The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 16: Senses of Scripture (2025)

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Fr. Mike examines the two senses of Scripture: the literal sense and the spiritual sense. Together, we further unpack the meaning of the literal sense of Scripture and the three subdivisions of the spiritual sense: the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical senses. Fr. Mike provides us with scriptural examples of each of the four senses for us to fully comprehend the richness of God’s Word. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 115-119. 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 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 in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home, it is day 16, we're reading paragraphs 115 to 119. Just a couple of quick things before we get started.

I'm 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. Also, to download your own Catechism in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. That can be kind of helpful because you can see,

okay, where are we in the pillar? Where are we in what section? Where are we really talking about? That can be helpful. Also, you can click follow or subscribe or whatever that the word is, and your podcast app for daily notifications. A couple of things,

just as we continue to move through the Catechism today. I just, I mentioned this, I think, yesterday, at the end of the day, but it is so important. Here we are day 16. You know, yesterday was the first day after the second week, day 15. That's how weeks work, right? There's two of, two of those weeks together is 14 plus one 15. Here we are day 16. And the recognition of course is that we're journeying as a community. I think one of the ways, maybe one of the only ways, we're truly gonna be able to get through this catechism,

because it can be dense, even today. The readings from paragraphs 115 to 119, that's not a lot. I think that's five, if I can count correctly. Those paragraphs, they're simple, but they're also dense, right? And because of that, it can be a little bit of a challenge to say, okay, I'm gonna keep showing up, I'm gonna keep pressing play.

But the fact that here you are on day 16, you're pressing play means not only of course that the Lord is moving you and he's inviting you into a deeper relationship and deeper knowledge of him, but also that we're praying for each other. And I think we really, really need that because it can get kind of easy to say, well, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow, but here we are on day 16, ready to press play. Before we do that, what are we gonna listen to? What we're gonna hear is the senses of scripture. There are essentially two senses of scripture.

There is the literal sense and the spiritual sense of scripture. So literal sense is kind of the obvious one, right? The text says what it means, it means what it says. The spiritual sense has three other senses it's subdivided into, and the three are the allegorical sense, the moral sense, the anagogical sense.

So we're gonna talk about all of those today. So just keep that in mind. We're looking at that whenever we read the Bible, we read it according to these two senses of scripture. We look for the literal sense. What do the words mean? That's what that is. And the spiritual sense, what might be a truth or the truth that is conveyed that was not

originally intended by the human author? Maybe there's another meaning to this. So the literal sense and the spiritual sense we're going to talk about today. Let's say a prayer as we dive in. Father in heaven, we give you thanks. We give you praise because we know this. We know that you are the author of sacred scripture. We know that you used human beings with all of their gifts, with all of their wisdom,

with all of their flaws, with all of their lack of knowledge, with all of their style and preference and just their personality, Lord God, you used them to convey your word to the world. And you still do that in different ways, right? You still use us. You still use us with all of our wisdom and all of our failures, with all of our weaknesses

and with all of our foolishness, with all our strengths and gifts and personalities, Lord God. You continue to use and work with us to bring your word to the world. When we embody your word, Lord God, when we live out your truth, you are working in this world.

And we ask you to please help us not only hear these words, but be shaped by them so that we can live by them. Help us to live by your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. As I said, it's Day 16. We're reading paragraphs 115 to 119. The Senses of Scripture According to an ancient tradition, one can

distinguish between two senses of Scripture, the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of the Scripture in the Church. The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis following the rules of sound interpretation. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, all other senses of sacred scripture are based on the literal.

The Spiritual Sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of scripture, but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs. First, the allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ. Thus, the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or a type of Christ's victory and also of Christian baptism. Second, the moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly.

As St. Paul says, they were written for our instruction. Third, the anagogical sense, Greek anagoge meaning leading. We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance leading us toward our true homeland. Thus, the Church on Earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses. The letter speaks of deeds, allegory to faith. The moral how to act, anagogy, are destiny.

Dave Verboom stated, It is the task of exegetes to work according to these rules toward a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of sacred scripture in order that their research may help the church to form a firmer judgment. For of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God. As St. Augustine once said, But I would not believe in the gospel had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.

Okay, so there it is. As I said, this section, a brief section, but it's so powerful. This is so important. This is going to change the way we continue to listen to scripture or read scripture. If you followed the Bible in the year with us last year or the year before, you know that this is how, hopefully you may be caught on, this is how I always will read the scriptures because I'm kind of formed by the catechism, right? There's always two ways we can read scripture, the literal and the spiritual.

The literal is the first way we're going to read scripture. So the example would be, here's David, here's the story of King David marching into Jerusalem. Here's David walking into Jerusalem. What's the literal sense? The literal sense is, hey, David walked into Jerusalem. Here's David walking into Jerusalem. What's the literal sense? Literal sense is, hey, David walked into Jerusalem. That's the first sense of scripture. And again, as the Catechism says, every one of the other senses of sacred scripture is based off the literal.

So that's the first one. We can't ignore that one. We can't bypass it. We can't neglect it. We always have to realize all the other senses, the spiritual senses, are based on the literal. That's a quote from Thomas Aquinas So David walks into Jerusalem literal sense. Yeah, he walked into Jerusalem But then there's the spiritual sense with those three categories therein, right?

So the allegorical sense the moral sense and the anagogical sense. I know you're like, are you kidding me all of these words? I understand. Let's break it down. The allegorical sense would be, okay, the allegory. So the example that the catechism uses is crossing the Red Sea. That's the literal sense. The Jewish people, the Hebrew people walked through the Red Sea. But the allegorical sense is

that's also a sign of Christ's victory, that Jesus went, he descended to hell and rose again from the dead. Also, it's a sign of Christian baptism, right? So the allegory there, it's a sign of Christian baptism, right? So the an the allegory there the connection is That's a type the Jews crossing the Hebrews crossing through the Red Sea is a type or foreshadowing of How now Christians are baptized in water. So what do we mean by that? Well The Jewish people on one side of the Red Sea they were

Dead they were enslaved, right? That means the end of their lives because here's Pharaoh and all of his chariots and charioteers who are bearing down on them. They pass through the waters of the Red Sea and they emerge on the other side with freedom and with life, just like Christians. Here we are. Before we're baptized, we belong to the evil one. We will belong to the kingdom of darkness. We enter into the waters of baptism and come out the other side with freedom and with life.

So that's the allegory, right? So David marches into Jerusalem, the literal sense. David walked into Jerusalem. The allegorical sense could be, well, here is, this is a sign or a type of Jesus coming into Jerusalem as the King of Kings, right, on Palm Sunday. So there's the image of David marching into the city of Jerusalem.

The literal sense, he walked into Jerusalem. The allegorical sense could be something like, that could be a type or a sign of Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The King ready to take his place, his rightful throne. And in this case, of course, his throne, he assumes is the cross. So there can be an allegorical sense, right?

There's a type that is fulfilled in the New Testament or in the life of the church. The moral sense, obviously, is the sense that we apply to our lives that should lead us to act justly. So David marches into Jerusalem. Yep, right there it is, literal sense. Could be a sign of Christ entering into Jerusalem himself. The moral sense, okay David, yeah maybe you could say something like this. David worshipped before he led

the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. He made sacrifices in order to guarantee that the Ark of the Covenant will be brought in a God-honoring way into the city of Jerusalem. And it's just in the same way. We too have to sacrificially worship the Lord to truly honor Him. Like something like that, right? We're applying it to our own lives. So the allegorical sense, how it applies to Jesus, the moral sense, how it applies to

our lives, and finally the anagogical sense, which would be how does this apply to the end times? How does this apply to the end of times? So David enters the city of Jerusalem, just like Jesus will one day come back. And when he does that, he will establish an eternal kingdom and eternal throne where he will have dominion and a kingdom that will last forever, right? So the allegorical sense how does this relate to jesus in many ways moral sense? How does this relate to us? How can we apply to our lives in the anagogical sense? How does this apply to the end of time?

And so those are the ways in which we read scripture So keep that in mind these two main ways literal and spiritual those three ways, allegorical, Jesus, moral, you and me, and agogical, the end times, and we read scripture according to those senses. Now, it's remarkable. If you ever go back and read the early fathers of the church and how they did this, I mean, it goes all the way back to the beginning,

how those fathers of the church, we just pay attention to the literal because that's so important, but then they would dive deeply in the Antigodical allegorical and moral senses and it's just so beautiful and so powerful the last note of This section today is a quote from st. Augustine and it is remarkable It's almost one of those situations that it almost leads into tomorrow's section when we talk about the canon of scripture the the number Of books in scripture or the number of books in scripture or which books are in scripture. But it's a quote by Saint Augustine. Here he's living in the fourth

and fifth century where he says, but I would not believe in the gospel had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me. Saint Augustine was living close enough to the original events of Christ's life, death and resurrection, that he knew that the Church predated the New Testament. We rely upon the New Testament based off of the authority of the Church that Jesus Christ himself established. That's why it's so powerful to realize that this giant of the faith, right? This giant of intellect, this giant of holiness, this giant of a man, St. Augustine,ine said I would not believe in the gospel had not the authority Of the Catholic Church already moved me

Can the authority of the church comes before the authority of the Bible not necessarily in order of importance? I believe there's my equal importance right sacred tradition sacred scripture But the reason why we know that there are 73 books in the Bible is we're basing that off of the authority that Jesus gave the Catholic church. Does that make sense? I know that sounds so bold. If you're not Catholic, it sounds so brash. It might even sound rude, but it's also the historical reality and it's one of those things we just have to say, Oh gosh, okay, Lord, that is the truth. Now tomorrow, we're going to dive more deeply into the canon of scripture, the actual books,

all the sacred books, the 73 books, 46 books, the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament. And we're going to go through all of those tomorrow. And you know all about those because you read the Bible with us. Maybe you didn't, maybe this is the first time you're joining us on day 16. But if it is, or if it isn't, it doesn't matter because I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless