The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 194: Summary of the Sacrament of the Eucharist (2026)

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

The Catechism has spent considerable time unpacking Holy Communion—the “sacrament of sacraments”—with us, and now she summarizes the most essential truths that we must internalize and move forward with. Fr. Mike takes this “nugget day” to tell us that God desires to feed us. He has given us his Son so that we might be filled with him and made whole again, in unity with him for all of eternity. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1406-1419. 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's 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 family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 194. We're reading paragraphs 1406 to 1419. 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 a year reading plan

by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. If you did, mine, at least, I don't know, this is maybe the official one. Is this the formal one? I'm not sure. But the one I have is this is the last day of this page, which is awesome. And I love clicking off those days, man. Man, who says that? Come on, bro. Lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications because today is day 10094. It is Nugget Day. But all the nuggets, 1406 to 1419. Are you kidding me? This, as we said before, is not just nuggets. This is the whole chicken. But we get to summarize, man, to get to summarize the incredible, incredible last number of days where the church has just, again, expounded and expanded on what is it that we

believe about the Eucharist, not just what we believe about the Eucharist, but who is it that we come into contact with every time, every time the Mass is celebrated, that sacrifice is offered, every time that Holy Communion is given, and we have intimacy with Jesus. Every time we're strengthened by the Lord and how that prepares us for eternal and future glory. So in order to dive in today, let us pray, Father in heaven, we thank you. We thank you for the gift of your son and the Eucharist. We thank you for all the gifts, all the sacraments you've given to us, all the sacraments of initiation, baptism and confirmation and Holy Communion. We ask you, you please. On this last day of our reflection upon Holy Communion, the sacrament of sacraments,

you open our hearts and open our minds so that the nuggets can stay with us so that they're not merely pieces of data or articles of information, but that they really truly are seeds that are planted in our hearts and our minds that continue to grow, that don't leave us ever, but that we carry them with us. And they continue to bear fruit in our lives. Lord God, help this day, not to be merely a day of information transfer, but a day. But a day of day truly of transformation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 1094. We are reading the Nuggets, paragraphs 1406 to 1419. In brief, Jesus said, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live

forever. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and abides in me, and I in him. The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the church's life. For in it, Christ associates his church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and Thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his father. By this sacrifice, he pours out the graces of salvation on his body, which is the church. The Eucharistic celebration always includes the proclamation of the Word of God, Thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his son, the consecration of bread and wine, and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving

the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship. The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action. It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the new covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice, and it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the body and blood of the Lord. The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape

wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked, and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the last supper. This is my body which will be given up for you. This is the cup of my blood. By the consecration, the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine, Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner, his body and his blood, with his soul and his divinity. As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.

Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance. Communion with the body and blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the church as the mystical body of Christ. The church warmly recommends that the faithful receive Holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist. She obliges them to do so at least once a year. Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar,

he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. To visit the Blessed Sacrament is a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord. Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the Pledge of Glory with Him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.

All right, there we have it. Paragraphs 1406 to 1419. It's almost one of those situations where you're like, okay, what can we say? Like, truly, what can we say? Well, there's a couple of things that are said relatively new. We didn't necessarily make some of these points. They're nuts and bolts point, but they're highly, highly important. Now, some of the nuts and bolts points we have made. So let's cover some of those. First, the reason why we believe that Jesus Christ is really and substantially present in the Eucharist, why that is Jesus' body, blood, soul, and divinity is because he himself said so, right? 1406. Jesus says in John's Gospel, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. He who eats my flesh and drinks, my blood,

his eternal life, abides in me and I and him. Man, there it is. There's not only that is also the synoptic gospels, Matthew Mark and Luke. Also, St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians that highlights the fact that at the last supper, Jesus said, this is my body. This is my blood. So important for us because this is the baseline. Now, what we might also not recognize is this is not the first time that God wants to feed us. In fact, all the way from the very beginning, in Genesis chapter two and three, what happens? God makes Adam an evening. He places them in the garden. Basically, he says, I want to feed you. He gives them a garden with all the amount of food they possibly could ever desire, ever want, ever need, and says, okay, let me feed you. There's this one tree over here, though,

don't eat from that because I want to feed you. I want to be the one who feeds you. And what happens is, in one convoluted way with the serpent, essentially, Adam and Eve, they say, well, you know, we're going to feed ourselves. And yet God still wants to feed us. You know, he leads Israel from slavery into the wilderness. And what does he do? He feeds them with bread from heaven. They want meat, and so he feeds them with quail, right? He feeds them with the birds of the air. God continually feeds them. In fact, in order to set them free from slavery in Egypt, what do they have to do? They have to take a year-old lamb without blemish, and they bring that lamb into their homes for basically a week. And in the evening twilight, they slaughter, they sacrificed that lamb, right? They sacrifice that lamb, and they have to eat its roasted flesh and mark their homes with the blood of the lamb.

And it's the eating of the flesh of the lamb. And it's being marked with the blood of the lamb that gives them freedom and gives them life. And here we are. And we find ourselves in this place right now where here's Jesus, who is, as John the Baptist says in John's gospel, when John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, behold, the lamb of God. He says, behold, the lamb of God. I don't know if you've ever reflected on that. Sometimes we think, oh, I know what John says that. Behold the Lamb of God.

and we think, well, that's because Jesus is gentle, right? He's gentle like a lamb, or it's because he's fluffy or I don't know what it is. But no, it's because John the Baptist is saying there's the sacrifice. Every Jew, every year, at least once a year, if not more times than just once. They participated in sacrifice. And the great sacrifice of Passover once a year would they bring that unblemished lamb to Jerusalem. And they would sacrifice that lamb and present that lamb to the priests who then would offer that lamb's blood on the altar. And then they're hearing this prophet, John the Baptist, point to this man,

Jesus, and saying, that's the true lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And what does he do? He does exactly that. He goes into Jerusalem on the same day that the lambs are being brought into the city. That's Palm Sunday. He abides in that city for a week and gets examined. Yes, he's without blemish, as Pontius Pilate says, I find no fault in him. And then he's sacrificed. His life is offered up and his blood is poured out. And yet, remember, he's the Lamb of God. What did you have to do? What did you have to do if you were a Jew living in Egypt and you wanted your freedom and you wanted life?

You didn't just have the lamb with you. You didn't just have the lamb sacrificed. You had to eat the flesh of the lamb. And so here's Jesus. On the night before he died, what does he do? Take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body. He's the Lamb of God.

And his body and his blood give freedom and give life. today, now, just as they did, just as the lamb's blood and lamb's flesh back in Exodus gave the Jewish people freedom and life. This is the fulfillment of the whole story. I will say this so many times that getting you to the Mass, getting you and me to the Mass is the whole point of the Bible. I mean, it's ultimately getting to heaven, but in heaven, what's heaven? Heaven is the eternal liturgical banquet. Heaven is the great sacrifice of the Son, that offering of love of the the Son to the Father of the Holy Spirit that we get to participate in. Everything, I believe, everything in the Bible is meant to get you and me to the Mass.

And the Mass is meant to get us to heaven. It's incredible, incredible. And God says, I just want to feed you. So it's crazy how often we're numb to that and deaf to that. And how often we don't care and often I want to feed myself. Often we're like, yeah, that's what you're feeding me, Lord. I want something else. In some ways, you can hear the Father saying there is nothing else.

This is how I'm asking you to worship me. Remember, the heart of religion is worship. Heart of worship is sacrifice. And this is how the Father has asked us to worship him through his son. Now, we know this. We know that it is Jesus himself in 1410. He's the one acting through the ministry of the priest who offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. He's also at the same time,

he is the sacrifice being offered. We know in 1411 that only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and wine so they become the body and blood of our Lord. And we know that that happens, even if they're sinners, remember we ex-operato, the sacrament works, even if the minister of the sacrament is broken, is a sinner. They even could be an evil person. If they intend to do what the church intends, then Jesus Christ is acting and that sacrament is real and is active. Now, 1412, we didn't talk about this ever before, but we'll talk about

it now. The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine. And so that's what it has to be. It has to be wheat bread. It can't be rice cakes. It has to be grape wine. It can't be sake or some other kind of form of wine or some other kind of form of, or date wine even. It has to be grape wine. And why? Because that's what Jesus used, right? That's the, that we know that we believe that Matter matters. And so since Jesus used wheat bread, unleavened wheat bread, and Jesus used grape wine, that's what we have to use. That's the essential part of the sacrament of the Eucharist. That's just kind of a nuts and bolts kind of a thing. It's very important, but it's kind of a nuts and bolts thing because it leads to the next paragraph 1413, where we highlight this reality

that Jesus is truly, really and substantially present. The Eucharist is his body, blood, soul, and divinity. We talked about the fact that we have to prepare ourselves to receive this. And if we are aware of any mortal sins, we need to go to conduct. confession, we need to get ourselves in that full communion with the church if we're not in full communion with the church. And we have to recognize that because it leads us, it leads us, the Eucharist, leads us to this place of adoration, leads us to this place of worship, leads us to the place where we receive the very heart of Jesus and we give him our heart in response. And that's why I think where I want to leave us today. There's so much that can be said about the Eucharist.

And it's actually, I don't know how to say this. all. I'm excited to go on today, 195 tomorrow. I'm excited to go on to the next sacrament. You know, tomorrow we're going to talk about the sacraments of healing. And so we have penance and reconciliation, anointing of the sick. That's coming up, you know, but I just, and I love those sacraments. I love them so much because I love Jesus the healer and Jesus heals not just bodies, he heals souls. But there's something about the Eucharist that makes me a I guess a little sad to depart from talking about this. At the same time, at the same time, here's the glimmer of hope is there's always more with God. There's always more with God.

And the Eucharist is the sacrament of sacraments. Therefore, we're going to talk about our Lord and the Eucharist again and again as we continue to go back to Mass again and again. It is always new. And so my invitation for all of us is to keep our eyes open, to not be blind to the reality, to keep our ears open, to not be deaf to this reality and to stay sensitive to not be numb to God's presence in the Eucharist because he continues to call our name. He continues to place himself before us. He continues to give us his heart and invite us

to give him our heart in response. In order to do that, we need God's grace. We need prayers. And so I'm brothers and sisters. My friends, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.