 It was not a telephone call that I'd been expecting. Who would have thought that my favorite contemporary Christian musician, one of the most popular composers in the whole evangelical world, would be calling me one afternoon? Ten years earlier I'd been part of his world as an evangelical pastor, but my conversion into the Catholic faith back in 86 had left me sort of persona non grata to all of those folks. So why on earth would Rich Mullins be calling me? His song, Awesome God, was one of my all-time favorites. A blockbuster back in the 80s and we were singing it still here at Franciscan University where I was teaching. He had performed once or twice. He had come back to be on a retreat, a kind of personal and private retreat. Was he calling me? That's what I didn't understand. Well he was calling me because, as he explained, he had become increasingly convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith. He wanted a theologian, he said, to respond to some of his questions. And since I had walked that walk we ended up talking for more than a half an hour. He told me a story. He had been raised quicker in a very anti-doctrinal tradition, in college he had joined a restorationist church whose slogan was No Creed, but Christ. But then studying scripture and Christian history, it dawned on him. Which Christ? Was it the Dossatists? Was it the Arian Christ? Was it the Adoptionists? Was it the Monophysite Christ? Or was it the Christ of the Creed? Or today he said is it the Christ of the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Solutionary Jesus, or Jesus the Guru of the New Age? So he had written a song that had already become one of my favorites, simply entitled Creed. But in that conversation he admitted to me that all of these different heresies, all of these rival denominations, left him deeply troubled. And so he was looking for the gospel in its fullness. Which gospel was true? And he began to discover more and more that there was really no way to know Jesus and to love him apart from the Word of God and through the Creed. He went on to say that he had also read a number of Catholic authors including us. He had gone through Rome's sweet home and my estimation of him began to increase even more. But to imagine that he would track down a theologian and call me on the phone, shortly afterwards he went back and told me that he was an R-C-I-A. Magically, as many of you know, he died less than a year later on the 19th of September in 1997 on his way to Wichita where he was planning to be received into the Catholic Church. Our Lord just said, don't bother, come on up here and join us in the liturgy. But what he shared with me changed my life even though I was a Catholic because it reinforced my own sense that we have received a legacy through the liturgy that is life-giving. And in his song, Creed, he says, and I quote, and I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I didn't make it. No, it is making me. It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man. I believe. And we do too. But sometimes I'm convinced that we don't fully appreciate the Creed. Some people say we recite it too much. I say, no, we ponder it too little. But when we do ponder it more, when we begin to contemplate it, we're going to see what it is. And I believe, like so many other things that cradle Catholics have grown up with and even converts grow to take for granted, this is a precious treasure. In fact, that is precisely what St. Ambrose calls it. The Catechism quotes this great fourth-century Archbishop of Milan who was instrumental in the conversion of St. Augustine through his preaching and teaching, but also through his proclamation of the Creed. Ambrose said, and I quote, the Creed is the spiritual seal. Our heart's meditation, an ever-present guardian, it is unquestionably the treasure of our soul. Close quote. Hence the title of this evening's presentation, The Treasure of Our Soul. I want us to go back and sort of blow off the dust from the Creed and recognize it's something even greater than if we found the hope diamond in our living room in the corner. This is what gives us supernatural hope that we are beloved children of God. Also back in the fourth century, not in Milan, but in Jerusalem, the Bishop of Jerusalem, St. Cyril, said the following. This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions, but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as the mustard seed contains a great number of branches and a tiny grain, so too this summary of faith encompasses in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in both the Old and the New Testaments. Close quote. Both of those quotations are found in the Catechism, in paragraph 197 for Ambrose, and in paragraph 186 for St. Cyril of Jerusalem. And I give you those references so that you can look them up, because that part of the Catechism, like so many other sections, is also inexhaustible. It's rich, it's beautiful, it's true, it's powerful. Back in the ancient church, the Apostles Creed was referred to as a symbol on. That is a symbol. And then symbol on meant more than symbol. It referred to half of a broken object, a seal that was divided in two, and it was a token of recognition. The broken parts were meant to be placed together to verify the identity of the bearer, to validate his identity. And I would propose that it still functions that way. When we recite the Creed and mean what we say and say what we mean, then we are two halves made whole. God and humanity are united. Besides being a symbol, we know that the Creed is also an authoritative summary of Christianity's basic beliefs. But as St. Cyril indicates, it's also a synthesis of the Bible. How appropriate it is, then, from the first millennium until today, what do we find? We find ourselves standing up after the reading of Scripture, after the homily. We stand up, why? To get the blood circulating, right? It's like a seventh inning stretch. No, we stand up to state this solemn pledge, which summarizes our faith, which synthesizes the readings of Scripture from the old and the new, which we've just heard, knowing, as we've heard, that the new is concealed in the old and the old is revealed in the new. My father's homily wasn't reminiscent of St. Ambrose or St. Augustine. Even if it led us to fight sleep, nevertheless we stand up and proclaim the faith with a clarity and a cogency that is nothing less than a covenant renewal. In fact, every Sunday the Creed is intended to be the climax of the liturgy of the word, what we call the first half of the mass. It is analogous to what we do in the climax of the second half of the mass in which is what? Holy Communion. When we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, the two halves come together. The Symbolon is complete. It's not just a summary of doctrine. It's not just a synthesis of Scripture. It is a solemn pledge of ourselves to Christ. This is why the Catechism indicates that our faith does not rest in doctrinal propositions but rather in the realities that those formulas convey. And so we don't put our faith in the twelve articles of the Creed but we do put our faith in God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Persons not propositions but far from devaluing propositions these three divine persons that give us the three-fold structure of the Creed give to us entrance into the inner life of this divine family. They give to us new birth. They give to us our true and eternal identity. And so sometimes we go forward and suddenly hear unexpectedly body of Christ. Oh yeah, amen. Suddenly we might be hearing ourselves called to recite the Creed. In both cases we are children in a family and God the Father understands that sometimes his children are weak and wayward. Sometimes they're distracted. Sometimes they forget but he never does. And so he binds himself to us and he calls us to bind ourselves to him. This is what makes Christianity so unique. It's what also makes it the full flowering of Judaism. I wrote a book years ago entitled Kinship by Covenant and I asked a famous scholar David Noel Friedman a Jewish scholar to write the forward. Because in the forward, near the end of his life it's the last thing he ever wrote that I know of he actually confesses that he has seen in the Bible that Jesus is the Christ. But he also noticed years earlier something that drew my attention he said and I quote that when you study the Bible the Hebrew Bible for him is a Jew and the ancient Near Eastern background he says quote there are no convincing parallels in the pagan world where you find a God binding himself to his people God binding Israel to serve him or in the more unusual position of God binding himself by oath to the service of his own servants close quote. This is the full flowering of the Bible but it's like a seed that was planted in the Old Testament. The Jews had a much shorter creed it was called the Shema we find it in Deuteronomy 6 Hero Israel the Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength we know that well Hero Israel the Lord your God is one but the word for one in Hebrew there is not one in the sense of solitary but one in the sense of unitary that is it's the same term found in Genesis 2 where the two become one flesh so already in the Old Covenant there was a monotheistic commitment but also a trinitarian mystery planted waiting to sprout but awaiting the fullness of time when God the Father would send his son in the Old Testament there in Genesis 1 we hear God referred to as Elohim that's the generic name for God the deity but after the seventh day which he consecrates which he blesses upon which he rests the Sabbath which is the sign of the Covenant suddenly in Genesis 2 his name changes to what? Yahweh Elohim again and again we hear the personal name of the Lord of the Covenant which is Yahweh which is translated Lord with all four caps whenever you see that you know that's the Hebrew tetragrammaton and so we find in the Old Testament that God is faithful that God is merciful but we also find that he is called God Elohim over 2600 times whereas he's referred to as Lord Yahweh over 7000 times he's referred to as Father a grand total of 17 times now don't get me wrong 17 is significant but in contrast to 2600 or 7000 it's paltry and so in the Old Testament we worship the God of our Fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Old Testament the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he provides for his sheep the sheep of his pastor and he provides for us better than fathers and mothers do for their kids but he's the shepherd he's not the sheep but when the new fulfills the old when the shepherd suddenly decides to make his grand entrance into human history as the lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world guess what the new doesn't simply fulfill the old it surpasses it the fulfillment of the old exceeds the highest hopes the