The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 172: What Does Baptism Do? (2026)

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

Baptism has profound effects upon the baptized: “purification from sins and new birth in the Holy Spirit.” The Catechism shows us that the graces of Baptism are so deep that—for the newly baptized—“nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God.” Fr. Mike relates to us the hard teaching that we are born mere beloved creatures of God—but through Baptism, we become adopted sons and daughters of God. Today’s readings are paragraphs 1262-1266. 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 sure goodness for us, revealed to 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 family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. It is day 172. We're reading paragraphs 1262 to 1266. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any. recent versions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism

in a reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today. It's day 172. We're reading paragraphs 1262 to 1266. Yesterday we talked about the necessity of baptism. We also talked about faith and baptism and who can baptize today. We're talking about the grace of baptism, right? What are the effects? What does it do? And this is pretty remarkable, I think, because sometimes, again, we keep saying this again and again, but oftentimes we can look at the sacraments as pure ritual, right? They are symbolic. They're not efficacious. And yet, we are declaring in faith that baptism does something. It has a powerful effect. One of things is it, you know, purifies us of sins.

It gives us new birth in the Holy Spirit. We become a new creature. And we're given the gifts of faith, hope, and love. We're given the power to act under the power of the Holy Spirit. All of these things are given to us in baptism. So we'll talk about all of those. today as we begin. Let's continue to pray. Father in heaven, you send out your Holy Spirit among us and you've given us your Holy Spirit through the great sacrament of baptism. This is the beginnings, the doorway to faith. We ask as you please, as you pour your Holy Spirit into our lives through the sacrament of baptism, continue to pour your Holy Spirit throughout the rest of our lives, into eternity, throughout this whole world, Lord God, we pray that every person on this planet will come to know you,

that every person on this planet will come to know of your incredible love, unstoppable love, your faithful love for them. And we ask that you please help us to understand this. Help us to understand your love in a deeper and deeper way this day and every day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Day 172, reading paragraphs 1262 to 1266. The grace of baptism. The different effects of baptism are signified by the perceptible elements of the sacramental right. Immersion and water symbolizes not only death and purification, but also regeneration and renewal. Thus, the two principal effects are purification from sins and new birth in the Holy Spirit. For the forgiveness of sins. By baptism, all sins are forgiven, original sin and all

personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn, nothing remains that would impede their entry into the kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God. Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character and so on, as well as an inclination to sin, that tradition calls concupiscence,

or metaphorically the tinder for sin, Foméz peccati. Since concupiscence is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent, but manfully resisted by the grace of Jesus. Jesus Christ. Indeed, as St. Paul wrote to Timothy, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. A new creature. Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte a new creature, an adopted son of God, who has become a partaker of the divine nature,

member of Christ and co-air with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Most Holy Trinity gives the baptized sanctifying grace, the grace of justification, enabling them. Enabling them, to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him through the theological virtues, giving them the power to live and act under the promptings of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, allowing them to grow in goodness through the moral virtues. Thus, the whole organism of the Christian's supernatural life has its roots in baptism. All right there we have at paragraphs 1262 to 1266. I can't even begin. I cannot even begin to tell you how pumped I am about this. sacrament. One of the things we recognize here, even the grace of sacraments. So let's start at the

beginning, 1262. The different effects of baptism are signified by the perceptible elements of the sacramental right. Okay, that's technical language that basically means, remember, there's symbols we use, right? There's stuff that we use in all of the sacraments and those things, that stuff, it signifies something. But remember, the grace of the sacrament is, it's a sacred sign that causes what it signifies? So, for example, immersion into water, it symbolizes what? It symbolizes death. because why? Because it symbolizes going down into the tomb, going down into the grave, but also it symbolizes purification. Going into water symbolizes washing. And so just as it symbolizes death and resurrection, it symbol and being cleansed. I mean, just keep in mind, we cannot change the symbol of the sacrament without changing the meaning of the sacrament or even what it does. Right. So sacrament, you can't like baptize someone and die coke, right? Because you need to have water. Why? Because water is the symbol not only of that dying and rising, it's also a symbol of washing. So you can't baptize someone with mortar oil, right?

