A Personal Creed

From the Latin Credo meaning "I believe", creeds express the central beliefs of the Christian community. Most of us, as kids, memorized the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed from saying it each Sunday at Mass.

I have other beliefs, related to but not stated in those formal creeds, that underlie and give shape to my personal faith life and my ministry as your pastor. I realized the other day that I had never formally written them down, but the celebration of Christ the King, signaling the end of the liturgical year, seemed a fitting time. And so, my amendments to the formal creeds…a personal creed.

I believe God has a plan for all of history from start to finish, and that every one of us who ever lived or will live has a part in that plan. I believe God knew every good deed and every sin of my life before I was born, yet that knowledge doesn’t mean God determined them to happen like some divine computer program. That would make God schizophrenic, wanting me to be good while being responsible for my sins. No, I believe God gave us the free will to choose to follow or reject God’s will…but God’s total plan is expansive enough to take into account the set-backs caused by our sins, even huge sins like genocide and millions of abortions…and that God can transform those sins into catalysts for repentance, forgiveness, and more profound dedication to good.

Because God has included each of us in his overall plan, I believe that my life has a purpose. I may never be given to know my specific purpose exactly, but I trust that by trying to be open to God’s will, I am achieving that purpose…or, better said, God is achieving it through me.

I believe that, in God’s plan, the Son of God became a person like ourselves because people just weren’t getting the right idea of who God is and how God operates…that God knew that, to truly understand God, people needed to see God with their eyes and hear God speak directly to them. And so, I believe that Jesus’ life and teachings are the most accurate picture of what God is like that we will ever receive this side of heaven…that where there is a difference between the Old Testament images of God and that revealed through Jesus, I always go with the second.

Still, I believe the entire Bible to have a special authority as the word of God…that God inspired each author through their particular literary skills…that the truth is of the bible should not be confused with scientifically or historically accurate truth…that the authors wrote within their limited knowledge of the facts and sometimes even intentionally changed those facts to better express spiritual truths of God’s relationship with his people…that although our knowledge and understanding of the world has changed drastically since the time the bible was written, the spiritual truths remain, making it the living word of God for us today.

I believe (in many cases, know from personal experience) that church leaders…priests, bishops and pope…range from mildly to seriously imperfect, making judgment errors, being susceptible to sinfulness, lacking communication skills or being too controlling at times. Yet, given Jesus’ promise, I believe the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church, and if the archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis tells me where to go or what to do (within the limits of his proper authority, that is), I will give my obedience regardless of whether or not I agree.

Although we are all sinners, I believe that God loves us unconditionally and seeks out the good in us like a priest preparing the homily for someone’s funeral. Have you ever heard a priest rattle off a list of the person's sins and failures at a funeral? Even if he has to dig a lot, he focuses on the person’s good points. God doesn’t hate anyone, not even the worst sinner. God hates sin and what it does to people. God is not reluctant to forgive but wants to forgive and gets great joy out of forgiving us. I believe that, like God, I am challenged to look for the good in each person and try to bring it out and forgive when that good is overshadowed by sin.

I believe that Jesus died, not because the Father wanted expiation for our offenses, but to show us that God’s love is deeper even than the offense of killing the Son of God.

I believe that, when Jesus rose from the dead, he miraculously left his image on the cloth known as the Shroud of Turin…maybe more for Christians of our scientific age, with its tendencies to cast religious beliefs aside as archaic pre-scientific myth, than those who have gone before us. The best explanation scientists can give for the image is that it was burned on the cloth by an instantaneous bust of high energy…scientific evidence, I believe, for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

I believe the spiritual world is just as real, or more so, than this physical world we know through our senses...that sometimes there are connections and people actually see or sense something of that other world. I believe such things as visions, special dreams and miraculous healings happen. Some accounts people tell me, I believe…some, not all. Nevertheless, I believe we are all spiritual realities…we each have an immortal soul…and someday, somehow, when my physical self dies, my soul is going to shed this body like a snake shedding its skin and move on into that spiritual realm for all eternity.

Although I may sometimes preach assuming the rest of you share all these beliefs, I'm sure it's not so. Most people, young people in particular, wrestle with many points of faith. It’s a necessary transition from accepting what parents, or the church, tell us to actually believing for ourselves.

While beliefs are important…ultimately, as today’s gospel indicates, there is something more important. There were probably a lot of “believers” in the goat section…and a good number of non-believers among the sheep. Being true to what we believe…putting beliefs into loving action…that, as our Catholic Church officially teaches, is how believers and non-believers alike will enter the Kingdom of heaven.

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