wildest dreams of the holiest Jews and you can tell because in Jesus first discourse I like to point out the sermon of the mount he refers to God as Father how many times 17 the rabbis total up the number of references to God as Father in the Hebrew Bible it's 17 in Jesus first discourse it's 17 at the center of that sermon is the our Father where he trained his disciples to pray in a way that not even the high priest in the Jerusalem temple ever dared to address the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but we dare to say our Father who art in heaven because he has sent his son and so he refers to God as Father more than 170 times in the Gospels never refers to him by any other name and in his last discourse the farewell discourse that we find in the concluding chapters of John 14 through 17 he refers to God as Father even more how many times 51 times that's 3 times 17 and he also refers to the mystery that I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father he doesn't say no one comes to the deity but by me because they've been coming to the deity ever since creation because the creation shows all of the signs of the power and the intelligence of the creator but no one comes to the Father but by me because nobody knew that God was a Father until he sent his son so he is the way to God precisely as Father he is the truth about God because whoever God is it's not reducible to him creating the world from all eternity God exists but only in the beginning did the world come into existence and so the truth about God is not reducible to the creator the law giver the Lord the judge the truth about God is Father he's an eternal Father that's why the son isn't younger or smaller he's God from God light from light true God from true because he's eternally begotten not made from all eternity this is the mystery that Christ has come to give to us he is the way the truth and the life because that's what a Father gives when he generates a son he gives the fullness of his nature and that's what Jesus possesses from all eternity but he comes to us to share it to show a divine passion that exceeds anything we find in the Old Testament that we have sometimes come to take for granted and yet when Jesus made his incarnational debut it wasn't like all eyes on me I am the eternal deity I am the eternal son no in the gospels he refers to himself not as son of God but what son of man 82 times more than all the other titles combined and he's the only one who ever refers to himself as the son of man and you can classify his usage in three senses on the one hand he speaks of how the son of man has power over nature performing miracles casting out demons but in the second case he also speaks of how the son of man will be rejected and handed over unto death and then of course we have the son of man in the third class and that is where the son of man will be riding on the clouds of heaven coming to the ancient cities in glory because son of man is taken straight out of Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14 so he didn't come to brag about his own eternal prerogatives the divine father sent the divine son to enter into solidarity with us not to show off but to give off the radiance of his own divine sonship he assumed what is ours what is his he takes on human sonship in order to empower us to share divine sonship so the god of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is now the god who is father, son and holy spirit this is the structure of the creed twelve articles of which we trace all the way back to the first century St. Ambrose and Rufanus of Aquila two fourth century figures these two fathers of the early church indicate that before the apostles were sent out to the four corners to proclaim the gospel to all nations they gathered together one last time this was after Pentecost this was in order to kind of identify what it was the core of belief that we would have and the creed was the result and so Peter goes first and then Andrew goes next and all the way down to Matthias he will come again to judge the living and the dead now whether we can demonstrate that through historical documents is sort of beside the point but the fact is the earliest form of the creed is precisely how people entered into a baptismal covenant already in 215 AD Hippolytus of Rome is describing the three fold baptism and the oldest form was not a declarative creed like I believe in God the Father but an interrogative creed question and answer like we hear at the Easter Vigil do you believe in God the Father I do do you believe in Jesus Christ his only son and as you confess the I do believe in God the Father you are immersed once do you believe in Jesus Christ his only son I know it was conceived by the Holy Spirit the second part of the creed and then you are dunked a second time and then a third time do you believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Catholic Church and then the third and final time because you aren't just washed from sin you are regenerated you are divinely re-birth into the family of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit this is who we are this is what we do and this is what the creed means to us and this is the key and what we believe will unlock for us the New Evangelization we recognize we are smack dab in the middle of the great jubilee of Divine Mercy but all of that is situated against the background of the New Evangelization now I know in previous conferences I have spoke on the New Evangelization so I won't take that tangent which is a real unusual thing for me but we know what the New Evangelization is because John Paul called for it and he clarified it again and again hundreds of times it's about re-evangelizing the decristionized and I am convinced that the creed is really the key for all of this earlier this month I was out in California and I had a few minutes with Pastor Rick Warren and we were able to connect and then we were texting afterwards but we were also reminiscing about the time that we shared last year in Philadelphia at the world meeting of families where over 20,000 Christians met mostly Catholic and then of course at the climax there in Philadelphia Pope Francis himself came I got to speak and then I also got to introduce Pastor Rick Warren as Saddleback in Southern California the author of The Purpose Driven Life which is sold I think more than 10 million copies I think he was the only non-Catholic on the docket and so before I introduced him I got to talk into him backstage and I told him how much I got out of his book and he told me how much he got out of my books and he began to tick off the list lamb supper joy to the world Lord have mercy my estimation of him began to soar as well I'm not much but I'm all I think about oh you wouldn't believe how humble I am not but when he got up to speak he blew us away because he called us as Catholics to recognize that John Paul had given to us not only our marching orders but the thing that all Christians needed the thing that the world needed and that was the New Evangelization and he spoke about the Creed he spoke about prayer and he recognized just how dire the need is for our culture today and then suddenly he went down a litany not the litany of Loretta which is my personal favorite of why the New Evangelization is so needed with his permission I'm going to read to you what he said to us today's society materialism is idolized immorality is glamorized truth is minimized sin is normalized divorce is rationalized and abortion is legalized on the internet and TV and movies crime is legitimized drug use is minimized is trivialized meanwhile the Bible is fictionalized churches are satirized God is marginalized and Christians are demonized the elderly are dehumanized the sick are euthanized the poor are victimized the mentally ill are ostracized and our children are tranquilized even in our families our manners are uncivilized our speech is vulgarized faith is secularized and so often he said as Christians we are disorganized our pastors are demoralized our faith is compartmentalized and so our witness is compromised what do we need? we need our worship to be revitalized our differences to be minimized our members to be mobilized our marriages to be re-energized the loss to be evangelized and every one of us to be re-evangelized and we sat there we were baptized but there it was a challenge to us as Catholic Christians and also an expression of gratitude for the church and our tradition the creed, the liturgy all of these things I am convinced that it can do today what it did back then in the first, second, third and fourth centuries I know we probably have a fair number of Irish Catholics here can I see a show of hands so you're familiar with St. Patrick perhaps well we all are, right? St. Patrick I was just reading last week his confessions as well as this letter to Carodacus and it was interesting to me because I didn't know or I had forgotten that the confession of St. Patrick begins I, Patrick, a sinner the rudest and least of all the faithful and most contemptible and why? I don't know but he describes how beforehand he had a father Calpurnus who was a deacon so he had been reared on the faith and then he rejected it so he was taken captive when he was nearly 16 brought captive to Ireland why? because we had forsaken God we had not kept his commandments we were disobedient to our priests and so the Lord brought down the Lord showed me my disbelief that I might remember my iniquities and yet the Lord God looked down upon my humiliation with pity, with mercy and strengthened me as a father would his son therefore I cannot not to be silent concerning the great benefits and graces which the Lord bestowed upon me in the land of my captivity since the only return we can make for such benefits is to confess his wonders before every nation and so how does he begin to confess God's wonderful mercy for there is no other God except the Lord the unbegotten Father by whom all things were made and his son Jesus Christ whom together with the Father we testified of existed before the origin of the world spiritually with the Father he was made man death was overthrown he is the Lord he is coming again the judge the living and the dead he will render to everyone according to his words he basically just goes down 12 articles of the Creed which he had learned as a child from his deacon Father but he had spurn and so what was it that the Lord used to reawaken his faith simply going back and realizing that he had come to take for granted the mysteries of eternity these countless graces and so God poured forth abundantly on us the gift of the Spirit the pledge of immortality from sons of God again co-heirs with Christ whom we confess and adore one God in the trinity this is not just a three leaf clover he was passing out and not only was that the way he was reawakened the way he confessed his repentance and his return to God's family you'll discover in the letter this is also how he evangelized he came to a royal home of the McNeils the two daughters of the McNeils questioned Patrick who is your God tell us plainly how we shall see him how is he to be loved how is he to be found St. Patrick full of the Holy Spirit responded our God is the God of all the creator of heaven and earth and he is a son co-eternal and co-equal with himself and the son is not younger than the father nor is the father older than the son and the Holy Spirit breath forth in them and the father and the son I desire more over to unite you to the son of the heavenly king for you are daughters of an earthly king and so he went down the articles of the creed and the daughters said teach us truly then that we may see the face of the Lord and then Patrick said do you believe that through baptism you will have the forgiveness of sins we believe and so they were baptized and so he had gone through every single one of the twelve articles of the creed and then they received the body of Christ and his blood see that's the way he was re-evangelized even though he had wandered that's the way he transformed this island that we call Ireland into an island of saints and scholars I would say it this way if God could do it back then against all odds against all kinds of challenges there's no reason to think that he can't do it again he can and he wants to if we let him if we say yes from the heart sincerely to this solemn pledge of the creed this great symbol on this great summary of our beliefs this great synthesis of scripture but when we hear it at the Easter vigil and a reminder of the baptismal covenant do you reject Satan and all of his pumps I do do you believe in God the Father I do keep listening because you keep saying I do just like Kimberly said I do just like I said I do and we did and we entered into a covenant and if that's true in the natural family of the Hans it's even truer in the supernatural family of God that is the Catholic church that is our true identity and so when we come to the creed I've been focusing in the Apostles creed which is traceable back to the 1st century we could look also at the Nicene creed which is there in the 4th century which was expanded because of the heresies of Arius, of Macedonias the Arians, the Semi-Arians the New Madamachians all of them and so the church had to clarify what do we really believe when we call God Father when we refer to Jesus as son because other religions had language of Father's son but it was always figurative it was merely a metaphor but is it anything more than that? oh yes it is and so homoousias consubstantial with the Father is how the church validates its understanding of the gospels it also shows us that God's Fatherhood is not a figure of speech but a reality that Jesus' sonship is not metaphorical but metaphysical and this is the key because the love of the Father for the Son is the same as the love of the Son for the Father and that love is a gift of life that proceeds eternally from the Father to the Son and from the Son back to the Father and it's not a what it's a who it's the Holy Spirit and it's what the Father sent the Son to give us there at the cross where we discover not just pain but passion we see not just injustice and violence we see love and mercy he's not losing his life at Calvary he's freely giving it to us through his mother as we heard in the liturgy earlier from Genesis 3.15 the first gospel is that the woman in her seed will crush the head of the serpent pointing forward to the new eve who will bring the forth the new Adam and so no wonder Jesus says woman there in John 19 verse 24 and then to the beloved disciple behold your mother and then he said I thirst not because he hadn't noticed how thirsty he was into the last few moments of his life but because he was thirsting for us more than we have ever thirsted for anything this is what the creed is this is what each and every article leads to like rungs in a ladder by which we ascend to see the face of God the Father and recognize the passion of Jesus is deraging like a fire out of control for each of us this is who we are this is what we're called to be this is also what we are called to share and I am convinced that in the creed we've got a choice to make because besides the three divine persons there are only two human persons mentioned and who are they born of the virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate there are the options a man and a woman but in this case not complimentary but contradictory because suffering under Pontius Pilate we see such a typical 21st century person not just a politician but we've heard so much this weekend about relativism and he knows that Jesus is innocent he knows that Jesus is something more than even his followers can see but what does he do? he washes his hands and then what does he declare? what is truth? a true relativist a true cynic and so his name is enshrined and ignominy and shame and yet it's a temptation for every one of us to go along to get along but he was born of the virgin Mary she is the one who will lead us to him and to her to us any man who will give his own mother to you is not about to withhold anything else a man who comes to reveal his divinity and he declares I am going to my father and your father and then he turns around and entrusts his beloved mother to us through the power of the spirit this is something that we will never quite exhaust but I want to say to you that this is more than just true it's more than just beautiful it's also powerful the blessed virgin Mary is the instrument of choice for God the Trinity to overcome all of the pilots who caused the suffering to save all of the sons and daughters who were adopted by grace St. Louis de Monfort went so far as to say that Satan fears Mary more than God why? because what is Satan's best-setting sin? it's pride and what attacks his pride more than anything else? it's not being defeated by God what creature could stand up to the Almighty? but to be defeated by a human and not just a human but by a woman this is not only God's glory but Satan's shame and this is why God loves to use her more than all the powerful all the intelligent all of the popular because it takes out sin at its root which is pride and even those who won't repent will fear that sort of divine glory but we've got nothing to fear St. Louis de Monfort says Satan can't stand her why? because as he puts it Satan being proud suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble hand made of God and her humility humbles him more than God's divine power and not just back then but now not just for Jesus and the Beloved Disciple but for all of us as Beloved Disciples he thirsts for us I've been going through this covenant renewal once again with a good friend of mine a former student who's now become my teacher and spiritual guide Father Michael Gaidley I'm always mentioning this in the morning glory I'm going through it now for the ninth or tenth time but we just passed day 16 and I want to read to you from soon to be Saint Teresa of Calcutta because you'll recall how way back some 70 years ago in 1946 on September 10th she had this call within a call where the Lord called her to share his thirst and the Blessed Virgin who there at the foot of the cross understood his thirst like no one else and so she kept it a secret she would share it with her own missionaries a charity so that in every chapel you will see I thirst but not until John Paul gave a meditation in 1993 did she finally realize it was time to disclose this secret this mystery this beauty she writes the Holy Father's letter is a sign the time has come for me to speak openly of the gift that God gave me Jesus wants me to tell you again how much love he has for each one of you beyond all you can imagine I worry she writes that some of you have not really met Jesus one to one you and him alone we may spend time in the chapel but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you with love do you really know the living Jesus not from books only but from being with him in your heart ask for the grace he is longing to give it to you and never give up this daily intimate contact with him as the real living person not just a proposition not just the idea how can we last even one day without hearing Jesus say I love you impossible she writes our soul needs that as much as the body needs to breathe if not prayer is dead meditation only thinking I find this deeply convicting I am sharing it to you but for me she continues be careful of all that can block that personal contact with the living Jesus the devil will try to use the hearts of life your own mistakes I feel that it's impossible that Jesus really loves you this is a danger for all of us and so sad because it's the complete opposite of what Jesus really wants not only that he loves you but even more he longs for you he misses you when you don't come close he thirsts for you he loves you always even when you don't feel worthy especially then he is the one who always accepts you my children you don't have to be different for him to love you only believe that you are precious to him bring all your suffering to his feet open your heart to be loved by him as you are and he will do the rest but you must hear him say I thirst Jesus himself must be the one to say to you I thirst now I want to just stop for a moment and reflect upon this because as an academic I kind of wonder really I thirst I mean I know what thirst is I know what hunger is when I'm thirsty I go get a drink and when I'm done I'm not thirsty anymore when I'm hungry I go eat and my appetite is satisfied but how is it that Jesus thirsts how is it that God thirsts it isn't as though Jesus says I thirst and then he just gets a drink and oh that's really all no his human thirst is an image of a divine thirst infinite it's not because he's thirsty when he just takes a drink he's not thirsting anymore his thirst is infinite it is in effect beyond our capacity to satisfy he doesn't get anything out of us that he was missing before so why do you thirst because his love is a passion that brought us into existence out of nothing he is the creator of heaven and earth but he didn't just bring it into existence out of nothing to show off he brought us all into existence to give off the radiance of his own sonship his own life his own love he thirsts for us infinitely more than we have ever known thirst he thirsted so much he brought us into existence out of nothing and he is thirsted to bring us to this moment to this place to this conference to this night to this talk but even more to the blessed sacrament in just a little while because he loves us and his love is out of control it is not measurable by any finite means she concludes Mother Teresa does not just once but every day why does Jesus say I thirst what does it mean it's hard to