Even though they're both liquids, it doesn't have the same symbolism. And you can't do this, right? So you can't change the symbol without changing the sacrament. That's really important for all of us. And it actually does something, as we said. By baptism, all sins are forgiven. When we say all sins, what do we mean? Well, we mean original sin.

Remember the sins that we're not guilty of in the sense that we didn't choose, but it comes to us through original sin, as well as personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin, all consequences of sin are taken away in baptism, which is one of the great, incredible, incredible gift of baptism. It's one of the reasons why people were so tempted in the early church, and maybe even now. People were tempted to put off baptism until the end of their lives, saying, well, if baptism washes away all my sins, original sin, personal sin, and also deals with all consequences of sin, all punishment for sin, then let's wait until the end of my life to get baptized, because that way,

you know, will be all squared away at the end of my life. And yet, of course, that's a dangerous thing. I do not recommend that for many reasons. One of those reasons is you don't know when you're going to die. And so you're kind of playing with some loaded dice there. The second reason is because baptism is not just about taking away sins for eternal life. It is that. But it's also about bringing us into eternal life right now.

And that's this incredible thing. The reality is that in 1265, baptism, not only purifies from all sins, but also makes us a new creature. In fact, baptism was what makes us into a child of God. This is a word that is sometimes hard to share. I might have shared this before. Sometimes I forget what I said, and sometimes it's just a reminder. But every person who lives on this earth,

I think we mentioned this when it came to describing the fact that we're made in the image of God. Every person is made in the image of God, which means every person not only has dignity. not only is a brother and sister when it comes to the unity of humanity. But every person is in the image of God, and therefore every person is a beloved creature of God. Every person who has ever been made a beloved creature of God. But it is only in baptism that we become God's sons and daughters. It is only in baptism that we become God's sons and daughters.

And this is a big statement. Now, sometimes that can seem right off the bat like I'm being rude or being exclusive, and I'm not. There's no religion. There's no philosophy. There's no culture that's ever claimed that every human being was a child of God, a son or daughter of God. It's only Christianity that even claims this thing. In fact, there are religions that exist right now with a lot of followers who have been if you're to tell them, oh, you're a child of God.

They would call that blasphemy. Christianity is the only religion to even claim the possibility that we could actually become the sons and daughters of God. And we do this through baptism. Well, why? It says here, it quotes St. Peter, he says we become partaker of the divine nature, which means we're human beings. We have a human nature. And here's God who is the divine nature, right? He is, he's divinity. He is the one God. So here's God

who has divine nature. Here are us who have human nature. So God could look at us and say, oh, I'm going to call you my sons and daughters. But that is very much like there's pet people, I know, dog people and cat people who are listening to this podcast and you're wonderful. And I'm guessing that at some point you probably might have said, I'm a dog mom or I'm a cat dad, that kind of thing. And we know that, of course, while we love our animals, we love our pets, they're not really our children. We might love them, but they're not really our children. Why? Because we're not the same thing. You and I have human nature. They have animal nature. They have dog nature or cat nature or parakeet nature, whatever kind of pet you have. And so we can say that. We say it by analogy, it's even if you

were to go down to the courthouse and, you know, legally adopt your pet, that would be what. what is called illegal fiction. Right? It would be, yes, they're on paper, but they're not actually your child. Not because you don't love them. Not because they don't have a certain dignity on their own.

But you're not the same thing. And similarly, when it comes to God, he could look at us and say, oh, you're like my children. You're like my son or daughter. But something has to change in us in order for us to actually be sons and daughters of God.

