The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 273: Him Only Shall You Serve

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

How can we serve God? The Catechism identifies ways in which we can keep the first commandment through adoration, prayer, sacrifice, and promises and vows. Fr. Mike relates these to us and identifies how we can truly worship and serve the Lord throughout our daily lives. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2095-2103. 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.

I have a 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 in God's family. As we journey together to Heavenly home, this is day 273, we are reading paragraphs 2095-2103 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 cyy. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates. And daily notifications today is day 273. I guess I said we're eating paragraph 2095 and 20103. Yesterday we talked about how the first part of the first commandment is you shall worship the Lord your God. And the second part is him only shall you serve. So yesterday we talked about what are the ways we can sit against this for the regard to faith, hope love today We're gonna talk about Adoration prayer. We're gonna look at sacrifice. What is the proper sacrifice?

How do we adore the Lord? How is it that we truly serve the Lord promises and vows as well as those things like the Evangelical Councils member I think we had a little lesson on that little few days ago little lesson little days In the words are like chastity, poverty, obedience, those are the evangelical councils that sometimes people like promises about those things. They they cows regarding poverty, chastity, and obedience. So we're looking at all of those adoration, prayer, sacrifice, as well as promises and vows. So that sums up some stuff in order to get ready for today. Let us call upon the Lord and enter into prayer, Father in heaven. Because of Jesus, we have access to your heart. We thank you for your son. We thank

you for loving us so much that you've given us not only your son, but also your Holy Spirit, as another paraclete, as another helper that has been poured out into our hearts. Thank you, Lord God. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Son and Holy Spirit. Holy Trinity, you are truly the mystery of mysteries and we can hardly understand you but help us to love you. Help us to love you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Help us to love you one God. Help us to adore you and every time we pray, help us to pray to you, help us to know who it is that we're talking to. To help us to know who it is that loves us so much. Lord God, let every moment of this day

be a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to you and to your glory. We make this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. In the name of the Father, in the Son, in the Holy Spirit, amen. As I said, it is day 273, we are reading paragraphs 2095 to 2103. Him only shall you serve.

The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity inform and give life to the moral virtues. Thus charity leads us to render to God what we as creatures owe him in all justice. The virtue of religion disposes us to have this attitude. Adoration Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. To adore God is to acknowledge Him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists as infinite and merciful love. You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve, says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy. To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect in absolute submission,

the nothingness of the creature who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt Him and to humble oneself as Mary did in the magnificate, confessing with gratitude that He has done great things and holy is His name. The worship of the One God sets man free from turning in on himself from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world. Prayer. The acts of faith, hope and charity, injoined by the First Commandment are accomplished in prayer. Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God. Prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. We ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Sacrifice It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion. St. Augustine stated, Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness and thus achieve blessedness is a true sacrifice. Outward sacrifices to be genuine must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. The prophets of the old covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart

or not coupled with love of neighbor. Jesus recalls the words of the Prophet Hosea, Idzai'a mercy, and not sacrifice. The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation. By uniting ourselves with His sacrifice, we can make our lives a sacrifice to God. Promises in vows. In many circumstances, the Christian is called to make promises to God. Baptism and confirmation, matrimony and holy orders always entail promises.

Out of personal devotion, the Christian may also promise to God this action, that prayer, this almsgiving, that pilgrimage, and so forth. Fidelity to promises made to God is a sign of the respect owed to the divine majesty and of love for a faithful God. A vow is a deliberate and free promise made to God concerning a possible and better good which must be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion. A vow is an act of devotion in which the Christian dedicates himself to God or promises him some good work. By fulfilling his vows, he renders to God what has been promised and

consecrated to him. The acts of the apostles shows us St. Paul concerned to fulfill the vows he had made. The church recognizes an exemplary value in the vows to practice the evangelical councils. Lumingencym states, Mother Church rejoices that she has within herself many men and women who pursue the Savior's self-emptying more closely and shortforth more clearly by undertaking poverty with the freedom of the children of God and renouncing their own will. They submit themselves to man for the sake of God, thus going beyond what is a precept in a matter of perfection, so as to conform themselves more

fully to the obedient Christ. The Church can, in certain cases, and for proportionate reasons, dispense from vows and promises. There we have it, Paragraphs 2095 to 20103 in building off what we heard yesterday. You shall worship the Lord to God,

and Him only shall you serve. And so we recognize the, you shall worship the Lord to God, and Him only shall you serve. And so we recognize the adoration belongs to the Lord. I love the fact that paragraph 29-5 starts off by telling us, revealing to us, reminding us that charity or love leads us to render to God what we as creatures owe Him in all justice. So the virtue of religion is a proper virtue that belongs to the virtue of justice.

I don't know if we've talked about this yet. So even the ancients, even ancient Greeks talking about the virtues would categorize like justice as one of the virtues, giving someone what they're owed, giving someone what is there do. We talked about that when we talked about the cardinal virtues. But there are these sub-virtues under the bigger umbrella of justice. So justice, giving someone what they're owed. The first virtue of justice is the virtue of religion, basically giving to God what we owe to God. And the first act of the virtue of religion is adoration.

So the first thing that we owe to God is to acknowledge that God is God, and I'm not. So I love that in paragraph 2096. It states this. It says, to adore God is to acknowledge Him as God as the creator and savior, the Lord and master of everything that exists as infinite and merciful love. That's the first act of the virtue of religion,

which is the first virtue under the virtue of justice. And so it's so critical for us. If we want to be virtuous people, if we want to be people who are upright, standing up, upright before the Lord, is that adoration is a regular part of our day.

Okay, so what's adoration? Well, period of 2097 highlights this. What is it to adore God? To adore God is to acknowledge God. Okay, that's pretty easy, right? To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect, and absolute submission, the nothingness of the creature who would not exist but for God. Is that incredible? Just to realize, to adore God, part of that is simply to acknowledge,

again, with that respect and absolute submission, that before the Lord, I'm nothing without God, I am nothing. That's not the end of it, or it's just the beginning. To adore God is to praise and exalt Him and to humble oneself like Mary did. And remember that humility is not putting yourself down. Humility is not insulting yourself. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, right?

As I think Rick Warren and other people have said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is thinking of yourself less. In that sense of, I'm just going to tell the truth. That's truly what it is to humble oneself. And so I'm going to tell the truth. The truth is, Lord God, without you, I'm nothing. Before you, I am insignificant in comparison to your absolute goodness.

And that's not putting yourself down. That's simply describing the truth. And so to adore God is to praise and exalt God and to humble oneself. The worship of the one God, and what's this due to us? We talked about this yesterday, I think, maybe it's the day before. Sometimes these days run together for you, for me, for all of us. We talked about this in that sense of,

well, why do we worship God? Not because God needs us to. To worship God, it sets us free from turning in on ourselves. I mean, this is what love does, too, doesn't it? Love is the thing that if you've ever experienced this where you've actually experienced actual love, not just affectionate love, you know, actual love that where you're called upon to give of yourself, then you realize this, that love to love anything, it brings you out of yourself.

It takes you out of yourself. Adoration does the same thing. Worship is meant to do the same thing. It breaks open our small little worlds that we're so quick to turn in on ourselves. I mean, think about this, even on a human level. How many times are you driving in your car and you're just, you're in your own world?

And we forget the fact that all these other cars Have people inside them with their own little worlds or are you walking down the street? I got my thing. I'm late for my thing I'm trying to do my thing and he to accomplish my thing as opposed to realizing wait a second If I just paused for a moment I'd realize that there's all these other people around me all these other beings Made in God's image as well, for whom Jesus Christ died as well, who He lives and He wants them to experience His Holy Spirit as well,

to realize all of us. There's more than just us, right? There's more than just me. And so love brings us out of ourselves. Adoration, worship, sets us free from turning in on ourselves. It sets us free from the slavery of sin and sets us free from the idolatry of the world. That's this adoration. So then prayer keeps on going on.

And this is so important. How important prayer is. In fact, it's paragraph 2098 says the prayer is so important that prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. Think about that. If I want to be a person of virtue, if we go through these 10 commandments for the next number of days, and I want to, even part of me,

kind of sort of, wants to be able to do what God asks of me. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. I have a friend, his name is Mark Hart. Mark once said this, he said, prayer doesn't help your relationship with God. Prayer is your relationship with God.

To be able to say, if I don't pray, we're gonna talk about this in the fourth pillar when it comes to prayer. If I don't pray, then I don't have a relationship with God. That's at least that one, not one that's alive. Moving on, sacrifice. Now this is so important. I love paragraph 2099 and 2100,

not just because they're good numbers, but because what the content is, here we go, 2099 and 2100, not just because they're good numbers, but because what the content is, here we go, 2099. It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion. And then there's this quote from St. Augustine. And this is, we talked about this many, many times. We've talked about this when it came to the vocation, to holy orders, when it came to the vocation of marriage and family, when we talked about vocation of the laity. St. Augustine said this, Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness and thus achieve blessedness

is a true sacrifice. Essentially, what he's saying is, anything offered to God, like anything you do, whether you're working, whether you're working out, whether you're sleeping, taking care of someone else, whatever you're doing, every action, done so as to cling to God and communion of holiness and thus achieve blessedness is a true sacrifice. Another way to say it, everything offered to God is a sacrifice. Not only a sacrifice, St. Augustine says, a true sacrifice. So keep that in mind. There's no moment of your day that that doesn't have to be a sacrifice. There's no moment of your day that doesn't have to be a sacrifice. There's no moment of your day that doesn't have to be part of worship. The next paragraph 2100

highlights this part, but for out needs, this is a butt, I say butt, but outward sacrifice to be genuine must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice. Remember how many times the prophets and the old covenant are saying, you know, you're offering these sacrifices to God, but your hearts are far from Him. Or you're giving God this worship, but you're not obeying as commandments, or you're offering to God all these sacrifices, but you're not taking care of the people next to you. You're not taking care of the people who need your care. And Jesus even highlights this as well. Jesus echoes those words of the prophets. Remember, Prophet Ozea, who said, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

That is so important for us. Again, it's not just outward sacrifice. It's united to our inner heart. It goes on to say in paragraph 2100, and you know this already. He says, the only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love

and for our salvation. We recognize that's the only perfect sacrifice. And what we get to do in our whole lives, like St. Augustine said, any every action done by uniting ourselves with his sacrifice, we can make our lives a sacrifice to God. That's what we're doing. We're not just on our own offering our deeds, or offering our whatever it is as a sacrifice.

We're uniting whatever we do. We're uniting those things with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, because that is the only perfect sacrifice. Now, the last piece is promises and vows. We can, many circumstances, we have to make promises. In baptism and confirmation, in holy orders and matrimony, we're making promises, and that's a good thing.

That is a good thing. And also, you could, out of personal devotion, make a promise to God. You could say, I love how 2101 highlights this. It says, the Christian might also promise to God this action, that prayer, this almsgiving, that pilgrimage, and so forth. Yeah, all of the things that we could say,

God, I promise you that out of love for you, I want to pray the next 29 days for 29 minutes in the presence of your blessed sacrament. Like that could be a thing that someone decides to do. You can make that promise. That is an exemplary thing. Why? Because fidelity to promises made to God is a sign of the respect owed to God and a sign of love to our faithful God.

Now, you don't have to make promises. the respect owed to God and a sign of love to our faithful God. Now, you don't have to make promises. In fact, I think Saint Francis de Sales, he had made a promise to pray the rosary every day of his life. And at one point, someone asked him, they said, hey, should I make that same promise? And Saint Francis de Sales, apparently, according to a story that I read,

discouraged that, he discouraged, he said, no, just pray the rosary every day. You don't have to make a promise to pray the rosary every day. For himself, he made that promise, but he also recognized that because of that promise, it limits him. No, that's what promises do. Promises limit us.

I mean, think about matrimony. You make a promise to this one person, and it limits you. That limitation is actually freedom, right? We know this, right? The limitation is, I promise no one else but you. So I've limited myself to my spouse. That is great because it now gives you the freedom

to fully love your spouse and the freedom for your spouse to fully love you. So St. Francis the sales saying, yeah, that gave me freedom. I'm gonna pray the Rosary every day. It's not even a question anymore. But he wanted the people who, the person, at least who asked him this question, to have a different kind of freedom.

Not just the freedom to always, I'm gonna pray the Rosary no matter what, but the freedom to also choose another kind of prayer. Does that make sense? So you might be called like St. Francis. You might be drawn to the idea like St. Francis decales of making that promise. And this, I would say, way that out

with the help of spiritual guide of some sort before you make that kind of promise. A vow now is something even more serious I would say, way that out with the help of spiritual guide of some sort before you make that kind of promise. A vow now is something even more serious, would say. A vow is a deliberate and free promise made to God concerning a possible and better good which must be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion. So what is that? What are we saying? A vow is a deliberate and free promise, okay?

It's a promise. It's a kind of promise. A promise made to God concerning a possible and better good, which must be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion. So, an example could be the Evangelical Councils. We mentioned that those Evangelical Councils are poverty, chastity, obedience. So someone might make a vow of poverty, right? They might make a vow of obedience. So, Benedictine monks and Benedictine nuns, they make a vow of obedience to the superior. Now, a lot of other religious communities do too.

I just pick it on the Benedictine. So if you're a monk, you make a vow of obedience to your superior. If you're a Benedictine nun, make a vow of obedience to your superior. And what that essentially means, you are making a vow, promised to God, that when it comes to what you do

and what you don't do, you will always do that in obedience to this person. And Lumin Gensium, right, from the Second Vatican Council, highlights what the good of this, it says this, it says, they submit themselves to man for the sake of God, thus going beyond what is of precept in the manner of perfection, so as to conform themselves more fully to the obedient Christ, that Jesus, yes, of course,

he's fully obedient to his father. But for 30 years of his life, Jesus returned to Nazareth and was obedient to his earthly parents, right? He's obedient to his natural mother and his foster father, Joseph. And so there is that sense of obedience that here an individual might desire to say, okay, I want to go beyond the normal realm of obedience when it comes to Amidl obey God's in his commandments. I want to go beyond that and actually submit my will to a human being for the sake of God. So that's some of the blessing and benefit of making a vow of obedience,

or a vow of jacity, or a vow of poverty. The last note here, it's exciting the code of canon law. It says, the church can in certain cases and for proportionate reasons, dispense from vows and promises. So if a person has made a vow of poverty, jacity and obedience, right, they've made a promise to enter into a religious community or something like this.

The church can, in certain cases, not always, but in certain cases, and for a proportionate reasons, dispense a person from those vows or those promises. Hope that makes sense. So wow, yes, today, it feels like, does it feel like I'm talking a little faster today than normal? I don't know if that's the case. I just, okay, get excited. We're gonna have to calm it down as we continue to go forward.

Tomorrow, it's also very exciting. It's, we're talking about the social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom, which I think is just, so amazing that the church is highlighting this fact that, yes, we have a right to religious freedom. And it's not just You know in the American Constitution it is in It's here in the catechism that that here's this thing that predates the Constitution Here's this thing that that predates so many civilizations so many countries and the church is saying yes

No one may never ever force the religion upon another and no one may force the religion upon you We have this duty of religion and also the right to religious freedom force their religion upon another and no one may force their religion upon you. We have this duty of religion and also the right to religious freedom. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Today though, guess what? I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. you