Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, Sanctorum Communionem (I believe in the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints)

The care home smells

of polish

and overcooked vegetables.

Photographs line the walls—

faces once fierce,

now softened by forgetting.

A woman says hello.

Neither of us knows her name,

but the God of the covenant

does not forget—

her name penned

in the Book of Life.

Later—

the detention centre.

Fluorescent light.

Locked doors.

Lives paused

between borders.

Someone asks

how long this will last.

No one knows.

Names become numbers,

processed into stats

that serve political interests.

But the God of the covenant

does not forget—

their names named,

their hurts held

by a love

that knows no borders.

I carry both places

as I reach the next words

of the Creed:

I believe in the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints.

Some days

I believe this easily.

Some days

the words catch in my throat.

Belief here

is not certainty.

It is allegiance—

a choosing to stay

when leaving

would be simpler.

Catholic—

and this is where it costs.

The kingdom includes

those I agree with

and those I don’t.

Those on the right.

Those on the left.

Those whose convictions

irritate me.

Those whose prayers

I would rather correct

than receive.

I would like

clean lines.

Clear edges.

A Church that looks

more like me.

But catholicity

refuses that comfort.

Its centre

is not my certainty,

but Jesus.

Its edges

are not mine to draw.

Inside,

there is room—

room for argument,

for accent,

for unfinished theology,

for a fellowship

of the unlike.

The Church belongs

to no empire.

Her citizenship

is elsewhere.

A compassionate kingdom

that welcomes the weak,

extends the table,

calls strangers kin,

gives voice to the voiceless,

and a home

to those without one.

She is holy—

not because she is flawless,

but because she is set apart.

Called out

from patterns of domination,

from the hunger for control,

from baptising power

and calling it God.

A people made priests—

not to rule,

but to serve;

not to conquer,

but to bless;

sent into the world,

not lifted above it.

The saints are here—

not robed in triumph,

but marked by faithfulness.

Those who prayed

when prayer felt thin.

Those who healed

while still wounded themselves.

A community of wounded healers—

learning slowly

how to love

without pretending

we have not been harmed.

The communion stretches wide—

across centuries and continents,

across denominations and disagreements,

across life and death itself.

The living

and the dead

held together

in Christ.

And still—

I must tell the truth.

The Church has been used

to bless violence,

to sanctify exclusion,

to confuse the kingdom of God

with the kingdoms of this world.

The Bride

has not always

looked like her Beloved.

She still doesn’t.

Later,

in bed,

a book open on my chest,

the day returns uninvited—

faces,

questions,

waiting.

The Church follows me here.

Not as argument,

but as ache.

And yet—

she is loved.

Not abandoned.

Being refined

not by dominance,

but by truth.

So I say the words again,

with doubt as my companion

and hope as my discipline:

I believe in the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints.

Not as empire

or ideology,

but as a people

called out,

sent forth,

learning again

how to walk

the narrow way.

Beautiful.

Broken.

Holy—

not set above the world,

but set apart

for its healing.

Held together

not by certainty,

but by the mercy of God

who has not finished

with us

yet.

-Rev’d Jon Swales

from the Creed Collection