The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 258: The New Law (2026)

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Together, with Fr. Mike, we examine the New Law or the Law of the Gospel. Fr. Mike emphasizes that the New Law “fulfills, refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection.” He also explains how the New Law of Christ that is expressed through the Sermon on the Mount is perfected by the grace of the Holy Spirit and works through charity and the Sacraments. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1965-1969. 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 through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 258. We're reading paragraphs 1965 to 1969.

As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. It's amazing. But you can also 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 lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 258 reading paragraphs 1965 to 1969.

One of the things, you know, we started yesterday by talking about the old law and how the old law is good, right? It is holy. It is, what else is it says? It's holy. It's spiritual. It's good, but it's imperfect. not imperfect in the sense that it's in any way defective other than the fact that it doesn't give us the power to actually accomplish to live out the law of God. Not only that, but it is a step on the way to prepare us, to prepare humanity for the deeper law, a fuller law.

Now, today we're going to talk about the fact that this fuller law is not only the new law, the law of the gospel. Not only does it give us the Holy Spirit, not only Jesus Christ give us the Holy Spirit, but also So this law, the new law, goes beyond actions and tries to get to, I say tries to get to, it does when it lives it out, when we live it out. It gets to the heart. It goes beyond the actions and gets to the heart. In this law of the gospel, so we say this, like this, it fulfills, refines, surpasses, and leads the old law to its perfection.

So good. Again, that's paragraph 1967, that the law of the gospel fulfills the old law. it refines the old law, it surpasses the old law, and it leads the old law, old law to its perfection, which is so incredibly important for us. The new law fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them to the kingdom of heaven, which is just what a gift, total gift for us. So in order to prepare our hearts for that, let us do what we always do, call upon the name of the Lord. Father in heaven, we give you praise and thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you for giving us, not only the law, but giving us. your Holy Spirit that we can live out your law. Lord God, when we get discouraged by our weaknesses and discouraged by our sins, when we see the old law or the new law even and are intimidated by it, give us the grace of courage, the grace of perseverance. Give us the grace of hope, knowing that it's not up to us. It is up to you to give us the grace to move forward and that you will to give us us the grace to move forward. As long as we are open to it, Lord God, you pour out your grace and your strength and your courage, your hope into us. So help us to be open. Help us to continually call out to

you even after we've fallen, even after we've failed to live up to this new law, the new law of grace. Help us to be open and never give in to discouragement or defeat, to never give in to despair or to the temptation to quit. Lord God, be with us now and be with us always. be with us in our greatest moments, be with us at our worst moments. And be with us now. In Jesus' name we pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is Day 258, we're reading paragraphs 1965 to 1969. The New Law or the Law of the Gospel. The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural, and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the circumcision. on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit, and through him it becomes the interior law of charity. As the Lord God said in the letter to the Hebrews and in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. The new law

is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity. It uses the sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it. St. Augustine wrote, If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the Mount, as we read in the Gospel of St. Matthew, he will doubtless find there the perfect way of the Christian life. This sermon contains all the precepts needed to shape one's life. The law of the gospel fulfills, refines, surpasses, and leads the old law to its perfection. In the beatitudes, the new law fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them

toward the kingdom of heaven. It is addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith, the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ, and so marks out the surprising ways of the kingdom. The law of the gospel fulfills the commandments of the law. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the old law releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them. It reveals their entire divine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure, where faith, hope, and charity are formed, and with them the other virtues. The gospel thus

brings the law to its fullness through imitation of the perfection of the Heavenly Father, through forgiveness of enemies and prayer for persecutors in emulation of the divine generosity. The new law practices the acts of religion, almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, directing them to the father who sees in secret, in contrast with the desire to be seen by men. Its prayer is the Our Father. Right, there we have it, four short paragraphs, paragraph 1965 to 1969. Ah, man, the first line is so bold, right, 1965. it says the new law or the law of the gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law.

It's perfection of the divine law. He revealed to us. It goes on to say, it's the work of Christ. And of course, it comes from, it's expressed particularly in the sermon on the mount. So we have the sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel. We also have the sermon on the plain in Luke's gospel, but let's focus on Matthew. It's also the work of the Holy Spirit, which is so important for us. We mentioned this yesterday, is that the limitation of the old law, and maybe even the beginning of this episode,

But the limitation of the old law is that, A, it was a preparation, right? That's the first thing. God has to start at level one in order to lead us to the highest levels. So it's a preparation. It's true, but it's the beginnings of this revealed truth. Next, the second limitation of the old law is that it doesn't give us the power to actually fulfill it. And yet, 1966 says, the new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It's just so important.

You know, remember that Hebrews, quoting book of the prophet Jeremiah, talks about this, that God had promised this. He said, I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. How does God fulfill this? Here's the big question. How does God, I keep saying this, right, keep making this claim that all you guys, the new law is amazing because why? Because here in the new law, God gives us the power to live it out. Well, how does he do that?

Where does he do this? Paragraph 1966, it's right there. It's so incredible. It says, it works through charity, right? Love. It uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done. We got that, right? We mentioned this yesterday, mentioning it today, that Jesus says, Sermon on the Mount, many things. One of them, like, you heard it was said, you shall not kill your brother. But I say anyone who grows angry with their brother is liable to judgment. Okay, so that's a deeper law that's trying to get to the human heart. Okay, so here is God on the sermon on the mount who teaches us what must be done. Okay, that's clear. How do we do it? Goes on to say, and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it. In that sentence, it just is so clear. This works through charity. The new law,

grace of the Holy Spirit, works through charity, works through love. It uses the sermon on the mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it. Let's never, ever forget what is, and Jesus Christ is the source of grace. God is the source of all grace. We know that. We know this. How does he communicate that grace to us? Well, through the pastical mystery, right? His life, death and resurrection. How does we come into contact with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus through the sacraments? So let's not forget pillar two. As we're moving on to pillar three and the call to live this new life and live this life in fulfillment in joy and freedom of following the new law, we can never forget that Jesus is the one who gives

us the ability to do this, to live this life, and he gives us this ability to live this new life through the grace of the sacraments. Let's never forget that, ever, ever forget that. Because or else what we find ourselves doing is find ourselves kind of wandering around saying, well, where am I going to get this grace? Here's this grace has promised me, and I'm kind of looking around for it, and I don't even know where to look. We look to the mass, to the heart of everything in the Eucharist. We look to reconciliation and to be healed. We look to, obviously, to our baptism, but also to those, the times when we reclaim our baptismal graces by restating and professing our baptismal promises and renewing those. All of these sacraments we talked about

for weeks and weeks, that's the way we have access to the grace that God gives us in order to live this new life. Does that make sense? Now, there's a quote here right after that. in that same paragraph, 1966, from St. Augustine, and it says here, it says, if anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon or Lord gave on the mount, you might ask the question, sorry, what, with devotion on what? With devotion on perspicacity. What is perspicacity you ask? Great question, camper. It is, essentially, it's understanding, discernment, penetration. If you can, if you can, we'll meditate on the sermon on the mount with devotion, right, you have a heart oriented towards the Lord,

and with understanding. If with that perception of what is really being said, then, so just so you know, perspicacity, there's the definition. So if anyone should meditate with devotion and understanding or perspicacity, on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the gospel of St. Matthew, he will doubtless find there the perfect way of the Christian life. And this sermon contains all the precepts needed to shape one's life.

It is remarkable. You know, I mentioned that this whole pillar, third pillar, when we start talking about here's how we live the moral life, that this is a challenge, I think sometimes we think of the challenge of, well, certain areas. And let's just be frank here, the Sixth Commandment and the Ninth Commandment, right? The commandments regarding sexual behavior at the same time, if we paid attention to the sermon on the Mount and the number of times Jesus gives incredibly, incredibly difficult teachings in the sense of, oh, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.

If someone asks you to carry their burden for a mile, go for two miles. Like that's not stuff that we do. That is not what we naturally do. And in fact, I think we probably come across that more often than we come across any of the violations of the Sixth or Ninth Commandments. And so there's recognition that here is, man, if we go back, I invite all of us to do this. To go back to the sermon on the Mount, right? It starts with Matthew chapter 5 and goes through Matthew chapter 7.

to read this. This is the teaching of Jesus. If you want to know, what did Jesus teach? Well, he taught love, you know, tolerance, kindness, including everybody. Well, that's wonderful. Yes and no. Let's go back. Let's actually, let's do this. Let's go back and let's all of us reread the sermon on the Mount. And let's reread it as if it were addressed to us right now. Not just kind of like, well, way back in the day, 2,000 years ago, Jesus was talking to this random group of people that happened to be on this particular mountain and he gave this sermon. Like, hey, this is a good idea to do. But what if Jesus said you? This is how I want you to live. Like talking right directly to you right now. This is how I need you to live. And to start there, my sense I would get is when I go back and do this,

is I will be very deeply convicted. And I will see all of the ways that I don't do this. I'll see all the ways that, you know, it says here that in paragraph of 1967, he's addressing the beginning, the beatitudes, to those who are open to accepting this new hope with faith, like the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ. And I ask the question, wait, can I see myself? in them. Do I actually, am I among their number? Or am I outside their number? I don't want to be outside their number. I want to be included among those that Jesus say, are blessed. Blessed are you,

when? Blessed are they when? I want to be one of them, right? I want to be included in that. And so what that means in so many ways is let's all. Again, let's go back to the sermon on the mount and let's allow Jesus to speak directly to us, not as, again, not as, hey, this is a good idea if you think about it, do these things, but this is what I need you to do. And when we find ourselves, again, when we find ourselves saying, wait, I can't do that. I don't have the ability in me to forgive like that. I don't have the ability in me to pray and to give alms and to fast like this. How can I move forward, Lord? And he tells us, through the grace of the Holy Spirit. is that's what we have to do.

We once again rely upon for everything on the grace of the Holy Spirit. And where do we get the grace of the Holy Spirit? Once again, 1966, through the use of the sacraments to give us that grace, the grace of the Holy Spirit, to fulfill the new law. Anyways, I think that what a great gift it is tomorrow. We're going to continue talking about the law of the gospel in the next couple paragraphs. And just so good for us to allow ourselves to be convicted. And so, again, if you have time, if you have time today or tomorrow, but let's just say it today, to reread the sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, and to allow Jesus to speak to your

heart and allow Jesus to convict your heart. I'm going to pray that the Holy Spirit and our Lord convicts my heart and say, okay, God, here's the great call. Not to discouragement, right? Not to discouragement, but the great call to, once again, rely on God's grace to live out the life of faith. in the life of grace and the life of the Holy Spirit. Anyways, you guys, I am praying for you.

Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I can't wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.