What We Believe - The Creed

What We Believe - The Creed or should I say creeds?

When we say "I believe" - we are pledging ourselves.
Just like saying Amen (I believe).

The creed exclaims our faith - our beliefs. This is what we believe!

Catechism of the Catholic Church

CCC 194 The Apostles' Creed is so called because it is rightly considered to be a faithful summary of the apostles' faith I is the ancient baptismal symbol of the Church of Rome. Its great authority arises from the fact: it is "the Creed of the Roman Church, the See of Peter the first of the apostles, to which he brought the common faith".

CCC 195 The Nicene Creed draws its great authority form the fact that it stems from the first two ecumenical Councils (in 325 and 381). It remains common to all the great Churches of both East and West to this day.

Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
Her suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the Communion of Saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
the Resurrection of the body
and live everlasting. Amen.

Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.
the only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial
with the Father;
Through Him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
He came down from heaven
and by the Holy Spirit was Incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
He suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead
and His Kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Hillsong - This I Believe



Mother Mary, Pray for us to dig deep into our faith and believe. Amen.

Live Life as a Prayer

Prayer is so hard to try to comprehend. We have our memorized / learned prayers, we have our conversations with God, we have meditative prayer. We have private prayer and we have prayer as groups. The Mass is one of the greatest ways we pray.

When I was a Catechist for 10th graders going to be Confirmed, I had the segments on prayer as the youth moved from Catechist to Catechist that year.

There are 5 types of prayer:

Adoration  and Blessing - adoring God and God's gift and us acccepting

Petition - asking for something (forgiveness, etc..)

Intercessory - on behalf of 

Thanksgiving - giving thanks and the Eucharist (which means thanksgiving)

Praising - how Glorious our God is

More on these 5 types from the CCC.

One thing that I try to remember and have told the youth is that we can live our life as a prayer. What we do and how we act is an expression of prayer if we are leading a good life and following the actions and examples of Jesus and Mary.  The two greatest examples of who we should try to strive to act like.

What ever you do, do it as prayer. Think about what you are doing and offer it as a gift to God. Do all things with your greatest love and charity and do all things to your greatest ability.  That is when you live your life as prayer.

Lead by example.  

If we fall, the good news is we can ask for forgiveness (petition) and get right back in line to follow the path that He has put before us. We choose the direction to go - make it count! That is where we will find our key to happiness.

Craft to Create Prayer Booklet

When I was a young girl, my great aunts "the nuns" (4 of them) would come to our church and do the Vacation Bible School in the summer. I loved to help them.  They were so talented.  One of the things that I really liked was creating prayer booklets.

I took their idea and used it for our Little Flower's Girls Club project and for VBS a few times.

It is a fairly easy concept. Pick your prayers, pick your colors, get prayer cards, print a few things and put it all together.

I used the prayer / holy cards as the images and typed and printed the prayers to go with them.

Take a few sheets of colored paper. Fold them together in half. On the top of the fold side, punch 3 holes. Have the children use yarn or ribbon to put them together. Remember that every sheet of paper is FOUR pages,

Plan out you prayers so you don't have too many pages to the booklet.

This one was for our Little Flowers, so that is what we named it.

For VBS, we just used the basic prayers that every child should learn. 

Sign of the Cross

Glory Be

Lord's Prayer "Our Father"

Hail Mary

Grace Before Meals

Guardian Angel Prayer

Apostle's Creed

Act of Contrition

and you can add the 

Acts of Faith, Hope and Charity 

Glue works best, but if you don't have time to dry - use glue dots.

Hint - Have the pieces of prayers cut out for them with a paper cutter before you start.

Let them assemble and tie the yarn or ribbon.

Free Catholic E Books

There are many free and "free will donation" Catholic E Books available.
These listed below are all distributed from The Marian Foundation

Powerful Prayers Every Catholic Should Know

Going Back to Confession After Years or Decades

Seven Daily Habits for the Faithful Catholic

For Adults Only: A Mature Conversation About Changing Your Life

A Bright Future for the Catholic Church in America