I must confess that I love words. I love to learn what words mean, how they are spelled, and how to use them in everyday conversation or upon the written page. I suppose I developed my love affair with language from my mother, who was a writer and a journalist with a passion for the written word.

The Holy Bible

I also must admit that I have been accused of being at times over zealous in correcting spelling and grammatical errors in others. I can spot a misspelled word instantly while fanning a 1000 page tome. Believe me, it is a curse, because my mind instantly ceases to comprehend what I am reading and focuses on the singular error while lowering my esteem for the misguided author significantly. Unfortunately, no one can ever attain perfection which means that me, myself, and I also make mistakes when writing. To my credit I always punish myself severely; after all it is only fair to those for whom I have found wanting.

So where is this going? Within the past year or so I have observed on a number of occasions people reading or even using words that they obviously had no idea what they meant. On several occasions someone would tentatively raise their hand and ask for an explanation. In one instance, a single word is used practically every day and I suspect that fewer than 1 in 100 people—perhaps fewer—have any notion of its meaning. And this gave me the idea that I would, over some period of weeks, offer some explanation for some commonly used, but seldom understood words; words that we all hear or use concerning our faith, our beliefs, the Church, and even God Himself.

I love to teach and preach and I have discovered that in teaching the teacher often learns more than the students. I fervently hope and pray that, in this instance, we can all learn equally as much, together.

So what words will we be discussing? The first word is one that we all say when we recite the Nicene Creed, our statement of faith, “consubstantial.” Fourteen letters, five syllables, a big word that is the English version of and even larger sixteen letter, six syllable Latin word, “consubstantialem.”

The Roman Missal, Third Edition returned the word to the Creed. But what does it mean and why do we use it? I’ll explain next week. In the meantime, as my mother would often tell my siblings and me, find a dictionary and look it up.