By Brenda Hopf
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).
“Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible” (cf. CCC 374-401)
At one point while working in the factory, I became a member of a newly formed assembly group which participated in team training exercises.
Each exercise required strategic planning and an unwavering trust in fellow teammates. One of my teammates, Esther, was well into her 60s and the oldest member of the group. Concerned for her safety as we prepared for the wall-climbing exercise, the trainers told Esther that she could excuse herself from this one.
The wall was straight up with a platform at the top to land on. One could receive help from teammates still on the ground, as well as from anyone who made it to the top. In the middle, you were on your own.
Just the thought of climbing this wall terrified me. Obviously, I didn’t trust my teammates. As we planned our strategy, Esther said, without hesitation, that she was going to do it. She was up and over in no time. Still gripped with fear, but now inspired by Esther’s unwavering trust in our team, I took a deep breath and made it up and over.
Esther recently passed away. As I reminisced about the good times we had as co-workers I discovered, through the grace of God, a lesson in faith to be learned from what had transpired that day many years ago.
How often are you and I gripped with fear and a lack of trust in God when we have choices to make, especially choices that involve right and wrong? We might even ask ourselves, what is wrong with me? Where is this fear and mistrust coming from? Why do I struggle with making the right choice? The struggle is real!
To answer these questions, we have to go back to the creation of man and God’s plan for Adam and Eve to live in friendship and harmony with him and all of creation. Enticed by the temptation of the evil one, they used their gift of free will to disobey God and original sin was born. Simply put, they trusted in themselves more than they trusted in God.
The stain of original sin passed on to us isn’t just mere human weakness or a personal character flaw. Sin is a conscious choice to turn away from God’s plan and an abuse of God’s gift of free will. When we sin, it directly affects our relationship with God. Adam and Eve messed up and now every human has the tendency to trust their own judgment rather than follow God’s plan.
But all is not lost. There is hope. God did not abandon us after that first sin. He sent His Son to save us from death and he offers us unlimited grace to help steer us away from sin and to strengthen our relationship with him.
That day many years ago when Esther taught me a lesson in trust has taken on new meaning through this section of the catechism. So often we trust in other humans and ourselves as we make daily choices. When it comes to choices of right and wrong though, the evil one is still hard at work. Fear grips us and many times we trust in our own judgment rather than putting our trust in God to help us overcome sin.
Despite our faults, with the help of God’s infinite grace, we can conquer our fear so that we can get up and over the wall of mistrust that plagues us all.
On the morning of Esther’s funeral, her daughter grabbed my hand and placed in it a handwritten note. In the note, she thanked me for sharing with her the story about her mom that I shared here. She wrote that before she came to the funeral that morning, during her time with Jesus, he shared this scripture with her: “With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall”(Psalm 18:29). She said she just smiled and thanked him.
Brenda Hopf is a member of Divine Mercy Parish.