XI

Homily: the word originates from a Gk word meant to hold a conversation, to associate with.

The Synagogue service of the Jews was similar to our Liturgy of the word and at the end of the Scriptural reading someone gave a homily. When Jesus went to the synagogue at Nazareth he was called to read and he opened the scroll from Isaiah. He read: the spirit of the Lord is upon me and he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…. And he closed the book and gave it to the attendant. Then the people looked intently at him as to what he would speak. And he said, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

We hear two terms interchangeably, homily and sermon. What is the difference between a homily and a sermon?

In general, a homily is a scripturally-based reflection, provides food for thought about the challenges of living as a Catholic in today’s busy and hectic world.  Through the Sunday homily, the members of the community of faith gathered at the Eucharist learn how they might accept Sacred Scripture and Church teaching as central to their daily lives and, then, live a distinctively Christian and Catholic way of life.  The Sunday homily also should provide an avenue for deepening one’s sense of, appreciation for, and challenges to living as a Catholic. 

In contrast, a sermon takes the form of a lecture or discourse given for the purpose of providing religious instruction or inculcating moral behavior. 

A sermon directly addresses human conduct with the explicit intent to either exhort or to rebuke the people seated in the congregation.  The goal of a sermon is to get the people in the congregation to change their moral behavior.  In this sense, a sermon is more about doing than thinking about.

The homily also directs and leads us to the Eucharist. Leads us to the course of our daily life. Leading us to profess the faith.

Talking with the disciples going to Emmaeus Jesus preached to them about how the prophesies of God got fulfilled in the Crucifixion and death of Jesus as he led them to breaking the bread at which their eyes were opened.

The profession of faith serves as a way for all the people gathered together to respond to the word of God proclaimed in the readings taken from Sacred Scripture and explained in the homily.

Nicene Creed -

From the necessity for catechesis of the faithful, and for the protection of the faith from those who would attempt to manipulate it, the creed was formed.

In 325, the early Church Fathers came together in the Council of Nicaea to protect the faith against heresies that denied the divinity of Christ. And again in 381, the Fathers came together in the First Council of Constantinople to define the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Out of these two Ecumenical Councils we get the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, or what we typically call the Nicene Creed, which we say every Sunday except during Lent and Easter season.

The English word “creed” comes from the Latin word “credo,” which is actually the compilation of two words, “cor” meaning “heart,” and “do” meaning “I give.” So, a creed is the giving of one's heart. When we recite the profession of our faith together we are not stating just words, but we are giving our hearts, the core of our being, to the God in whom we believe.

One of the words that need explanation in the Nicene Creed is  “Incarnate” in place of the words born of the Virgin Mary, and became man" which remains same in the Apostles Creed. Both statements are true. But the reason it has been changed to “incarnate” is because that statement is more correct. It is a more nuanced and precise description of what God has done in the person of Jesus Christ. It states that Jesus was not only born (like all of us who are human), but that God has been born into human history. The word incarnation means to put on flesh. Here we believe, that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, emptied himself of all that he was and, putting on flesh, became one like us, while losing nothing of his divinity.

And why do we bow when we say that part?

As human beings (made up of a body and soul) we need to express in tangible ways that which is invisible. Therefore as we confess our belief in the incarnation, we express with our words and our actions God coming down from heaven to earth. So important is the need to incorporate our bodies into our worship that on two feast days — the Solemnity of the Annunciation on March 25 and the Solemnity of Christmas on December 25 — the Church asks us to do more than bow in the creed, we are called to genuflect. As God comes down to earth, we too go down to the earth and touch our knee to the ground.

Another word is: Consubstantial, which means Jesus is true God just like God the Father is.

Accuracy within our language is very important, particularly in the Church’s prayer, for it can be the difference between orthodoxy and heresy.

 When the early Church Fathers gathered in the Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, they were confronted with the task of explaining the relationship between the Father and the Son. They had two Greek words at their disposal in order to explain this relationship — <> and <>. <> means that the Son (Jesus) is of the same essence or substance as the Father, while <> means that the Son is of a similar essence or substance as the Father. The first makes Jesus God, the second does not. The first is the orthodox teaching of the Church, the second is heresy. There is only one iota of a difference between these two words — literally the letter “i”. 

This Greek word <> is translated into Latin as <> and as we see in the revised English language Missal as “consubstantial.” As the Church prays together that Jesus is “consubstantial with the Father” we are expressing as clearly as our language will allow our belief that Jesus is God and in doing so confirming our belief in the Most Holy Trinity. While the Son (Jesus) is not the Father, He shares the same substance as the Father — here we have the beginning of our Trinitarian theology. 

Finally, the phrase, “born of the Father” can be confusing if we think within the context of time. But remember, God exists outside of time. To say that Jesus was “born of the Father” might suggest that there was a time when He was not, when He did not exist; and this would certainly be true if we omitted the second part of the phrase, “before all ages.”  The second half of the phrase reminds us that Jesus is begotten within the framework of eternity — outside of time. In other words, there has never been a time when He was not.  He has always existed as the Son of the Father.