New Roman Missal: New Creed? (no, just a different translation)

in one God...

Another big change in the revised translation (coming to a parish new you in 6 days!) is the Nicene Creed, the statement of belief that we Catholics say together at Mass.  It's more than just a statement of belief, but a prayer of identity, for when we recite the Creed we say together "this is what I believe," and our beliefs help form us into a local and universal community.

Open this PDF to view our new translation of this ancient statement of belief and prayer, the Nicene Creed, with the changes in bold.  Read through it a couple of times and become a little more familiar with the text.  Keep the PDF open as we look at three phrases or words that are different in the new Roman Missal

All things visible and invisible
With the translation, we say we believe in a God who is a maker of "all things visible and invisible."  The visible is easy to understand.  Look outside and you can see the beauty of creation all around us.  But what about the invisible?  Our belief that God is the maker of "all things invisible" is not an expression of belief in object permanence, that things exist even when we can't see them.  Instead, there are somethings that are invisible by nature: love, virtue, truth, etc.  God created all those invisible things too.

There are also things that become invisible after time, namely people.  This belief helps unite us with our brothers and sisters in faith who have gone before us in faith who are "invisible" to the eyes, but approachable in our faith when we ask for their prayers.

Consubstantial
My spell checker tells me consubstantial is not a word, so why are we is it part of what we believe?  What does it mean?

Let's take a look at Mickey's second Maneline article for better understanding:

"Consubstantial" is an entirely new English word – based on the Latin word "consubstantialem." When the Nicene Creed first appeared in Greek, it used the Greek "homoousion" which literally meant that the Son is constituted from the same divine "stuff" or substance as the Father.  In the Latin translation homoousion became consubstantialem, which could be translated "one in substance with" the Father.  Indeed, as many older Catholics will recall, those were precisely the words in the first provisional English text of the Roman Missal.  But in the 1975 translation "one in substance" was changed to "one in being."  In the new translation the "divine sameness" of Father and Son is conveyed by the word "consubstantial."  

Incarnate
Think Christmas.  Now think 9 months before Christmas (the Annunciation, March 25).  That's the Incarnation.

With our previous translation, we could have possibly misinterpreted our faith, which is not a good thing.  Instead of saying that Jesus was fully God and fully man in Mary's womb when the Holy Spirit acted, we could have understood "by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary" to mean that Jesus wasn't God until birth.  We believe otherwise, that from Jesus' conception, He is divine and man.

Fun video on new Creed translation
A group of youth from St. Mark in Fallston, MD created this YouTube video to help introduce the new translation of the Creed to their community.  Check it out, a minute or so into the video, for a run through of the Creed.


image credit: SweetCapture