Final sermon highlights the creed

BY REV. JAMES KANE

(Editor's note: This was Father Kane's farewell sermon as he moved on from his pastorate of Assumption/St. Paul parish in Mechanicville and St. Peter's in Stillwater.)

It is my custom for the final time in a parish pulpit to share a testimony of my faith. Using the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as a framework, I offer a personal creed, in the hopes that it will stir hearts and minds to reflect and pray about faith.

The creed begins, "I believe in one God, the Father, the almighty." In teaching us the Lord's Prayer, Jesus used "Abba" ("Daddy"). God is inclusive of father- and motherhood. Mus-lims have 99 names for God and St. John says it best: "God is love."

The creed speaks of the "creator of heaven and earth" - with human beings as the crown of creation, in God's image and likeness, especially when we build the earth as thinkers and doers and co-create new life as lovers.

In the words of St. Irenaeus, "The glory of God is humanity fully alive and humanity's life is to see God."

The creed continues: "I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God," who "for us...and for our salvation...became incarnate," like us in all things but sin.

While respecting parents, popes and presidents, there is one Lord and Savior in my life: Jesus. In Rev. Karl Rahner's words: "Jesus Christ is God's face irrevocably turned toward us in love."

Back to the creed, which notes: "I believe in the Holy Spirit...the giver of life...who has spoken through the prophets" like Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Elijah, Miriam and Esther, Isaiah and Daniel, St. John the Baptist and Jesus. The Spirit is personified in the Scriptures as "Wisdom," always presented in the feminine gender.

The creed states: "I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church." I have devoted time for ecumenical ministry within our Diocese, praying and working for the day "that all may be one" in Christ, united at the table of the Lord's Eucharist.

The Roman Missal, the book of prayers used at Mass, says that "Christian is the name and the Gospel we glory in." "Christian" is the noun; "Catholic" is the adjective. I believe in the Church - both lower-case "c" as in universal and capital "c" as in Catholic - despite the many faults of our Church.

My nearly 30 years as diocesan ecumenical director has also made me more in love with our Catholic Church - not, hopefully, in any self-righteous way, but (in the words of Rev. Hans Kung) "because I draw hope out of faith, that, as in the past, the program, the cause of Jesus, is stronger than all the misconduct in the Church."

I hold up four attributes of our Catholic Church to nurture:

• Along with Islam, we are the most geographically and ethnically diverse religious community on earth;

• our age-old tradition brings us the seven sacraments, celebrating life and love, growing up, death and dying, reconciliation and the Eucharist, our Lord and Savior, "the bread and wine of life;"

• we are an apostolic Church, tracing ourselves to St. Peter the Apostle, tracing my priesthood to my ordaining bishop and Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, believing I can live out the call to be holy that we all share (who among you will be my replacement as a priest?); and

• our preferential option is for the poor. It is of our essence that what we do for God's poor, we do for Christ.

In the words of Rev. Andrew Greeley, "We have endured for centuries external pressures and internal idiocies. We are not about to go away."

The creed notes, "I believe in the communion of saints." This is a Church that honors Mary, a pregnant teen, as mother of God; Mary Magdalene as Apostle to the Apostles; and St. Catherine of Siena, who "told the pope where to go," as a saint. Such a Church can't be too far from getting it right about the leadership role of women!

"I believe in the forgiveness of sins," states the creed. The most frequent command in the New Testament is "Do not be afraid." Christ's Church has given us baptism, reconciliation and Eucharist to share the forgiving God. "If God is for us," in St. Paul's words, "who can be against us?"

Notes the creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." There is more to life than the present moment; God has more to say about life than money and power-grabs, sickness and suffering, death and dying.

I end with St. Paul's words to the Galatians: "The fruit of the Spirit...love, joy, peace" be with you all.

(Father Kane is director of the diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Ravena.)

(07/22/10)