The Apostles Creed - Part 12

Hello all!  Here is the twelfth (kind of significant, huh?) and final installment of our reflections on the Apostles Creed.  We end on a very hopeful note:  with that hope in our hearts, let us "risk everything on his mercy", everything!  Enjoy!

To be clear, the resurrection-life inside of you will always be invisible in this life. But it will be real. It will grow gradually. Provided you do not resist its action, it will heal you and purify you until you become utterly what God wants you to be. The resurrection-life is nothing less than the Presence of the Holy Trinity living and active in the depths of your being.

If you have faith in his mercy, and if you take advantage of all of these gifts in the Church, and if you do so until the end of your days, they will change you into a saint. Gradually, through these many gifts, Jesus will fill you with all the fullness of God. You will come to know your heavenly Father, and you will learn to love him back with ease and joy. And you will not be alone. You will be in the Church. There will be people of all nations, races, and tongues who will be living through it with you. Some, like you, will still be on the way to becoming saints. Others, living or dead, will already be there. But regardless of whether it is you or others, already there or still on the way, all that belongs to the saints belongs to you. All is yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

And on the last day, when the last trumpet blasts, and when all generations of men and women come forth together to meet our Maker, you will rise with a new and immortal and glorious body. And your new and immortal and glorious body will reveal to everyone the victory of love in your life. For grace has come to you. You have found Christ and his Church. You risked everything on his mercy. And even though the accuser, Satan, prowled around you, and always reminded you of every weakness, sin, and failure of both you and your Church, still you believed his mercy would never fail us. And so the last word on your life, the sentence handed down in the tribunal of love, the pure and simple truth on the last day will be this:

“You are my beloved in whom I am well pleased.”

As I mentioned at the beginning of this series, these reflections are not mine.   They were born in the heart of a wonderful priest I only recently met face to face.  Thank you Fr. James for your inspiring words, for feeding us with the fruit of your prayer and study.  In the coming weeks and months I will be offering reflections on human formation and how the necessary healing and development of our human nature helps us to believe in and live everything we have been reflecting on in our Series on the Creed.  Human formation is an indispensable part of every vocation and it is my hope that these reflections will in some way help all of us to open our nature more and more to God's grace.

May God bless you all!

Fr. Isaac Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY