The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 180: The Source and Summit (2025)

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” Today, we begin our journey into the mystery of the Eucharist. Fr. Mike emphasizes that the Eucharist is particularly unique in relation to the other sacraments because it unites us to the heavenly liturgy and draws us into communion with God. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1322-1327. 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 everyone, before we get started, I wanted to let you know about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the air and the Catechism in the air. Ascension has released a new Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app. No, here's what you get. In this app, you get the entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. This is incredible. You also get the entire text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as long with the Catechism

in the Air podcast and the Bible in Your Podcast, and transcripts for each episode. If you're like, I'm tired of listening to that guy, I just wanna read it, there's complete transcripts from each and every episode. One thing that makes this app incredibly unique is that it includes special features that make connections between the Bible and the Catechism

so crystal clear through color-coded references and all these links. The hyperlinks are amazing. I tried it out and I'm like, oh my gosh, it kind of has changed the way I read through the catechism, kind of changed the way I read through the Bible. These features will help you navigate the Bible and catechism even more seamlessly

so you can get more out of your experience. Also, the app provides almost 1,000 answers to Bible questions that people who listen to the Bible in a year, they wrote in with their questions, almost 1 a thousand answers and those answers come in the form of audio clips, video clips, as well as resources excerpted from some of Ascension's published works. If you want to download this app for free, super simple. Just go to the app store and search for Ascension app. I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the Catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. 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 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. This is Day 180. We are reading paragraphs 1322 to 1327. 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 version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download

your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C I Y. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 180. Just a quick thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast. Thank you for the prayers and asking people to pray every day for me, but also for everybody who's part of this. Thank you so much. And also for your financial gifts. We couldn't do this without you. Super grateful today. We're also grateful because we're taking the next step.

We talked about baptism, we talked about confirmation. Today we're talking about the Holy Eucharist, which is the source and the summit of all grace. And what an incredible way to take this next step on day 180, meant to launch into this incredible mystery of the Holy Eucharist. And so as we do that, let's just say a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us to this day. Thank you so much for the

gift of your Son in time. The gift of your Son, your only begotten Son who gave himself for the sake of the world, who gave himself for us. We ask you to please once again renew in our hearts a love for you, a love for the gift of your Son, a love for the Eucharist. Lord God, let that love for you in the Eucharist dominate our lives. Let it become the center of all of our lives because all grace, all of your gifts, they lead us to the Eucharist and all grace, all your gifts flow from the Eucharist. We thank you so much for this incredible gift. Thank you for this incredible day

Receive our thanks receive our praise you are good You are God and we love you in Jesus name We pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 180 We are reading paragraphs 13 22 to 13 27 Article 3 the sacrament of the Eucharist The Holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the Royal Priesthood by baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by confirmation, participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist.

At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his body and blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages, until He should come again and so to entrust to His beloved spouse the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection, a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given to us. The Eucharist, Source and Summit of Ecclesial Life

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the Apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it, for in the Blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself, our Pascha. The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the people of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ, and of the

worship men offer to Christ and through Him to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith. Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking. Okay, there we are, just the first six paragraphs launching into this incredible topic. I don't even know if you can say that the Eucharist is a topic or a subject.

Eucharist is a who, right? This is Jesus, but also is an action. It's the great sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so today, as we just take these first steps talking about the Eucharist, let's get the nuts and bolts first. Okay, number one nut and bolt is paragraph 1322. We've been looking at the sacraments

of Christian initiation. And so Holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation, right? If you have all three of these, baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist, you're fully initiated. And so it goes on to say, those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by confirmation, participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. And not just by, I mean, yes, obviously by receiving the Eucharist, but we participate with the whole community in the Lord's sacrifice.

Why? Because it's all of Jesus being offered, right? Not only Christ the Head being offered, Christ's body being offered, and there is Christ's body truly, truly in the Eucharist, but also Christ's body in the Church. And you're a member of that Christ body. And so what happens when we are fully initiated into the church, even if we're just simply baptized, we are able to join in offering up that great sacrifice of the Eucharist, of the Son, right?

To the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. It's just remarkable. And I love how, kind of, well not kind of, very poetic words that Sacrosanctum Concilium describes the Eucharist. It is a sacrament of love. It's a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed. The mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given to us. And this is just

incredible because we realize it is a sacrament of love. Why? Because here is Jesus on that before He died. What did he do? Knowing that all was fulfilled and all was taking place. Jesus, who said, "'I've longed to eat this Passover with you,' took bread and said, "'Take and eat, this is my body given for you.' Taking the chalice filled with the fruit of the vine,

he says, "'Take and drink, all of you. "'This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. This is the great sacrifice of God's love, not only God's love for us, but also God's love for the Father. This is his sacrifice of himself to the Father for the sake of the world. It is a sacrament of love, love being poured out. It's also a sign of unity.

In fact, we only can be admitted to the Eucharist if we're in communion with the church. If we step out of communion with the church, then we're not able to have this sacrament or sign of unity because it's a precondition, right? Precondition for being able to receive the Eucharist is being in union with your Bishop who is in union with the Holy Father. It's kind of the whole deal, right? It's a bond of charity. So if it's a sacrament of love, it's also a bond of love the more and more a family eats together

This is just kind of an colloquial terms, right? The more more a family eats together the more more they have the opportunity to be bound to each other The more more they have the opportunity to recognize that oh no other. The more they have the opportunity to recognize that, oh no, I'm called to actually love the people in my family. And that's what we're doing here in the Eucharist as well. It's a Paschal Bank. But remember the Paschal mystery is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and pledge of future glory is given to us. Ah, so good. You know, ever since I was in college, I think it was, and I was taking theology classes, the professors would say again and again that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. And I remember thinking like, okay, that's good, that's profound. I love the Eucharist. I mean, it changed my life. If I have to say anything, I could say

something. We're gonna talk about confession in a few days, weeks. That changed my life. But also, learning about Jesus in the Eucharist changed my life, changed my life. And so when they first started saying, yeah, the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, which comes from the Second Vatican Council, I'm like, oh, that makes sense.

That basically the source of all grace, right, comes from the great sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the Eucharist. And the summit of the Christian life, or the goal, the place where we're oriented towards Spirit, which is the Eucharist and the summit of the Christian life are the goal the place where we're oriented towards is gonna be the Eucharist because why because the Eucharist is Jesus Christ himself and So so incredibly important the other sacraments indeed all Ecclesiastical ministries and works of the Apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented towards it Why because in the Eucharist is Jesus himself? So the other sacraments are incredible, right?

They are the actions of Christ. They're the works of Christ. So you have the rebirth in Christ. You have confirmation in Christ. You have healing in Christ. You have vocations, right? Sacraments of vocation, marriage and holy matrimony, or holy matrimony and holy orders in Christ.

But the Eucharist is not only, I don't wanna say only because gosh, the work of Christ is incredible, but the Eucharist is not only a work of Christ, the Eucharist is Christ. It is the action of the Son offering Himself to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, yes, but it also is the Son who offers Himself to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And this is just so important for every single one of us to recognize at all times all the other sacraments as powerful as they are, as necessary as they are, are actions of God. The Eucharist is truly, truly Him. Because He said that, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. And at the Last Supper, what did he say? This is my body.

This is my blood. And so finally, paragraph 1326, the Eucharistic celebration, we unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life when God will be all in all. Remember we said this, it was at the very beginning of this pillar, who celebrates the liturgy? And the first is the whole Christ right head and body head meaning Jesus himself is the is celebrates the liturgy but also all the saints and angels in heaven so in the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy in

anticipation of eternal life when God will be all in all. And so we keep on praying, keep on walking and celebrating and worshiping the Lord God in the Eucharist. And so as we keep learning about the Eucharist, we're gonna be here for a few days and I'm so excited because I am definitely here for it today. Man, what an incredible gift. Tomorrow we'll be continuing to talk about what is the Eucharist, what is this sacrament called and its place in the economy of salvation in the next couple days? Just what is it? How deep does it go? How deep does the Eucharist go in all the way back to the very beginning of God's creation in his salvation of the world

Until it reaches us today. Well, I'll tell you today. I am praying for you. Please pray for me My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.