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| The Holy Family Shrine at Sacred Heart Church, representing the holy house of Nazareth, where God the Son became incarnate |
We will be getting used to some different wording in
the English version of the Creed. Every word of the Creed is important. It's important to note that it's not the Creed that's changing; it's just its English translation. The wording of the Creed goes back to
the Church Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. The Creed was
drawn up in response to heresies that were disturbing the faith of the people
and so there was huge debate about the right formula of words to express the
faith of the Church properly. So, it’s very important that the English
translation be faithful to the original text.
The original begins, ‘Credo in unum Deum’ which means ‘I believe in one God.’ The
outgoing translation had us saying, ‘We believe in one God’. There is nothing
wrong with that of course, but why not say what the other languages say? For
example, the Irish says, ‘Creidim in aon Dia amháin.’ When we say ‘I believe’,
each of us is personally making an act of faith, uniting ourselves with the
faith of the Church.
Hostile commentators are making a big deal out of
the word ‘consubstantial’. In the old translation, we had been saying that the
Son is ‘of one being with the Father.’ The Latin here is ‘consubstantialem Patri’. Other languages use their version of
the word ‘consubstantial’. ‘Con’ implies sameness, and ‘substantial’ refers to
substance. God is one, so the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while they
are three persons, they are of the one substance as one another. Again, the
Irish holds on to this, saying that the Son is ‘d’aon substaint leis an
Athair.’ So, why not the English too? And therefore, the new English
translation will be ‘consubstantial with the Father.’ I heard during the week
of someone who thought the Church was introducing Martin Luther’s belief that
the Eucharist involves consubstantiation, into the Creed because of the word 'consubstantial'. This is not so. In the
Trinity the Divine Persons are of the same substance. Luther held that the
substances of bread and wine are present in the Eucharist with the substances of the body and blood of Christ, whereas in the
Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, we believe that the substances of
bread and wine are no longer present when the substances of Christ’s body and
blood become present at the consecration. So our use of the word
‘consubstantial’ depends on what substances we are talking about being with
each other! We all learn a few new words every week. We get used to a few
specialised words if we are talking about the banking crisis, about rugby or
about health matters, so it’s inevitable that there’ll be a few specialised
words when we talk about heavenly things too.
In the old translation, we said the Son was ‘born of
the Virgin Mary.’ That’s true, but it was supposed to translate ‘Et incarnatus
est de Spiritu Sancto’ which means he ‘was incarnate of the Virgin Mary’, and
that’s how it’ll be said in the new translation. The story of the Incarnation
of the Son of God goes back to his conception and not just to his birth, so
it’s good that the new translation doesn’t confuse the Son’s incarnation with
his birth. Again, English went a different way to the other languages here the
first time, so we’re coming back into line now. And, yet again, horray for
Irish, getting it right already again, ‘Ionchollaíodh le cumhacht an Spiorad
Naoimh é.’ (I'm not saying that the current Irish translation is perfect. It is being renewed at the moment also and the new Missal translation in Irish is due later.)
