The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 14: The Eternal Word of God

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

Fr. Mike reflects on the sacredness of Scripture and why the Church venerates Scripture with great reverence. He helps us understand the mystery behind the powerful reality that God speaks to us through human authors. Most importantly, Fr. Mike reminds us that the eternal Word of God is both living and true. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 101-108. 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 Catacism in a Year Podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catacism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension, in 365 days we'll read through the Catacism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 14, we're reading from paragraphs 101 to 108. And if you want to know, I'm using the ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach.

You can follow along, of course, with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your Catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. Also, please, if you want, click follow or subscribe, and whatever podcasts app or however you're listening to this, that way you get daily updates and daily notifications. So as I said, it is day 14. We're reading from paragraphs 101 to 108. Again, keep this in mind.

We're in part one, pillar one, what we believe. We're diving more deeply into divine revelation, and we're speaking specifically now about the revelation of God. And article three, the one we're starting today, is on sacred scripture and how Jesus Christ is the unique word of sacred scripture. And gosh, you guys, one of the things you're going to hear, some of the things you're going to hear, and not only is the motivation of God who just said, again, who wants to speak like a father to his children, that's the, here's the motive of God, who just loves us. We're also going to hear what is the church's stance towards sacred scripture. And one of the things you'll hear is that

the church has always venerated the scriptures as she venerates the Lord's body. And this, this venerated the scriptures as she venerates the Lord's body. And this powerful note about how we esteem sacred scripture in such an incredible way. But then also, if you've ever wondered, so what is it that Catholics believe about the Word of God when it comes to how is it transmitted to us in what way is it God's Word, in what way is it true? In what way, how does it come to us? Now, we, for the last couple of days, have talked about the transmission of sacred scripture, but this day, in the next couple of days, we are gonna look at, well, what is sacred scripture?

Like, it's okay, it's God's words, but what does that mean? And then how do we read it in light of knowing that it's God's word? How is it that we understand it? So that is what we're going to look at today. And so that is just, I don't know, I just think that it's so powerful to be able to recognize today. We're going to hear even more clearly

than we have maybe ever have in our lives. What it is that the word of God really is, how we approach the word of God and why the word of God comes to us like it does. So let's pray, Father in heaven, we thank you so much. Thank you for loving us to a point where you want to reveal yourself to us. Thank you for loving us in such a way that you've given us your Word, your only beloved son, your only begotten son, Jesus Christ, your Word made flesh and how Jesus Christ has

revealed you fully to humanity. And how your Holy Spirit has continued to operate, how your Holy Spirit has continued to move in the people of God, how the Holy Spirit has continued to guide us. We ask you to please send that same Holy Spirit to renew in our hearts a love of your Word, to renew in our hearts an understanding and a desire for your Word, to renew in our hearts an understanding and a desire for your word and to enlighten our minds so that we can understand you and understand your word, all so that we can follow you more closely. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

In the name of the Father, hand of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. As I said, it is day 14, we're reading paragraphs 101 to 108. Article 3, Sacred Scripture Christ, the unique word of sacred Scripture. In order to reveal Himself to men, in the condescension of His goodness, God speaks to them in human words. The verbom states, indeed, the words of God expressed in the words of men are in every way like human language, just as the word of the eternal Father when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness became like men. Through all the words of sacred scripture, God speaks only one

single word, his one utterance in whom he expresses himself completely. one utterance in whom he expresses himself completely. Srinagustin once wrote, has no need of separate syllables, for he is not subject to time. For this reason, the church has always venerated the scriptures as she venerates the Lord's body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's body. In sacred scripture, the church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as what it really is, the word of God.

Dave Verbum states, In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children and talks with them. Inspiration and truth of sacred Scripture. God is the author of sacred Scripture. Dave Verbum states, the divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Further, Dei Verbum states, age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the old and new testaments, whole and

entire with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the church herself. God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. Dei Verbum states, To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their faculties and powers, so that, though he acted in them and by them,

it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more. The inspired books teach the truth. Dei verbum states, since therefore, all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to seek and fight it to the sacred scriptures. Still, the Christian faith is not a religion of the book.

Christianity is the religion of the Word of God, a word which is not a written and mute word, but the word which is incarnate in living. If the scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God must, through the Holy Spirit, open our minds to understand the Scriptures. Okay, so this is so good. I don't know if you're experiencing this, like I'm experiencing this, I love this particular section of the Catechism. It's so powerful, and it starts out, what?

But once again, reminding us that the motivation that God has in revealing himself to us, in 101 says, in order to reveal himself to men in the condescension of his goodness, God speaks to them in human words. And that's so important for us to establish. Now that might be overly obvious, of course God speaks to us in human words, but not really because God could reveal himself in any way he wanted, in any way he could imagine, which is probably thousand different ways more than we could have ever imagined. But he speaks to us in human words, and it's so powerful, because he uses this image, you know, day of error, which we hear from regularly, obviously, it's very, very important

document. He uses this image. He says, indeed, the words of God expressed in the words of men are in every way, like human language, just as the word of the eternal Father, Jesus, right? When he took on himself the flesh of human weakness became like men. So there's this way in which here is the incarnate word of God, Jesus Christ, who became one of us. But also God's word spoken to us is spoken in human words. And that's just so powerful, just to realize that here's God's word spoken to us is spoken in human words. And that's just so powerful and just to realize that here's God's divine condescension.

Again, it talks about the condescension of His goodness. What's that mean? That means He stoops down to us. And He speaks to us as it says later on as a father speaks to His children. And that's so powerful. Oh, once again, paragraph 103, just to highlight this, for this reason, the reason that these are the words of God, right? This is God's self-revelation of Himself.

For this reason, the church has always venerated the scriptures as she venerates the Lord's body. And no, that's an interesting thing. I will try to almost every time I have my Bible. If I put it down, if I set it down, I'll always try to kiss it before I set it down. And that's just kind of a little mini-devotional thing that I'll my Bible. If I put it down, if I set it down, I'll always try to kiss it before I set it down. And that's just kind of a little mini devotional thing that I'll typically do. And one of the reasons is because it just reminds me

that this is the sacred text, right? This is the word of God that's been handed to me, not only by my parents and their parents and generations, handed to me by the church, of course, but also given to us by the Lord himself. And I just think about, and so I always try to, you know, venerate it like that,

and because it before I put it, place it down, I don't always do that, but it's there. I remember being at a conference for youth, and it was, there was an Eastern Catholic priest, and one of the things he did was, you know, as Catholics, we have eucharistic processions, right? So we have the consecrated host, Jesus Christ, incarn Catholics, we have eucharistic processions, right? So we have the consecrated host, Jesus Christ, incarnate here in the Eucharist. And we have processions, right? Here's the Eucharist

in the monstrance, and we adore the Lord. We worship the Lord in the Eucharist. But this Eastern Catholic priest, he also had a procession of the Word of God. He had actually a large Bible, and it was Arnate and beautiful inside, of course, were the words of God, the word of God's scripture. And so he had a procession with that and he blessed the people with the word of God. And it was just so cool to see, you know, what the Gaticism says here, that the church has always been rated the scriptures as she venerates the Lord's body. And that was kind of a really tactical and tangible way that I saw that that happened. Now, in 104, talks about this.

The church constantly, through Sikerscripture, the church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength. And I just think that is true for the any of us who have journeyed through the Bible in a year. We recognize that I was being fed every single day, that that every time, even if I didn't understand everything out of the reading that day, even if it didn't really pertain necessarily to my life that day, I was nourished, I was fed and not only nourished and fed, I was strengthened. And that's so, so important.

That we realize that the church constantly has to go back to we as Christians constantly have to go back to the word of God. Now, among the last two points I want to make of this reading for today is two things. One is, if you were to ask the question, okay, the gospel of Matthew, who wrote the gospel of Matthew? And if you were to answer, God did, you'd say yes. And if someone were to say, Matthew did, you'd say yes. So this is very, very important. Paragraph 105 and paragraph 106 are making it very, very clear that 105 says,

