The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 130: The Communion of Saints

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

The Catechism begins Paragraph 5 and dives into the communion of saints. This communion is “in holy things (sancta)” and “among holy persons (sancti).” Fr. Mike emphasizes that “the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all.” At the same time, every sin hurts every single member of the Church. No one is an island—we belong to each other. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 946-953. 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.

How many names 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 to 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 in God's family, as we journey together to our heavenly home, this is day 130, Reading Paragraphs 946-953. I, as always, am using the ascension 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 and your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash the i-y. If you did, you'd know that we're on a new sheet, right? I think day 130 is the second little thing to check off the list. You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. One note, just a thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast

with your prayers. Oh my gosh, absolutely necessary. You know, financial gifts. We could not do this without you. As I said, it's day 130, kind of a big deal. You know, in the intro, we say, discover our identity and God's family as we journey together toward heavenly home today. We're reading paragraph five, well, you know,

you know what I mean by when I say paragraph five, the communion of saints. And so we're going to get to talk about for the next couple of days, this reality of what is the church in this mysterious, you know, we talked about the church as the body of Christ, this is the family of God, the churches, all these things, but here's the communion of saints. And there's this something so powerful, in fact in paragraph 946 it says,

after confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles Creed adds the phrase, the communion of saints. In a certain sense, this article is a further explanation of the preceding, and here's the question, what is the Church, if not the assembly of all the saints? And that's just what an incredible thing. That reality that here we are, united in our faith, united in, well, you know what the actually apostles says, that here are the believers that were united

in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and prayers. And so we're going to recognize how we have communion in the faith. That's one thing. We have communion in the sacraments. That's another thing. We have communion in the carisms, right? The gifts of the Holy Spirit that he has given to the church.

Well, also, we have communion because we hold everything in common, right? And then lastly, in paragraph 953, communion and charity. So we're united in these aspects. And it's just so powerful again, because we professed the same faith where we're united in these aspects and it's just so powerful again because we professed the same faith, we're united in that. We have communion there. The sacraments that unite us particularly baptism at the beginning, but then in some ways ultimately you might say the Eucharist because we call it holy communion. Third, the communion of carisms. And again, just the gifts that God pours out to the faithful. We hold everything in common, which means that basically we recognize that we place our

gifts, we place ourselves at the service of those around us, and then also we have communion and love. Now, before we jump into today, there is some Latin words that we should get used to. In paragraph 948, it talks about this. It says, the communion of saints, therefore, has two closely linked meanings. Communion in holy things, sancta, and among holy persons, sancti. So here's the thing. Here's the communion of saints, referring, we have communion and holy things, though that's sancta. And then we're among holy persons, sancti. And so then the next big quote is sancta, sanctis, which in English would be God's holy gifts for God's holy people and this is just remarkable

You know, it's proclaimed actually by the most Eastern liturgies It says that in paragraph 948 one of the things that I you know have maybe failed to highlight in the past is the depth to which There are various rights in the church You know we don't only have the the various rights in the church. We don't only have the Latin right in the church, we have all these other beautiful rights. One of the rights in the Eastern liturgy says this Sanktah Sanktee, God's holy gifts for God's holy people. And so just listen to those two terms in paragraph 948, which specify that the fact that the term communion of saints has too closely linked meanings, communion and holy things, Sanktah among holy persons, sancti. Here we are entering into this day. Communion of Saints,

let's say a prayer and just thank our Heavenly Father for bringing us here to this moment. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing us into your church. Thank you for giving us communion among all believers, not just here on earth, us communion among all believers, not just here on earth, but those believers in heaven, those are being purified on their way to you, Lord God. Thank you for making us into one body. You're the gift. You're the source of all life. You're the ultimate destination of all good.

Everything we are is meant to be found in you. Everything good in us comes from you. It all meant to find its ultimate destination in you. So we ask you, God, please, on this day, as we listen to these words, as we pray, this reality, help us to say yes to you. Help us to say yes to you with everything that we have so that we can on this planet be united in love and in faith.

