of God.
First, we understand that he is faithful through time. He is the one who keeps his promises, who has remained steadfast in the past, who is present to us now and will be in the future. He is unshakably faithful (205, 207).
Second, we understand that this faithfulness remains even in the face of our sin and the death it deserves (210-211). Jesus reveals that, precisely as the one who bears our sins (see Jn 1:29; Mt 26:28), he is the bearer of the divine Name (Jn 8:28, 58), and is accused of blasphemy for this claim (Jn 8:59; Mk 14:62-64).
Third, we understand that God is eternal and unchanging (212-213). God is “beyond space and time” (205). As we have seen, he is entirely simple. He contains in himself all Being. All creatures are some-thing — they have a nature and a share in existence. God, on the other hand, is utterly beyond all created reality. As the Uncreated, he simply IS — without beginning or end — the fullness of Being.
Day 35
CCC 214-221
God, “He Who Is,” Is Truth and Love
The name of God, “HE WHO IS,” is now explained as being able to be expressed “summarily” (214) as Truth and Love. These two terms sum up who God is. They are explained separately, but the Catechism makes clear that they are inseparable in God. God is truthful love; he is loving truthfulness. What is finally true about God is that he is love (221).
When we look at the world God created, and at his revelation of himself, this notion of truthful love is the interpretative key we can always rightly use, because everything in creation and in revelation is an expression of who God is.
God’s loving truthfulness is explained in CCC 215-217. It means that we can always trust that God means and will do what he says; we should never doubt him (215). It means he made the world to be known by us, and for us to come to know him by this world — “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator” (Wis 13:5). It means, finally, that he will lead us to understand who he is by sending his Son (216-217).
God’s truthful love is explained in CCC 218-221. It means that God’s choices are always and only the result of his love (218). It means that all earthly loves, however powerful or insistent, are only a shadow of his love. If we really want to understand his love, we must learn it from the most precious gift he has offered us, his only Son (219). Finally, his love is the unmovable reality in which each of us is called to share (220-221).
Day 36
CCC 222-227
The Implications of Faith in One God
Faith must be connected to life. What we believe must have consequences for our lives. If we do not live according to our beliefs, we cease to believe. Beliefs must be acted upon, or they wither. Beliefs take root and flourish only in the rich soil of our everyday choices, responses, and actions.
The Catechism makes this point the key to how we are to read it. We can recall that in CCC 18 we were given practical directions for reading the Catechism, and the single element highlighted there was to read across the Catechism, following the cross-references. This is because the cross-references link our beliefs together and link them also to our life, to our prayer and to our celebration of the sacraments. The cross-references show us the significance of our beliefs, helping us to take seriously their implications.
Often, as it does here, the Catechism will pause in its presentation of a doctrine in order to explore the implications of a belief. When it does this, the