So the example I'd always like to give is, you know, everyone knows the story of Pinocchio, right? So here's Geppetto, who's the woodcarver Petto creates the marionette. He creates Pinocchio. And Juppetto creates Pinocchio in his own image and likeness, right? So Pinocchio can walk like Jepetto. He can talk like Jepetto. He can act like Jepetto. He's a beloved creature of Jepetto. But he's not Jepetto's not his father.

No matter how much Jepo loves Pinocchio, Pinocchio is not the son of Jepo. He's the beloved creature of Jepetto. And no matter how much Pinocchio responds to his maker Jepetto, Jepetto is not his father. In order for, Chepetto to be able to look at Pinocchio and say, my son, in order for Pinocchio to look at Chepetto and say, my father, what has to happen? We all know this. Pinocchio has to be changed. He has to become a real boy, right? He has to become a real boy. He has to have the same nature as his maker. And when he does have that same nature, then he can truly look at Chepetto, his maker, and say, not only are you my maker, you're my father. Something similar is true for us as Christians. That here is God our creator, who has made us in his image. He loves us. More than of us could imagine he loves us. He loves everyone, whether they know him or not. But if we're going to actually look at God and say, Abba, Father, he's going to look at us and say, you're my son, you're my daughter. Something has to change in us. And that thing is we have to become partakers or sharers in the divine nature. When we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism, God changes our nature, right? We become

a new creature. We become a new kind of a being. We're almost even, like you might say, like a new species, if you want to say it like that, we become a new thing. And because we've shared now in God's nature, because he's given us the Holy Spirit and baptism, now we actually can cry out, Abba, Father. And that's true. It's not just analogy. It's adoption. And this is true. Again, in the old covenant, sometimes they would call God the Father, but they call God Father by analogy. Now, in the new covenant, we can call God Father because He has adopted us. Does that make sense? This is a massive, massive teaching. It's one of the reasons. Okay, I'm going to wait until I die to get baptized, wouldn't you want to live your entire life as a child of God? Wouldn't you want to have

access to the father's heart? Every time you talk to God, you're talking to your father. The God who has adopted you as his son or as his daughter, think about this. The God who has adopted you as his son or as his daughter, and he's done this at a great price. What made it possible for God to adopt us? What made it possible was the death of his son, Jesus Christ. He's not adopted son, but his eternal, only begotten son. It costs God the death of his son to adopt us. And he's poured out his Holy Spirit for this great gift. Baptism is not just a ritual people go through.

It's not just a symbol or a sign. It transforms. It heals. It forgives. It makes us new. Now, at the same time, paragraph 1264 makes it very clear. There are still, even though we're made new, right? even though we're still forgiven of our original sin and personal sins, we still suffer temporal

consequences of sin. So God deals with the eternal consequence of sin, which is hell, but we still have temporal consequences. Like in time, the consequence of sin, like we still suffer, we still get sick, we still die, we still have attraction to sin. That's called concupiscence. We still have that attraction to sin. And yet, at the same time, we can, with God's help, manfully resisted by the grace of Jesus Christ. And I love that quote from St. Paul to Timothy, 2, 2, verse 5. Indeed, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. So here we are. We're given every good thing.

We're given every good gift in baptism. And then the other six sacraments or whatever sacraments we're given, we're given every good gift to be able to compete well. God is not leaving us to fight on our own. He's not leaving us to compete on our own. He's giving us his very nature. He's giving us his very holy spirit to dwell inside of us and give us the power to move forward.

And so that's the truth. you have the power to move forward. If you've been baptized, you're a child of God, and that has changed you for eternity. That if we say yes to God, we get to dwell with him as his child in heaven for eternity. And if we say no, after baptism, then we will live as children of God, but eternally separated from our father and separated from our home and separated from our family. God's choice is clear. His choice is he wants you. He loves you.

The only choice that remains is ours. What do we say in response to his love? It's a big choice. And so often we have the concupiscence, right? We have this tender for sin. We have this weakness of our will. And so because of this inclination for sin, we need God's grace. We need prayer and we need to pray for each other.

So I'm telling you, I promise you, I, every day I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.