Devotion for today: profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction

Devotion for today: profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction

We continue with our study of Pope Benedict XVI’s Letter announcing the Year of Faith:

9. We want this Year to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and hope. It will also be a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, which is “the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; ... and also the source from which all its power flows.” At the same time, we make it our prayer that believers’ witness of life may grow in credibility. To rediscover the content of the faith that is professed, celebrated, lived and prayed, and to reflect on the act of faith, is a task that every believer must make his own, especially in the course of this Year.

Not without reason, Christians in the early centuries were required to learn the creed from memory. It served them as a daily prayer not to forget the commitment they had undertaken in baptism. With words rich in meaning, Saint Augustine speaks of this in a homily on the redditio symboli, the handing over of the creed: “the symbol of the holy mystery that you have all received together and that today you have recited one by one, are the words on which the faith of Mother Church is firmly built above the stable foundation that is Christ the Lord. You have received it and recited it, but in your minds and hearts you must keep it ever present, you must repeat it in your beds, recall it in the public squares and not forget it during meals: even when your body is asleep, you must watch over it with your hearts.”

My thoughts: Pope Benedict XVI is asking us to let our faith permeate our entire being. He calls us to profess it, celebrate it, live it and pray it. A good place to start is to very slowly say the Apostle’s Creed, meditating on what it is we, as Catholics, say we believe. If we don’t truly know our faith, we cannot hand it on to future generations, and that responsibility is ours, and ours alone.

Prayer: The Apostles Creed

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:

2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:

3. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary:

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died and buried: He descended into hell:

5. The third day he rose again from the dead:

6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:

7. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead:

8. I believe in the Holy Spirit:

9. I believe in the holy Catholic Church: the communion of saints:

10. The forgiveness of sins:

1l. The resurrection of the body:

12. And life everlasting. Amen.