Description

Each Sunday, after listening to God’s Word, the Church stands and professes the Creed. It can be easy to treat this moment as routine, something said simply because it is “what Catholics do.” But in reality, the Creed is an important moment in the liturgy. It expresses who God is, what He has done, and what we believe as His people—so that we may worship Him rightly.

Throughout Scripture, God consistently teaches that true worship is founded on truth. Israel was commanded to remember who God is and what He had done for them. Their most important statement of faith, the Shema—“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4)—was recited daily. It was not a theological list, but it functioned as a proclamation of identity and fidelity: We belong to the one true God. In Christian worship, the Creed fulfills and expands this purpose. Because we have received the fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, the People of God profess not only the unity of God, but the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Paschal Mystery, and the life of the world to come. The Creed ensures that our worship is not vague or generic, but intentionally Christian. Before we approach the altar, we publicly profess the faith of the Church so that we may offer the Eucharistic sacrifice with hearts and minds aligned to the truth.

A little background. In the earliest centuries, creeds existed primarily in the context of baptism. Before entering the Church, catechumens professed their belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These baptismal formulas eventually developed into what we now call the Apostles’ Creed (this is the one recited at the beginning of the rosary). The Nicene Creed we recite on Sundays comes from two ecumenical councils—Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381)—which the Church convened to clarify the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Heresies had arisen that denied Christ’s full divinity, and the Church responded by handing on a clear, authoritative summary of the apostolic faith: Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” The Creed was not originally part of the Mass, but it gradually entered the liturgy as a safeguard of orthodoxy.

The Church continues to profess the Creed during Mass because it performs several essential functions:

1. It unites us to the universal Church. Every Catholic around the world professes the same faith. When we speak the Creed, we stand in solidarity with believers across continents and centuries.
2. It protects the truth of the Gospel. The Creed anchors us in the apostolic faith, guarding us from misunderstandings, errors, and the temptation to recreate God according to our own preferences.
3. It helps to form our minds. The Creed is not only something we say—it is something that shapes us. Each profession deepens our identity as disciples of Jesus and members of His Body.
4. It connects us to the ancient practice of declaring who God is. Just as Israel regularly proclaimed that they worshiped the LORD and no other, we too declare whom we worship—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—to the exclusion of every false god.

We profess the Creed during Mass because worship and belief are inseparable. To worship God rightly, we must know who He is. The Creed is the Church’s weekly act of remembering, proclaiming, and celebrating the truth God has revealed. Standing together, we confess our faith so that we may offer ourselves—and the Eucharistic sacrifice—with hearts firmly rooted in the one true God who saves.