explain in words I thirst is something much deeper than Jesus just saying I love you until you know deep inside that he thirsts for you you can't begin to know who he wants to be for you or who he wants you to be for him but because our lady was there at Calvary she knows how real how deep is his longing for you and for the poor because she shares it he knows your weakness he wants only your love brothers and sisters we are here not just because we're thirsty but because he is he's not less thirsty than we are he's immeasurably more when we're thirsty we take a drink and we're not thirsty anymore for a while but he is thirsty for all eternity he hungers and thirsts for us not in spite of the fact that we don't give him anything but precisely because we don't add anything to his glory he's not thirsting for more glory he's thirsting to share that with each and every one of us but he is a perfect father who isn't threatened by the success of his children he is glorified precisely not in our groveling but are coming to share and more and more of his grace to enter into the fullness of his glory and she who is the fullness of grace even in the eyes of the archangel she is our mother and she longs to feed us and she thirsts and hungers like he does this isn't just pious rhetoric if I could give to you a sort of Geiger counter as to the reality the radioactivity the power of his love it would be off the charts now you'll have to take my word for it when we all get to heaven you'll look back and say wow it was much more than he said because it is he binds himself to us by a covenant that is unprecedented in the history of salvation in the history of world religions and then he invites us to bind ourselves in our weakness to him and this is because he's a perfect father who sends the son and the power of the spirit and trusts his mother to us I'm reminded of a time years ago when we were downtown Pittsburgh where I'd grown up and we were going to see a pirates game we were crossing a busy street in rush hour I think it was Liberty Avenue and so as we got to the corner and as we saw the walk sign I said to the kids let's hold hands and Kimberly at one end holding the boys and Hannah and me on the other end because I've got six kids but only one daughter five thorns one rose so I said hold my hand tight Hannah and so she did she was only about six or seven at the time and as we crossed Liberty Avenue suddenly unexpectedly around the corner came a pickup truck that didn't even bother to look right turn on red I don't know what he was thinking but he came barreling around the corner headed straight for us we saw him she shrieked and what did she do she let go of my hand even though I had specifically asked her I had commanded her to hold fast hold tight to my hand so what did I do I let go you want to feel what a fender is like no I didn't I squeezed tighter I pulled her back and she said daddy you're hurting me I said I don't want to hurt you I didn't mean to she said look it hurts and sure enough there was a red mark I scooped her up when we got to the other side of the street and I said I didn't want to hurt you but I had to she didn't understand she buried her face in my shoulder and cried but I had to the Lord binds himself to us in his strength in his love in his hunger for us and then he asks us to enter into a covenant with him to bind ourselves to him to renew that covenant in every mass not only through receiving Holy Communion but also renewing our covenant through the solemn pledge of the creed where we recall what we became when we were baptized as children of God but he knows that when we see a truck coming when we have hardships we're going to let go and what is he going to do he's going to squeeze tighter and it's going to hurt but not because he stopped loving us but because he can't stop and so let's prepare our hearts to renew this covenant to enter into a family bond that is not just human but divine not just temporal but eternal that is summed up in the threefold structure of the creed all the 12 articles I love Saint Bonaventure he goes back to Joshua chapter 4 and how it was that Joshua commanded the Levites to carry the ark of the covenant down to the bank of the river and then suddenly the water of the Jordan did for Joshua what the Red Sea had done for Moses so that all 12 tribes could cross on dry ground and then he commanded the Levites to take 12 stones and put them there in the middle of the river bed so when the river flowed back again the stones would be covered but the remembrance would be there and then he commanded the 12 princes the 12 tribes to take big stones on their shoulders and carry them into the west bank of the Jordan and stack them as a memorial of God's faithfulness the 12 articles of the creed Saint Bonaventure says are like these 12 stones that represent the 12 mysteries the 12 apostles and in fact in Revelation 21 you'll see that the church the bride of Christ to whom he said I do is the new Jerusalem built upon what 12 foundation stones which are the 12 apostles the church is not just the wooden stage in which the drama of salvation history unfolds the church is the drama the church is the family that God is fathering it is the temple of the Holy Spirit it is our home forever and so let God bind himself to you even if it hurts because of the countless times we give into fear and let's renew our covenant together in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen