The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 114: The Church Is One (2026)

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

In this new paragraph—"The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic”—the Catechism explains how and why the Church is “One”. Fr. Mike highlights the many manifestations of the good that Jesus works through the Church, and he also urges us to cling to the “visible bonds of unity” that Christ offers us. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 811-816. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

I'm my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sure goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 114. We're reading paragraphs 811 through 816. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in your reading plan

by visiting Accenturepress.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app to get daily updates and daily notifications. It's day 114. I'm reading paragraphs 811 through 816. Okay, here we go. This is, it's a new paragraph. And we're going to talk about these four, what they call the four marks of the church. The church is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. So today we're going to break down that first, well, for the next couple days, really, we're going to break down what is it to say that the church is one. And yet we have to understand that for the next couple days, actually you don't have to understand. If you choose not to, that's fine. I would like you to understand that the church would like us to understand that there

are these, again, these four marks of the church that make, I don't say make the church the church, but they reveal that the church truly is what she claims to be. The church is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. We're going to hear traces of all four of those today, but the highlight or the kind of the focus is the fact that the church is one. And of course, the church is one because of the source of the church. In fact, paragraph 813 talks about this exact thing. It says the church is one because of her source.

So what is the source of the church? Well, the source of the church is the Trinity of persons, the unity of one God. The church is also one because of her founder, because Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, established the church. The church is also one. Here's a third reason.

The church is one also because of her soul. Remember we talked about this, that the soul of the church is the Holy Spirit. And so unity is of essence to the church. So again, because of her source, the Holy Trinity, which is united, because of her founder, Jesus Christ, who's the one founder of the church,

and also because the Holy Spirit himself is the very soul of the church. Now, we're going to recognize also that there are, there's diversity in the church. So there's, there can be a unity and a oneness, even in the midst of diversity. We already talked about that. Remember, one spirit, yet many, many gifts that still exists. But at the same time, there's a diversity, well, not a diversity that threatens unity, but there's also our things that threaten unity. It's not diversity. It's sin. And that's a really important thing. Paragraph 814. says sin and the burden of sin essentially constantly threaten the gift to unity. And so we have to

maintain and strive after that unity of the Holy Spirit in the bond of peace. And so we're going to look at what are some of those bonds of unity that enable the church to stay together. Spoiler, the three of them that are named here today are the profession of one faith. So we stand up, we recite the Apostles Creed, we recite the Nicene Creed, we're profession of one faith. You know, we're going through this section, this first pillar of the faith. We're going through this section, this first pillar of the catechism is all about that profession of faith. Secondly, the common celebration of divine worship, especially the sacraments. That's the next section we'll get to eventually.

And thirdly, the third visible bond of communion is the apostolic succession to the sacrament of holy orders. And basically, you know, we have the pope, the bishops, the priests, that essentially is the third visible bond of communion, bond of unity. And of course, and at the same time, unity only comes from God. God is the source of the church. God is the source of the graces in the church. And God is the source of the unity of the church.

And so what we need to do is, of course, we need to pray. As we launch into today, let's just turn to our father right now. And just since the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that unity of the Trinity is the source. The source of the church is unity. We just appeal and say, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God, we thank you. We thank you and we praise your name this morning this afternoon. this evening whenever we're listening to this, Lord God, we praise you now.

And we ask that you please continue to maintain that gift of unity. Please, Lord God, we ask you to please continue to establish your church in oneness. Lord God, we know that divisions are painful. We know that divisions devastate. And we know the devastation of being divided. We know the devastation of a fracture when the church fractures are when individuals, members of the body of Christ, brothers and sisters, when we turn away.

And so we ask you to please conquer the sin that divides us and conquer the sin in each of us that causes division. Knit us back together in our own hearts, knit us back together with each other as brothers and sisters and knit us back to you. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. so that we can be one body, now one church. In your name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Once again, it's day 11. We're reading paragraphs 811 to 816.

