The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 233: The Beatitudes

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

“The Beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus’ preaching,” the Catechism tells us. Jesus’ proclamation in Chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew purifies our hearts, sets a standard for earthly discernment, and directs our actions towards heaven. Fr. Mike invites us to choose God’s ways and forsake our own ways. Today’s readings and paragraphs 1716-1729. 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 sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in years brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read The Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's families we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 233, we're reading paragraphs 1716-1729 as always. I'm using the Ascension Edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. Well, 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 You can click follow or subscribe to their podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today is day 233 Paragraphs 17 16 to 17 20 on yesterday We talked about the dignity of the human person and the dignity of the human person being in so many ways the basis for Catholic morality That man is made in the image and likeness of God. I don't know if you remember this You know 24 hours ago. Maybe maybe even days ago if you you know, Mr. couple days. That's okay made in the image and likeness of God. I don't know if you remember this. You know, 24 hours ago, maybe, maybe even days ago, if you, you know, missed a couple days, that's okay. You're here today. But we recognize that paragraph 1701 to 1709 was basically almost like a gospel presentation, right? Here's God who's good. He made man in his image of likeness,

intellect will. We have all that. Then sin happens. And yet at the same time, we have all that, then sin happens and yet the same time we still recognize the voice of God and we still recognize our high call. God gives us through Jesus Christ in the Father of the Holy Spirit the power to be able to do good to be good. Now today the next step article two is our vocation to be attitude. And so we're going to talk about the actual be attitude. We're going to look at the ones from Matthew's Gospel. And then also our desire for happiness. So, beatitude in many ways, you can translate that as blessing, you can translate that as happiness. The deative vision is that happiness vision, right? The happy vision of heaven, the blessed vision of heaven. And God has made us for Himself and got alone satisfies. This is so critical for us to understand.

God has made us for himself. He alone satisfies and yet, because of concupacence, remember that big word, because of our attraction to sin, we think that other things, because our intellect is darkened and our will is weakened, we think that other things will make us happy yet. Yet God's call to us, to himself, God's call to us, to true happiness, to true

be attitude, never ceases. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's pray and ask the Lord to help us to choose him today. Not just my listening to these words, but by choosing him with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, loving him with everything. So we pray, Father in heaven, we ask you to please send us in abundance of your Holy Spirit so that we can truly love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, that we can love you with everything. Lord God, the world presents to us so many alternatives to goodness, so many alternatives to truth, so many alternatives to true beauty. We ask you to please

help us to choose you, help us choose the truth, help us to choose beauty, help us to choose goodness. So help us to choose you. God, you will never abandon us, help us to never abandon you. 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 233. We're reading paragraphs 1716 to 1729. Article 2, our vocation to be attitude. The be attitudes.

The be attitudes are at the heart of Jesus' preaching. They take up the promises made to the chosen people since Abraham. The be attitudes fulfill the promises by ordering them no longer merely to the possession of a territory but to the kingdom of heaven. As Jesus said to Matthew's gospel, Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you,

and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. The Beatitudes depict the countenance of Jesus Christ and portray his charity. They express the vocation of the faithful associated with the glory of his passion and resurrection. They should light on the actions and attitudes characteristic of the Christian life.

They are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations. They proclaim the blessings and rewards already secured, however dimly, for Christ's disciples. They have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. The desire for happiness. The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin. God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the one who alone can fulfill it. As St. Augustine wrote, we all want to live happily. In the whole human race, there is no one who does not ascent to this proposition, even before it is fully articulated." Later on, St. Augustine further said,

"...How is it then that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life. Let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul, and my soul draws life from you." St. Thomas Aquinas stated, God alone satisfies. The Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts. God calls us to His own Beatitude. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the church as a whole,

the new people, made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith. Christian Beatitude The New Testament uses several expressions to characterize the Beatitude to which God calls man. The coming of the Kingdom of God? The vision of God. Blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God. Entering into the joy of the Lord, entering

into God's rest. St. Augustine further stated, There we shall rest and see. We shall see and love. We shall love and praise. Behold what will be at the end without end. For what other end do we have, if not to reach the kingdom which has no end? God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve Him, and so to come to paradise.

Beatitude makes us partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. With Beatitude, man enters into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life. Such Beatitude surpasses the understanding and powers of man. It comes from an entirely free gift of God once it is called supernatural, as is the grace that disposes man to enter into the divine joy.

St. Irenaeus stated, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. It is true because of the greatness and an expressible glory of God that man shall not see me and live, for the Father cannot be grasped. But because of God's love and goodness toward us, and because he can do all things, he goes so far as to grant those who love him the privilege of seeing him. For what is impossible for men is possible for God.

The Beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else. It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement, however beneficial it may be, such as science, technology and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love." John Henry Newman stated, All bow down before wealth.

Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth, and by wealth they measure respectability. It is a homage resulting from a profound faith that with wealth he may do all things. Wealth is one idol of the day, and notoriety is a second. No notoriety, or the making of a noise in the world, it may be called newspaper fame, has come to be considered a great good in itself and a ground of veneration. The Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and the apostolic catechesis describe for us

the paths that lead to the kingdom of heaven. Sustained by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we tread them step by step by everyday acts. By the working of the Word of Christ, we slowly bear fruit in the church to the glory of God. In brief. The Beatitudes take up and fulfill God's promises from Abraham by ordering them to the Kingdom of Heaven. They respond to the desire for happiness that God has placed in the human heart.

The Beatitudes teach us the final end to which God calls us, the Kingdom, the vision of God, participation in the divine nature, eternal life, affiliation, rest in God. The Beatitude of eternal life is a gratuitous gift of God. It is supernatural, as is the grace that leads us there. The Beatitudes confront us with decisive choices concerning earthly goods. They purify our hearts in order to teach us to love God above all things. The Beatitude of Heaven sets the standards for discernment in the use of earthly goods in keeping with the law of God.

There we are, verigraves 17, 16 to 17, 29. We have, as we said, article two, our vocation to be attitude. So hopefully, if we know what the term be attitude means, again, that blessing that happiness, the ultimate good to which God has called us to, right? That's, if you want to say it in so many words, it's not just happiness, right? It's not just blessing because those words are good, those words are powerful, those words are inadequate, though. It's the ultimate good to which God is calling us, right? The ultimate blessing to which God desires for us, the ultimate happiness that God wants

for us. And so keep that in mind because we use the word beattitude quite a few times in the last number of minutes today. So, and it's all springs from the sermon on the Mount, right here is Jesus, who says, these are the thing called the beattitudes, right? The blessed are those. Happy are you, who are porn spirit,

happier are those who mourn, all these things. That comes from this core teaching of Jesus, you know, this sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. He goes on to talk about the other ways that that were called to live in the kingdom of heaven, but it starts here with these words of blessing. These words that depict, as it says in paragraph 1717, the countenance of Jesus and portray his charity. And this is, I love the fact that the church makes the connection between, here's the God's promises to Abraham, right? He promises a world by blessing, he promises, dynasty promises land, and here's Jesus saying, okay, that's fulfilled in these words.

That's fulfilled in the kingdom of heaven. That's fulfilled in him. And I just thought that's so incredible. And at the same time, the Beatitudes, as it says here, are very clearly are paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations. That's just real, right? Because how did the beatitudes end? Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness is sake. Blessed are you and men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely

on my account, rejoice and be glad your reward is great in heaven. There is this reality that blessing and happiness, I mean true happiness, deep happiness, is not the fleeting happiness of mere pleasure. The Beatitudes as it says in 1718 respond to the deep, deep natural, I'm adding the word deep, but the deep natural desire for happiness. And yes, there's levels of happiness. There's the immediate, right? There's the sense pleasure. Like I have good food to eat. I got to rest my eyes, whatever the thing is, there's sense pleasure? There's the sense pleasure. Like I have good food to eat. I got to rest my eyes, whatever the thing is, there's sense pleasure. There's different levels where like, oh,

you know, I've accomplished man, I have recognition. I've succeeded in something that was difficult. That's another level of happiness. I've helped someone else, another level of happiness. But what God is talking about here and crisis talking and the church is revealing to us is not just those levels. In fact, St. Augustin, these quotes, we are from St. Augustin three times today. He says, we all want to live happily. In the whole human race, there is no one who does not ascend to this proposition,

even before it's fully articulated. Now, St. Augustin's story, if you know anything about St. Augustin's story, that his mom was Catholic, but Augustin had ran far away from that. And Augustin had checked out all these different philosophies, all these different other attempts at religion. And he finally came to know who Jesus is. He finally came to believe in Christ, came to know the Catholic Church. In his book Confessions, he has this prayer

and this little excerpt from this prayer where he says, how is it then that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life. Let me seek you so that my soul may live for my body draws life for my soul and my soul draws life from you. And this profound reality that every one of us, what have we been doing for the last 233 days? We've been longing for the Lord. It's not just, again, let's go back to this.

