The Central Mystery
Posted by Pat Gohn in Faith on Thursday, April 08, 2010 6:00 AM
When I teach from Part One of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I begin class by asking this question: “What is the central mystery of the Christian faith and the Christian life?” I get many enthusiastic guesses:
“God loves me!” “God became man.” “God exists!” “The Eucharist!” “The Resurrection!” “Salvation!”
All these answers are wonderful and good. But they are not the central mystery around which all the rest revolve.
The closest answers usually involve “God”… and if the class is still groping, I give them these hints: the answer is in the Creed, or, it’s the blessing we say after we dip our fingers into the holy water font at church.
Then I see eyes light up in recognition: Oh, yeah! The Trinity! We bless ourselves in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! They knew the answer all the time, but sometimes the most obvious answers elude us.
CCC 261:
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life.
The entire Catechism is structured and centered on the Truth of the Blessed Trinity. Part One of the Catechism is the largest of the four parts, mostly because it examines the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within the Twelve Articles of Faith, succinctly stated in the Apostles Creed.
Knowledge of the Trinity is the key to unlocking every part of the Catechism. The Trinity is central to our Creed in Part One. The Trinity is also at work in Part Two on the Sacraments, in Part Three on the moral life or Life in Christ, and in Part Four on Christian Prayer.
Today, after months of examining the prologue and basic theological understandings in Part One of the Catechism, we start unpacking the beginning of the Creed.
You could say that we start with Someone who existed before we ever knew there was a beginning… for before there was “time” as we know it… there was God.
So we start with Article 1: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.”
CCC 198 starts us off:
Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works.
“I believe in God” is the first affirmation of the Apostles Creed. This fundamental belief is the groundwork on which the rest of the Creed is built. Indeed, the remaining eleven Articles depend on this first one.
Before we had the Creed, we had the Ten Commandments. Do you remember the first one? “I am the Lord your God… you shall have no other gods before me.” (See Ex. 20: 2-3; Deut. 5: 6-7.) The other nine commandments make the first explicit.
Likewise, the first Article of the Creed reminds us that whole Creed speaks of God. Even when it speaks of humanity, or the church, it does so in relation to God.
Article 1 is also the longest article to unpack as it is further divided into seven topical headings containing over 230 paragraphs. So, we have our work cut out for us. But we will work slowly and carefully as if sifting for gold in a stream, for as St. Ambrose taught, the creed is “the treasure of our soul.”
And yet, as we travel this terrain together, let us recall that we are dealing with mysteries of faith that have been carefully revealed to us by God. While we have centuries of the Church’s meditations on these things, even so, we cannot possibly plumb all the depths of this mystery of the Trinity.
It is helpful to remember this pithy saying from St Augustine as captured in CCC 230:
Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: “If you understood him, it would not be God” (St. Augustine).
Want to read more?
CCC 200:
God is unique; there is only one God: “The Christian faith confesses that God is one in nature, substance, and essence. [Roman Catechism, I, 2, 2.]”
—Pat Gohn is a wife & mother celebrating 27 years of Catholic family life. Her Catholic writing, podcasting, and ministry life are found at PatGohn.com.
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