The Creed in Slow Motion

The Creed in Slow Motion by Monsignor Ronald Knox


I always said I would include books other than the CTS booklets on an occasional basis, so just excuse me while I indulge myself...

This is quite simply one of my favourite books on the Faith.  It is a collection of sermons delivered by Mons. Knox when he was a chaplain at a girls school that had been evacuated from London during World War 2.

He takes each clause of the Apostles Creed and explains it in a light but profound way.

Here's a passage that the translators at ICEL should have read before imposing 'We believe' on us as a translation of the word Credo (which means I believe, and has, of course, never been changed):

Let me direct your attention first of all to the use of the word "I".  Surely that's curious, if you come to think of it?  Surely saying the Credo ought to be a tremendous congregational act, uniting us in a common profession of faith, and surely at that rate it ought to start "WE believe"?  But it doesn't, you see, ever take that form.  Go out to Lourdes, and watch from the top of the slope tens of thousands of candles flickering there below, in the torch-light procession.  So many of them, they don't look like separate candles; it is just a vast haze of light.  And the people who are carrying them are singing Credo; Credo, not Credimus.  And so it is at Mass.  If you watch the Gloria, it is we all through, Laudamus te, Benedicimus te, Adoramus te, Glorificamus te, and so on; we lose ourselves in the crowd when we are singing the Gloria.  But when we sing the Credo we are not meant to lose ourselves in a crowd.  

If you want to know why, you'll have to read the book!  But that gives a flavour of Monsignor Knox's style and approach;  what it doesn't catch is his humour and his depth.  The humour is aimed at his audience, school girls, and you will either enjoy it or not.  Personally I love it, and more importantly, perhaps, so do my kids.  They are always very enthused when we read a chapter of Knox on a Sunday morning.  Here's a sample (and remember Knox was preaching during the War)  The subject is reparation for sin:

Let's suppose, for example, that Hitler had wanted to make peace, and we stated what our terms were, and one of our peace terms was that Hitler should walk all the way from London to Birmingham carrying a large sandwich-board with the words I AM A CAD written on it.  And then, suppose Hitler wrote back ad said, "What about Goering doing that London to Birmingham walk.  Wouldn't that do as well?"  We should have said, "No, of course it wouldn't do as well.  We don't want Cad No. 2, we want Cad No. 1".  Hitler was a more important person than Goering, therefore reparation made by Goering wouldn't be as good as reparation made by Hitler,  The greatness of the reparation is measured by the dignity  of the person who offers it.

The depth is harder to catch in quotation, as it is his steady unpacking and unpicking each clause of the Credo over the length of a sermon - or two, in the case of I believe in God and I believe in the Holy Ghost, and four, in the case both of the Holy Catholic Church, and of the Communion of Saints.

I have read this many times, as a teenager, and as an adult; and again more recently aloud to my children (at least twice).  Each time I am struck afresh by the clarity and profundity of Knox's writing, and the sheer enjoyability of reading it.