The Holy Spirit, the Uncreated Person in the Divine Life Which Is the Life of Who, “Dwelling in Light Inaccessible,” Who Proceeds from the Father and the Grace
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reed of the Peop T e C le of God To mark the fortieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s T aith historic Profession of Faith, a statement of his is Our F the essentials of Catholic Faith for the People of God following the Second Vatican Council, the Diocese of Lismore reprints the text as a supplement to Catholic Life. Pope Paul VI pronounced this Creed on 30 June, 1968, at the close of the Year of Faith called to mark the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. In its opening dedication, Pope Paul made the Profession of Faith for the glory of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in the aid of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the name of and in spiritual communion with all the pastors and the faithful of the Church. revealing Himself as Father, Son and His natures, but by the unity of His Profession Of Faith Holy Spirit, in whose eternal life we are person. We believe in one only God, Father, by grace called to share, here below in He dwelt among us, full of grace and Son and Holy Spirit, creator of things the obscurity of faith and after death in truth. He proclaimed and established visible such as this world in which our eternal light. The mutual bonds which the Kingdom of God and made us transient life passes, of things invisible eternally constitute the Three Persons, know in Himself the Father. He gave such as the pure spirits which are also who are each one and the same divine us His new commandment to love one called angels and creator in each man being, are the blessed inmost life of God another as He loved us. He taught us of his spiritual and immortal soul. thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that the way of the beatitudes of the Gospel: we can conceive in human measure. We believe that this only God is poverty in spirit, meekness, suffering We give thanks, however, to the divine absolutely one in His infinitely holy borne with patience, thirst after justice, goodness that very many believers can essence as also in all His perfections, mercy, purity of heart, will for peace, testify with us before men to the unity in His omnipotence, His infinite persecution suffered for justice sake. of God, even though they know not the knowledge, His providence, His will Under Pontius Pilate He suffered—the mystery of the most Holy Trinity. and His love. He is He who is, as He Lamb of God bearing on Himself the revealed to Moses (Ex 3:14); and He is sins of the world and He died for us on love, as the apostle John teaches us (I The Father the cross, saving us by His redeeming Jn 4:8): so that these two names, Being We believe then in the Father who blood. He was buried and, of His own and Love, express ineffably the same eternally begets the Son; in the Son, the power, rose on the third day, raising divine reality of Him who has wished Word of God, who is eternally begotten; us by His resurrection to that sharing to make Himself known to us and in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Person in the divine life which is the life of who, “dwelling in light inaccessible,” who proceeds from the Father and the grace. He ascended to heaven and He is in Himself above every name, above Son as their eternal love. Thus in the will come again, this time in glory, to every thing and above every created Three Divine Persons, coaeternae sibi judge the living and the dead: each intellect. God alone can give us right et coaequales, the life and beatitude of according to his merits—those who and full knowledge of this reality by God perfectly one superabound and are have responded to the love and piety consummated in the supreme excellence of God going to eternal life, those who and glory proper to uncreated being have refused them to the end going to and always “there should be venerated the fire that is not extinguished. unity in the Trinity and Trinity in the And His Kingdom will have no end. unity.” The Holy Spirit The Son We believe in the Holy Spirit, who We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, is Lord and Giver of life, who is adored who is the Son of God. He is the Eternal and glorified together with the Father Word, born of the Father before time and the Son. He spoke to us by the began and one in substance with the prophets; He was sent by Christ after Father, homoousios to Patri,(10) and His resurrection and His ascension to through Him all things were made. the Father; He illuminates, vivifies, He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary protects and guides the Church; He by the power of the Holy Spirit and purifies the Church’s members if they was made man: equal therefore to do not shun His grace. His action, the Father according to His divinity which penetrates to the inmost of the and inferior to the Father according soul, enables man to respond to the call to His humanity;(11) and Himself one, of Jesus: Be perfect as your Heavenly © Gabriela Insuratelu | Dreamstime.com” not by some impossible confusion of Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48). s the Faith of t This i he Ch urch We believe that Mary is the Mother, fallen, stripped of the grace that who remained ever a Virgin, of the clothed it, injured in its own natural Incarnate Word, our God and Saviour powers and subjected to the dominion Jesus Christ and that by reason of of death, that is transmitted to all men this singular election, she was, in and it is in this sense that every man consideration of the merits of her Son, is born in sin. We therefore hold, with redeemed in a more eminent manner, the Council of Trent, that original sin preserved from all stain of original sin is transmitted with human nature, “not and filled with the gift of grace more by imitation, but by propagation” and than all other creatures. that it is thus “proper to everyone.” Joined by a close and indissoluble bond to the Mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption, the Blessed Virgin, Reborn of the the Immaculate, was at the end of her earthly life raised body and soul to Holy Spirit heavenly glory and likened to her risen We believe that our Lord Jesus Son in anticipation of the future lot of Christ, by the sacrifice of the Cross all the just; and we believe that the redeemed us from original sin and all Blessed Mother of God, the New Eve, the personal sins committed by each Mother of the Church, continues in one of us, so that, in accordance with heaven her maternal role with regard the word of the apostle, “where sin to Christ’s members, cooperating with abounded, grace did more abound” the birth and growth of divine life (Rom 5:20). in the souls of the redeemed.Original Offence The Church We believe that in Adam all have Baptism We believe in one, holy, catholic and sinned, which means that the original We believe in one Baptism instituted apostolic Church, built by Jesus Christ offence committed by him caused by our Lord Jesus Christ for the on that rock which is Peter. She is the human nature, common to all men, remission of sins. Baptism should be Mystical Body of Christ; at the same to fall to a state in which it bears administered even to little children time a visible society instituted with the consequences of that offence and who have not yet been able to be guilty hierarchical organs and a spiritual which is not the state in which it was of any personal sin, in order that, community; the Church on earth, the at first in our first parents—established though born deprived of supernatural pilgrim People of God here below as they were in holiness and justice grace, they may be reborn “of water and the Church filled with heavenly and in which man knew neither evil and the Holy Spirit” to the divine life blessings; the germ and the first fruits nor death. It is human nature so in Christ Jesus. of the Kingdom of God, through which the work and the sufferings of Redemption are continued throughout human history and which looks for its perfect accomplishment beyond time in glory. In the course of time, the Lord Jesus forms His Church by means of the sacraments emanating from His plenitude. By these she makes her members participants in the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, in the grace of the Holy Spirit who gives her life and movement. She is therefore holy, though she has sinners in her bosom, because she herself has no other life but that of grace: it is by living by her life that her members are sanctified; it is by removing themselves from her life that they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why s the Faith of t are Proud to P This i he Ch We rofes urch s It she suffers and does penance for these belief as divinely revealed, whether by offences, of which she has the power to a solemn judgment or by the ordinary The Sacrifice heal her children through the blood of and universal magisterium.