Paragraph 3. The church is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the creed we profess to be one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other indicate essential features of the church and her mission. The church does not possess them of herself. It is Christ, who through the Holy Spirit makes his church one

holy, Catholic, and apostolic. And it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities. Only faith can recognize that the church possesses these properties from her divine source, but their historical manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the first Vatican Council noticed,

the church herself, with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her Catholic unity and invincible stability is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission. The Church is One, the sacred mystery of the church's unity. The church is one because of her source. The highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity

in the Trinity of Persons of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. The Church is one because of her founder, for the Word made flesh, the Prince of Peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross, restoring the unity of all in one people and one body. The Church is one because of her soul. It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe, and pervading and ruling over the entire church who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the church's unity.

Unity is of the essence of the church. As St. Clement of Alexandria stated, what an astonishing mystery. There is one father of the universe, one logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same. There is also one virgin become mother,

and I should like to call her church. From the beginning, this one church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God's gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the people of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the church's members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. Holding a rightful place in the communion of the church, there are also particular churches that retain their own traditions. The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the church's unity. Yet, sin, and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity.

And so the apostle has to exhort Christians to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity binds everything together in perfect harmony, but the unity of the pilgrim church is also assured by visible bonds of communion. First, profession of one faith received from the apostles. Second, common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments. And third, apostolic succession to the sacrament of holy orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God's family.

The sole Church of Christ is that, which our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. This church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in, the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. The Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism explains, For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the Apostolic College alone, of which Peter is,

the head that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the new covenant in order to establish on earth the one body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. Okay, so there we are. Paragraphs 811 to 816, this first kind of dipping our toe into the reality that the church is one. In fact, dipping our toe into the reality that the church has to have these characteristics, these marks of the church, which are, again, one holy, Catholic, and apostolic. You know, there's something pretty bold about what the first Vatican Council noted in paragraph 812. It's bold because it's true, you know, over the past few days, whenever I've mentioned

the church, I've always kind of made the point of saying, yeah, the church is divine and human and in that humanness, we're pretty broken. We have a pretty broken reality. At the same time, I kind of maybe have neglected the reality that the first of the first thing, the first of, First Vatican Council really highlights and notes is that there's also a glorious reality. There's also a very, very holy reality of the church in this world. Here's what the First Vatican Council notes in paragraph 812. It says, the church herself with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and an exhaustible fruitfulness in everything good.

Think about this. Her marvelous propagation. Yeah, the church is everywhere throughout the world. It's amazing. That's, I mean, it's one thing to we kind of inherit the church. It's another thing to realize. this didn't have to happen. Coming from 12, you know, fishermen, tax collectors and others to be a worldwide, not just organization, but you say it in a secular way, a worldwide organization that

is unstoppable essentially in some ways. It's her eminent holiness. Yes, there are broken people in the church like you and like me, but there is also this massive history of saints. So often it's easy to overlook the fact that, wait a second, there has been for 2,000 years a remarkable remarkable stream of saints who have been raised up by Jesus Christ through his Catholic Church. Forget about that sometimes. So there's something that, you know, I mean, you can be proud in the most, you know, good way, proud of the fact that, wait, wait, God has worked through history in her church. And again, of course, there's brokenness into that history too. But we have to recognize that, as the first Vatican Council said, her Catholic unity and

invincible stability is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission. I mean, you can even take the negative stance and you could say, some people have joked that one of the signs of the fact that the church has been established by God and is sustained by God is the fact that the church is made up of so many broken people and so many sinners. And yet, even though people throughout history and governments throughout history and organizations throughout history have tried to take down the Catholic Church and destroy her. They have not been able to. And we haven't even been able to destroy the church as sinners in the church.

There's something about that that maybe in a kind of half-joky way points to the credibility and is an irrefutable witness of the church's divine mission. Again, and this doesn't come from ourselves. So this can sound a little bit self-aggrandizing. Like, oh, hey, we win. We're the part of the winning team. Join our team, everyone. It's not that.

