The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 284: The Fourth Commandment (2025)

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

The fourth commandment addresses the most universal human relationship: our relationship with our parents. Why does God command us to honor our father and our mother? Fr. Mike explains why this commandment sets the foundation for all the other commandments. He shares the 3 levels of respect and what it looks like to honor our parents despite their brokenness and imperfections. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2196-2200. 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 and God's family as we journey together to our heavenly home. This is day 284. We're reading paragraphs 2196 to 2,200. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach that 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 in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 284. As I said, we're reading paragraphs 2196 to 2200. We're starting on that second part, or a second portion, I guess, what we would say it like that division of the decalogue commandments four through ten and so today looking at this chapter two which is the great commandment second great commandment right you shall love your neighbor as yourself the fourth commandment of course is to honor your father and your mother and this is remarkable i don't know if you are prepared for this because you know the last couple days commandments one through three have had aspects to them that i think truly are so compelling

and reflect a depth of meditation on those first commandments. Commandment four and five in the following, right, and the rest of these, there is such richness. You know, we're teeing up the Fourth Commandment today. But tomorrow we're talking about the nature of the family and actually the role of the family in God's plan and what the Christian family is supposed to look like. We're also looking at family and society. And the duty that the family owes to society and the duty that society owes to families.

We're also going to talk about the duties of family members. to each other, not only the duties of parents, but also the duties of children. We're going to talk about all this and more, basically. But today, as I said, we're kind of teeing it up by looking at paragraphs 2196 at 2,200. So let's say a prayer and ask the Lord to give us his vision for family and for what families meant to be and what family could be, what your family and my family could be by his grace. So we pray, Father in heaven, we pray in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, in the power of your Holy Spirit.

Give us a clear vision. give us your vision of the role of the family in society, the role of the family in our world. Lord God, we have such distorted visions because of our own broken families. None of us have a perfect family. Every one of us comes from a dysfunctional family and every one of us belongs to a dysfunctional family. And yet you gave us the family. You created the family as the foundational building block, the primordial building block of society. and you've redeemed the family by your grace and you have called us all to participate

in the building up of your kingdom in and through the family because of that lord god we ask you to please clear away the distortion bring back into focus how it is you want us to approach this great gift of family and also heal heal the wounds that our families have inflicted and heal the wounds that we've inflicted on our families lord god none of us are guiltless none of us are painless or woundless we're all hurt and we've all hurt and so lord god we ask you to please meet us in that places of hurt meet us in those places where we're guilty and bring us closer to you in jesus name we pray amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen it is day 284 we're reading paragraphs 21 96 to 2200 chapter two you shall love your neighbor as yourself

Jesus said to his disciples, Love one another, even as I have loved you. In response to the question about the first of the commandments, Jesus says, The first is, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. The apostle St. Paul reminds us of this, he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this sentence. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Article 4. The Fourth Commandment, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. He was obedient to them. The Lord Jesus himself recalled the force of this commandment of God. The apostle teaches, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. The fourth commandment opens a second table of the decalogue. It shows us the order of charity. God has willed that after him we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. We are obliged to honor and respect all those whom God

for our good has vested with his authority. This commandment is expressed in positive terms of duties to be fulfilled. It introduces the subsequent commandments which are concerned with particular respect for life, marriage, earthly goods, and speech. It constitutes one of the foundations of the social doctrine of the church. The Fourth Commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those

to administer or govern it. This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons. Observing the Fourth Commandment brings its reward. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in a land which the Lord your God gives you. Respecting this commandment provides, along with spiritual fruits, temporal fruits of peace and prosperity. Conversely, failure to observe it brings great harm to communities and to individuals. All right, there we have it, day 284 paragraphs 2196 to 220. As I said, this day kind of helps us pivot from those first three commandments. Remember what they are. It basically summed up in the

Great Commandment. We're reminded of it in paragraph 2196, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, with all your strength. The second is this. you should love your neighbor as yourself. This is so important. Now we've made that pivot, right? So this commandment, this fourth commandment, becomes the first of this second half of the decalogue, these commandments that address how we interact with other human beings. And this is remarkable. I think this is so powerful because, once again, this day is like teeing up the Fourth Commandment. There's so much more we're going to talk about. But it tees up the Fourth Commandment because the Fourth Commandment tees up the rest of the commandments that we're going to face.

Why? Because as the catechism spells out very, very clearly, this is the primary relationship, meaning like this is the first relationship that every one of us has. I mean, every one of us has a mom and a dad. You know whether that mom or dad is present in our lives, whether that mom or dad was present in our lives, that's a whole other question. But not everyone has a sibling. Not everyone has uncles. Not everyone has children. Not everyone has extended family, cousins. But every human being who's ever lived has had a mom and a dad. And because of that, Lord's commandments, begin right here. The family is the foundational building block of society. Every single person has that primary relationship. And that's just, it's so important.

That's why we're starting right here. Now, paragraph 2197 highlights this. It highlights the fact that the Fourth Commandment opens the second table of the decalogue, obviously. It shows us the order of charity. God is will that after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. We're obliged to honor. We're obliged to honor. and respect all those whom God for our good has vested with his authority. So keep this in mind. This might be a big challenge. And again, every one of us is coming from a dysfunctional family. Every one of us is part of a dysfunctional family in some way, shape, or form because every one of us has dysfunctional hearts. We just recognize this. And let's just get this out of the way. None of us

have perfect parents. None of us are perfect parents. None of us are perfect siblings or children or brothers or sisters or spouses or single people. None of us are perfect. So therefore, virtually every relationship that we touch is going to be dysfunctional. Now, though, there's greater and lesser degrees of dysfunction, but we have to just get this out of the way. God gave this commandment, knowing that people would receive this commandment while in the midst of dysfunctional families. Keep that forefront of our minds.

God didn't say, honor your father and your mother in perfect families. Honor your perfect father and your perfect mother. Didn't say that. God gave this commandment knowing that every single human being would be born into a dysfunctional relationship. Every human being would be born into a dysfunctional family. And that is the context of the commandment. So keep this in mind, especially when, remember, all these commandments are going to convict us in one way or another. They're going to challenge us in new ways. Keep this in mind when we're tempted to say, not me. Not in my case. God gave this commandment knowing that we would be

hearing this commandment, receiving this commandment in the midst of a broken world, in the midst of dysfunctional families. And here's what the catechism, again, 2197 spells out. God has willed that after him, and after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. So this falls under the context of justice. Remember we talked about justice many times. The virtue of justice is what, is giving to another what they're due, like what we owe to

another. And so the first subcategory of justice is religio. or the virtue of religion. Because we get everything from God. But under that virtue of justice are also things like patriotism. But first among them is family, Familia, which is the next virtue under justice,

just beneath the virtue of religion. Why? Because we know that when it comes to religion. There's nothing we have that hasn't come from God. When it comes to family, we know, as it says here, our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God,

goes on to say, we are obliged to honor and respect all those whom God for our good has bested with his authority. So I don't know if you caught this, but in paragraph 2199, it expands this and says that, okay, so yes, the first relationship we all are part of is as children of our mom and of our dad. It goes on to say, it says it likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. So aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. And then finally, and this is maybe something that might have been a curveball for you. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country,

and to those who administer or govern it. That might have been a new thing. And in a way I'm saying, wait a second, how is that applicable? Well, it's applicable in the sense of these are the people to whom we owe something. So an employee owes something to their employer. A pupil owes something to their teacher. A citizen owes something to their country. This is just the way the world structured. And there's a way in which we can live this out where there is respect and honor that's offered. Now, to keep this in mind, I might have shared this with you before. Let's put this in perspective. Like what is the way that we can look at this, this commandment, and say, okay, I want to understand this as clearly as possible. I would say there's three levels of respect or honor that

we can offer another person. The first level is the most basic level. It is, it belongs to every individual simply because they're made in God's image and likeness. So that, that's it just because every human being you know is made in God's image or likeness because of that fact they get my respect they get my honor I treat them with dignity just because of that regardless of how powerful they are or weak they are regardless of how successfully or failure regardless of how poor or rich regardless of how intelligent or deficient they are it doesn't matter every human being is worthy of your honor and your respect worthy of being treated with dignity because of that most basic reality that they're made in God's image.

That's the first level. The second level of respect is the respect that's owed to someone because of their office. So here is your priest, your pastor, right? And so there's a level of respect, even if he does a great job at pastoring or doesn't do a great job of pastoring, there is a level of respect that I owe to his office. Or the same thing with teachers or employers. We would say that, yes, because they're the teacher, we offer a certain level of respect and honor or treat them with a certain level of dignity that belongs to that office of being a

teacher now they might not be a great teacher they might be amazing teacher but there is a degree of respect and honor that belongs to the office similarly commandment four parent mom dad there is a certain amount of respect or honor that we owe a person simply because they hold a particular office. They behold the particular role. And that role is that of mother or father. Now, again, they might be amazing at their role. They might be horrible at their role. But we honor the role itself. We honor that position. So the first is the respect and honor that we owe to every human being because they're made against image and likeness. The second is the honor and respect that we offer to the role. The third is the character of the person. And that has to be

earned. Keep this in mind. That kind of honor, that kind of respect must be earned. It's the, yes, you're my mom, you're my dad, and you've done it really well. You've had integrity. You've loved me well. Or even just this. You've done your best. That's it. Or here's the priest. And I recognize, yep, I honor you because you have the role of priest. You have the title. And that deserves my respect. But also, wow, you live self-sacrificially. You really live the way you claim to live. You might not be perfect. Actually, you're not going to be perfect. but you're striving after that. And so I see that your character is worthy of respect.

And this is the case, teachers, employers, all these things, all these roles that were called to respect. That's that second level. It goes beyond that when the individual has shown that they have exercised that role well or even this. Maybe they're not very good at teaching, but you realize they're a really good person. And I can honor them because they have developed their character in a phenomenal way. And keep that in mind. I mean, you might have had that. You might have had this experience where,

let's go back to priests where here's a priest and he's not very good at administration he's not very good at making decisions he's not very good at preaching he's not very good at some whatever the thing is but you got to know him and you're like wait a second but he is a good man wow so again you might not really respect the way he exercises his role but that third level of respect you realize but he's a man of character he's a man of pursuing holiness so you respect that character same thing when it comes to moms and dads you might think oh man you know my parents they they fail in this way and that way, you know, they didn't know how to handle money, they did, whatever they did, you know, but all along the way, they were showing up all along the way, they were loving, all along the way, they loved me when I didn't love them back. And maybe there's something in there that you'd say, ah, and that they showed their character. And I'm going to respect and honor that character in that. So I bring that that out, those three levels of respect, those three levels of honor, because, you know, again, we're going to talk about what we owe to each other as we move forward. And here's the catechism, which makes a kind of bold claim in our society. Because

our society doesn't like the idea that we just have to owe someone respect or honor. We don't like the idea necessarily that we owe someone just because they have a job or because they have a role that automatically they get our respect, automatically they get our honor. Keep this in mind. It's the role itself that we honor, the role itself that we respect, not necessarily the character of the person. If we get that framework right, then we'll be able to understand, I think, the rest of this, this commandment, commandment number four. So keep that in mind because, again, maybe your family is amazing and you're like, yeah, totally, honor my father and mother. But like, whoa, wait, my boss, my teacher, the elected official that a bunch of people voted

for, like, I don't know if I respect them. Okay, respect the office. If they have shown themselves be exemplary, right, in character, then we respect their character. Now, last two things. I think this is fascinating because again, this is the context for the rest of commandment number four, paragraph 2199 has two parts. The second part says this commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, and those who govern all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons. Basically, it's not just, hey, if you're a child, you owe something to your parents. If you're an employee, you owe something to your employer. If you're a pupil, you owe something to your teacher. It's also saying, parents, you have a duty that's something you

owe to your children, instructors and teachers to your pupils, leaders, magistrates, employers to those you lead, to those you serve, to those you employ, that this is, if this is really going to be a relationship, we know this, we've heard this many times. Every real relationship must have real rights and real responsibilities. So if I'm going to have a relationship with my parents, I have real rights when it comes to them and also real responsibilities. If they're going to have a real relationship with me, then they have real rights and they have real responsibilities. It goes both ways. And that's what the catechism is making abundantly clear here. So yes, the catechism is going to talk about the responsibility, the duties of employees to employers.

But it's also going to say that employers have a responsibility and a duty to their employees. It's kind of like a holistic, for lack of a better term, way to look at the relationships we have. Why? Because that last sentence in paragraph 2200, it says that by doing this, by respecting this commandment, it provides us along with spiritual fruits, temporal fruits, of peace. and prosperity. If we live this out, things would be really, really good. Imagine, I mean, honestly, sometimes we can be really hard on the Ten Commandments, say, ah, this just, you know, how old and how kind of outdated.

If we lived this way, we not only would grow spiritually, we would live in a world of peace and prosperity. Conversely, if we ignore this, if we choose not to live this way, if we fail to observe it, it will bring great harm to communities and individuals, and we know that this is the fact. Last thing, when God gave this commandment, as St. Paul points out, this is the first commandment with a promise. This is the first commandment with a blessing attached to it. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. This accents the fact that there's a blessing here. And remember, God gave this commandment to broken people in broken

relationships in broken families. And yet, to say, here's a child, and they could be the one, they could be the one to begin healing what's broken. That's not to say you just pretend that brokenness didn't happen or you pretend that their past isn't real. But we get to say, wait a second, how can I honor my parents now? Not just how can I honor some generic parents? How can I honor my parents now? It's not going to be the same for everyone. We're going to talk about this in the days to come to honor your parents will not be the same for everyone we recognize that some parents yeah to give them what they ask would help them other parents to give them what they ask would hurt them this is for everybody right and so we recognize that just because all of us are called to honor our father and

our mother doesn't mean we're all called to take the same action does that make sense here's a quick what are you talking about father here's what i'm talking about if you were to say Here is a mother and her daughter, and the mom is in really hard spot, and the mom is saying, hey, I need some money for my rent or something like this. And it's a good relationship, and the daughter can trust the mom that she's actually going to use this money for rent, then that might be a occasion where that daughter honoring her mother would give her the money for rent if she's able to. You can imagine another situation where here's a mother and a daughter, and the mother

uses money for drugs. She uses money for a lot of destructive things. And she contacts her daughter and says, hey, if you don't give me this money, I'm not going to be in my place and I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, et cetera, et cetera. That could be a case where the daughter has offered help again and again time after time. It's been rejected. And now that the mom's desperate, she's asking for this help. And if the daughter helped, in this case, it might be enabling. And so it actually could be honoring of that daughter in that moment. to say, mom, I know that you're in a hard spot, but if I give you this thing, I could merely be enabling you to continue your life of destruction. So keep this in mind, right? Both children,

both daughters could be honoring their mother, one by doing what she's asking, the other by refusing to do what the mom is asking. Now, it's more complicated than that, but you see what I'm saying. The commandment is to honor one's father and mother. The commandment doesn't say, therefore you must do X, Y, and Z. That's where prudence, that's where wisdom comes into play. And that's where we need to ask God for this grace of discernment, this grace of being able to know what to do, which is hard. It's hard to live in this world with brokenness, hard to live in families that are full of brokenness. That's why we need each other and we need God's grace. That's how we need to pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless. Thank you.