the creed

candidates for baptism or in teaching children or in day-by-day preaching to the Christian people, are entrusted with this most beautiful of all roles: handing on the faith received from the Apostles, always and infinitely fruitful even as it was when they themselves received it from Jesus Christ.

Like everyone else, the believer is able to observe the changes, slow or sudden depending on the times, in people's mentalities and interests, the variations that occur in language. Without becoming enslaved to theories (themselves subject to so many vicissitudes) that seek to account for these changes, he does not necessarily remain insensitive to the repercussions of this historical development of culture or cultures upon theological work and even, on occasion, upon the very expression of his faith. If he himself is not conscious of it, the Magisterium guides him to make him understand that in certain circumstances renewal is necessary and that one would be condemned to wither and die if one did not ever consent to adapt or change anything. But at the same time he sees with great clarity that the treasure he has received as his inheritance is not the fruit of a perishable culture. The Christian tradition, that living force in which he shares, is rooted in the eternal. If he strives to be faithful, the newness that rejuvenates his heart is not exposed to the erosion of time. Consequently he is not in the least tempted to a certain kind of forced advance in which a number of those around him are indulging. He can only see in that, as Pascal would say, a confusion of orders. He knows in advance: in the letter of the Creed which he recites with his brothers, following so many others, there is infinitely more depth in reserve and timeliness in potential than in all the explanations and critical reductions that would affect to "go beyond" it. He knows this in advance, and experience and reflection reveal it to him a little more each day.

Above all, this Creed teaches