Catholic Class

Welcome to Catholic Class!

Teacher: ???

Students:

1. [Hermes322]
2. [Kurus_Dreaon]
3. [Angel Dreamer]
4. [Clarimonda]


Brief Outline:

1. "I believe"/The Apostles Creed
2. The Holy Trinity

"I believe"/The Apostles Creed

To begin this class, I was wondering where to begin. Catholicism is so immensely huge that I couldn't think of an accurate beginning. So I was going through the CATIC, when I came upon the Apostles' Creed, and, as it sums up all we Catholics believe, I thought it was good enough to get started. I do not have an English version of it, so I will simply translate the Spanish; if any of you knows how they say the Creed in English, you're welcome to send it to me, and I will place it here.

The Apostle's Creed.

The word Creed comes from Latin credo, "I believe". As I said before, it is the summary of the main points of Catholic faith. We proclaim the Creed in every Mass, but in special cases, like baptisms, marriage, etc, instead of the Creed, we say the Baptismal Promises: the priest makes every sentence as a question beginning with "do you believe in...?" and the rest answer "Yes, I believe."

I believe

I believe in God Almighty Father,
creator of Heaven and Earth
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord
who was conceived by grace and doing of the Holy Spirit,
was born from Saint Mary Virgin,
suffered under the power of Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried,
in the third day he resurrected among the dead,
ascended to Heaven;
He's sitting on the Right of God Almighty Father,
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of flesh and the eternal life.
Amen.

So, I guess we have enough to get started. We will analyze this prayer breaking it into every sentence, so we can get deeper into every subject. However, I will first go through the mystery of the Holy Trinity, something I think we must understand before going through the Creed.

The Holy Trinity

First thing we have to know, and have very clear, is that God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are one and only one God. How is it possible? It's one of what the Church calls dogma, a fact you have to accept as true, even without understanding it, to consider yourself a Catholic. Now, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is truly hard to understand, even for myself. We have three separate people, but they form only one God. Father God, is not the "main" one, the three are equally God, and although the Father is considered source and origin of all divinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit were not created by Him, but are Himself, and were there "in the beginning"; the three are eternal, not created; the three created the world and the human soul.
If you need a quick and easy way to recognize each Person, you could put it like this:
The First Person, Father God, is the Origin and the End. He creates the world, Heaven and the angels. He does this with and through the Second Person, the Son, the Verb, the Word of God. Now, the love between God Father and Son is so great, and so perfect, that is a new person, the Third Person, the Holy Spirit; the spirit of love, Lord and Giver of life. This titles reach their perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ, born from the union of Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. Whenever in the bible you read "the Spirit of God", it's the Holy Spirit. (it is often used in the moments when the prophets are to be sent in their mission, and the Spirit of God possesses them to be able to say only the words of God).


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Past teachers: [The Pink Panther]