Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: The Shema & the Creed

Sunday, October 31, 2021

The Shema & the Creed

Today in the first reading at Mass we had these beautiful words from the Book of Deuteronomy. This has become known as the “Shema” prayer that Jews pray every - it was the first Jewish Creed.

When it refers to the “the LORD is our God, the LORD is one” this would have originally referred to the divine name of Yahweh - the personal name of the One True God revealed to Moses. So the Shema prayer acknowledges that there is only One God and He is Yahweh, all other ”gods” are false gods.

For us Christians, Jesus revealed to us that God is a Trinity of persons - Father, Son & Holy Spirit. But it is still ONE God, the “Three in One & One in Three”. It is interesting to note that for the early Christians their catchphrase was “Jesus is Lord” - they were confessing the divinity of Jesus. Etymologically Jesus means “Yahweh saves” and this is why Jesus is the manifestation or the face of God the Father revealed to us in His beloved Son.

When we pray the Creed we still say “I believe in ONE God” and then it is divided into 3 parts regarding the Father, the Son & The Holy Spirit. So for Christians our “Shema” is the Creed.

The beauty and mystery of Christianity is that the Trinitarian nature of God does not take away from him “Oneness”. As it says in the Catechism: # 234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin".

CCC 222 Believing in God, the only One, and loving him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life.

CCC 223 It means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty: “Behold, God is great, and we know him not.”1 Therefore, we must “serve God first”.2

CCC 224 It means living in thanksgiving: if God is the only One, everything we are and have comes from him: “What have you that you did not receive?”3 “What shall I render to the LORD for all his bounty to me?”4

CCC 225 It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: everyone is made in the image and likeness of God.5

CCC 226 It means making good use of created things: faith in God, the only One, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to him, and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from him:

My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you.

My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you.

My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.6

CCC 227 It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity. A prayer of St. Teresa of Jesus wonderfully expresses this trust:

Let nothing trouble you / Let nothing frighten you

Everything passes / God never changes

Patience / Obtains all

Whoever has God / Wants for nothing

God alone is enough.7

1 Job 36:26.

2 St. Joan of Arc.

3 I Cor 4:7.

4 Ps 116:12.

5 Gen 1:26.

6 St. Nicholas of Flue; cf. Mt 5:29-30; 16:24-26.

7 St. Teresa of Jesus, Poesias 30 in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. III, tr. K. Kavanaugh OCD and O. Rodriguez OCD (Washington DC Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1985), 386 no. 9. tr. John Wall.

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.