Before my digression about the word mercy, which is so frequently used in our worship, I had reached a point in this article on the Divine Liturgy which is called the Liturgy of the Faithful. As I shared, non-initiated people were not, originally, allowed to participate in this part of the Liturgy. Only those who were baptized and chrismated – those who made a solemn profession of their belief in Jesus Christ as the revelation of God to mankind – were able to hear the words of the Creed and participate in the prayers that are involved in the transformation of the symbols of life into the very Body and Blood of Christ. A person’s profession of belief was contained in the reading of a statement which, years later, served as the basis for the Nicene-Constantinopolitan CREED which we now use in our Liturgy. It was the same creed that was used during the Baptismal – Initiation – ritual. There were a number of different baptismal creeds in existence in the early Church. Later, because of various heresies, the Church developed the Creed that we now use. It states literally all the basic beliefs of our religion. These are the common beliefs that all of Christendom at one time professed. Catholic and Orthodox faithful still profess, unchanged, the beliefs articulated in this Creed.

It is critical, I believe, that, when we say this Creed, we think about each of the statements and realize that they express what we believe. I sometimes think that we say the Creed too fast. We must say it conviction and reverence. It is a statement of all that we believe.

What is interesting is that while the Creed expresses what we believe, it does not mention anything about what we do in the Liturgy. What is does say is that we believe that God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ and, therefore, what He did is important. He showed us how to worship God.  We ask God to change food, which we say represent life, into the Body and Blood of Christ, indicating our desire to also personally change and become more like Christ. Asking God to do this is based on our belief that God is actually Three-In-One since the Creed addresses our belief in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So the Creed is the basis for our ritual action of offering our lives back to God in thanksgiving for the gift of life and for His loving revelation, in the Person of Jesus, of how to live this present life.

Let us truly believe what we pray!