The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 267: The Church as Mother and Teacher (2025)

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

“The moral life is spiritual worship,” says the Catechism. From the Church, we receive moral guidance, with the Magisterium safeguarding and passing down authentic Christian moral teaching through the generations. This teaching reminds us who we are and how we should be, though it may sometimes deeply challenge us. In its prophetic role, Fr. Mike tells us, “the Church must both console and convict.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2030-2036. 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's 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'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 267. We're reading paragraphs 2030 to 2036. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you could 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 lastly, you can. You can. You can't. You can't click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications. It is day 267. As I said, yesterday we finished Article 2 on grace and merit and freedom, and it's awesome. Today, I mentioned this yesterday. Today we're talking about the church, our mother and teacher.

the next couple days, we're going to be talking about this until we launch into the Ten Commandments and really diving deeply into the moral life. And one of the reasons why the church is setting this out for us is because if the church is our mother, then she loves us. And if the church is our teacher, then we need to listen to her. And that's, and that's, that can be the challenge for so many of us. We talked about this a little bit before. But sometimes when people read the Bible, it can be far enough ago, like long enough in the past that people are not threatened by the Bible. sometimes. Sometimes people are, which is good because the word of God is meant to convict our hearts and meant to console our hearts. It's meant to be very, very present. But sometimes we can hold it

at an arm's length and say, well, that was then. And maybe God's word is convicting me, but, you know, I'm not going to apply it to my life right now. And then all of a sudden, here is Jesus, 2,000 years ago, who gives us a church. And even before that, you know, when God raised up the people of Israel, that was the community. That wasn't, it wasn't like people read the Bible in isolation, they would read the Bible with and through the community. And just like as Christians for 2,000 years, we read the Bible with and through the church, the lens of the interpretation of the Magisterium, right? The teaching office of the church. And I guess that motherly role of the church. And one of the things that does is it makes us have to pay attention and say,

oh, I am being challenged if the church is teaching something that I don't like. If the church is teaching something that I find challenging. I have to allow myself to be challenged. I have to allow myself to be taught. And so one of the things we pray for as we launch into today is docility. And docility is that openness to being taught. If the church is our mother and she is, if the church is our teacher and she is, then we have to allow her to care for us. We have to allow her to teach us. And so we ask for hearts like that. We ask for docile hearts, teachable hearts, leadable, guideable, hearts, hearts that can listen and then can act on what we hear. So we pray, Father in heaven, we know that through your son, Jesus Christ, you established a church on earth. And by the power

of your Holy Spirit, you have guided and continued to guide the teaching office of the church. We ask that you please help us to have hearts that are teachable. Help us to have hearts that are guideable, that are leadable, that are docile to your word, hearts that are open to being taught so that our lives can be transformed so that our lives truly can be offered in spiritual worship, help so that we can present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, because our wills are conformed to your will. And we know that will through your word given to us through sacred scripture and through your teaching given to us through sacred tradition. Lord God, help us to be dacile, help us to be open, help us to be led straight to your

heart. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is due to day 267. We are reading paragraphs 2030 to 2036. Article 3. The Church, Mother and Teacher. It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation. From the Church, he receives the Word of God containing the teachings of the law of Christ. From the Church, he receives the grace of the sacraments that sustain him on the way. From the church, he learns the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all-holy Virgin Mary. He discerns it in the authentic witness of those who live it. He discovers it in the spiritual tradition and long history

of the saints who have gone before him and whom the liturgy celebrates in the rhythms of the sanctoral cycle. The moral life is spiritual worship, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans. We present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, within the body of Christ that we form and in communion with the offering of His Eucharist. In the liturgy and the celebration of the sacraments, prayer and teaching are conjoined with the grace of Christ to enlighten and nourish Christian activity. As does the whole of the Christian life, the moral life finds its source and summit in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Moral Life and the Magisterium of the Church The church, the pillar in bulwark of the truth, has received this solemn command of Christ

from the apostles to announce the saving truth. To the church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls. The magisterium of the pastors of the church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus, from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the deposit of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and animated by charity.

Alongside the creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the decalogue, which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men. The Roman pontiff and the bishops are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice. The ordinary and universal magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for. The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the churism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine revelation.

