The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 226: The Supreme Gift of Marriage (2025)

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

“Children are the supreme gift of marriage,” says Vatican II. Marriage is directed by its very nature toward the procreation of children. Beyond this, parents are the primary educators of their children, responsible for their holistic formation. Sadly, many couples suffer from infertility. Even in their struggle, they can provide a powerful witness of love, sacrifice, and fidelity. In all this and more, we see the family as the Domestic Church. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1652-1658. 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 Ear 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 Ears 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 226. We're reading paragraphs 1652 to 1658. 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 with the Catholic Church.

You can also download your own catechism in your reading plan, but visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Speaking of the day, thank you so much. All of you, for pressing play, date 26. You guys, this is amazing. Incredible. We're almost that day, almost like we're close to only having 100 left.

But I hope that you are experiencing blessings in this. We couldn't do this without you. Thank you so much for all those who not only press play, but also press pray. What did you think about that? And support us, the working of making of this podcast with your spiritual gifts and physical gifts and material gifts and all those gifts. Such an incredible what gift today. Oh my gosh. I got to calm it down. Bro. It is a 226 paragraph 1652 to 1658 yesterday. Challenge, right? Beauty. Gift of marriage, but also the challenge of marriage. Today, another challenge. And that's, challenge in 1652 to 1654 is the challenge to openness to life to remember the four marks of God's love it's free total faithful and fruitful there's an openness to fertility an openness to life in marriage in fact we talk about it as I said before it's the sacrament of matrimony but it's the sacrament of marriage and the family and it goes hand in hand the marriage remember the two what are the two ends of marriage the good of the spouses like to get you to heaven to be a saint and the procreation and education of children.

That's the point of marriage. That's the whole thing. That's the reason why this happens. Not to make me happy and not any other thing other than sainthood and children. And that's the point. And then also the last four paragraphs today on the domestic church, which is just really beautiful, really, really beautiful. And then, I don't know if you know this, but we've got only a couple days left in this section, in this pillar. I mean, this is it.

I mean, after today, we have the, we have the nuggets, and we have a couple little extra, extra little bedelios, delio, bedelios. So buckle in you guys. We're going to pray right now and continue our journey. Father in heaven, wow, gosh, Lord, you're good and you are, you've given us the gift of life. All life flows from you. All life, Lord God, flows from you. Your Holy Spirit, life exists where your Holy Spirit exists.

Life radiates. where your Holy Spirit penetrates. Lord God, we ask you to please penetrate our hearts with your Holy Spirit. Penetrate our relationships with your Holy Spirit so that your love, your life can radiate in our hearts, in our lives, in our relationships, especially those relationships, Lord, where it seems impossible, where it seems like there is no hope. Bring us that same Holy Spirit, that same Holy Spirit of hope, the same Holy Spirit of life, the same Holy Spirit of love.

so that in this broken world, with our broken hearts, we can still be holy, we can still be yours. 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 226. We're reading paragraphs 1652 to 1658. The openness to fertility. By its very nature, the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring, and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.

As Gaudiometz says, children are the supreme gift of marriage, and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said, it is not good that man should be alone, and from the beginning he made them male and female, wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work. God blessed man and woman with the words, be fruitful and multiply. Hence, true married love, and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day. The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural

life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children. In this sense, the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life. Spouses, to whom God has not granted children, can nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning in both human and Christian terms. Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice. The Domestic Church Christ chose to be born and grow up in the bosom of the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary. The church is nothing other than the family of God. From the beginning, the core of the church was often constituted by those who had become believers together with all their household. When they were

converted, they desired that their whole household should also be saved. These families who became believers were islands of Christian life in an unbelieving world. In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason, the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia Domestica. It is in the bosom of the family that parents are, by word and example, the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation. It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children,

and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and Thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life and self-denial and active charity. Thus, the home is the first school of Christian life and a school for human enrichment. Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous, even repeated forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life. We must also remember the great number of single persons who, because of the particular circumstances in which they have to live, often not of their choosing, are especially close to Jesus' heart, and therefore deserve the special affection and active solicitude of the church, especially of pastors.

Many remain without a human family, often due to conditions of poverty. Some live their situation in the spirit of the beatitudes, serving God and neighbor in exemplary fashion. The doors of homes, the domestic churches, and of the great family, which is the church, must be open to all of them. No one is without a family in this world. The church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who labor and are heavy-laden. All right, there we go. Paragraphs 1652 to 1658. A couple things. The church basically says in the first three paragraphs here, 1652 to 1654, or that the reality that the call, right, the call of married life is the call to marriage and family. It's the call to be open to life. Remember the first, these four marks of God's love,

free, total, faithful, and fruitful, this openness to life. It comes from the very nature of what marriage is. Remember, we talked about this before, the chocolate chip cookie example, that that an essential part of what makes marriage, marriage is the sexual act. And the sexual act is oriented towards, by its very nature, sexual act is oriented towards procreation, right? That's what it's for. I always talk about this, like, you know the nature of a thing, the what it isness of a thing, but looking at the what it's foreness of a thing. So what is marriage for?

It's, sorry, what's the sexual act for? Well, it's for children. It's oriented for. That's what it is, right? That's the very, it reveals the very nature of what the thing is. And so not only that in nature, but also we have that in scripture, that the command is be fruitful and multiply. And so we recognize that the primary good of marriage is the procreation and education of children.

Now, there's something even more beautiful about this. It's not just about having as many kids as possible, but it highlights the fact that this fruitfulness of that kind of love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. It's not just have as many babies as possible. It's not just procreation. It's the procreation and education of children. It's the raising them up.

And I love how the church will affirm now. and then when we get to the Catechism, or sorry, commandment number four and also commandment six and nine, this whole thing, talking about family and talking about the roles and obligations of parents of their kids and kids of their parents. When it comes to the whole, again, the end of the sexual act,

we're going to hear this again and again. The parents are the principal and first educators of their children. Now, paragraph 1654, so important. There are many spouses. who have not been able to have children biologically. It says spouses to whom God is not granted children can nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning in both human and Christian terms.

Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, hospitality, and sacrifice. The church wants to, definitely wants to support those couples that are open to life but are unable to achieve pregnancy. And support them, pray with them, pray for them, but also recognize that in their marriage, Yes, one of the ends of marriage is procreation, education of children. Another end of marriage is the good of the couple, right, helping each other be saints.

And that means also in grief, right? In that sadness, that brokenheartedness of not being able to have the children that you would like to have biologically. And yet, even these couples, these marriages can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, hospitality, and sacrifice. Now, I know that people are going to bring up the question of, well, what about other couples? What about like same-sex couples that aren't able to have children? Isn't that kind of the same thing? And the brief answer is, no, it's not the same thing. And the longer answer is stay tuned for later on in the moral life in the commandments.

We're going to talk about that a little bit more fully. But just right now, just to be able to sit there, sit here with our brothers and sisters in Christ who are married who are unable to conceive. And just to pray for them. Because that's the goal. I mean, you know, so many couples, when they got married, they're like, I can't wait. I cannot wait to have children. And I know the pain of so many couples who say, we've been trying to have children and they hear stories about, you know, here's the, sad, but here's the, here's the teenager who, you know, had sex once and now

was pregnant. And they're like, wait, no, Lord, what, here we, here we are. We want to raise a child. Why? How does this happen with, here's this, you know, here's this other couple and they're 16 and now of a sudden they're pregnant and what, that doesn't make any sense. And you're right, it doesn't make any sense. It's this broken world. And yet we do have to care for each other still. Maybe it's, maybe it's this call. Maybe it's the call of like hearing about that 16 year couple and saying, okay, maybe that's, maybe that's our child. Maybe that's the child that God has for us. I remember watching a documentary as a documentary about an athlete, but he and his wife had been trying for children so long, and the documentary actually kind of happened to be filming

them when they got worried that they'd have this little girl that was born in their area, I think maybe in their state or out of their state, but in that, you know, the kind of the region of America, and that they're going to have a baby. And the dad, the athlete, he, he, he, he He was sitting there with their little girl, their oldest daughter now, and he just said, you know, we've been praying so much. And he said, we just want to, I want to thank that young woman for letting us be this child's parents, that she was really considering having an abortion. But I said, I just want to, we want to thank this mom to let us be the mom and dad of this baby.

And that's, that's part of it. It's just like, man, in this broken world, what do we do? We just, we do our best. We try to help each other. That's it. Here's how many couples are like, we love to have kids, but there's all these other couples are like, we can't have kids where we shouldn't have these children and like, okay, I know so many heroic couples who can you to adopt.

I just actually not too long ago was with a family of 16, 16 kids. And eight of them were, I think, biological and eight of them were adopted. All of them were their mom and dad's sons and daughters. all of them were their moms and dads and sons and daughters. It was amazing. It was incredible. And that's the domestic church that the church concludes this section with. The domestic church, which is that place where the first place, where kids learn the faith, the first place where kids learn what it is to forgive, the first place where kids learn what it is to have the joy of work, that fraternal love, generous, even repeated forgiveness. And above all, divine worship and prayer and the offerings of one's life. The last little note here,

just last little note is for those who are single and those without a family, again, in this broken world, we need each other. In this broken world, we need each other. And there are so many people who, not just couples who wish they had a child, but there are individuals who wish they had a spouse. So many. I'll talk to so many, and there's so many in my life. And they're just, their heart breaks on a daily basis. They say just because of circumstances of which which I have no control, I never had the opportunity to get married. I wanted to. I would have, I would have said yes, but never had the chance. And those who have no family of their own, you guys, again, this is why church has to be church. Because remember the line, it is not good

for man to be alone. That doesn't automatically mean that you have to have a romantic partner, but it does mean that it's not good for us to live life alone. It's not good to be alone. It's not good to try this alone. We need each other. I know there's people in your parish that may remain without a human family. So what do we do? Well, either we walk by them and say, oh, that stinks. Ah, it's so hard. Or we step up and say, maybe we say, hey, would you want to step into our family? It doesn't always work. It's not always pretty. I have to tell you that after some trial and error. It doesn't always work. It's not is pretty. But sometimes it is. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it is beautiful and sometimes it does work. And so if we are the family of God, if we are the people of God, if the home is the domestic

church, then for those who are without a family, human family, we have to remind them what the church reminds us today. No one is without a family in this world. The church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who labor and are heavy-laden. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.