The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 233: The Beatitudes (2024)

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

“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 a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 233. We're reading paragraphs 1716 to 1729.

As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. And 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 in your podcast app for daily updates and daily in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C I Y and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today is day 233 paragraphs 17 16 to 1729 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, 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 paragraphs 1701 to 1709 was basically almost like a gospel presentation, right? Here's God who's good, he made man in his image and likeness, intellect, will, we have all that. Then sin happens and and yet the same time we still recognize the voice of God we still recognize our high call God gives us

through Jesus Christ in the far with the Holy Spirit the power to be able to do good to be good now today the next step article 2 is our vocation to be attitude and so we're gonna talk about the actual be attitudes we're gonna 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 beatific vision is that happiness vision, right? The happy vision of heaven, the blessed vision of heaven, and God has made us for Himself, and

God alone satisfies. This is so is so critical for us to understand. God has made us for himself. He alone satisfies and yet because of concupiscence, 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 beatitude never, to true happiness, to true beatitude, never ceases. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. So let's pray and ask the Lord to help us to choose him today, not just by 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 an 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 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 17 16 to 17 at 29 Article 2 our vocation to be attitude the Beatitudes

The Beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus's preaching They take up the promises made to the chosen people since Abraham The Beatitudes fulfill the promises by ordering them no longer merely to the possession of a territory but to the kingdom of heaven. As Jesus said in 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 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 shed 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 assent 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 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 in heart, for they shall see God, entering into the joy of the Lord, entering into God's rest. Saint 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, whence 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 inexpressible 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. 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, filiation, 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." Alright, here we are. Paragraphs 1716 to 1729. We have this is, as we said, Article 2, our vocation to Beatitude. So hopefully if we know what the term Beatitude 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 beatitude quite a few times in the last number of minutes today. So, and this all springs from the Sermon on the Mount, right here is Jesus who says, these are the thing called the beatitudes, right? The blessed are those, happy are you who are poor in spirit, happy are those who mourn, all these things.

That comes from this core teaching of Jesus, this Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. He goes on to talk about the other ways that we're called to live in the kingdom of Jesus, you know, this sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5. He goes on to talk about the other ways 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 17 17, 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 promises a worldwide 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 I just thought that's so incredible and at the same time the Beatitudes as it says here are very clearly our 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' sake. 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. Your reward is great in heaven. There is this reality that blessing and happiness, I mean true happiness, 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 a good food to eat I got to rest my eyes or whatever the thing is there 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, okay, now I have accomplishment, 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 Christ is talking, and the church is relating to us, is not just those levels. In fact, St. Augustine, these quotes are from Saint Augustine three times today. He says, we all want to live happily. In the whole human race, there is no one who does not assent to this proposition, even before it's fully articulated. Now, Saint Augustine's story, if you know anything about Saint Augustine's story, that his mom was Catholic, but Augustine had ran

far away from that and Augustine 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 is a 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 from 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 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 Lord. It's not just, again, let's go back to this, it's not just 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 Saint 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 all to choose, that beatitude is life with him, eternal life with him, because he's the only one that satisfies. Now, paragraph 1721, I just wanna highlight a couple quick things before we conclude today. Paragraph 1721, it is so good, it's a throwback.

So apparently, in the Baltimore Catechism, one of the first questions was, who made you? And 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. I'm like, wow, that's going back to the Baltimore catechism, 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 that here's your end, here's the goal, here's

what God wants for you. He's going to give his grace, he's going to give all his goodness, he's going to give every opportunity for you and I to choose him. And he wants that goodness, he wants that fullness of life. Paragraph 1723 highlights though, the beatitude 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. That 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, what's the fancy word? Concupisence, right? 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 accruing wealth? 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, but God alone, source of every good and all love. You know, I can list those things like it's 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 is 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 to 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 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 that just 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 an act of faith, that there's this homage, I'll bow down before wealth,

I wanna seek after this, I wanna achieve it, I want to accomplish this, I wanna gain it, get it for myself, because with wealth I believe I may do all things. He goes on to say, wealth is one idol of the day, notoriety is a second.

Oh my gosh, how crazy is this? Notoriety or the making of a noise in the world, maybe called newspaper fame, one may call it Instagram fame, because there's literally that. Someone's like Instagram famous, or they're YouTube famous, or whatever that kind of thing is. That has become to be considered a great good in itself.

This is so long ago that John Henry Cardle Newman had said these words long before the invention of the internet, long before the invention of quote unquote influencers because the human heart has this, right? This lives in all of us. I mean, we used to call it, you know, getting ink in the paper, right? If you're in high school and they can do it in sports or high school and you're in band or in choir or did something significant, you know,

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 gonna 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 gonna 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.