Be united in their sacraments. Be united in caring for one another. Lord, God, help us to be united. Help us to truly be an image of communion to the world. In Jesus' name we pray, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Again, it's day 130. We're reading paragraphs 946-953. Paragraph 5. The Communion of Saints After confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the apostles create ads the communion of saints. After confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the apostles

create ads the communion of saints. In a certain sense, this article is a further explanation of the preceding, what is the church, if not the assembly of all the saints? The communion of saints is the church. Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the church, but the most important member is Christ, since he is the head. Therefore the riches of Christ are communicated to all the members through the sacraments. As this church is governed by one and the same spirit, all the goods she has received necessarily become a common fund.

The term communion of saints therefore has two closely linked meanings, communion in holy things, Sankta, and among holy persons, Santi. Sankta, Sanktes, God's holy gifts for God's holy people is proclaimed by the celebrant and most Eastern liturgies during the elevation of the holy gifts before the distribution of communion. The faithful, Sankti, are fed by Christ's holy body and blood, Sanktah, to grow in the communion of the Holy Spirit, Koenenea, and to communicate it to the world. Communion in spiritual goods. In the primitive community of Jerusalem, the disciples devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship,

to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Communion in the Faith The Faith of the Faithful is the Faith of the Church, received from the apostles. Faith is a treasure of life which is enriched by being shared. Communion of the Sacraments The fruit of all the sacraments belongs to all the faithful. All the sacraments are sacred links uniting the faithful with one another and binding

them to Jesus Christ, and above all baptism, the gate by which we enter into the church. The communion of saints must be understood as the communion of the sacraments. The name communion can be applied to all of them for they unite us to God, but this name is better suited to the Eucharist than to any other, because it is primarily the Eucharist that brings this communion about. Communion of Charisms Within the communion of the Church, the Holy Spirit distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank for the building up of the Church. Now, Twitch is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

They had everything in common. Everything the true Christian has is to be regarded as a good, possessed, and common with everyone else. All Christians should be ready and eager to come to the help of the needy and with the neighbors in want. A Christian is a steward of the Lord's goods. Communion and charity. In the sanctorum of Communion, none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself.

If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Charity does not insist on its own way. In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of her acts done in charity redounds to the Prophet of all. Every sin harms this communion. Okay, there we have it. Paragraphs 9, 46 to 953.

I think this is just absolutely beautiful. This section on the communion of saints only lasts a couple days because in a couple days we'll jump to, not jump, we'll travel. We'll continue on to marry mother of Christ, mother of the church. We'll also talk about what it is to be forgiven for our sins. We'll talk about what it is to believe in the resurrection of the body. Those are the days coming, but today and tomorrow we're talking about the communion of saints. And I just love this. This is incredible. Paragraph 946.

The communion of saints is the church. Obviously everything comes from Jesus. Jesus is the source. He's the head. So he's the most important member of the entire body, right? But yet, the communion of saints is the church. And then paragraphs 947 and 948, highlight this incredible way in which the communion of saints essentially comes from the Eucharist, comes from the sacraments, and also unites us together

and how we belong to each other because of this. So paragraph 947, since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. Now, that's going to be reiterated in the last paragraph we heard today, right? paragraph 953, we heard today that talks about, there's a quote from Scripture that says, none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to Himself. That's from Romans chapter 14. St. Paul went on to say,

if one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ, and each individually members of it, that's 1 Corinthians chapter 12. You know, all of those things are so, so important. Because we're part of the body of Christ, right? Because we're part of the communion of saints.

We belong to each other. And because we belong to each other, if one member suffers, we all suffer. And if one member is honored, we all rejoice together. That's why very last two sentences of this entire reading for today are both inspiring and convicting. So it says, in this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redowns to the Prophet of all, which is so inspiring, right? The least of our acts done in charity, even the smallest thing that you do out of love, is for everyone. That's not just your virtue, it's not just your grace, it redowns to the Prophet of every one of us. At the same time, the very last sentence we heard today is so convicting.

