One thing I have heard from many Catholics is that they want to know their faith better. They feel unprepared to talk about their faith around others. One of the reasons I started writing these bulletin articles is that it gives me a space to talk about various aspects of our faith that might not fit into a Sunday homily.

Over the last month or two, I have had a desire to talk about the Creed more and more. I’m sure you’ve noticed, because I’ve recently mentioned the Creed my homilies a few times. I plan to give a few thoughts and meditations on the Creed over the next few weeks. I hope that you find these articles interesting, and I hope they help you to have a greater appreciation for this great prayer that has been a part of our faith since 325 AD.

I keep referring to the Creed as a prayer. This is intentional. When we think of praying, I suspect we rarely consider the Creed as something for us to pray or to upon which to meditate. This is, however, what the Creed is. It is not a mere statement of belief, but a prayer of belief, of faith, and of praise. It is a prayer that strengthens us to live out our baptisms. Pope Benedict XVI said this when he announced 2012’s Year of Faith: “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.”

We recite the Creed together at Mass, but when we are alone, many struggle to remember the words. The first step in coming to love the Creed and what it can teach us in prayer, then, is to learn it. It will be for our eternal profit to learn and to memorize the words of Creed, because memorization assists us in meditation. We won’t have to look up the words or their context, we can let them live in our minds and lift us to heaven as we contemplate what they tell us about God.

Then, on Sunday, when we pray the Creed together, this prayer will cease to be an exercise in praying a long prayer together, but it will take on a new character. In the “I believe” of the Creed, we express our individual faith, but when we are together, that “I” becomes a great chorus of voices across time and space. My belief becomes a part of something much bigger: the Church. In the Church, the Mother of all believers, our faith is sparked, supported, and nourished.