God is the author of sacred scripture. So yes, God is the one. He is the one. In fact, Dave Verbum states this, that Holy Mother Church relying on the faith of the Apostolic Age accepts as sacred and canonical, right? So official, we want to say like that, the books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire with all their parts, on the grounds that written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the church herself. So God is the author, and then it goes on to say, God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. So God is the author, he inspired those authors of the sacred books. Now we can sometimes picture what that look like as God is Inspiring Matthew to write the gospel of Matthew. What's that look like? In fact, I've seen a painting of

Matthew writing the gospel of Matthew is not a photograph. It's a painting and artists rendering of what that look like in Here's Matthew and he's got his Quillout and he's got you know some parchment in front of him And there's an angel whispering in his ear and he's kind of like attentively listening to this angel as he's writing down these words. That's some people's image of what that would be like. And I don't necessarily, that isn't necessarily what it's endorsed by paragraph 106. Another one would be that you know,

here's someone just goes into a trance, you know, eyes roll back a little bit and they just start writing and they, okay, I guess that's what God wants written. The better image is given to us here in paragraph 106. It says, to compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who all the while, he employed them in this task.

So again, he's God's initiator here. He's the one who's guiding them. They made full use of their own faculties and powers. So that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written and no more. So, the idea here is grace and free will, right? I mean, it's one of those things like, wait a second, how is it possible that God is the author of Matthew's gospel and Matthew's the author of Matthew's gospel at the same time without violating the freedom of Matthew

or without violating the power of God. And the answer is, I don't know, and the answer is, it's a mystery. The answer is, we experience this every single time you and I cooperate with God. We cooperate with God freely, but in that freedom, he gives us his grace to do what we could never do without his grace. And this is exactly what's happening when God employed the use of those individuals who wrote the secret scriptures. So that's one of the reasons why Matthew's gospel sounds different than Luke's gospel.

It's one of the reasons why. In Maccabees, sounds differently than Isaiah, because different people wrote them using their own different skills, their different faculties, their different way of writing, and it's so powerful, especially when you and I go through the Bible in a year, we can hear the difference. Because we realize, okay, Genesis sounds, it reads way differently than the book of Syracch. It's, but they're both inspired by God. Just written by different human authors, and that's just so powerful, so powerful.

And this is so important, paragraph 107. The inspired books teach the truth. powerful, and this is important. Paragraph 107. The inspired books teach the truth. This is very, very important. What do we believe? We believe that the Bible is true. Here's the long quote. Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded

as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach that truth, which God, for the sake of our salvation, wish to seek and fight it to the secret scriptures. Now, so when I say truth, what do I mean? I mean, truth was as it comes to reality, truth as it comes to our salvation. So keep this in mind. We've talked about this in the past when we go through Genesis, those first number of

chapters of Genesis, where it talks about the creation of the world. That's not meant to be read as a biology textbook. There's a chemistry textbook. It's not a physics textbook. It is a true story. And it's a true account of creation and the fall. That's a true account. That's a true story.

It doesn't have to be historically and literally true, to still be true. Does that make sense? Again, so there's no error in it. We have to understand what kind of book we're reading. The example I always give is it would make no sense for me to pick up a geometry textbook and read through it and say, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. This is the worst poetry I've ever read.

It doesn't even rhyme, right? Because it's not a poetry book. It is a geometry textbook. As we need to read the scriptures, as they've been written, and for the purpose they've been written, that's what we'll talk about tomorrow. It was just so powerful. The last note is what I mentioned a couple days ago that the Christian faith is not a religion of the book. It's a religion of the word of God. And that Word of God is a capital W, right? And that Word is incarnate and living. And that's the Word that comes to us.

Like when we pick up scriptures, we are encountering not a dead letter. We are encountering the Word who is alive. When we hear scripture proclaim to us, we are hearing the Word of God alive in our lives in this world and in our hearts. And so I'm just praying that all of us, I'm not only continue to walk in this Catechism in here, but that all of us continue to find our nourishment through the Scriptures, find our nourishment through the Bible because every time we read the Bible, every time the Bible is proclaimed the Word of God, capital W, word, capital G, God, the Word of God, comes to us and meets us where we're at. As a father speaks to his children, he lovingly comes to us. So I'm praying, I'm praying that

that you and I, that we can be the kind of people who are listening to our father's voice. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Makenna. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.