By Annie-Rose Keith
Connecting Creed and Life
Editor’s note: For 2025, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column will be renamed Connecting Creed and Life. To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year and the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the columns will consist of reflections on the Nicene Creed, corresponding with related paragraphs in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” (CCC).
“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible” (CCC 402-406; 407-412; 413-421)
I’d like to lodge a formal complaint against the trope of “Catholic guilt.” Even as a joke, it boxes in the limitless mercy of God and paints the church as a theocratic dictatorship of scrupulous creations instead of an entire economy that quite literally gets us to heaven. Christ died for us and, as Catholics, we have that in the back of our minds always. However, we know this is not the end of our story.
During a Sunday Angelus address in 1986, our friend, St. John Paul II, joyously announced, “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is Our Song!” This is the hope we embody as we pray, fast and give alms this Lent! This season of our church year is a time of darkness and quiet, but just like suffering and misery, it does not last forever! It is a building up to the Easter Vigil (which begins in darkness and quiet) and leads to the glorious morning of Christ’s Resurrection. THAT is the “Alleluia” our friend John Paul was talking about. Sin is not the end of our story because Christ died and rose again, but we cannot be completely disconnected from our sin during our time on earth. We cannot live in immaculateness because of the fall of Adam and Eve, but we can (and must!) choose to turn away from sin (and believe in the Gospel) each day of our time on earth (CCC 403). We walk through certain seasons of our church to remember that our life is short and we must live each day for Christ because that is the only sure way to experience true fulfillment, to fight against the inclination to sin, and to experience the original holiness given to (and lost by) Adam and Eve one day in heaven (CCC 404 & 406).
Baptism washes us clean from original sin yet all of us continue to walk with the inclination to sin (CCC 407). Jesus made a way to heaven through our Catholic church and it is important to remember that while Lent lasts 40 days, the impact of this season for our walk with Christ gives us every avenue of transformation if it is earnestly desired. By God’s grace and Christ’s death on the cross, we are not damned to live in misery yet we have to remember that misery and suffering is a necessary part of life. God did not and does not abandon us to death (CCC 410). Through our baptism, we do not have to go through it alone. By choosing to live in misery without hope, finding a false sense of comfort in said misery and blaming it on “Catholic guilt,” we are not doing ourselves any favors and are presenting a dismal view of the kingdom for those who have never heard the Good News. Misery is short-lived but can lead to so much good both on earth and in heaven.