The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 3: What We Believe (Part 1 Introduction with Jeff Cavins)

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Part 1 of the Catechism—the first pillar—is the longest part of the four parts of the Catechism, and arguably the most foundational. Fr. Mike sits down with Jeff Cavins to discuss the big picture behind this important pillar and prepare us for the journey ahead. 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. When we encounter God's plan of sure goodness for us, we reveal the scripture and pass 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 toward a heavenly home. This is day three. Congratulations, you made it today, three.

And today, we are introducing the very first pillar of the Catholicism. And to that, I wanna welcome back for those who are a Bible and a year listeners, Jeff Kavins. Go to be with you. I'm so glad you're here. To be exciting.

To introduce, we had for our first two days already. I'm so grateful that you're here to introduce the first pillar. How's the voice doing? Oh, you know, I got a cup of coffee here. I'm ready to keep on trekking away. So with this introduction, we have the Catacombs four pillars, right?

And so for each one of those pillars, we're going to explain those in a second, but we're going to people introduce those. And so you're the one to introduce the very first pillar on the creed, what we believe. As we begin, is it okay if I just open us up with the prayer? Absolutely. Awesome.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you for bringing us today, three. Thank you for bringing us to this place where we can learn more about you, nor we can know your identity and know our deepest identity as your beloved creation, as those who have been adopted by you and baptism and made into your sons and your daughters. Help us to know you as our Father, help us to know you God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and be drawn into your love. This day we ask you to please bless this conversation.

Bless Jeff, bless me and please bless everyone who's listening us. Listening to us today in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As I said, it's day three. And I'm using for when it comes to the Catechism. I'm using the ascension edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which includes the foundations

of faith approach, which you're going to talk about in a second. Those who were heard listening, if you like, you can download your own catacism and your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y, the C's for catacism in here. Also, if you want to, you can like, you can follow, you can subscribe, whatever you're listening to this podcast. It's only day three. And so why not? Why not subscribe today?

Why not follow today? I think it's worth it. Okay. So Jeff, pillar one. Sure. What have we gotten into here on day three as we're starting this catacasement? Sure. Well, first thing we need to do really is to kind of go zoom back and look at the big picture. Yeah. And the beautiful thing about the catacasement is that it presents our faith in four pillars. And you might remember that great quote of Frank Sheed. He talked about one of the problems with Catholicism is that kids go through from kindergarten all the way to high school and they graduate and they've

got what? They've got a pile. Big pile. Big pile of Catholicism. They're not quite sure what to do with it. So, remember when you said this, you're like, you someone asked you, like, hey, do Catholics believe in such and such? And you're like, well, looking at the pile, like, I think it's in there. I don't, I don't, I gotta be in there. I heard of that. I got an A in that class. Right.

You're right. It's got this pile of Catholicism. And what the Catechism does is brilliantly, brilliantly separate all of this out so that we can understand our faith and even the separation into four pillars is a teaching tool in itself. And so in this new catechism, the sentient catechism, they brilliantly laid it out and they color coded it into four areas. And that is blue is what we believe.

That's the first one, the creed. That's what we're going to talk about. The second is how we worship and the third is how we live, and then how we pray, that's prayer. And so it's laid out in a beautiful way, and you could say it this way, in some ways. You could say, well, what we believe is the creed, and the creed is from Genesis,

all the way to Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Church. And so the creed is the the plan of God, the plan of sheer goodness, the first paragraph of the Catechism says in miniature. And so the creed is this whole great big plan of sheer goodness in miniature, you know. And so that's what we believe, and then you're gonna be looking at how we worship, and that's how you get into God's amazing plan, and then what do we live in the plan? How do we live?

We live the life of Christ, the third pillar, and the fourth is prayer. So in the words of Frank Sheed, who was from Great Britain, brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So yeah, so we're gonna be taking a look at the creed here, what we believe. This is really, really exciting because it begins with this plan of sheer goodness.

That God is going to come looking for us and He is going to bring us into His blessed life. And that's the very first paragraph. The very first paragraph just says it all, and that is that we are destined for a plan and that's God's plan, and he wants us in it. That's so interesting. I mean, just brilliant.

As you're noting, here is what we believe about God, but it's not just, here's a list of things we believe about God, or that we believe about revelation, or we believe about God, but it's not just, here's a list of things we believe about God, or that we believe about Revelation, or we believe about faith, but it's that God wants to bring us into that relationship. He wants to bring us into a covenant community with him. And that's just, I mean, and almost every section of the Catholicism, when it does introduce a new article of faith, right, another thing we believe, it always goes back to that and God shares this with us so that He can share Himself with us, that He doesn't just reveal it,

so we know He can check that box, this is what I know. But it's because He wants to share His own divine life, and He wants us to participate in that life, which is, again, it makes it, it makes what might be, at least you've said it before, like an encyclopedia into something very, very different than encyclopedia. Yeah, it's not an encyclopedia, even though you could use it for that. You could see it there in the difference book. I want to know more about confession. Okay, I'm going to look it up in the, you know, in the, in the catacism.

But the way that it's put together is that it's a teaching tool in itself and Pope Benedict really brought this, really brought this out. It's more than knowledge, it's a relationship. The catechism is more than knowledge, it's a relationship and God is calling us to intimacy. And so the very first pillar, the creed, talks about this quest for God, our search for God who's wooing us and calling us. And it really begins and talks about man's capacity for God and how we can come to know something of God.

And so it kind of brings everybody in on an equal playing field and it gives us three ways that we can know something of God. We can know something of God through creation. Certainly, you can look at creation, the laws of the universe, even gravity. You can look at the stars, and you can know that there is a creator, and then the second one is the human being, our own longing for God, what we call God. And then the third way that we can come to know something of God is reason. But then we hit a wall. Right. It's like, we can know something.

But at some point, God has to act. Exactly. And that's the fourth thing. That's the thing that the Catechism is really all about. The Catechism is saying to every reader, look, you can know something of God through creation. And we know through the human person, yes, you're smart. You can reason, but you hit the end of the road. You know what it reminds me of.

It reminds me of, remember the movie Truman? Absolutely. The Truman show. Yeah. And Jim Carrey. Yes. And he doesn't know it, but the Hollywood set is his whole life. Right.

Everyone else is watching them. Everybody else has popcorn and drinks and they're watching him every week and their sponsors for the show and everything else. And he begins to search. He begins to ask questions. There's got to be more. There's got to be more. And he looks at the ocean, which is only about a hundred yards from.

He doesn't know it. And the director's like, oh, we got a problem. We got a problem here. And he gets into the boat. Oh, no, send a storm, send a storm, and they can't stop him. And finally, he runs into the end of his world. And what does the director say?

He comes over the loudspeaker. Yeah. And he says, he says, Truman, and Truman says, who are you? And the director says, I'm the creator. Yeah, yeah, that's divine revelation. It is because at some point, you know, God speaks through his creation, but at some point he speaks to man. How does it say in the galaxy? And it says that God's divine condescension, he speaks to us as a father to his children.

Exactly. Yeah, he comes down to our level and he adjusts his language to our weakness. Yeah. And he speaks to us. And that's the beautiful thing about the creed here. We in the sentient catechism, they divide it up into divine revelation and the creed. And then under divine revelation, it's the search. And that's the Truman thing. You know, that's where we're searching for God.

But then in divine revelation, what God does is he pulls back the curtain and he begins to reveal himself. And so the Catechism talks about how he begins to reveal himself in Scripture, in words and deeds. And as he reveals himself, we come to know more of the Father and what's he like, what can we depend on. And it becomes very, very exciting to know that he's actually revealing himself to me. He's not hiding. He's saying, here I am. Right. It's the opposite of hiding. Yeah. He's revealing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I know. So interesting. As you're mentioning this, I think some of the, here is the man's capacity for God, as you said, here's our hunger, our search, our longing for God, and here's responding to us. In those first paragraphs, we had the beginning yesterday. We had the prologue that whole, the words before, and then tomorrow we're going to start with the next piece. Again, this beginning of the search. In your experience of getting into the catacism, just even those beginning paragraphs, are there any challenges or difficulties that you found in those? Because I know that it's pretty soon starts ramping up and starts getting into, as you mentioned, here's got to revealing himself, revealing his heart and sometimes as he does that, our hearts get on fire, you know? But sometimes before that, there can be, I don't know, maybe how to say this, there can be a little bit of

wind up where it's not sweeping my feet immediately. And I want to just ask if you have any, because you've been teaching the catacasms in the Catacasal Institute for 15 years. Yeah, and so leading people through the Catholicism, before we go into the rest of the map here of the tree, what are some obstacles right away people might find right at the beginning? That's a good question. That's a really good question

because as you begin that reading of the first paragraph that God has a plan of sheer goodness, you're going to start reading and people are gonna be reading with you and listening to you and they're going to come across words that they've never heard before and they're going to be like, oh, this is too much for me. This is Bible, yeah, Jesus with a lamb around something, I get that. But this word divinization, what's that about?

And so I think people need to relax and go along for the ride and take as much as you can in. I mean, you got to think about this. We're not talking about how to put some kind of little plastic card together or something. We're talking about the God of the universe disclosing himself, but in a way that we can understand. And you have to be, I think a little bit, a little patient with it and realize, you're not gonna get everything, you know, the first time.

But you listen with the heart of a son, the heart of a daughter who wants to know more about dad, wants to know more about their father. And so that eager heart is important. You know, you're not just kind of casually reading about this, but you are giving yourself to it with the hopes that you can learn more about them and discover more about yourself. Yeah. That means that's an eagerness. And you also kind of mentioned some patience. Yeah. That sense of thing. I'm able to say, okay, if I don't get it,

I bet's one of the reasons I love podcasts and audiobooks is because if I'm reading something with my own eyeballs and I might get hung up on a sentence that I'm like, I don't know what this is, I don't know what that just said, I stop. But if it's being read to me, it's we keep moving. And then what usually happens is as I keep hearing, I get more context clues and like, oh, okay, now I more or less get the gist. And so that's why I think that eagerness, he wants to reveal himself to me, patience. And I would say maybe even patience, not only with myself and my own limitations, but

also maybe some patience with the fact that today's reading or whatever the date is, might not answer all the questions that I have, but we're going to get to those. I think there's something about that too that's just like, okay, we're on, like you said, we're on this journey. Just continue to let yourself be led. Yeah, and constantly hear the words in the back of your mind, and God saying, I want to know you. Yeah, and I want you to know me.

I want you to know me. And this is part of that. Even, I can't go back to that. You know, sometimes in our prayer, my prayer, maybe not yours. I want to, maybe this was even the Bible. I approach God wanting a certain thing. So whether that's reading the Bible, I want to, maybe this was even the Bible, I approach God wanting a certain thing. So, whether that's reading the Bible, I want to be inspired or I'm in prayer and I want to be consoled.

And that might not be what God wants for me at that moment. Maybe he just wants, but he might say, but I have this word for you. And I think part of that is also trusting each day, even if I wasn't blown away by this article of faith or by this teaching we just got today. But that's what he had for me today. Yeah. And so I think that, I think it goes hand in hand right here with the search, revelation of God revealing Himself to us, that trusting that we're going to get it. And you're going to be stretched in this study.

Yeah. You're going to be stretched because you come into the study, you come into the catechism and the Bible, and many people went through the Bible in a year, and you come into it with this sort of, okay, I think I kind of figured, I know what's going on here. You know, and a God, you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. All right, I'm uncomfortable with that. And then prepare for your world to expand.

Expand. And your understanding of God will understand. You're like, oh my gosh, this is so much bigger than I thought. You are so much bigger. It's so great. What a family. You're the Mary, the saints, the sacraments, is wow, you know, and it reminds me of,

there was a book written. I think it was in the 60s. I think it was in the late 60s by JB Phillips and it's called, your God is too small. But you see small, yeah. And that's what I would encourage people in at the beginning of this is, I think by the time you're done, you're going to find out your God was too small.

And that He's born much bigger. And be open to that. That makes no sense. And that, I think, again, addresses some of those initial obstacles that people are going to experience. I think we get to the moral life. I think it might be a challenge every day when it gets to the sacramental life, something illumination every day. The part of this, God revealing himself is both challenging,

both revealing, illuminating. So going back to, as you're highlighting, the foundations of faith on this, the catacasminiure chart, you talked about how God reveals himself in a unique way. And then the next section is pretty remarkable too. Well, actually, no, in that section is transmission of He reveals himself and it's very specific in the Catechism that God reveals himself inward indeed in sacred scripture, but he also reveals himself in sacred tradition, which may be new to some people. New people, yeah. And you have to realize that we, as Christians, we are not people of the book,

although we love the book. We're not people of the book, we're people of the word, and specifically the living word, Jesus. And this revelation, what we call the deposit of faith that Jesus gave to the apostles, that was given in written scripture and in the sacred tradition, sacred scripture, sacred tradition. And a lot of people say, well, man, I wish I could have been back there. Right. Oh, that'd be so cool to know it, to hear all of this, you know, like you hear people

Oh, that'd be so cool to know it, to hear all of this. Like you hear people read Luke 24 with the Amazis Road and Jesus gives this talk and they think, oh, I wish I had a seat. You know, and we want to be back there. We want to hear what the disciples, and the disciples of the disciples heard and taught, well, guess what, you get to. You get to, yeah.

You get to. And more. Yes, and more. And so we understand that God is revealing Himself You get to. You get to. You get to. And more. Yes. And more. And so we understand that God is revealing Himself in sacred scripture and sacred tradition, but then comes the part of, well, yeah, that was them. But what about me? How does it get to me?

And that's where we have apostolic succession, which is so important that these early disciples, they ordained bishops who were entrusted with the same deposit of faith, not to change it, not to add subtract, but to keep this deposit of faith, and to systematically and organically keep passing this on to the next generation. passing this on to the next generation. And so we are very confident now that we are hearing the teachings of Jesus that he gave to the disciples and we are getting the collective input from giants who also got it and said,

let me tell you a little bit more about this. In the New Orleans, it lived the whole thing at and entire lifetimes of people praying with this, thinking, wrestling with it. And it also being God-bedded, God-bedded, the Holy Spirit in that. In passing it on to us, we just get to receive it. I mean, even the reality here is Jesus Christ, fully God, and fully man. Right. Of course.

No, not duh, of course. This was something that was wrestled with in the early church that every Christian just takes your granted at times. Yeah, but that was giants. So as you're reading over the next year, we're going to be sitting at the feet of giants and listening to all kinds of this teaching. You know what it's similar to? It's like you've been to an orchestra before.

Well you go to the orchestra, hardly anybody knows the names of the people in the orchestra, but they know who the director is. And they know who the director is. Yeah. And they know who the director is, and the director's name is on the front of the program and everything. Well, there's all kinds of people in this orchestra, the director is the Holy Spirit. And that's why we're confident, you know.

That's so good. So we got apostolic succession, but then we get into what is our response to this revelation that's been given to us. We just write away. I mean, here in this very first section, section one, is here's got revealing himself to us in all these ways. And as he said in creation and the human person in reason and then revelation. And then what's you? Well, you exactly. What's our response? Right, and the response is a beautiful thing.

And this is an important point. God revealed Himself in words and deeds. Everybody can agree on that. I don't care what background. You can agree that God revealed Himself in words and deeds. And so the response to that revelation is in kind in words and deeds. Words alone are not enough. Right. It has to be words and deeds. Not over everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, lest you're the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.

Exactly. So it's kind of fun. You mentioned it. It's interesting, I think, is that God kind of laid it on the table at the beginning. Yeah. Look, I'm going to share a lot with you, but I want you to know I want something back here. You're critical. I want your heart. I want you to be yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're learning in this first pillar, what we believe is we are learning

about this revelation prepared to respond to God. And the name for that that the church gives us is the obedience of faith, which comes from a presceptor of Romans. The obedience of faith. Yeah. And just to unpack that a little bit, because this will be important for pillars 2, 3, and 4, as well. When we talk about the obedience of faith, we're not talking about the obedience of believeism. Yes, see more about that. Yeah. Beliefism is, I believe.

I believe. Okay, kind of like great your teeth. I'm really believe. Yeah. Yeah. Can't you see how much you're pulling? I believe in your face. They should. Yeah. Hopefully they just see the really has faith. No, we're not talking about the power of believeism. We're talking about faith. And when you look at faith from a hebraic perspective, that is the Hebrew perspective and the Greek you've got Emunah in Hebrew pasties in Greek. This concept of faith is not mere beliefism, but as Pope Benedict brings out so well, it is divided into two movements. The first is intellectual ascent. I believe it.

It's true. I believe so. As you're reading for the next 360 two days, people are gonna listen to it and they're gonna have to make a decision. Do I believe it? Do I believe that? Okay, okay, check.

I'm gonna send father an email. I believe it. That's not that's part of it. You make intellectual Ascent. Check. The second part is a personal entrusting of yourself to that truth and so for example if you believe that that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of God as an intercessor and an advocate given to you.

You believe that? Yeah. And trust yourself. Right. Start, start, start praying. Start asking her to intercede for you and pray for you. If you truly believe it, you know, and so I love this because faith without works is dead. And we have to respond by saying, yes, I believe

it, Lord, but now I'm going to entrust myself to you. That's what biblical faith is. It will always be that. And so then when you move into the actual creed in the first pillar, you're going to have, you're're gonna have material that is, if you go to church, it's very familiar. Right, because it's an eithamilian. You know, that whole section is based off of the apostles' creed. Exactly, hopefully we all know.

Right, but you know what's really interesting is you go to mass and when you hear the apostles creed in mass, everybody, they read it together collectively because that's easy, but if you had to do it on your own, that's more difficult. I have to read it. Yeah. And it's, we, you know, I believe, we believe.

I remember it was a funny thing that happened a few years ago. And this tells you how much we are together in the body of Christ. But it has to be brought down to the personal level. I believe, you know, I do believe. I was with Father Mitch Pachow once and he invited me over. I said, I said, you can say, master's morning, he said, yeah.

So I said, can I come? And he said, yeah. And I thought it was gonna be like 30 other people. And of course, with 30 other people, we can all do the heavy lifting together. Right, right. We're with response. I know the lines every time.

Exactly. And I got over there, it was the only one. Yeah. And I realized, I didn't know the way I thought I knew the first time I ever went to mass, but I was the only person in the congregation, quote unquote, how is, oh my gosh. What do I say? The Lord be with you. I'm not sure. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time. But that's the way it is here is that the creed is something that we all recite in the mass. We believe and you can, you know, you can look at this in the in the beginning of the catechism, the very beginning, you can see the creed is broken down so well in the catechism on page Normon numeral 10, is I believe in God the Father, and then I believe in Jesus Christ is only Son, and then third, I believe in the Holy Spirit. And so you've got the creed broken down

into these three areas, and then all of the sub points of what we believe, and what's funny is we go to Mass, and we just sort of recite it, and I believe in God's funny as we go to mass, and we just sort of recite it, you know, and I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of, you know, minds wander in. Yeah, you're looking all the words.

Yeah, and someone says, would you believe it? Yeah, I said it, didn't I? I mean, yeah, of course, Jack. Right. And it's like the first year that you get all excited about God, you listen to the creed, I believe that five years later.

I believe that 10 years later. Yeah, I believe that five years later. I believe that 10 years later. Yeah. I believe that 20 years later, I'm still here. And that's not what it's for. Right. It's not a checklist to see if you're still on the camp. The reason that we recite the creed is because it's what we not only believe intellectually, but it's what we're entrusting our life to. And if you entrust your life to that

every part of that creed, you're going to live differently. Yeah, that makes so much. I mean, because like you said, the here's in words and indeeds that God reveals himself. And we respond in words and indeeds. I'm a friend of once who said when it came to the creed, sometimes that's what we believe, it's describing what we believe. He said, sometimes I just, I say the Creed and what I think is, no, this is in whom I believe, or this is in whom I trust.

This is the one, I'm describing the one who I trust, as I'm describing the one that I believe in, that I have surrendered my life to. And that would be, because it makes it, it's not just, again, this is the data that I say is true. But it's, here is the one in whom I have this relationship that I, again, just interesting. I think that's all. So, I heard a great analogy from one of our friends,

I'll make it quick, he was a great analogy, he talked about though, I think it was the Willendah brothers, you know, we're gonna walk across the way. Oh, the great Blondini. Yes, that would have been. Yeah, it's believed to say Blondini, but the first time I've read it was the Blondini. I'll go with you about Niagara Falls. Yes, yeah, and you know that story.

Yeah, I love it because it's, he goes across, you know, it's very dramatic. Yeah, and the tight rope across the Niagara Falls and gets on the other side. Someone yells out, do it again. Yeah, do it again. Go back the other way, you know, and I think from what side. Someone yells out, do it again. Yeah. Yeah. Do it again. Go back the other way, you know. And I think from what I understand of the story, you might correct me is that he says, do you think I can do it again to the crowd? And I go, yes, we believe. You think I can do it again? Pushing a wheelbarrow. Yes, we believe. You think I can do it? Pushing a wheelbarrow. Blindfolded. Yes. You think I can do it pushing a wheelbarrow? Blindfolded.

Yes. You think I can put a human being in the wheelbarrow and they're going, yes, yes. And he says, I need a volunteer. Nobody believes. Crickets. Nobody believed. Nobody believed. Yeah.

And that's the way it is with our faith. You know, we can stand up and say, I believe all these things, but do you entrust yourself? And it's the entrusting of yourself that is gonna make the biggest difference in your life. You can go through the whole Catechism in a year and agree to everything you're going to be reading, everything, but unless you entrust yourself to God,

your life will not look different. Yeah, this is not about just more information, or information transfer, about transformation. Exactly. That sense of like, whenever we start R CIA, becoming Catholic or learning more about the Catholic Church, it's like, we don't just want to pass on data. It's about conversion of heart.

It's actually about not just getting to know the one who has created and redeemed us, but also having being gone more deeply into relationship with him. Yeah, so that information, transform it. And that's what people need to keep focused on as they go through it. And there's going to be some things that they hear about where they're going to say, man, I just don't understand quite. You know, all right, it's okay.

Make a note of it. You can get back to it, but take as much as you possibly can and everything that you learn has to yourself how you can trust yourself. Going back just a little bit about this revelation in scripture, there's a whole section in this first pillar about the nature of scripture,

how we go about studying scripture, how we approach interpreting scripture. And this should give people a real sense of joy and certitude to know that a lot of people are afraid of that. I don't know if I'm gonna mess it up. I know I'll mess up the Bible and what God is saying is, no, come on in. Right, come on in.

I'll give you some hints on how to do this. And so very early on in the catechism in paragraphs, I think it's 112. In paragraph 112, 113, and 114, the church teaches us three things that will ensure that you're not going to miss the mark in your study. For example, to be especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole scripture, in other words, when you're studying second Timothy, make sure that you're taking into consideration the gospel of Mark. Right. You're in Exodus, even Leviticus.

Yeah. And so the content and unity of this divine revelation is very important. You don't want to take a text out of context. That's great in the context. Great text. Anything. Or a problem. Yeah.

Exactly. Paragraph 113, read the scripture within the living tradition of the whole church. Well, why should I do that? You know, it's the Bible, the Bible or not. But the truth is, the Bible comes from, it's a tradition that comes from the church. And the church, as you and I have talked about before, the church is the pillar and support of truth. And it's the church that said, that's the inspired word of God. And St. Augustine said, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even know that this was the word of God

unless the church told me so. It's important to stay within the tradition, the full tradition, that is sacred scripture and sacred tradition. Then the third is to be attentive to the analogy of faith or that is the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of revelation. of revelations. So it gives us some simple guidelines there on, you know, what to, what to, you know, I think you said it before, you know, it's like a big sandbox or something, and it gives you the corners to stay there. But inside, you can play around, you can dive deep, you can, you can even use your imagination in many ways, That sense of being able to say maybe what about this, but you round it against the wall,

like, okay, I guess that's as far as we go. Yeah. The church just said that's off base. And yeah, it's so good to be able to have all those three when we read scripture. Yeah. And even as we move forward this year with the Vatican. And it even gives you the recipe here, like in paragraphs, it, 117, 118, it gives you the recipe here on how to, in a sense, squeeze all the juice out of the orange, you know, and get as much out of the word of

God as you possibly can by instructing us to, first of all, look at the literal sense. That's not a big complicated thing. That just means what was the intention of the author. And then, then we get to look at what people really like to do. And that's the spiritual sense. And that's in three, in three different ways. That's the allegorical sense. And this is big words, but right. The allegorical sense means, how does this relate to Christ? Moral sense, how does it relate to me and my life and conduct. Anagogical sense, how does this relate to Christ, moral sense, how does it relate to me and my life and conduct, and a logical sense, how does it relate to the future? So you can see here that the church is giving us some very

simple instruction on going after this revelation and trying to understand it for ourselves. And then it talks about the relationship between the old and the new and typology and And then it talks about the relationship between the old and the new and typology and it just really equips you to dig in. Which is fascinating that recognition of typology, right? So that in the Old Testament, there are four shadows of what Jesus fulfills in the New Testament or in the New Covenant. And not all Christians know about that. Not all Christians know that the scriptures again, the scripture is a unified whole

and that it's a story. How's the line that the Old Testament is revealed in the new and the New Testament is hidden in the old. And that sense of like, yeah, there's this connection that is so powerful when we know that that connection exists, which is amazing. Yeah, yeah.

I love it. Also, I think that there be something worth while noting that in looking at this, especially the creed, that some of the ways, and on the back of the the catechism at a glance, the catechism timeline, there actually is a timeline on the back of this. I know, I love it. And some of the... I'm wired that way. You like the timeline. I wonder where we got that idea. But there's this piece, and not believe how here is scripture coming to us.

But also these professions of faith and these church councils. It's not every church council, but kind of some of the significant ones. And how a lot of what we say is true comes out of, maybe wrestling with error. Yeah, like that, there were heresies that came up that were like, maybe that's true.

I mean, even like the council of Nicae right in 325, I mentioned that we all know, of course we know Jesus is fully God and fully man. But that was formulated because some people were saying, no, that's not the case. And so a lot of what we believe as true in the creed in all of these church councils comes out of, well, what's the error?

Or heresy, I guess, for lack of a better term? That'd be accurate. Oh yeah, absolutely. Most of the councils, Vatican II is a little different that most of the councils were actually trying to settle a problem. For example, in a council of Ephesus, when they declared that Mary is the Theatokos,

she is the mother of God. And that argument was actually over the divinity of Jesus. That's all that Jesus. It's all about Jesus. Yeah. And they said, no, Mary is the mother of God. Jesus is God from the moment of his conception. Yes.

Yeah, Jesus. Holy God, a fully man. Holy God, fully man. We call that the big word now, hypostatic union, which means, and this is important. These things are important and they do have ramifications, you know, results. Jesus isn't two people. He's one person, two natures, human in divine. And in the console of Constantinople, he even said he had two wills, a human in a divine will, which never were parted from one another.

And to realize that that's not ex-explicated in scripture, right? That's not necessarily like given to us as the date of scripture. But we have the data of, wait a second, here is Jesus who is conforming his will of, wait a second, here is Jesus who is conforming His will to the Father's will, here is Jesus who at the same time experiences this, I don't know, say temptation as a celebrity who was tempted in the, well, Dernissus tempted in, everywhere that we are without sin. And so the church has been able to say, wait a second, if that is the case, and it is the case, then he would have not only human nature and a divine nature, but a human will and a divine will. Yes.

And just like, wow, I never thought of that. I would never even thought to ask the question. But I'm glad someone did. Well, somebody did before. Do you know one page in here, and I would just encourage your listeners to look at this. It's page 735. I love that page. Because it gives, it says, it's a timeline of ecclesiastical writers. The following writers and authors arranged here by date

are cited in the catechism and it goes from the second century and it goes through a list of every century the main ecclesiastical writers and where in the catechism they're cited. And so it's basically, it's basically like going to the beginning of the history of baseball and saying in 1864, you know, and then it comes all the way up to the present with the stars. And that's what's happening here. So it's a visual of the continuity of the faith from the beginning all the way till now.

Yeah. That blows my mind to just, I can just meditate on that page, you know, and say, wow. Yeah, this is part of the living character of tradition. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I'll tell you another, we could go on about so many different things, but I can tell you another part that I really, really like in the first pillar, the creed, is paragraph 787. In 787, it says that from the beginning,

and this is under the title, the church, the body of Christ. I love this because in the creed, we make certain statements about the church. We believe in this holy Catholic church. The church is a communion with Jesus. I love this paragraph. It says, from the beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings. That line, Father, right there, in 787. That line

should open up in people's minds and hearts, an incredible world of opportunity to know that Jesus is sharing everything with us. And so you can look at his work and his mission one of two ways. You can say, well, he's the son of God, he's the king of kings, he is the physician, he's the counselor, he's the healer, he's the one that suffered for the sins of the world, he's the one that died for the sins of the world, he's the one that rose from the dead. So what's my job? Well, I can either say, well, I'm just a beneficiary of all that. Receive it all. Receive it. Or wait a minute, he shared everything with me, his mission, his joy, uh-oh, and his suffering, you know. And so I love this because for Jesus to share himself

with the church, with us in this first pillar, means Satan was wrong in the Garden of Eden when he lied to Adam and Eve about God with holding. God is not withholding anything from us. In fact, he's not withholding anything. He is in facting anything from us. In fact, he's not withholding anything. He is, in fact, sharing everything with us. And not only do we get the divine revelation, we get the divine invitation to share

in the divine life and the blessing of God. So this is big stake stuff. It is. And it's one of those things where I think that's one of the reasons why, as you're highlighting this in paragraph 787, I can't recommend enough having a catacasem to follow along. There is sometimes you can, one of the things that I found is when doing the Bible in ear, because you based it on that great adventure Bible timeline, which has that, we're following the story. We're never gonna lose the story or leave the story.

So, you know, you press play the next day. And so, yeah, we're still with, you know, even if we're with the prophets, we're still with the brook. Great, no problem. Got introduced to him yesterday and just carrying on where we left off. But sometimes with the catacasem, it's here we are on a new article.

And for me, if I'm not prepared, if I don't see it in front of me, like, what are we gonna talk about today? I don't know yet. And so it's gonna be, I think people are gonna find that it's gonna be a little bit of a challenge that way that we don't necessarily, yes, this is our invitation into the story, into God's life.

But I think what can really, really help people is if they get any catacism, but this, you know, obviously I love the ascension edition. Because then you get to look at it and say, okay, I see here we're on, we are on day, whatever. And the section is, Oh, God is truth. And God is love. Okay, now I'm prepared. Go ahead and read it to me. You know, there's something about that that I think it roots it more deeply in my mind and in my heart when I have some kind of frame of reference

that I can also kind of see, I guess. Yeah, and I think adding to that, which is great, is that first paragraph, is if you open with that almost, once a week at least go back and open with it, and keep in mind that everything I'm reading back here in paragraph 1384 in paragraph 1815 in paragraph 2285 and paragraph 2705. All of it is for the aim of sharing in the life of the Trinity.

Yeah. Now and for ever. It's what we're destined for. We're destined to live in the life of the Trinity. And this is the playbook. This is a map that will guide you in a more sure way than I promise you. Any book you can buy on Amazon or anywhere. This is the book that will give you really the trail guide of how do I do this? I want to share in the life of God. I want to be with God forever and ever and ever. Okay?

Well, if you really do, guess what? We got two books for you. Yeah. We got the divine revelation and we've got the continuation and the synopsis of the great riches and the inheritance that we have. anopsis of the great riches and the inheritance that we have. And so when you hold the catechism in your hand, you might as well, someone says, what are you reading there? You might as well say, it's my inheritance, right? It's my inheritance, you know? You know, yesterday people,

so the very first day, we heard that paragraph one, you mentioned in that, the plan is your goodness. Yesterday, we concluded the day by reading paragraph 25 and in the conclusion of the the the prologue is this from the Roman Catechism which is so incredible. I love this. The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. So this whole thing we're going to do doctrine teaching whether something is proposed for belief, for hope, or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible so that anyone can see

that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love. Which is just like, okay, so this is the context that we're given. Yeah. The very first paragraph of the Planet of your Goodness, your God in His love, and then this, it's all meant to lead us to love. And listen to the way the first pillar ends. If you want to take the first verse, or first paragraph, I used to always call them verses,

because it's so good. That's a good one. The first paragraph, but listen to the last paragraph in the in brief section. And that's something, you know, I wanna bring out to our listeners is that every section has a little area that is highlighted called in-breath, it's like Clifnotes. Now don't just go to those. Here's the bullet points.

But that's really what, you know, kind of the heart of it. Listen to what paragraph 1060 says. And this is at the end of pillar one. At the end of time, the kingdom of God will come in its fullness, then the just will reign with Christ forever, glorified in body and soul, and the material universe itself will be transformed. God will then be all in all in eternal life. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah, I'm all for that. You know, so good news. So at the beginning, good news at the end.

Yeah, it's so good. And we get, and the thing is, if we're willing to kind of stick with this, again, it's day three, and we're just getting started. But if we're willing to say, okay, I know God, you're going to give me these crumbs. I think, when I say crumbs, I mean, you're going to keep leading me. Yeah. You're going to, and again, not every day is going to blow my socks off. Some days I'm like, okay, well, there we go.

Day 12, we're checking off the box. And again, not every day is going to blow my socks off. Some days I'm like, okay, well, there we go. Day 12, we're checking off the box. But I'm convinced that it's one of those things like the Bible, where if we keep pressing play, we miss a day, miss a week, keep pressing play, that God has something to say to us every single time we show up. And so kind of in conclusion, one last thing,

just another question for someone, you've been teaching scripture, you've been teaching the catechism for so long. What's one last thing you'd want to just offer. You've been teaching scripture, you've been teaching the catacism for so long. What's one last thing you'd want to just offer the people as they're going to go on this? You know, the journey of the creed, this first pillar is the longest. It's the longest journey we have.

What's one last word for them is they get started on that. Sure. I think what I would share with your father is what Cardinal Rout singer then became Pope Benedict, you know, had to share. And that was that there's a reason that the the creed is first. Yeah. And the reason, you know, you could have put it second or third or whatever, but it was

first because pillar two, three and four all springs, spring, spring from this, from this amazing, this amazing story of salvation, history, and what we believe. So the second pillar springs from what we believe. The third pillar, the second is sacraments and liturgy. The third pillar is the moral law, life and Christ, that springs from what we believe and prayer springs from what we believe. So consider this first pillar as an anchor. And the last thing I would say

is that when you go to mass, when you go to mass and you recite the creed, make sure it's not just column one that you agree. But say to the Lord, help me, help me to entrust myself. Trust myself. Yeah, it's so good. Thank you so much. That's so fun. So grateful. And I know that for everyone who's gonna be joining us, everyone's gonna be walking with us. Again, there can be the tendency to be discouraged

and the tendency to say, what's happening? What's happening is I just think sometimes, you know, there's a early church father who described the action of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes the Holy Spirit comes upon us in power like Pentecost, the spam, there it is, you know, tongues of fire. And sometimes he said the Holy Spirit comes upon us like a gentle dew. And it just like sinks, seeps into the ground. And just like the earth gets watered one way or the other. If it's, you know, huge storm with all this rain pelting the earth, or if it's just a gentle dew, it gets absorbed into the earth.

And so I decide to say that some days, some days are gonna be like, oh my gosh, that was amazing, penetrated. And some days it's just like, okay, that was good. And it's just that dew. And I think that if we just show up, keep listening, keep pressing play, keep, just being faithful, we know that the Lord Himself is faithful.

He's gonna do something through this. And I will also encourage our listeners to pray for you because and thank you for what you are doing. You know, we don't know why God chose us to do what we're doing but kind of like Esther for such a time as this. You know, you're the one that you're doing it and and we need to pray for you. Pray for you and your voice.

He eat right. Is it? But pray for protection with you because God's using you in a very unusual way, but a beautiful way. And we stand with you. We're not just listening to you. We stand with you together. Yeah. It's awesome. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks a lot. And that means a lot. So yeah, please, let's pray for each other. Um, Jeff said, please pray for me. I am praying for you. My name's Father Mike, and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.