Day 289: Family, Society, and the Kingdom (2026)
00:05Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where weencounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through thetradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in 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'sfamily as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 289. We're reading paragraphs 2232to 2237. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes thefoundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechismof the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting
00:41ascensionpress.com slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe to your podcast app for dailyupdates and daily notifications. It's day 289. We're almost at day 290. We're only one day away.I don't know if you can count like that. I just learned. Anyways, I don't know what that means.We're hearing. We're continuing to talk about the Fourth Commandment and talking about the family.yesterday if you remember we talked about how yes the family is is the place of we talked about a lot ofthings yesterday i understand that yesterday was a long long day and at the same time it's so importantwe ended we talked about how the family's place of evangelization it's a place of holiness place ofgrowth and holiness it's also we note that in paragraph 2230 that when they become adults children
01:22have the right and duty to choose their profession and state in life so parents should yeahweigh in and give their advice good advice butBut the children, grown children, have the right and the duty to be able to make their owndecisions.Now, this is going to be important because paragraph 2232 today here has one of the, well,I'm not to say one of the most important lines.It has a very important line.And we're talking about the goodness of the family.
01:46The family is good, very, very good.Paragraph 2232 highlights this truth.It says family ties are important, but not absolute.This is very important for us to understand.Family ties are important, but not absolute.And so there are times we recognize where Jesus even said this.He said, I've not come to establish peace, but the sword.He said from now on, families would be divided.
02:12Three against two, two against three.Father be divided against sons, son against father, mother-in-law,against daughter-in-law, against mother-in-law.This is what's going to happen.Our primary allegiance, the absolute allegiance we owe is to the Lord himself.So family ties, important, but not absolute.to be a disciple of Jesus.Paragraph 2233 says,
02:31becoming a disciple of Jesusmeans accepting the invitationto belong to God's familyand to living conformitywith his way of life.We'll talk about that todayas well as we're talkingabout the fact of authorities
02:40in civil society.So God's Fourth Commandmentalso enjoins us to honor allfor who our goodhave received authority in society from God.We'll talk about that as well.So in order to prepare our heartsfor this challenging, it's always,
02:53God's message is always challenging,it's always convicting,it's often consoling,but here we are we're asking the Lord to hear our prayer to be with us in this moment as we prayFather in heaven in the name of your son Jesus Christ I ask you to please be with every one of usas we're listening to these words today as we're reading these words today please be with usLord God help us to understand the true value of your good gifts the true value of discipleship the truevalue of family the true value of the society in which you've given us in which you've placed
03:26us. Lord God, help us to acknowledge the goodness we've received and to acknowledge the limits ofevery good thing except for you because you are the source of good itself. You are the ultimate goodbecause you are the foundation of all being and you are love. Lord God, help us to let you,you alone be the number one, be the center of our gravity, be the one God in our lives. 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 289we're reading paragraphs 2232 to 2237.The family and the kingdom.Family ties are important, but not absolute.
04:07Just as the child grows to maturity and human in spiritual autonomy,so his unique vocation, which comes from God,asserts itself more clearly and forcefully.Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it.They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus.As Christ himself said,he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me,is not worthy of me.
04:35Becoming a disciple of Jesus means accepting the invitation to belong to God's family, to live inconformity with his way of life. Christ further said, for whoever does the will of my father in heavenis my brother and sister and mother. Parents should welcome and respect with joy and thanksgivingthe Lord's call to one of their children to follow him in virginity for the sake of the kingdomin the consecrated life or in priestly ministry.The authorities in civil society.God's Fourth Commandment also enjoins us to honor all who for our good have received authorityin society from God.
05:09It clarifies the duties of those who exercise authority as well as those who benefit from it.Duties of civil authoritiesThose who exercise authority should do so as a service.As Christ said,whoever would be great among you must be your servant.The exercise of authority is measured morally in terms of its divine origin,its reasonable nature, and its specific object.No one can command or establish what is contrary to the dignity of persons and the natural law.
05:38The exercise of authority is meant to give outward expression to a just hierarchy of valuesin order to facilitate the exercise of freedom and responsibility by all.Those in authority should practice distributive justice wisely,taking account of the needs and contribution of each, with a view to harmony and peace.They should take care that the regulations and measures they adopt are not a source of temptationby setting personal interest against that of the community.Political authorities are obliged to respect the fundamental rights of the human person.They will dispense justice humanely by respecting the rights of everyone, especially of families,
06:14and the disadvantaged.The political rights attached to citizenship can and should be granted according to the requirementsof the common good. They cannot be suspended by public authorities without legitimate and proportionatereasons. Political rights are meant to be exercised for the common good of the nation and the humancommunity. Right, there we have it. Paragraphs 2232 to 2237, a bit shorter than yesterday,at least when it comes to the paragraphs themselves. But let's go back to the very beginning,the family and the kingdom, before we get to authorities and civil society. So the family and thekingdom highlighted this before we even started, or as we even started, family ties are important,
06:51but not absolute. So important. So valuable to us because we recognize this Fourth Commandment ishighlighting the right, the highlighting the goodness of the family. And so the more we highlight the goodnessof the family, the more likely we're tempted to maybe make a good thing and ultimate thing, right,to make the good thing an idol. How many times do you have, you know, movies about like, say,you know, a family that has a lot of loyalty to each other, whether that's like a criminal familyor something like this. And because of that loyalty they have to each other, they will lie. Becauseof loyalty they have to each other, they will enter into corruption because they're willing,unwilling to tell the truth or unwilling to disappoint or be disloyal to their family for the sake
07:31of the good, right, for the sake of the common good. Now, we're called to allow our family to have asubservient role to the kingdom of God. What that means is that Jesus has the first claim on ourlives. That's it. Jesus has first claim on our lives. If he's calling us to do something or if thechurch is asking us to do something, then in our family says to not do that,We can take into account the request of our family and then do what Jesus asks.I mean, that's ultimately that's the case.Now, this is in big things.For example, I mentioned yesterday.
08:00Here is a young man who wants to go to seminary or a young woman who wants to entera religious life.And their parents say, I don't want you to do that.So they don't do it.And it's just like that's, again, backwards, completely backwards.And yet, that happens a lot.But let's even say small things.So here's, here's an example.
08:16Say, I might have mentioned this example before when we talked about.the Sunday obligation, but imagine there was, here's a bunch of grown-up sisters and theirgrown-up mom. So they have, and they have a sisters, a girls weekend, say, out of town in the bigcity, we'll say in the big city. And it's like, it's the girls' shopping weekend, you know,leading up to Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever the thing is. So the girls shopping weekend in the bigcity. And the one, one of the daughters is like, okay, I'm convicted. I need to go to Sunday Mass.But their sister, her sisters or her mom are like, ah, no, you don't need to go to, that's goingto interrupt our plans for the weekend. That's going to interrupt our plans to have, we have a schedule
08:54when it comes to shopping, our schedule when it comes to this weekend. And so they can even invokefamily as the reason to like, hey, just go along with us. Now, that daughter slash that sister,her obligation, yes, she has an obligation to her sisters. She has an obligation to her mom.But she has a greater obligation to the Lord. And the Lord has said, do this. And so, yes, this is going tomaybe upset the apple cart.Yes, it might upset my sisters, or one's sisters might upset their mom.Yet your obligation, our first duty is to the Lord before anyone else.So in big ways, right, vocation, but also in small ways, saying, I know we're all in vacation
09:35right now, but I have to go to Mass because I know that this is the requirement that the Lordasks of me.Does that make sense?So just, again, we can sometimes, I sometimes can go to the big things like martyrdom asopposed to the small things, the everyday things, like, oh, that's right. I'm going to disappoint myfamily in this small way, in this immediate way. But I have to because I belong to Jesus more than Ibelong to my family. As Christ himself said, and this isn't just me making this up, this isn'tthe church making this up. Jesus himself said, he who loves father or mother more than me is not
10:09worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. You know, in a coupleweeks, essentially, we'll get to the Sixth Commandment, a Sixth and Ninth Commandment. When we get there,we're going to talk about sexual morality. And there are so many family, people in their familieswho have said, okay, someone in my family is in, what we might call in a euphemistic way,an irregular relationship. Now that could be a homosexual relationship. That could be asuit relationship where they're divorced and remarried, but it's an irregular relationship, right?living in a sinful state in that kind of case.And I've seen this happen where parents and siblings are saying, well, for the sake of my brother,
10:50for the sake of my sister, who is in this irregular relationship, I'm going to discount and discardthe Lord's teachings.I'm going to discount and discard the church's teachings.And this happens again and again and again for the sake of my child who is in this relationship,for the sake of my sibling who is in this relationship, I will no longer attend to God'scommands when it comes to this particular area. Again, this, but what does Jesus say? Jesus said very,very clearly that for me, families will be divided. Because of me, families will be divided.Two against three, three against two. Mother against daughter and father against son. That whole
11:26to recognize that, yes, family ties are good. They are important, but they're not absolute.and just because I have someone in my family who may experience whatever they're experiencing,that doesn't mean that the Lord's command has changed.And it doesn't mean that now I have to choose family over the Lord.In fact, it is the exact opposite.Now, I see it too often with people who are like, oh yeah, I raise everything the Lord's teaching.I accept everything the church is teaching except when it comes to somewhere it's connectedto my family.
11:57And now I'm like, no, I'm going to choose family over Jesus.I'm going to choose family over the church.In those moments, we recognize that what I'm choosing is I'm choosing to allow my family ties in this relationship to become an idol.It is a rival in my life to God's position in my life.I hope that makes sense.Again, I don't, as I said, I don't mean to come on too strong on this and be too pointed in my example.At the same time, I will repeat myself and say, I see it too often.I see it happening too often to just pretend that it's not happening right now.
12:31becoming a disciple of Jesus, as I says in paragraph 2233,becoming a disciple of Jesus means accepting the invitation to belong to God's family,to live in conformity with his way of life.For whoever does, the will of my father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.And so that's our call, right?Now, paragraph 2234 moves on to talk to talk about how this Fourth Commandmentalso extends to just authority.Right?
12:56So paragraph 2234 states,God's Fourth Commandment also enjoins us to honor all who for our good,have received authority in society from God,clarifies the duties of those who exercise authority,as well as those who benefit from it.So right away, in paragraph 2235 through 2237,there's the duties of civil authorities.So right off the bat, it says those who exercise authority
13:17should do it as a service.And that's clear.And let's go to this.If you desire or you are as a civil servant,if you're a public servant,you have any kind of leadership role.Those who exercise authority should do it as a service.And what Jesus said, whoever would be great among you must be your servant.
13:34Jesus himself said, I did not come to be served.I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.He's the model when it comes to leadership.He's the model when it comes to authority.It's the authority to serve.In fact, I'm sure every one of us has heard the phrase, servant leadership.Of course, that comes from, it might be kind of cliche right now, but it's still true.The authority that comes from the Lord is the authority to serve.
13:59Therefore, the exercise of authority is measured morally in terms of its divine origin that it comes from the Lord here.Secondly, it's reasonable nature.And third, it's specific object.No one can command or establish what is contrary to the dignity of persons and the natural law.So, yes, while someone may exercise authority, if what they're commanding is or they're establishing is contrary to the dignity of persons or to natural law, that is a lot that does not need to be followed, if that makes any sense.Hopefully it does.Now, 2237 highlights, political authorities are obliged to respect the fundamental rights of the human person.They will dispense justice humanly by respecting the rights of everyone, especially of families and the disadvantaged.
14:40And so keep this in mind, political authorities, we have to observe and have to respect the fundamental rights of the human person.The human person, the individual, is greater in many ways, greater than any society at large.I've mentioned this before.Peter Crafeyn highlighted this.maybe this comes from C.S. Lewis as well, but other people have also pointed this out.And that what they pointed out is that civilizations will come to an end, that countries willcease to exist. Every nation that is right now will at some point not be. But every human beingwill always exist forever. All the way into eternity, every human being will exist forever,
15:17either in glory with the Lord or in, in, in, separated from the Lord. Because of that,one individual human being in so many ways is, we can say it like this, is of greater value,is of greater worth than any one nation, any one single society.Now, at the same time, all of us are part of society, right?We're all part of a nation at some level, a community at some level.Therefore, we do ask questions about the common good.But keep this in mind, we have this intention, is that none of the commands of the common goodcan be a command that violates the dignity of the common good.
15:54of any human person. Hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully, hopefully make sense. You know,today, as I said, every one of these days, we're going to be challenged in some way or another.And maybe you're challenged today. I know I'm challenged today in many, many ways.Tomorrow we're going to continue to be challenged because we're not only talking about the dutiesof civil authorities. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the duties of citizens. Like what,what is it that you and I actually owe to our country, our country of origin or wherever we'reliving right now? That is a big question. And it also could be a great challenge for many of us.But I know you're up to the challenge and I know you're willing to ask the question and find out the answer.
16:29More on that tomorrow.Until then, I'm praying for you.Please pray for me.My name's Father Mike.I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.God bless.
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