By Brea Cannon
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, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” (cf. CCC 897-913).
Since Christ founded the Church, it has been one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church — the deposit of faith has been passed on through sacred scripture and tradition — generation to generation. Through baptism, the lay faithful are incorporated into Christ and are made sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ. They have their own part to play in the mission of the Church and in the world. “By reason of their special vocation, it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will” (CCC 898).
Participating in the life of the Church is not simply something we can decide we want to do; it is required of us. We are called to be saints and to share the Good News with others. It is through baptism and confirmation that the laity have the right and duty to work and spread the message of salvation to all the ends of the world (CCC 900).
History is filled with holy men and women who have defended the faith and given of themselves to serve and bring truth, beauty and goodness to our world.
Throughout generations, faithful Catholics have lived out their duties as baptized Christians to serve the Church and spread the Gospel through their lives, words, talents and deeds.
Many cultures, lands and nations have been discovered, built and maintained because faithful lay Catholics shared and fought for truth and goodness. From Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Hernán Cortés to Ferdinand Magellan, many parts of the world were discovered by explorers who took their Catholic faith with them to every inch of uncharted territory. Many lay Catholics have also influenced the arts, sciences and culture with truth and beauty throughout history; Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Mozart, Bach, Joan of Arc, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolken, and so many more.
The duty of the laity has not changed. Each member is called and expected to share the Gospel and the truths of the Catholic faith in daily life. Most of us will not end up in the history books or even on the evening news, but we are given the ability to give back to the Church and the world in unique ways. What we do and how we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ impacts history, even in the smallest ways. Each lay person, as a member of the Body of Christ, is given gifts and talents that are meant to be shared.
God has equipped each of us to answer his call of service and love in every aspect of our lives. It may be in family duties like raising children or caring for an aging loved one, social duties like participating in local government or serving on a community board or the duties required at a parish like pastoral council, being a catechist or caring for the shut-ins, that we each have a specific role to play in the Body of Christ.
Our actions, words and lives represent the Church and are always a means of sharing Jesus with others. We must consider our duty to the Body of Christ in all of our decisions. The CCC states, “The faithful should distinguish carefully between the rights and the duties which they have as belonging to the Church and those which fall to them as members of the human society. They will strive to unite the two harmoniously, remembering that in every temporal affair they are to be guided by a Christian conscience, since no human activity, even of the temporal order, can be withdrawn from God’s dominion” (CCC 912).
We each have a mission and, “Thus, every person, through these gifts given to him, is at once the witness and the living instrument of the mission of the Church itself, according to the measure of Christ’s bestowal” (CCC 913). We don’t know what will be written about this time in history or what great events are about to happen, but what we do know is that each of us has an impact on tomorrow’s world. It is our duty as the laity to take Jesus to every aspect of culture, art, politics, leisure and certainly our families. May truth, beauty and goodness shine through in all we do!