The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 138: Summary of the Resurrection of the Body (2024)

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Together, with Fr. Mike, we arrive at the “nugget day” or summary for the Catechism paragraphs on the Resurrection and the Christian vision of death. Fr. Mike emphasizes that in the face of death, we must not grieve as though we have no hope. He also points out the importance of preparing for the hour of our death. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1012-1019. 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.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer 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 toward our heavenly home. This is day 138. We're reading paragraphs 1012 to 1019. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach.

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 C-I-Y. You can also click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. If you had that reading plan, you'd be able to see that we have only a few handful of them Or maybe actually literally handful. What is what what is a handful technically? I think there's seven days left We have a week left of this first pillar and then we jump into the pillar to the how we worship Which is pretty remarkable But today we get to conclude today talking about death and this the Christian view of death, which is just remarkable

In fact paragraph 1012 begins by saying the Christian view of death or Christian vision of death Receives a privileged expression in the liturgy of the church. In fact, then the next thing that's written there is from the Roman Missal in fact Whenever we have funeral masses we say these words in this prayer, the preface one for the dead. It says, indeed for your faithful Lord life is changed not ended. And that's the heart of this. For the faithful, your faithful Lord, life is changed not ended. Because if we've been baptized into Christ, remember we talked about this yesterday and the day before, if we've been baptized into Christ, we have died in a real way and so there is

this fulfillment of what began at our baptism, right? The fulfillment of the fact that we've been buried with Christ. Meaning it's completed, consummated in some ways by death and the potential to rise with Christ. So life is changed not ended and goes on to say, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust an eternal Dwelling is made ready for them in heaven and it's man everything you're in here today We only have three paragraphs before some nuggets five nuggets at the very end to just highlight this But it's worth Noting that in paragraph 1013 it highlights the finality of death

What I mean by that is it says death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage. And at the end of that time we had an opportunity to respond to God's grace and to conform our wills to his, to become a certain kind of person, the kind of person that would dwell in his presence for all eternity. And it highlights this truth also that there is no reincarnation after death. It is appointed for men to die once, it says in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 9. So there is no reincarnation after death it is appointed for men to die once it says in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 9 So there's no reincarnation we get one chance one shot one opportunity What are you gonna do? You're gonna let it pass. You're gonna seize it

I don't know how he said this one shot one opportunity We also get to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death in paragraph 1014 In fact, we pray that every time we pray the Hail Mary say holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death in paragraph 1014 in fact We pray that every time we pray the Hail Mary say holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our Death and so every action of ours every thought should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out That's a quote from Thomas a campus who is the author the or the supposed author of a book called the imitation of Christ Every action every thought should be of those of one who expects to die before the day is out. And if we practice for death, like we mentioned yesterday,

death would have no great terrors for us if we had a quiet conscience, if we had a heart, and it was conformed to God. And so we pray for that kind of heart right now. We pray for that fearlessness in the face of death, because we have confidence, not in ourselves or our goodness, but we have confidence in Jesus. So we pray. Father in heaven, we give you thanks. We praise you. We thank you for giving our life meaning. We thank you for the fact that you see every one of our actions. You

know every one of our choices. You know the inner workings of our heart, you've counted every hair on our head. Because we matter to you in some mysterious and incredible way, we matter to you. And our choices matter. Our choices in this life will echo for all of eternity. We ask you please help us to make choices for you today. Help us to not make any choices against you. And if we have fallen, if we have said no to you, we ask you please give us the grace. Give us the grace to repent, give us the grace to say yes to your invitation to let you

forgive us. Lord God, give us your mercy and help us to be the kind of people who can walk in your presence, who can live in the light of your face. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. As I said, it's day 138, we're reading paragraphs 1012 to 1019. The Christian vision of death receives privileged expression in the liturgy of the church, which states, "'Indeed, for your faithful Lord, life is changed,

"'not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven. Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan and to decide his ultimate destiny. When the single course of our earthly life is completed, we shall not return to other earthly lives. It is appointed for men to die once. There is no reincarnation after death. The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the ancient litany of

the saints, for instance, she has us pray, From everlasting death, Lord, deliver us, we pray, to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us at the hour of our death in the Hail Mary, and to entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death. As is stated in the Imitation of Christ, every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience. Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren't fit to face death

today, it's very unlikely you will be tomorrow. St. Francis of Assisi prayed, Praised are you, my Lord, for our sister bodily death, from whom no living man can escape. Woe on those who will die in mortal sin! Blessed are they who will be found in your most holy will, for the second death will not harm them." In brief, the Church Father Tertullian said, The flesh is the hinge of salvation. We believe in God who is creator of the flesh.

We believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh. We believe in the resurrection of the flesh. We believe in the word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh. We believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh. By death, the soul is separated from the body. But in the resurrection, God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just as Christ is risen and lives forever, so all of us will rise at the last day. The second council of Leon stated, We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that

we now possess. We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a spiritual body. As a consequence of original sin man must suffer bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned Jesus the Son of God Freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God his father By his death he has conquered death and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men Okay, so here we are paragraphs of 101212 to 10-19, day 138. Oh my goodness, this is just, again, what's our vision of death? And this is so important for us because every, you know, as we know this, we've stated it

before, we'll say it again, the mortality rate for human beings continues to hover roughly around 100%, right? We realize that all of our lives are not only marked by our own deaths, but by the deaths of everyone that we love love and so we have this Christian vision of death That we affirm this yet. We get to grieve and this is the reality. Of course, we grieve We grieve loss I mean even Jesus right the shortest verse in all of the New Testament is two words Jesus wept in John's gospel chapter 11 what and why did he weep? He wept in the face of his friend Lazarus,

who had died in the tomb. He had died four days before this. Jesus now, remember, Jesus knew that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet in the face of grief, in the face of this loss, in the face of death, Jesus allowed that to break his heart, right? He allowed it. He was not impassive, right?

He wasn't like he didn't care. Even though he knew that he would raise Lazarus in just a few moments, in the face of death, God reveals his heart. And so we get to grieve, but we must not grieve as those who have no hope. This is the key. We have to grieve, of course, to lose those we love,

to lose those that we've given our hearts to to lose those who have Given us our heart their hearts We grieve and we miss them But we do not grieve as those who have no hope in fact if you find your heartbreaking because of death You're very united with Jesus in fact You're united with the whole holy family, right? Because here's Mary, who in the image of the Pieta, right, received Jesus's dead body into her motherly arms from the

cross. You're united with Saint Joseph, who is the patron saint of a happy death. We know, we believe in our small t tradition, right, is that that Joseph had is the patron saint of a happy death. Why? Because he got to die in the presence of Jesus, the son of God and Mary, the mother of God. So we pray for that same kind of death that Mary's praying for us at the hour of our death, but also that we're received by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at the hour of our death.

And so we pray to Saint Joseph for that happy death. What's a happy death? A happy death is one in which we have been reconciled with the Father. We have lived our lives in such a way that we can praise God for his grace, praise him for his forgiveness and his mercy, that we can say, that he can look at us and say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come receive your master's joy.

That's a happy death. It's a happy death. And so paragraph 1013 says, Remember, death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage. It's the end of the time of grace and mercy that God offers us so as to work out our earthly life in keeping with the divine plan. And to decide his ultimate destiny, this is so important. We get to decide our ultimate destiny. Now in the next couple days, we're going to talk about judgment.

We're going to talk about life everlasting. The fact that we get to, because of Jesus, we get to choose heaven or we get to choose hell. We get to decide our ultimate destiny. What Jesus has decided, what God the Father has decided is he's decided that he wants us, right? He has, his choice for us is irrevocable. It will never change.

He wants us. Our ultimate destiny in God's eyes is for us to be with Him forever in heaven, but we get to decide if we say yes to that or no. So we get to decide in this earthly life, because of God's grace and mercy, our ultimate destiny. And when this single course of our earthly life is completed, we will not return to other earthly lives There is no reincarnation after death. Where'd you get that? Well in scripture it's from Hebrews chapter 9

But we know that the rest of the Bible also points to this we get one shot as I said one opportunity And so we do what we do we prepare ourselves for the hour of our death Like I said yesterday by going to bed, you know, even by fasting, by denying ourselves certain things, we prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. But ultimately by saying yes to God, that's how we prepare ourselves for death, by asking God to increase our love for Him and our expectation, our anticipation of seeing His face. I love this, again, this quote from the Imitation of Christ, but also the quote from Saint Francis, the one from the Imitation of Christ, as I mentioned it twice now, where it says, every action of yours, every thought, should be of, be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. And death would have no

great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience. I love this. Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren't fit to face death today, it's very unlikely you will be tomorrow. I don't know about you, but those words are pretty convicting. So very convicting. If I'm not ready to face death today, what in the world makes me think that I'll be ready to face death tomorrow? There's nothing.

There's nothing that gives me the indication that I'd be ready tomorrow. So why not be ready today? And that's one of those lines from scripture that keeps going back to all of us, right? Now, the time is now. Now, get ready. Get ready for the Lord to come back. Now, get ready to say yes to the Lord.

Right now, return to Him with your whole heart. This is the call that Jesus has for us, because none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. We all know this because none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. We all know this, none of us is guaranteed tomorrow. All we have is right now. And so to be able to pray, Lord God, help me, help me to be ready to face death today, that this might be my last day.

And if it was, what would I need to do? I think I asked someone that question. I said, if today was your last day, what would you do? And they said, I wouldn't go to work, that's for sure. And I totally get that. That's good. But how would I live with an awareness of the preciousness and the giftedness of this life? How would I live with the desire to say, God, I want to do your will completely today, not partially, not kind of as minimally as possible, but I want to do your will completely today. This is the last chance I have to say yes to you.

This is the last chance I have to love like you. And you know, many of us, actually some of us listening today, this will end up being our last day and let's pause on that for a second. There are some of us who are listening today. This will be our last day. Just, you know, statistically, it makes sense. We have a lot of people who are part of this community. And so we just pray for each other. We pray that we're ready. We pray that we do not die in mortal sin. We pray that we're found in God's most holy will. For the second death will not harm us if we're

in his holy will. The second death will not harm us. So for those who will die today, Lord God, we ask you, please be with them. Mary, please pray for them now and at the hour of their death and pray for us now and at the hour of our death, let's pray for each other. Please pray for me. I am praying for you. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.