The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 231: Our Calling (2026)

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

As we step into Part Three of the Catechism on How We Live, we begin with an overview of our high calling as sons and daughters of God. Truly our “first and last point of reference” will always be “Jesus Christ himself, who is ‘the way, and the Truth, and the life.’” Fr. Mike identifies for us that when most people say, “I can’t accept what the Church teaches”, it’s rarely about dogma, like the Trinity or the divinity of Christ. More often than not, it’s about Christian morality, and that’s the journey we’re embarking on. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1691-1698. 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 in God's family. As we journey together to our heavenly home, this is day 231. We're reading paragraphs 1691 to 1698. 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 ascenturepress.com and you can click follow up subscribing your podcast apps to receive daily updates, daily notifications to make sure you're subscribed. It would be awesome. Yesterday, what was that? Man, Dr. Mary Healy, what a gift. I know people are like, oh, wow, that was a long. You only got a part of it.

That was edited down from being massively long. It was a long, long conversation, but so beautiful, so powerful. not just because Dr. Healy is incredibly smart and very much filled with the Holy Spirit. Just, I don't know if you caught this, but I was just in that room with her. She speaks with authority. Like it seems authority that comes from the Holy Spirit. It's so powerful, but also because of the content. You know, we're taking our next step here today.

Congratulations, by the way. Day 2.30 yesterday, 2.31 today of the third pillar. Here we are on how we live. We talked about what we believe, about how we worship now today. We're starting to listen actually to what the catechism says about how we live. What is our calling? Now, tomorrow we're going to talk about human dignity and that our vocation is life in the spirit. And we start with the human dignity, dignity of the human person. But even before human dignity, we recognize what is our high calling? And we recognize, I'll say

you recognize twice, we note we are aware of the fact that the first, this is a paragraph 1698, the first and last point of reference of this catechesis, of a catechesis in morality, right, catechesis in how we live will always be Jesus Christ himself. So the first point, the last point, always everything's going to be in Jesus. And so today from paragraph 1691 to 1698, we're going to be talking about that. What is the high call of the Christian that we, yes, we hear the gospel proclaimed. We're brought into communion with the Father through the sacraments and the Son of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments. And then we're called to live in this way. We're called to live this new life. We've become children of God. We've been filled with the Holy Spirit. We're a particularly

of the divine nature, and now we have to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. And so the Holy Spirit, God gives us this gift, he gives us the ability by his grace, the grace of Christ and the gifts the Holy Spirit. But we have to learn, and that's why we're going to take these next steps for the next. Well, for quite a while, but I'm so glad. I'm so grateful. Let's continue with a prayer as we pray, Father in heaven. We give you thanks and praise. Thank you for yesterday. Thank you for Dr. Mary Healey. Thank you for not only just like we talked about when it came to marriage, the invitation and the challenge. When it comes to the Christian life, the invitation and the challenge, the blessing and the burden, the rights we have as sons and daughters of God and the responsibilities we have as sons and daughters of God. God, thank you. Thank you. But also please help us. Help us as we take these next steps to recognize our dignity, to recognize the high call. to recognize your mercy when we fail, to recognize the ways in which we do need to be shaped, that our consciences do need to be formed, that we do need to be trained in this catechesis.

Help us to be open to your Holy Spirit. Help us to be open to this high call. It helps us to be open to both conviction of sin and the conviction of mercy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As I said, it is day 21. We were reading paragraphs 16, 91 to 1698. How we live. Part 3. Life in Christ. Our calling. Section 1. Man's vocation. Life in the spirit. Christian. Recognize your dignity. And now that you share in God's own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the

kingdom of God. The symbol of the faith confesses the greatness of God's gift to man in his work of creation, and even more in redemption and sanctification. What faith confesses, the sacraments communicate. By the sacraments of rebirth, Christians have become children of God, partakers of the divine nature. Coming to see in the faith at their new dignity, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. They are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of His Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and through prayer. Christ Jesus always did what was pleasing to the Father, and always lived in perfect communion with Him. Likewise, Christ's disciples are invited to live in the sight of the Father who sees

in secret in order to become perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Incorporated into Christ by baptism, Christians are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, and so participate in the life of the risen Lord. following Christ and united with him, Christians can strive to be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love by conforming their thoughts, words, and actions to the mind, which is yours in Christ Jesus, and by following his example. Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God, sanctified and called to be saints, Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

This spirit of the Son teaches them to pray to the Father and having become their life. prompts them to act so as to bear the fruit of the spirit by charity in action. Healing the wounds of sin, the Holy Spirit renews us interiorly through a spiritual transformation. He enlightens and strengthens us to live as children of light through all that is good and right and true. The way of Christ leads to life. A contrary way leads to destruction. The gospel parable of the two ways remains ever present in the catechesis of the church.

It shows the importance of moral discipline. decisions for our salvation. There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death. But between the two, there is a great difference. Catechesis has to reveal in all clarity the joy and the demands of the way of Christ. Catechesis for the newness of life in him should be, a catechesis of the Holy Spirit, the interior master of life according to Christ, a gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens this life. A catechesis of grace, for it is by grace that we are saved, and again, it is by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life. A catechesis of the beatitudes, for the way of Christ is summed up in the beatitudes, the only path that leads to the eternal

beatitude for which the human heart longs. A catechesis of sin and forgiveness. For unless man acknowledges that he is a sinner, he cannot know the truth about himself, which is a is a condition for acting justly, and without the offer of forgiveness, he would not be able to bear this truth. A catechesis of the human virtues, which causes one to grasp the beauty and attraction of right disposition towards goodness. A catechesis of the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity, generously inspired by the example of the saints. A catechesis of the twofold commandment of charity set forth in the Deca log. An ecclesial catechesis, for it is aecied by the same. It is aequisite. It is a through the manifold exchange of spiritual goods in the communion of saints that Christian life can grow,

develop, and be communicated. The first and last point of reference of this catechesis will always be Jesus Christ himself, who is the way and the truth and the life. It is by looking to him in faith that Christ's faithful can hope that he himself fulfills his promises in them, and that by loving him with the same love with which he has loved them, they may perform works in keeping with their dignity. As St. John Eudes wrote, I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head, and that you are one of his members.

He belongs to you as the head belongs to its members. All that is his is yours, his spirit, his heart, his body and soul, and all his faculties. You must make use of all these as of your own, to serve, praise, love, and glorify God. You belong to him as members belong to their head. And so he longs for you to use all that is in you, as if it were his own, for the service

and glory of the Father. St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, for to me, to live is Christ. All right, there we have it, paragraph 1691 to 1698, this beginning introduction to this third pillar, how we live, this high call. And this is the high call comes from what? The high call comes from God himself and from the dignity with which he's given to us. Paragraph 1691 highlights this, right? He says, Christian, recognize you.

This is a sermon from St. Leo the Great. So he was a pope back in the day, way back in the day. He said, Christian, recognize your dignity. Recognize your dignity. And now that you share in God's own nature, remember from baptism, we're sons and daughters of God. In baptism, we're partakers of the divine nature. Now that you share in God's own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning.

This is so incredible. Never forget, you've been rescued from the power of darkness and proddance that the light of the kingdom of God. This is the basis. This is the beginning for what it is to live the life of a Christian. Remember we talked about this from the very beginning that this time, this journey through the catechism in the air, this is information transfer, right? We are trying to teach. We're getting new data. We're getting information. But this is about vastly more than information transfer. This is about transformation. And yes, when it comes to, I let the Lord of the church teach me what it is. is, I believe. Here's the creed. What is that we know about who God is and how he loves us, who we are

and how we're made for? Yes, I accept that. Yes, here is the church that teaches. Here's how God comes to us, how he reaches to us in the sacraments and he calls us to worship him in the sacraments. Yes, of course, be healed in the sacraments, united, serve. But today, we start this new, where we continue from yesterday, this new phase, you might say. It might be the most challenging. I've said this many times, maybe, but I'll say it again. I will talk to many people who will say, I just don't know if I can believe what the church teaches. And almost always, they're not saying, I don't know if I can believe in the Trinity, that God is one nature but three divine persons.

I don't think they're all saying, I don't, I can't believe that Jesus is actually God. I can't believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. I can't believe that all these things. Usually, it's about morality. When it comes to our struggle with faith, I mean, yes, if we think about it, it is a greater mystery, a greater challenge to put our faith in this declaration, this revelation that God is three persons in one divine being. That takes vastly more faith than any of these commandments we're going to come up against. Like every one of these commandments, you might say,

oh, that makes sense to live like this. To not lie, to not bear a pulse witness. Yeah, that makes sense. I can see how that would be the wrong way to live. This morality is not challenging because, like, how could a person possibly believe that? It's challenging because we say, how could a person possibly live that way? And that's why, you know, these next weeks and months, we're going to be praying, massively praying because the high call, remember, recognize your dignity. And that now that you have been rescued by Jesus from the power of darkness, that we're all called to live as children of God, since we're made in children of God, we're called to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ.

And not only that, we're given the grace. In paragraph 1692, it says, we're called to live this life, but we're made capable of doing so by the grace of Jesus Christ and by the gifts of His Holy Spirit, which we receive through the sacraments and through prayer.

So keep this in mind. We strive and we fall. Like we go for it and we fail. But here's the Lord who sustains us. He gives us his grace through the sacraments, and he gives us his grace in prayer. And so we're called to live in this way as well. We're called to participate in the life of the risen Lord.

Remember that here is Jesus who's gone ahead of us. He is our head. We're his members. Nor he has gone, we need to follow. That is absolutely necessary. The way he lived in obedience, trusting, loving obedience with this father. We're also called to live in that trusting, loving obedience to the Father. And so we're called to live this way of Christ.

And the way that leads to life. There's the contrary way that leads to destruction. And Jesus makes it very clear that there are, you know, parable of the two ways in Matthew chapter 7. Those two ways, one leads to life, one leads to destruction. And that's a reflection or an expansion of Deuteronomy chapter 30, where there's two ways before us are placed life and death, blessing and a curse. God says choose life, therefore, that you and your descendants may have life. In the Didicate, right, the teaching of the apostles, it says that there are two ways, the one of life, the other of death, but between the two, there's a great difference. And so this catechesis,

I love this paragraph 1697 highlights all these different levels of catechesis. So the first is here's catechises, remember, is the teaching. So catechesis of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is the interior master of life, right? The Holy Spirit is that gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens this life. So we need to grow in the Holy Spirit. It's so important for us.

You know, Dr. Healy, I'm not sure if you've caught this, but she talked about her own experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. She was baptized, of course, you know, as in the name of the Father's Holy Spirit, with water, all that. But having that come alive is part of that catechesis of the Holy Spirit. The catechises of grace. And this is so important here because so often we're talking about behavior, right? We're talking about how we live. Sometimes we can forget that we can only live this way by God's grace.

They got a chieces of grace highlights here in paragraph 1697. It is by grace that we are saved. Yes, if you ever hear a non-Catholic Christian say, do you really believe that it's by grace that you're saved? The answer is 100% yes. By grace we're saved through faith, working itself out in love. Grace we're saved. And again, it's by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life.

Remember, Jesus said, I'm the vine. You're the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So it's only by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life. So it's a catechises of grace. Catechesis of the beatitudes. We're going to look at the beatitudes as we continue this section on how we live. because that's the way of Christ.

It's the only way that leads to heaven. I love this. The next one is a catechesis of sin and forgiveness. Let's just go back over this one. For unless, sin and forgiveness, for unless man acknowledges that he is a sinner, he cannot know the truth about himself. Cannot know the truth about himself.

Here's the question. I can ask myself and you can ask yourselves. Do you know the truth about yourself? See, the humble person will be, willing to be honest. The humble person will be willing to tell the truth about themselves. The proud person will never tell the truth about themselves. The proud person is constantly on the defense, unwilling to look at their strengths and definitely unwilling to look at their flaws, unwilling to look at their sins. But if you're going to be a saint, if you even want to know the truth about

yourself, we have to acknowledge that we're a sinner. But also, we have to acknowledge that God loves us. We have to acknowledge that God gives us mercy. I mean, think about, this is, I love calling this like the dual miracle every time a person goes to confession. The first miracle is that they'd be convicted by their sins, that sense of, oh, I failed. But also at the same time, the other dual conviction, the conviction of God's mercy, that God loves them. And like, oh, I have hope. We need these two. Because without the first, we would presume God's grace, right?

We'd presume that we're going to heaven. We'd be guilty of sin, sin of presumption. without the second, without God's, the promise, the conviction that God is merciful, we'd be overwhelmed. We would, as it says here, without the offer of forgiveness, he would not be able to bear this truth, the truth of sin. So we need both, the catechises of sin and of forgiveness. We're going to talk about all of that.

Again, every time we talk about sin, we're also going to talk about God's grace. So catechises of the Holy Spirit, catechises of grace, catechises of the beatitudes, catechises of sin and forgiveness, the next four, catechises of human, virtues and the human virtues are strengths that we can develop by God's grace and by discipline that help us to live this right way. Catechises of the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. So human virtues, right, of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude, human virtues, but also Christian virtues, faith, hope, and love. The last two. Catechesis of the twofold commandment of charity that's put forth in the decalogue, right? Love God with everything you've got,

love your neighbor as yourself. Lastly, it's an ecclesial catechesis. Why? For it is through the manifold exchanges of the spiritual goods and the communion of saints, like in the church, church in heaven, church on earth, church in purgatory, that Christian life can grow, develop, and be communicated. So all these catechises that are given to us, I invite you to just strap in, to buckle in, and just say, okay, this is what's going to happen. This is what God is going to do something incredible in me. God's going to do something incredible through me. And I just not be afraid to not be afraid. Remember that you belong to God. You belong to God. And he longs for you. He longs to use all that's in you as if it were his own. For the service and glory of the Father. Do not be afraid tomorrow. We're going to talk about our vocation, life in the spirit, and the dignity of the human person being the very basis for Catholic morality.

and all these things. Realize, okay, whatever God asks of me, I'll say yes. Whatever God asks of me, I say yes. Why? Because like St. Paul, for me to live is Christ. For me to live is Christ. Philippians chapter 1, verse 21. I've died. I've been crucified. Therefore, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So don't be afraid as we move forward. This is going to be exciting. It's going to be great. and all the way, the whole way through, I will be praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.