"The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation." —Simone Weil
It can still sometimes take me by surprise when
it arrives, as it does, in the Divine Liturgy just before the anaphora, even
though I’ve heard it in that context for so many years. It changes the tone of
the service. Up until that point, we’ve addressed God in terms of repentance,
praise, or entreaty. Then, suddenly, we make this declaration that has the
uneasy feel of a loyalty statement.
I recited the creed aloud when I was
received into the Church by chrismation as part of that rite, and for a lot of
years I said it daily (it was among the morning prayers in the book I used—I wouldn’t have thought to add it to a rule of
prayer I came up with on my own). But
though I aimed to say it with conviction, that conviction had less to do with
understanding exactly what it meant than it did with my mostly sincere and
reasonable desire to adhere to what the Orthodox Church taught me. The fact is,
almost every statement in it raised more questions for me than it
answered. The further understanding of
its various elements I got through reading and later in seminary did nothing to
cure the sense of the ineffable that surrounded it. “Knowing” served only to
emphasize the impression of mystery.
