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THE TWELVE ARTICLES OF CATHOLIC FAITH
Article 1: We believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. This affirms that God exists, that he's a Triuna God (one God in three persons, known as the Holy Trinity), and that he created the known universe.
Article 2: And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. This attests that Jesus is the Son of God and that he's most certainly divine. The word Lord implies divinity, because the Greek Kyrios and the Hebrew Adonai both mean lord and are only ascribed to God. So the use of Lord with Jesus is meant to profess His divinity.
Article 3: He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. This affirms the human nature of Chrit, meaning he had a real, true human mother, and also affirms his divine nature, meaning he had no human father but by the power of the Holy Spirit was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He's therefore considered both God and man. Fully divine and fully human.
Article 4: Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. The human nature of Christ could feel pain and actually die, and he did on Good Friday. The mention of Pontius Pilate by name wasn't meant so much to vilify him forever in history but to place the Crucifixion within human history. So reference is made to an actual historical person, the Roman governor of Judea, appointed by Caesar, to put the life and death of Jesus within a chronlogical and historical context. It also reminds the faithful that one can't blame all Jews for the death of Jesus, as some have erroneously done over the ages. Certain Jewish leaders conspired against Jesus, but the actual death sentence was given by a Roman and carried out by Roman soldiers. So, both Jew and Gentile alike shared in the spilling of innocent blood.
Article 5: He descended into hell, on the third day he rose again. The hell Jesus descended into wasn't the hell of the damned, where Jews and Christians believe the devil and his demons reside. Hell was merely a word that Jews and early Christians used to describe the place of the dead. This affirms that on the third day he rose, meaning Jesus came back from the dead of his own divine power. He wasn't just clinically dead for a few minutes, he was dead, dead; then he rose from the dead. More than a resuscitated corpse, Jesus possessed a glorified and risen body.
Article 6: He assended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. The ascension reminds the faithful that after the human and divine natures of Christ were united in the Incarnation, they could never be separated. In other words, after the saving death and Resurrection, Jesus didn't dump his human body as if he didn't need it anymore. His human body will exist forever. Where Jesus went, body and soul into heaven, the fiathful hope one day to follow.
Article 7: He will come again to judge the living and the dead. This affirms the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world to be its judge. Judgment Day, Day of Reckoning, the end of time when what's known as the General Judgment will occur. We believe that after the death of any human person, immediate private judgment occurs and the person goes directly to heaven, hell, or purgatory to prepare for heaven.
Article 8: We believe in the Holy Spirit. This reminds us that God exists in three persons, the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all distinctly different from one another but together as one God.
Article 9: We believe in the holy Apostolic Catholic Church. The Church is more than a mere institution and not a necessary evil. It's an essential dimension and aspect of our spiritual life. Christ explicitly uses the word church in Matthew 16 when he says "I will build My Church."
Article 10: We believe in the forgiveness of sins. Christ came to save the world from sin. Belief in the forgiveness of sins is essential to Christianity. We believe sins are forgiven in Bpatism and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Article 11: We believe in the resurrection of the body. As Catholics we believe a human being is a union of body and sould, so death is just the momentary separation of body and soul until the end of the world, the Second Coming of Christ, the General Judgment, and the resurrection of the dead. The just go, body and soul into heaven, and the damed go body and soul into hell.
Article 12: We believe in life everlasting. As Christ Our Savior died, so, too, just mere mortals. As he rose, so shall all human beings. Death is the only way to cross from this life into the next. At the very moment of death, private judgment occurs; Christ judges the soul. If it's particularly holy and virtuous, it goes directly to heaven. If it's evil and wicked and dies in mortal sin, it's damned for eternity in hell. If a person lived a life not bad enough to warrant hell but not holy enough to go right to heaven, we believe the person goes to purgatory, which is the middle ground between heaven and earth, a state where departed souls want to go to be cleansed of any attachments to sin before going through to heaven.