It also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed. The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary. for salvation. In recalling the prescriptions of the natural law, the magisterium of the church exercises an essential part of its prophetic office of proclaiming to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God. All right, there we have it, paragraphs 2030 to 2036. As we begin, once again, being reminded of the authority of the church,

the authority of the church Jesus, who said, if you hear, he who hears you, hears me, we recognize that It is in the church. Paragraph 2030 says this. It is in the church in communion with all the baptized that the Christian fulfills his vocation, that we are made. Yes, of course, to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but not a private one. That is so important for all of us. Every one of us is called to a personal relationship with Jesus, but we're also called

to be part of the body of Christ. I mean, we're brought, how much more clearly could Scripture describe this? How much more clear could Scripture be that you're a member of the body of Christ that the body Christ has many parts, but it's still one, many members, but still one. And that's so important that Jesus is the head and we are the body. And so often, as Christians, we can kind of go our own way, right? We can, as Christians, we can even think, in this case, I am on my own. In this case, I'm going to read the Bible myself and figure it out myself.

And yet, this very big line in 2030, it is in the church in communion with all the baptized that the Christian fulfills his vocation. Why? Because, and it's this bullet point of, it's not bullets, but, you know, it's a list of in paragraph 2030, from the church, what happens? Well, you receive the Word of God containing the teachings of the law of Christ. Remember, remember, when someone says, well, okay, paragraph 231 and 2032 says all these things, 2034, 35, so it makes all these claims about the teaching authority of the church. In question is, well, where is that in the Bible? Right? That can be one of the big questions. Where's that in the Bible? And the question we get to respond to is, where did your Bible come from? we recognize that the church precedes the scriptures, the New Testament at least, right? The church precedes the Bible. The church gave us the Bible. And not only that, but the Bible describes the church, as quoted here in paragraph 232, the Bible describes the church as the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

So to keep this in mind, whenever we hear someone talk about that the premise here is that the scripture is the sole rule of faith, right? That's one of the premises of the Protestant Reformation, Sola Scriptura. And yet we can ask that question. Okay, if the scripture is the sole rule of faith, where is that in the Bible? Where is the idea that you don't need tradition? Where is the idea that tradition is less than? Where is that in the Bible?

And it's nowhere in the Bible. The best thing you can come to is a letter of St. Paul to Timothy, where he says that all of scripture is necessary for refutation and correction, instruction, and edification, essentially. That's wonderful and it's true. But that doesn't say that only scripture is the source of these things. in fact so we need to keep that in mind keep this in mind where from the church we received the word of god containing the teachings of the law of christ we got the bible from the church this is so important

for us to understand especially when people say to make this big claim right well if that teaching isn't in the bible explicitly then i don't need to accept it no no no the church that jesus gave us gave us the written scriptures, right, the holy scriptures and the church that Jesus established also gave us holy tradition. And it is so important for us to understand. Now, the next thing from the church, still by paragraph 2030, from the church, he receives the grace of the sacraments that sustain him on the way. Again, this is, we just, we're the recipients. Again, the church is not our teacher and mother to lord it over us. The church is teacher and mother to feed us and to lead us, right, to guide us and to help us become holy. And from the

church, we receive the sacraments going on. From the church, we learn the example of holiness, and we recognize in the church the model, the model of holiness in the Virgin Mary. And going on, going on to say, we discern it with the authentic witness of those who live it, right? We can measure, we measure the goodness of the church. We measure that even the truth of the church in some ways, not based off of those who fail to live up to it, but based off of those who do live up to it, right? We look not to the sinners in the church to say, like, is it right or true? Is it good or bad? We look to the saints, those who actually have lived out the teachings of the church and say, wow, that is the kind of a life that I want to live. That's the kind of life.

That is good. That's kind of life that blesses the world. It's easy to point to sinners, right? It's easy to point to all the people, including myself, who fail to live up to the call of Jesus Christ and say, well, Christianity can't be that great. But what about those people? who have actually not only professed like I profess, but actually live, live the faith in the way that we're all called to live it. The saint, not the sinner, is the model of the church. And this is so important. And we discern in it the authentic witness of those who live it.

Go on to say, he discovers, this is still paragraph 2030. You guys, I'm sorry for being bogged down here. He discovers it in the spiritual tradition and long history of the saints who have gone before him and whom the liturgy celebrates in the rhythms of the sanctorial cycle. So we see it in the lives of the saints. is so important. Now, paragraph 2031 is just beautiful. This first sentence is so remarkable. It says, the moral life is spiritual worship. It bases this, basing this off of Romans chapter 12 verse 1, where St. Paul says, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

I don't know if you ever thought about this. The moral life is a spiritual worship. It's an act of worship. That when we do God's will, when we give him our obedience, when we live mercy, when we live love. That's an act of worship to the Father. And that's so important for us. We present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Whenever we obey God's will, the Lord's will, whenever we obey his spokespeople on earth, right, the church, whenever we obey his word, that is an act of spiritual worship. So the moral life, the life that we're going to continue to describe and talk about for the next bunch of days, right? The next bunch of days we're going to talk about the commandments and the call to live these commandments out. That is not similar.

following the rules. That is an act of spiritual worship. So as we take these next steps in these next few days, I invite all of us to have this lens, this worldview, this mindset that says it's not just about following rules. As I do what the father wants, as I live this moral life as he's revealed to me through his word and through the church, that is an act of spiritual worship. It's so powerful, so important for us to understand this. Now, paragraph 2032 and following again as I said 2032 highlights the fact that the scripture calls the church the pillar and foundation of truth so important for us to understand now the canon law in the catholic church make some bold claims here in paragraph 232 and yet it's no more bold than scripture saying

that the church is the pillar pillar and foundation of truth but it says this in 2032 this is from the code of canon law it says to the church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls. Basically, that the church has the, not only the right, maybe I would even say also the duty to weigh in on human affairs, right? The church has the right and the duty to teach. And this is really, really so important. Why? Because in our world right now, We live in a post-Christian world that wants to silence the church and say, you don't have the right to speak in the public square, but also so many Catholics inside the church would say, oh, church, you don't have the right to weigh in on my private life.

You don't have the right to weigh in on how I live my life. You don't have the right to weigh in on how I view politics or how I view the sexual act or how I view how I raise my family or how I view how I run my business or all these things. And yet here's the Code of Canada law, the church saying, actually, we believe that the church does have the right, does have the authority to teach us. This is a better way to live and that we are obliged in so many areas, so many ways to attend to the teaching of the church. And 233 and 234 and 2035 highlight this Magisterium of pastors. We talked about Magisterium before, the teaching office of the church. So in moral matters, it's ordinarily exercised in catechises and preaching, right, with theologians and spiritual writers that help unpack some things. That's the ordinary exercise of the Magisterium.

We also note that in paragraph 2034, the Holy Father, right, the Pope, the Roman pontiff and the bishops are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice. and that means that we must attend to what they're saying. That's so important for us. And of course, there is a chasm of infallibility that's been entrusted to the Magisterium and has been entrusted to the Holy Father as well in certain areas. And again, it's not unlimited. It's not unlimited infallibility. That's important to note.

But I think we established that weeks and weeks, maybe even months ago. But it's limited in teachings of faith and morals. And keeping all those pieces in place, the last thing I want to highlight is in paragraph 2036. in fact, the last sentence, or last part of the last sentence in paragraph 2036, talking all about how the church, the magistrate, the teaching office of the church exercises an essential part of its prophetic office in proclaiming to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God. And this is, again, this is not about being a straitjack, it's not about binding people up in the sense of making them slaves to a rule or slaves to a law. It's more about binding people up

in their brokenness, right? How many times, many, you all who are listening, you've had a broken leg before. And you need that leg put into a cast, not because you're meant to be limited, but because we need to be healed. And so here is the church. One of its prophetic offices is to proclaim to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God. And this is so needed for us because we have forgotten who we are. The world around us has forgotten who individuals are, that every one of them is made in God's image and that every one of them is loved infinitely by this infinite God,

the infinitely loving God and who they should be, our call who we should be before God. Therefore, the church has to exercise this prophetic voice. And sometimes that prophetic voice is a consolation, right? Sometimes that prophetic voice is a word of just, oh, soothing and healing and goodness. And sometimes that voice is a convicting voice.

And it's a voice that challenges and maybe even stretches, but it's still good. The consoling word, prophetic voice of the church, and the prophetic and piercing word of the church is, it's good. And we need both, because that's how a prophet speaks. A prophet offers words of consolation and words of conviction. Therefore, the church must both console and convict. And that's why if we're challenged over the next few days, good, good for us, right?

if we're consoled over the next few days. Good. Good for us. Because we need it. We need both. The prophetic voice of the church to console us and convict us. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.