My dear Parishioners,

Peace! The first article of the Apostle’s Creed is: I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth. There are forty “in brief” statements in The Catechism of the Catholic Church which treat this article of our saving faith. What follows is a reflection on article 417.

The first couple is named in Sacred Scripture (Genesis 3:20). The names of the first couple have come down to us likwise in Sacred Tradition. While we do not have the birth certificates for our first parents the point of the sacred teachings is that they did exist.

Nine (9) times in seven (7) verses the New Testement mentions Adam and by extension Eve, who is ‘mother of all the living.’

There is something common to us human beings. Our humanness is not limited to our being bipedal, vertibrates or mamals although these are a part of our shared being. While there may be some who see us as only so much h2o and NaCl (sodium chloride) this would seem to disregard the principle in life in us which has been called the human soul. While each human being has a soul, and that is a commonality, each soul is distinct, yours, mine… Our abilities to know and to love are powers of our souls as are the ability to assimilate nuriture (digestion) and locomotion (movement). The soul is in us our principle of life. In death our body and soul are seperated. In the resurrection on the last day our body and soul will be reuinited forever.

There are some who see the consequences of Original Sin as so deeply wounding human nature that none of us are capable of doing any good, of knowning any truths, basically that we are totally depraved. Catholics do not belive in the ‘total depravity of man.’ As Catholics we do belive that our nature is wounded: that we have a tendency to do evil (concupicence); that it is difficult to know the truth (ignorance); that we suffer and die. These are the results of the wound given to our nature in our first parents by their first sin which is also called Original Sin.

Forefitted by that original couple are God’s gifts of original holiness and justice. It was not so much God who took these away as we threw them into His face in Adam. In Christ we have better spiritual gifts (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:1). Our remedy and our salvation are from Christ, the new Adam who has shown us both the face of God Himself as well as our very own nature which He has restored and enriched by His saving death and resurrection (cf. Romans 5:14; John 14:7; 2 Corinthians 9:11; 15:21).

God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr