The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 266: The Gift of Grace (2026)

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

In this summary of the Catechism’s teaching on holiness, justification, and merit, we briefly consider the work of God’s grace and mercy. His grace moves us from sin and toward him, making us his sons and daughters and bringing us into the very life of the Trinity. This gift of grace invites us to respond to his promptings and invitations freely. Finally, God offers “all the graces needed to attain eternal life.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2017-2029. 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.

We can't lose our faith the way we lose our car keys. We either give it away or we let it decay because we don't use it. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. And in my new book, Unshakeable, building a life of virtue in a world of chaos, I tell faith-filled stories that inspire you to live a life of virtue that flows from the unshakable power of God. Although we're surrounded by a culture that mocks virtue, we can feed ourselves stories that really do uphold what is good and promote a virtuous life.

When we live this way, we experience freedom and joy like never before. It's my prayer that the stories in my book, Unshakeable, will inspire you to fight the battle for a virtuous life and win through trust in an unshakable God. Order your copy at ascensionpress.com. 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 shared goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down to the tradition of the Catholic faith, the Catechism in a year podcast, and you're listening. the 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 family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 266. It's not a good day. We're reading paragraphs 2017 to 2029. 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 lastly you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today. Day 266, date 2017 to 2029. It is not lost on me that this is, you know, the year, the year we are in right now, whether you're listening in 2023,

2024, 2027, it's your paragraph is your year. I don't, that makes sense. I don't know. Sometimes I look at numbers and think, okay, here we are. But it's not a good day, you guys. And not only is a nugget day. We are reading so many nuggets. They're 2017 to 2029 because why? I mean, we've been looking at salvation and the salvation that requirement that were, A, first, that we're called by the Lord God to belong to him in this completely unique way. He's given us grace and we are justified by grace through faith, working itself out in love. Of course, we're called to respond to that grace with our free will. And, you know, we have merit, we have Christian holiness, all these topics we've been talking about for the last number of days.

we get to be summarized here in our nuggets, Nugget 2017 to 2029. So before we launch into this thorough nugget day, as one might say, the entire chicken, we are going to say a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for getting us here. Thank you so much for leading us and guiding us to this day,

to this moment where we have an opportunity to be reminded of the great call you've placed in our lives. What you've done for us by your life, death and resurrection, the life, death, the resurrection of your son, by pouring out your Holy Spirit into our hearts, by giving us your spirit, your life, your grace through the sacraments, helping us live that out in faith. Lord God, in this moment, this day, we ask you to please help us. Help us to not only boldly proclaim the faith, but to allow the faith to guide every step of our lives, every thought we have, every movement of our heart. Let that faith that trust in you,

be the impetus that guides us. Let our love for you, actually even more so, your love for us be the power that moves us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is a 266 we're reading paragraphs 2017 to 2029. In brief, the grace of the Holy Spirit confers upon us the righteousness of God. Uniting us by faith and baptism to the passion and resurrection of Christ, the Spirit makes us sharers in his life. Like conversion, justification has two aspects. Moved by grace, man turns toward God

and away from sin, and so accepts forgiveness and righteousness from on high. Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man. Justification has been merited for us by the passion of Christ. It is granted us through baptism. It conforms us to the righteousness of God who justifies us. It has for its goal the glory of God and of Christ and the gift of eternal life. It is the most excellent work of God's mercy. Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons. It introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits their free response of man. grace responds to the deepest yearnings of human freedom,

calls freedom to cooperate with it, and perfects freedom. Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of his life that God makes to us. It is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Sanctifying grace makes us pleasing to God. Charisms, special graces of the Holy Spirit, are oriented to sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the church. God also acts through many actual graces to be distinguished from habitual grace which is permanent in us. We can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of his grace.

Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God. The grace of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit on us by virtue of our adoptive filiation and in accordance with God's gratuitous justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God. No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods. All Christians are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.

Christian perfection has but one limit, that of having none. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me right there we are paragraphs 2017 to 2029 nuggets and so many nuggets and so much goodness oh my gosh like what an incredible grace i mean and that's it it's grace so how much how much of catholic theology is permeated and defined is is only understood in light of grace i mean honestly let's go back to the very first bullets virtually every bullet i actually i think from 2017 to 29 to 2029, I think almost every bullet, every nugget has the word grace in it, which highlights the fact that grace is central to everything.

Because what God has done for us is grace. It's his gift. It's his gratuitous, unmerited, and free gift. So paragraph 2017, we highlight this. The grace of the Holy Spirit confers upon us the righteousness of God. How? By uniting us, by faith and baptism. Remember, that's our entryway into the life of grace, to the passion and resurrection of Christ,

to the passion and resurrection of Christ, the Spirit makes us sharers in his life. So by God's free gift through baptism and faith, we become what? We become shares in his divine life, which means we become his adopted sons and daughters. We actually become partakers of the divine nature. We're a new creation. I like this in paragraph 2018. It says, like conversion, justification has two aspects. So what are the two aspects in conversion? Two aspects and perversion. One, first aspect of conversions, I turn away from sin, but that's not all, right? Go back to the book of Exodus. When God sets his people free from slavery. He sets them free from something, right? He sets them free from slavery, but he also sets them free for something, not just freedom. He says them free from slavery,

not just for freedom, but it sets them free from slavery for new life, for worship in order to belong to him. And similarly, the grace of conversion has two aspects, right? So I turn away from sin and turn to God. It's not just enough to turn away from sin. I have to also turn toward God. Now, sometimes people have this in their lives where they think, you know what, I'm tired of it. I can't live this way anymore. These choices I've been making. They're dumb. They hurt me.

They hurt the people around me. So I'm going to stop doing the negative thing. That's wonderful. But that's not true conversion unless they're not only turning away from this evil, but also turning toward God. Not just turning toward, hey, here's a new leaf or a new life. I'm turning towards God. So conversion is that, right?

It's turning away from sin, turning toward God and justification is very similar. Two aspects. Move by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, and so accepts forgiveness and righteousness from on high. Those movements of grace and free will that God moves us by his grace, and we respond by the power of his grace in our free will. I love paragraph 2020. It is maybe one of the second longest, maybe third longest paragraph here nugget here, but paragraph 2020 highlights this. Justification has been merited for us by what? Not by our own deeds? not by own works, has been merited for us by the passion of Christ. It has granted us, how, through baptism?

Remember these things? It's because of Jesus, what he's done for us, and given to us by the Holy Spirit working through baptism. What does it do? It conforms us to the righteousness of God who justifies us and brings us into that right relationship with the Father. It has for its goal the glory of God and of Christ and the gift of eternal life. I don't know if we've ever thought about this.

The fact that God has given us his grace, one of the goals of that is that God is glorified. I mean, you've realized this, that every time a person is baptized, every time a person turns away from sin, every time a person allows God's grace to transform his life, God is glorified. That's the goal. The goal is that the God who is love, the God who made this whole world that made it full of his goodness, he's glorified when we turn away from sin. He's glorified when grace transforms our hearts, has as its goal, the glory of God, and of Christ and the gift of eternal life. The goal is also that you and I can share in that eternal life

for eternity, right? Forever. I love this last sentence in paragraph 2020. It is the most excellent work of God's mercy. Justification. This, this, all this, this transformation, this glorification of God and sanctification of man is the most excellent work of God's mercy. It's just, oh man, what an incredible gift. And you're part of this. I mean, think about this. This paragraph 2020, I mean, all the thing, everything we're talking about, this is not about what God wants to do in someone else's life. This is, you know, here's God's miracle of creation. Here's got a miracle of redemption. Here's God's miracle of sanctification, justification. The most excellent work of God's mercy isn't just in someone else. It's not just in St. Francis of Assisi or St. Terese or St. Terese or John Paul II or Mother Teresa. It's in you. The most excellent work of God's mercy is accomplished in you. I mean, it's wherever you. I mean, think about this. wherever you are right now, if you're sitting at your desk, if you're in your car, if you're out for a walk or for a run, then the most excellent work of God's mercy has been accomplished and is being accomplished in you right now.

What an incredible, incredible gift. And also, remember it's God's work. I like a paragraph 2022 highlights the divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man. Remember, we have this thing called prevenient grace, right? The grace that moves before we even are aware of this. So the divine initiative, because God is always the one who initiates, we'll talk about this again when it comes to prayer, but our prayer is always a response. Our choosing good is always a response. So the divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.

Grace responds to the deepest yearnings of human freedom and calls freedom to cooperate with it and perfects freedom. So God's grace, remember we talked about this a little bit briefly. God's grace does not overwhelm human freedom. God's grace does not eradicate human freedom. God's grace does not disqualify or nullify human freedom. God's grace works with human freedom. And not only does it work with human freedom,

it perfects human freedom. What do we mean about that? Well, think about this. If you've ever fallen into sin, you know what sin does. Sin makes us a slave. And so those who sin are slaves of sin, every one of us. Because I'm now less free to say no to sin.

to grace. I'm now less free to do actually what I'm made to do because I've now bound myself to this sin. But grace sets us free. It sets us free to be able to say yes to the good and to be able to free to say no to the bad. That's what we're made for. I mean, this is the crazy thing. You are made. I mean, your heart and we know this. Even if sometimes we're attracted to sin because of concupusence, remember that being drawn to sin. We know that your heart in my heart long. for God's plan. Longs for God, longs for God himself. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

We talked about a couple days ago. And so we recognize this. This is so true that God's grace perfects human freedom. And it's so incredible. Remember that what sanctifying grace is, remember we talked about maybe we'll say, we'll say three kinds of grace here in this last little nugget section. There's sanctifying grace or habitual grace, right? That's permanent.

That has made us, it's the gift of God in paragraph 2023. it's the gift of his life that God makes to us, that it's infused with the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and sanctified. It's infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and sanctify it. So sanctifying grace makes us pleasing to God. It makes us God's sons and daughters.

It's sanctifying grace. Remember, it's habitual, it's permanent. We have charisms, which are special graces of the Holy Spirit, that are oriented towards to build off the sanctifying grace, right? So they're intended for what? These charisms are intended for the building up of the church. So miracles and mighty works and prophecy and tongues, those kind of gifts, those charisms are not intended just for the person to whom they've been given. They're intended to be used to build up the body of Christ, intended to build up to the church.

What do you mean? Well, here's an example. Whenever missionaries and whenever the apostles would go into a new place, they would not only preach the truth about Jesus, but then in order to prove that what they preached was true, they would have mighty works. They would build up the body of Christ. So that's what those charisms are for. And the third sense of grace that we can talk about today are actual graces. In paragraph 2024, it says God also acts through many actual graces to be distinguished from habitual grace, which is permanent in us.

And so this is so good. Last couple notes. We talked about merit, maybe two days ago, three days ago, two or three days ago, not yesterday the day before. We'll say, I like that. Merit. In paragraph 2025 and 2026, talk about merit. And we, it's so amazing that we can talk about merit.

and at the same time, whenever we even talk about what we have merited, we cannot talk about what we've merited apart from what God is done in us. So the very first line, 2025, we can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God. And secondly, to man's collaboration. So man's merit is due to God. I love this. It's so humbling, but it's so true. It's so true. true. It is that sense of, okay, yes, even the good that I do, God, it comes from you. Even the little good that I do is your gift to me, Lord God. And that is so, so. When I say humbling, I don't mean it's demeaning, right? We know that that term humble or humility or humbling doesn't

mean demeaning. It means honest. So the honest truth is that the only good in me comes from the Lord God and it's so good. And 2026, the race of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit. us by virtue of our adoptive affiliation and in accordance with God's gratuitous justice. It is this love. Love is the principal source of merit in us before God. And it's so good. And just, oh man, you guys, what an incredible gift to be reminded of. Now tomorrow, tomorrow we're going to take the next step.

And the next step is Article 3 here in salvation. And we're talking about the church. And we're talking about the fact that the church has many roles, right? But two titles that the catechism is going to pause over and hover over and dive. deeply into is the fact that the church is both mother and teacher. It's like mater a magestra. I think that's the way you might say it in certain languages like Latin. Matere meaning mother and magistra meaning teacher amagestra. I don't know if it's a hard gie or not. Anyways, but the church has mother and teachers that we're going to be talking about in the next

couple days because here is the reality. The reality is that we are called in the moral life. We're called in life of Christ to let our church, let the church established by Jesus Christ, founded by God himself and infused by the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the soul of the church is the Holy Spirit. We're called to let that church, not just let that church. We're called to live in that church as the church is our mother and the church is our teacher. So we'll talk about that tomorrow. And so I'm so excited. You guys, but what a grace. What a great gift today to be able to conclude this last article, section article two, and about how God,

God's gift of salvation is free. God's gift of salvation is unmerited. God's gift of grace is true and it's offered to you and to me right now. All we have to do is say yes. I'm so, so grateful. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.