In fact, paragraph 813 highlights this. fact that the church is one. Why? Not because of any one of us, but because of her source. We talked about this already, these three sources of the church's unity. First being the Trinity, God himself, secondly being the second person of the Trinity, the fact that Jesus Christ is historically speaking and theologically speaking, the founder of the Catholic Church. And third, because the Holy Spirit is the soul of the church. And so for us to maintain that the Catholic Church has this one holy Catholic and apostolic nature to it, these marks to it. And to highlight that the church is one is not meant to be like beating our chest or puffing our chest out and being arrogant about this.

It simply highlights the fact that we've received this from the Lord God himself. We've been brought into the Catholic Church by the Lord God himself. The Trinity, the second person of the Trinity, the third person of the Trinity, and here we are at the same time. Paragraph 814, which highlights the diversity of the church, that in the midst of you, unity, there is diversity, which, and I love it how it says, which comes both from the variety of God's gifts, right? Remember one spirit, but different gifts, manifestations of that spirit, different gifts, and the diversity of those who receive those gifts. It's so remarkable. Again, the catacism goes on to say, within the unity of the people of God. So that's this unity of the church that is

one throughout the world, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. And among those churches members. There are different gifts, different offices, different conditions, different ways of life. And this is a richness of the church's diversity, which is remarkable. In fact, there is a quote here that's right in the middle of paragraph 814, and it's a quote from that document on the church lumensium. And it says this. It says, holding a rightful place in the communion of the church, there are also particular churches that retain their own traditions. You might think, well, what does that mean. Well, it means the fact that there is the Latin Church, and most of us are very familiar with the Latin Church of the Latin right, that it would be throughout basically, I would say,

I don't want to exaggerate, but most of Europe, most of North and Central and South America, it's the Latin right. But there also are Eastern right churches, Catholic churches. They're also Ethiopian right Catholic churches. There are also Maronite right Catholic churches. And so there is a diversity even in the midst of the way the mass is celebrated, according to these different rights that are still in union with the church. Now, there are some that that broke off and are not in union with the church, but within the church, there is still are also particular churches that retain their own traditions. And though they don't threaten the church's unity. And diversity doesn't threaten the church's unity. What does? Well, it highlights here,

sin does. Sin is the only thing that threatens the church's unity. And so we have to hold on to these not just the idea of unity, but these visible bonds of unity. And because we have to be able to test this. I can't just say, well, I don't feel united with you, therefore we're not united. Or someone can't point to me and say, well, you seem different or diverse in whatever way. Therefore, you can't be united. There have to be visible bonds of unity that establish this peace, right? We have to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And we already highlighted these at the very beginning, but I want to highlight them once again as we conclude these visible bonds of unity. Well, first of all is charity. First of all is love, of course, which binds everything

together. But the unity of the pilgrim church, right, the church on earth is assured by these visible bonds of communion. One is the profession of faith that we do believe the same things. It's one thing to say, like, you don't know I was baptized Catholic or I was baptized Christian, but do I profess that one faith? If I don't, if I alter it, or if I subtract something from it or add something to it or distort it, then, okay, there's a division there. Secondly, is common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments. As I said, we're going to head into the section on the sacraments in a number of days from now, but we're going to get there. And there's recognition that that's a part of our unity. Coming together, especially in the Eucharist, is a remarkable sign of

unity. And thirdly, apostolic succession through the sacrament of holy orders. That That apostolic succession is a sign, a visible sign of the Church of unity. In fact, the Catholic Church can go back and trace all the popes back all the way back to Peter. Every one of your bishops, you can trace all the way back to the apostles. We know that they all come from that unbroken line of apostolic succession. That reality is so important for the maintaining of unity because the church is one, and that is one of the signs of God's presence. is unity. And one of the signs of God's absence or maybe one of the signs of the evil one's presence

is division. And so we have to, we have to, of course, pray against that. We have to work against that, work against division and work for unity. It's one of the reasons why at the end of every one of these episodes, I always invite us, please pray for each other. Well, I want to. Sometimes I forget to ask us to pray for each other because it's not just enough to kind of be semi-quazzi united in our hearts are united in our minds. But we need a real unity if we're really going to be a witness of God's love to this world. The Holy Trinity is truly united. And so God's church has to also be truly united. So brothers and sisters, let us pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.