The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 170: Who Can Be Baptized? (2026)

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Put simply, “[e]very person not yet baptized and only such a person is able to be baptized.” The Catechism explains to us the purpose of Baptism for both adults and infants. Fr. Mike doubles down and makes sure we understand that Baptism is for everyone. God wills Baptism for all people. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1246-1252. 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 and God's families. We journey together to our heavenly home. This is Day 170. You guys, we're chipping away. We're reading paragraphs 1246 through 1252. As always, I 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 in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com and cI. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications unless you're following in one of those, one of those, you know, apps or one of those platforms that don't allow you to follow or subscribe. How cruel. How cruel to be denied every, to have to hear this every day and not being able to have the opportunity to click follow or subscribe.

Here we go. Also, quick thank you for all those who have supported the production of this podcast. the prayers with your financial gifts. We couldn't do this without you because it's Day 170. Here we go. Today we're talking about who can receive baptism. And we're talking about two groups of people. One is baptism of adults. The other is baptism of infants. And so this is going to be kind of recognized. Actually, the church is really clear that one paragraph, 1246, is only one sentence long. And I'm going to give it away right now. In answer to the question, who can receive baptism, the answer the church gives in paragraph 1246, every person not yet baptized and only such a person

is able to be baptized, right? So who can receive baptism? Someone unbaptized. There it is. That is the really brief answer. But in that, we have kind of two groups. One is adults. The other is infants. We're going to talk about both of those groups because one group, the adults, right, there's a catechuminate, a formation of adults as they receive that gift of faith and receive that gift of baptism. And the other is baptism of infants, which goes back to the very beginnings of the church. We're going to talk about both of those things today. Before we do that, let us launch in into the Father's heart by just calling upon our Lord Jesus and asking for the Holy Spirit to guide us today.

Father in heaven, we praise you. We give you glory and we thank you. Thank you for the gift of baptism. If we have received baptism, we just praise you because this gift has come to us a purely gratuitous gift, a purely gracious gift, a grace-filled gift, an undeserved gift, an unearned gift, a gift that comes from your heart. We thank you. And for all of us who are listening who have not been baptized, we ask that you please lead us step by step closer and closer to this incredible gift that you have in the store.

You want everyone. You want everyone on this planet. Everyone who has ever lived is living or will live. You want them to be brought into your family. And so we ask you, please, Lord God, for all those who are listening, joining us today, walking with us, we ask that you please, we're not baptized. We ask that you lead them by the power of your love and your truth to the fountain of baptism. so they can also become sons and daughters of you, our Heavenly Father. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It's Day 170. We're reading paragraphs 1246 to 1252. Who can receive baptism? Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is able to be baptized. The baptism of adults.

Since the beginning of the church, adult baptism is the common practice where the proclamation of the gospel is still new. The catechuminate, preparation for baptism, therefore occupies an important place. This initiation into Christian faith and life should dispose the catechumin to receive the gift of God in baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist. The catechuminate, or formation of catechumans, aims at bringing their conversion and faith to maturity in response to the divine initiative and in union with an ecclesial community. The catechuminate is to be a formation in the whole Christian life, during which the disciples will be joined

to Christ their teacher. The catechumans should be properly initiated into the mystery of salvation and the practice of the evangelical virtues, and they should be introduced into the life of faith, liturgy, and charity of the people of God by successive sacred rites. Catecumans are already joined to the church. They are already of the household of Christ and are quite frequently already living a life of faith, hope, and charity. With love and solicitude, Mother Church already embraces them as her own. of infants. Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the

grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant baptism. The church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God, were they not to confer baptism shortly after birth. Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them. The practice of infant baptism is an immemorial tradition of the church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole households receive baptism, infants may also have been baptized. Okay, there we have at day 170 paragraphs 1246 to 1252, who can be baptized, every person not baptized. So this is God's gratuitous grace, right? This is God's

free grace. And this is one of the things that we have to keep in mind, because we're going to talk about some more things like faith in baptism. What if someone hasn't been baptized? We're talking about all of those because in a day or two, we're also going to be emphasizing the necessity of baptism. So who can be baptized is a really important question to ask and to answer. Why? Because baptism is for everyone. Everyone. God's grace, God's grace of salvation, his grace of redemption. It's not exclusive. It's meant to be inclusive, right? Then this is so important for us because here is God who reveals that he wants all men to be saved. So even those who do not know of Jesus Christ, God wants them to know of him. And so this is really important. It's imperative on us to be able to say,

okay, if that's the case and not all human beings do know about God and had access to baptism, then what can I do? What is God calling me to do? If I've been baptized, what is God calling me to do to spread that word and to bring that incredible free gift of new life, of being run into the people of God, being a temple of the Holy Spirit, being adopted by the Father as his sons and daughters. What am I doing to bring that to the world? So keep that in mind. Every person not yet baptized can receive baptism, and God wants them to. A couple things, 1247 to 1249, baptism of adults.

Because since the beginning of the church, where the gospel is proclaimed new, where Christianity has not yet made inroads in the culture, adult baptism is the common practice, right? That makes sense because we have a lot of people who were raised, not Christian. You have a lot of people who are raised without hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. Therefore, adult baptism is the common practice. So from the very beginning, well, you have adults who are hearing the Word of God. You have adults who are hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. And so adults are the ones who primarily are being baptized. Makes sense. Because of that, there is that catacuminate, right? Or the formation, the preparation, the proclamation of the word of God and that response of faith that is elicited during that time of the catacuminate or that time

of formation of the catacumans. I think this is going to use the word remarkable again. Dang it. I didn't mean to do that. But here it goes. It's remarkable because paragraph 1248 states that the catacuminate is to be a formation in the whole Christian life. Now, a lot of us who have been baptized as children, we had that post-catechatecuminate, right? That post-baptismal catacuminant. And that what that's meant to be, though, is a formation in the whole Christian life. We can ask ourselves the question, not to lay blame at anyone's feet, but to ask ourselves the question, have I received a formation in the whole Christian life? And again, this is not to lay blame at anyone. I can't believe it. My parents didn't do this. My parish didn't do this. My youth minister didn't do this. That's not the point. The point is to ask myself

the question, have I had that formation in the whole Christian life? If I haven't, well, then that means that God wants me to have that formation. Even if this is after baptism, God wants me to have that formation, but not just intellectual formation, not merely, he might say like, you know,

prayer or spiritual formation. He wants us to have that whole formation in the whole Christian life. And so I ask that question, and we can ask that question of ourselves. Again, as I said, the third time or fourth time, not to lay blame at anyone's feet,

but to kind of give ourselves a self-assessment and say, okay, what more does God want for me? Well, he wants me to continue to be formed. That's it. Very simple. during which, it goes on to say, during which the disciples will be joined to Christ their teacher. The catecumans should be properly initiated into the mystery of salvation.

Do I know about the mystery of salvation? And the practice of the evangelical virtues. Have I been formed in growing in virtue? And they should be introduced into the life of faith, the liturgy, and charity of the people of God. And so that's a part of all of your life and my life. When it comes to formation, I am always such a huge fan of origin stories. right when you watch movies and and not just origin stories like here's how batman became batman i love that that's awesome here's how robin became robin these things are really cool but

even the like the training montage you guys know what i'm talking about when it comes to like the rocky movies the rocky movies are classic they're known for the training montage and the training montage is all wet it's here's the character rocky or whoever the person is right and what they're going to do is they're training for the big thing whatever that big event is and so there's this training montage where the music's playing in the background and they're going through the whatever the movements are. They're out for a run. You know, like in the first Rocky movie, if you remember that Philadelphia Sunrise and he gets up the crack of dawn or he drinks the eggs and goes out running. And then by the end of this, he's racing through the streets, right? Because he has that strength

now. He has the ability to race. It's the training montage that always just inspires me. And I'm not alone because if you ever, if you know this, you've ever seen the movie Rocky 4, there are two training montages back to back. Literally, two different songs, two different training montage. that are separated by, I think, like, 37 seconds worth of Adrian, his wife shows up in the middle of Russia, and then they have a few words, and then he starts training again. Anyways, people love the training montages. Paragraph 1248, they don't go in somewhere with this. Paragraph 1248 talks about the catacumans.

Should be properly initiated into the mystery of salvation. So grow in that. Practice of the virtues, grow in that. Should be introduced into the life of faith, the liturgy, charity of the people of God, to grow in all those things. basically the catechuminate, if you were to take snapshots, is a training montage. Okay, so that was my analogy. I don't know.

Maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. But it's all about getting ready. It's all about letting myself be formed, letting myself be trained in the spiritual life. And that's the goal, right? If I've already been baptized, then I have a post-baptismal catechuminant. If you're not yet baptized, you have a pre-baptismal catechuminant. It's all that formation, that training.

Now, paragraph 1250 to 1252 highlights. the fact that we baptize infants and that why do we baptize infants? First, because we're fallen, right? By the virtue of the fact that we're born in God's image, but we also experienced the original wound, right? Original sin. That also we're under the dominion of darkness, that we need to be baptized. We need God's grace. Secondly, God's goodness is such that the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly revealed in infant baptism, right? Because an infant has done nothing to merit this grace. And so it's completely, I love that, the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation, God pours out his love on even infants. And also, thirdly, the church and

parents, if we were to deny an infant the grace of becoming a child of God, we would be denying an incredible, incredible gift. Now, keep this in mind, 1252 highlights that the practice of infant baptism is not new. It goes all the way back to, it's explicitly talked about in the second century in Christian writings. The new thing is not baptizing your child. The new thing is to be a Christian and to withhold baptism from your child. The old thing that goes all the way back

to the second century and, as it says here in the very, very last line of 1252, it says from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole households received baptism, infants may also have been baptized. That's kind of the assumption is that if there were any infants in that house,

they were not precluded from baptism. But the entire household was baptized. So infant baptism is incredible. necessary, and it's a great, again, gratuitous gift of God's love. And so more on that tomorrow, but right now we just get to praise the Lord for the fact that we get to go through this training, this either post-baptismal catechuminant, where we're formed in the whole Christian life, or if you're not baptized, pre-baptism catechuminate, where we get to just become more and more the people God has called us to be. Oh, what a gift. Part of that training, of course, is prayer.

And part of that training is the reality that we're not alone, that we belong to each other, that we're part of the body of Christ. And as members of the body of Christ, we pray for each other. Therefore, you know what's coming. Please pray for me. I am praying for you, truly. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.