The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 257: The Old Law (2025)

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

We continue the section on moral law, specifically focusing on the Old Law. Fr. Mike emphasizes that the Old Law is the first stage of Revealed Law. He also unpacks how the Old Law acts as preparation for the Gospel. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1961-1964. 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 families. We journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 257. We're reading paragraphs 161 to 1964. 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

ascensionpress.com slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications. Day 257 today, you guys, we're getting closer to that 260 mark. We're getting close to the 360 mark for crying out loud, but 257, paragraph's 1961 to 1964 yesterday. about the natural moral law. And we had this recognition, right, this knowing that we're talking about the moral law, the law written on our hearts. But also, there's the revealed law. That's we're talking about today. The old law. Tomorrow, we'll talk about the new law or the law of the gospel. But remember, God has written the truth. God has written goodness in the human heart. He's written the moral law in every human heart. There's such a thing as conscience that we all

experience. Now, at the same time, St. Augustine has this great quote in paragraph 1962 from today's reading where he says, God wrote on the tables of the law what men did not read in their hearts. And so here is God who makes it more explicit, right? Yes, there is a moral law that's the natural law written in our human hearts. And yet God wanted to go further than that. He wanted to make it absolutely clear what is the right. What is the right way to walk and to walk it? Now, at the same time, it is pedagogy, right? Pedagogically, pedagogically advancing. So pedagogy is essentially teaching, right? It's that. sense of how does God reveal himself? Well, step by step, we've talked about this so many times when

I went to the Bible in a year. And even here, we've talked about it as well, where God starts at level one and he raises us to level two. If he just jumped to level seven or eight or ten, we wouldn't be able to keep up. And so here's the natural moral law written in the human heart. Then God reveals the old law, right? He reveals the old covenant and his moral prescriptions there. Ultimately, he's going to reveal the law of the gospel, right? In the new law. But he asks, to start somewhere, and that's where we are today in these four paragraphs. Paragraph 1961 to 64, let us begin with a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you thanks. We give you thanks that you revealed not only your identity to us, and you've not only revealed our identity to us. You've

also revealed how it is you want us to follow after you. You revealed how it is you want us to worship you, how it is you want us to cling to you, how it is you want us to obey you and love you. Lord God, us to live up to the demands of your law, the call of your law, by the power of your grace. On our own, we can't do this. The old law, in fact, reveals that on our own, we can't do this. So send us your Holy Spirit. Give us the grace to follow your law, to follow your will, and to do this every single day. In Jesus' name, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 257. We're reading paragraphs 1961 to 1964. The old law. God, our creator and redeemer, chose Israel for himself to be his people and revealed

his law to them, thus preparing for the coming of Christ. The law of Moses expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason. These are stated and authenticated within the covenant of salvation. The old law is the first stage of revealed law. Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. The precepts of the decalogue lay the foundations for the vocation of man fashioned in the image of God. They prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor, and prescribe what is essential to it. The decalogue is a light offered to the conscience of every man to make God's call and ways known to him and to protect him against evil. St. Augustine stated, God wrote on the tables of the law, what men did not read in their hearts. According to the Christian

tradition, the law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor, it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a law of concupiscence in the human heart. However, the law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures forever, like the Word of God. The old law is a preparation for the gospel. The law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come.

It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ. It provides the New Testament with images, types, and symbols for expressing the life according to the spirit. Finally, the law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential books and the prophets which set its course toward the new covenant and the kingdom of heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, There were, under the regimen of the old covenant, people who possessed the charity and grace of the Holy Spirit and longed above all for the spiritual and eternal promises

by which they were associated with the new law. Conversely, there exist carnal men under the new covenant, still distanced from the perfection of the new law. The fear of punishment and certain temporal promises have been necessary, even under the new covenant, to incite them to virtuous works. In any case, even though the old law prescribed charity, it did not give the Holy Spirit,

through whom God's charity has been poured into our hearts. All right, there we have it, four short paragraphs, 1961 to 1964. What are we talking about? Well, again, that quote from St. Augustine sums up almost everything we're talking about today. God wrote on the tables of the law what men did not read in their hearts, this first stage. Right. The old law is the first stage of revealed law. This is really important for us to understand in paragraph 1962 that the old law is the first stage of revealed law. We talked about this so many times. I mentioned it's at the beginning of this episode, is that God reveals himself slowly. God also reveals justice, right? Before God can reveal mercy, he has to reveal justice. And now you might know this already. You might have heard this a thousand times. But keep this in mind, if God had jumped from here is the chaos in the world, right? Here is everyone just every man for himself. Everyone's doing whatever they think is right.

And then God comes along and says, forgive your neighbor. When someone hurts you, forgive them. When someone hurts your family, forgive them. What would that look like? That would look incredibly unjust. That would look like being a dormant. That would look like God's saying, oh, hey, by the way, it's virtuous to allow people to abuse you, which is not virtuous, right?

That's not good. That's not true. So what does God have to do? Before he gets to declaring mercy and the power of forgiveness, he has to has to make it absolutely clear that justice, that justice is a standard, that he himself is justice. And so we have to have justice giving someone what they're owed and also justice is getting what you're owed in order to get to the place where someone can say, actually, I'm going to forego justice for the sake of mercy. But if I just jump over justice,

mercy is not mercy. Mercy is something horrible, right? So what has got to do. God gives us the old law. That's the first stage or revealed law. And of course, the morality of the old law is summed up in the Ten Commandments and it lays the foundations for what our call is. That way, if we're fashioned in the image of God, we cannot do what is contrary to love of God, and we must do what is oriented towards love of God and neighbor. And so that's a huge thing. It protects our conscience, especially why? Because our consciences have been dimmed by sin. And that's why it says here that according to Christian tradition, the law is holy, spiritual, and good. See, we don't just dismiss the old covenant.

We don't dismiss the old law right out of hand. We recognize that the law is holy. The law is spiritual. The old law is good, yet still imperfect. And I love this because it highlights in paragraph 1963 what scripture reveals about the old covenant. It says, like a tutor, right, St. Paul's images, is that the old covenant, the old law, is a tutor, right? someone who's showing what must be done, but the old law did not give of itself the strength or the grace of the Holy Spirit to fulfill it. In fact, there's this remarkable truth that Jesus

did not come necessarily to give us more laws, that Jesus came to give us the power to live the law, right? That Jesus, yes, yes, there's a fullness of law in the new covenant. We'll talk about that tomorrow. But not only did Jesus come to say, you heard it was said in the old covenant and I for an eye, truth for tooth, I say to you, forgive those or hurt you. Not only did Jesus say in Matthew chapter 5, he says, you've heard it was said that you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, even though one who looks lustfully at another commits adultery in their heart. So Jesus gives the fullness of the law. But here's the crazy thing is Jesus Christ did not just come to give us more laws. He came to give us new hearts.

He came to give us the power to actually live out the call that he's placed upon our hearts. He's given us the grace of the Holy Spirit to actually do what the old law commanded us to do. And also what the fullness of the new law commands us to do. So remember, the limitation of the old covenant is that it highlighted what was good. It highlighted what was needed to be avoided. But it didn't give human beings the power to actually do that. Here it says in paragraph once again, 1963, it says, because of sin, which the law can't remove. It remains a law of bondage. St. Paul highlights that

its special function is to denounce sin and disclose sin. It gets us ready for saying, okay, that's what sin is. Now, I need God's grace to avoid it. This is what the good is. Now, I need God's grace to choose it. Paragraph, 1964, the last paragraph here, these four paragraphs we've listened to today the old law is a preparation for the gospel and it gets us it gets us ready this is so important it gets us ready it prepares us now what we're going to talk about in weeks to come are the 10 commandments we're going to spend a bit of time with the 10 commandments that is part of the old law we're going to talk about them and look at them though through the lens of the new law we're going to look at them through the lens of jesus through the lens of grace the reality that we've been given

the power of the holy spirit to actually live out these commands in freedom and in their fullness. In fact, that's one of the promises that God has made to us, and so we are going to hold on to that promise, and we're going to try to live out that promise as best as we can. Tomorrow, tomorrow we're jumping into the new law or the law of the gospel, and it will be just as short. It's another four or five paragraphs, and yet at the same time, once again, it just is so important for us to prepare our hearts, really truly to prepare our hearts and say, okay, in a few days, in a few days we're going to hear, we're going to dive deeply into the commandments. And when we do that, the invitation is, okay, these laws are not meant

to be condemnation, right? These laws are not meant to be a dead end. These laws are not meant to be a straight jacket. They are meant to be a law of freedom. Why? Because, not because they're easy and not because they're what we are to automatically naturally want, but because God has given us the law and the Holy Spirit. God has given you the Holy Spirit. God has given you the Holy Spirit. If you're baptized, you have the Holy Spirit. If you've asked for the Holy Spirit, what did Jesus promise? He promised that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks. And so, especially if you find yourself in a place like, Lord, I am just so weak. I can't live out the law. I can't live out your commands to be able to say, okay, so what do I need? You don't

just need more willpower. Lord, I need the Holy Spirit. And that's what I'm praying. That's what I'm praying for myself for. Praying for that Holy Spirit to be able to live out God's commandments, to be able to live in freedom and to live in joy. And that's what I want for you as well, because that's what God wants for you as well, the power to live out that call of a Christian, to live the new law. I'm telling you, I do every day. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.