It's not just about, I wanted to know what the words are and the catacasem, or if you went to the about, I want to know what the words are in the Catechism, or if you went through the Bible, I want to know what the words are in the Bible. It's about so much more than that. It's about, I want to know you, God. Because as St. Thomas Aquinas had made it very, very clear, God alone satisfies. And so the whole goal of human existence, which is that God calls us to Himself, remember that's our destiny, our destination

that He wants us to all to choose? That that be attitude is life with Him, eternal life with Him, because He's the only one that satisfies. Now, paragraph 1721, I would just want to highlight a couple quick things before we conclude today. Pergraph 1721, it is so good, it's a throwback. So apparently, in the Baltimore

Catechism, one of the first questions was, who made you? In the answer, God made me. The second question, why did God make you? And the answer is God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, so as to live with Him forever in the next. Look at paragraph 1721. It's so good. God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him. And so to come to paradise. And just I'm like, wow, that's going back to the Baltimore Gatacus. I'm so good, so consistent, and so beautiful.

Because God wants us to know him, to love him, to serve him. And to spend eternal life with him. Now, at the same time, 1723 makes it so clear. The here is here's your end. Here is the goal. Here's what God wants for you. He's going to give grace, he's going to give all his goodness, he's going to give every opportunity for you and I to choose him. He wants that goodness, he wants that fullness of life.

Paragraph 1723 highlights though, the be edited, we are promised, confronts us with decisive moral choices. We have to choose it, just like we've been talking about. here's good and evil, here's life and death, here's darkness and light we get to choose. This confronts us with decisive moral choices. The attitude invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and seek the love of God above all else. Now, keep that in mind.

Again, bad instincts, but it's the fancy word, cancup in. To seek the love of God above everything else. This next section is just so powerful. It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being. But how many times a day do we live for a crewing wealth? How often do we strive for even for health? How often do we strive for even for health? But we know that true happiness is not found in wealth or in health, in human fame or power, or any human achievement like science, technology, art, any creature that got alone, source of every good and all love.

You know, I can list those things, like it listed here, health, wealth, fame, power, science, technology, art, any other person. But if we don't apply those to our hearts, they're just kind of words, right? It's one of the reasons why I think it's good to know that, okay, where I spend my time was where I place my heart. Where I spend my money is where I place my heart.

And if I find myself, and this is my own self-examination, if I find myself saying, oh, I got to make sure I work out today. I got to make sure that I'm saving up this money to do whatever the thing is, whether that's to buy something or just simply save it to feel secure, but I'm not willing to take time to always make sure I'm praying in a way that Gets me closer to the Lord Or I'm not I'm not trying to to make sure that I use whatever money I have to help the people around me Then there's a big question. I was like wait. What do I love most? This quote from John Henry Cardinal Newman that we read in 1723 is is just I mean he was alive quite a few years ago And yet his words are as they say, prescient, right?

They are ahead of his time, and we recognize that from all time. This is what's in our hearts. It says, all bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. Isn't it so interesting? It goes on to say, they measure happiness by wealth and by wealth They measure respectability and this next line It is a homage resulting from a profound faith that with wealth he may do all things

That's it. That's an act of faith that there's this this homage up downtown before wealth I I want to seek after this. I want to achieve it. I want to accomplish this I want to regain it. You know get it for Because with wealth, I believe I may do all things. It goes on to say, wealth is one idol of the day. Notariety is a second. Oh my gosh, how crazy is this? Notariety or the making of a noise in the world? Maybe called newspaper fame?

What am I going to call it? Instagram fame? Because there's literally that. Someone's like Instagram famous, or they're YouTube famous, or whatever the kind of thing is. That has become to be considered a great good in itself This is so long ago that John Henry Cartel Newman had said these words long before the invention of the internet long before the invention of

Quartinquot influencers Because the human heart has this right this lives in all of us I Mean you used to call it, you know, getting ink in the paper, right? If you're in high school and they can do in sports or high school and you're in band or in choir or did something significant,

you got ink, your name in the paper. And this is just in our hearts. We have many decisive moral choices. What comes first? What gets my heart above everything else? Is it going to be the Lord, or is it going to be anything else? The rest of our time, as we continue to walk through this third pillar of the Catechism, is going to highlight this. What gets my heart, what

gets my attention, what gets my time, what gets my money, what gets me? Is it God, or anything else? Man, such an important question that we need to ask regularly, such an important question, we need to answer regularly. And I hope that my answer is always going to be, okay, God, you're first. No matter what else there is in my life, God, you first. And I, again, that's what I want with my life. Hopefully, with God's grace, you and I can choose that with our lives. It's very difficult though, and so we need grace, we need help, we need prayers.

That's why I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike, I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. you