Every sin harms this communion. So every good thing we do, everything, even the smallest thing, if you're a homebound right now, if you do nothing in the sense of like, nothing that the world would say is, oh, that's your important or that's productive, but if you simply, you're not your prayers, you're heart to Jesus, if you're not your suffering to Jesus,

that doesn't just help you in being purified your heart. That helps the entire body. If you just offer that suffering up in love, say, Jesus, take my suffering, Jesus, use my suffering. That doesn't just make you holy. That doesn't just sanctify you. That actually helps everyone. Highlight, there's no such thing as private virtue, right? There's no such thing as private grace in some ways like that. You can say it like this at the same time. There's also no such thing as private sin. There's personal sin, right? There's things that I've done on my own, but there's no such thing as private sin because it belongs to all of us. Again, every sin harms this communion. That is both the inspiring part of being part of the communion of saints, as well as the

convicting part of being part of the communion of saints there in paragraph 953. But going back to 947, we said this first line. Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. Yet we just kind of highlighted. But because on to say, this is so powerful, the riches of Christ are communicated to all the members through the sacraments. In a few days for now, maybe two weeks I think, in two weeks for now, give or take, we're going to launch into the second pillar of the Catechism on the sacraments. The riches of Christ, what Jesus has done for us, come to us, they meet us, they transform us

through the sacraments. And this is incredible. That's why I love this paragraph 948 that says, if you're looking at your Catechism right now, in the smaller script, right, in the small script, it talks about Sankta Sankthis, God's Holy Gifts for God's Holy People. Let's just read that again. God's Holy Gifts for God's Holy People is proclaimed by the Celebrant and most Eastern liturgies

during the elevation of the Holy Gifts before the distribution of Holy Communion. So remember, so in the West, typically, if you're Latin Catholic, you're familiar with, here's the priest who says, behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who called the supper of the Lamb and we have our response. But one of the proclamations in the Eastern liturgies is Sancta, Sanctis, God's holy gifts for God's holy people. Now, the faithful, the Sankti, are fed by Christ's holy

body and blood, Sankda, to grow in the communion of the Holy Spirit, Koenenea, Greek word, and to communicate it to the world. So here you are. Here I am. We're fed by Christ's holy body and blood and growing communion. So how do we increase the communion of the saints? How do we grow in the communion of saints? Well, by letting what the Holy Communion in the Eucharist, by letting it do what it's meant to do, among many other things, it binds us together. That's one of the reasons why in paragraph 949, it quotes the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts of Apostles chapter 242, it says that the disciples devoted themselves to four things, right? The Apostles teaching, fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.

And that's why we highlight these elements here in the remaining paragraphs. The faithful, from the very beginning, the church was marked by it. To be a disciple was to be marked by the fact that you devoted yourself to the apostles' teaching, so we're united to faith. To fellowship, that we were united in taking care of each other, caring for each other. To the breaking of the bread, we just code for the Eucharist, that's code for the Mass, essentially, and the prayers. That's why it's so powerful. In the next few paragraphs, it highlights those exact things. Communion of the faith, communion of the sacraments, communion of carisms,

that those carisms are given to every person in the church for the good of everyone, and they held everything in common. That means to say, the gifts the God are given to every person in the church for the good of everyone, and they held everything in common. That means to say, the gifts that God's given to me, that therefore the people who need them the most, that I get to place them back in the Lord's hands, I get to place them at the service of our brethren. It's just so incredibly important, because why?

Because we belong to each other. And I think that's a quote from the Teresa that we keep coming back to again and again, when she said, there's a reason we don't have peace in the world is because we've forgotten that we belong to each other. And here we are today, tomorrow, and hopefully for the rest of our lives, just remembering that you're not alone. At the end, you might find yourself in a place of isolation.

You might find yourself in a place where you do feel alone. You don't see many people, but you're not alone. You are part of the communion of saints. In fact beloved dead who have passed into God's presence, they're not separated from us. Well, they are separated from us in time and space, but they're not separated from us when it comes to being part of one body. When it comes to having communion with them, we still are united with them. And so tomorrow, as we continue to pray through this and read through this section on the communion of saints, we're gonna hear a little bit more about what that means.

But for right now, let's 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. you