The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 309: Faithful and Fruitful Marriage (2025)

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Married love has an “innate language” of total and mutual self-giving. This language expresses itself in the marital act of sexual intimacy. Marital love mirrors God’s love. It is free, total, faithful, and fruitful. Fr. Mike explains that in the face of this reality, contraception and infidelity directly contradict the marital covenant between a man and a woman. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2364-2372. 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's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sure 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 toward our heavenly home. This is day 309. We are reading paragraphs 2364 to 2372. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting

ascensionpress.com, and lastly, sorry, actually, ascensionpress.com slash CY. Wow, I forgot the last part. That stands for Catechism in a year. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. day 309 we're reading paragraph 2364 to 2372 we're talking about conjugal fidelity as well as the fecundity of marriage this is you know if you remember yesterday the very last line you probably you might not because we talked about a lot of things yesterday most particularly same-sex attraction but the last line in paragraph 2363 it said the conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity so faithfulness and fruitfulness essentially

And so we're going to talk about for a couple paragraphs, conjugal fidelity. What is it to be faithful? And also the fecundity of marriage. What is the end of marriage? Well, fruitfulness is the end of marriage. And so we're going to look at both of those things. As we enter into today, let's take a moment, pause and call upon the name of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, God, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and enter into prayer.

Father in heaven, we praise you. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we ask you to receive our praise. in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we ask you to send out your Holy Spirit into our hearts, into this world, Lord God, into relationships. And into every relationship, God,

we ask you to send your spirit of faithfulness, your spirit of patience, your spirit of trust and of forgiveness, a spirit of reconciliation. Send your spirit of fruitfulness that all of our relationships may be not only faithful

and full of peace and love, but also fruitful. Lord God, we ask you to, and your blessing upon all married couples in this moment, especially married couples that find themselves challenged by your revelation, finds themselves challenged by your call to fidelity, your call to fecundity, you're calling all of our lives to die to ourselves and so as to live for you. And also, Lord God, we ask you to please be with all of those who, when talking about marriage,

their hearts are hurt or wounded. Be with all of us, God, in this moment. Send your spirit to us and into us in the ways that you alone know we need. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. As I said, it is day 309. We are reading paragraphs 2364 to 2372. Conjugal Fidelity.

The married couple forms the intimate partnership of life and love established by the creator and governed by his laws. It is rooted in the conjugal covenant that is in their irrevocable personal consent. Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two. From now on, they form one flesh. The covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. What therefore God is joined together, let not man put asunder. Fidelene, expresses constancy in keeping one's given word. God is faithful. The sacrament of matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ's fidelity for his church. Through conjugal chastity,

they bear witness to this mystery before the world. St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives, I have taken you in my arms and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or more painful to me than to be of a different mind than you. The fecundity of marriage. Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful.

A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving as its fruit and fulfillment. So the church, which is on the side of life, teaches that it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life. This particular doctrine expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium is based on the inseparable connection established by God which man on his own initiative may not break between the unitive significance and the procreative significance, which are both inherent to the marriage act. Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.

Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children. They should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God, the creator, and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility. A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness, but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality. When it is a question of harmonizing married love

with the responsible transmission of life. The morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone, but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. This is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation towards man's exalted vocation to parenthood. Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.

these methods respect the bodies of the spouses encourages tenderness between them and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act or in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible, is intrinsically evil. Thus, the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid through contraception by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give

itself in personal totality. The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception, and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle involves, in the final analysis, two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. Let all be convinced that human life and the duty of transmitting it are not limited by the horizons of this life only.

Their true evaluation and full significance can be understood only in reference to man's eternal destiny. The state has a responsibility for its citizens' well-being. In this capacity, it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian coercive measures. The state may not

legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children. In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law. Right, there we have it. Paragraphs 2364 to 2372. You know, it's interesting, as I said yesterday, we recognize that there's this high call. When it comes to the issues of sexuality, when it comes to the issue of life, there's a high call. Yeah, and that's it. And the interesting thing is how often human beings, all of us, are tempted towards selfishness in the sense of, you know, I remember hearing someone once say that virtually all sexual distortions, right? You might even say perversions, right?

All sexual perversions are an attempt. to experience the pleasure without the cost of love, like to experience the joy or the feeling, the sensation of pleasure without the sacrifice of love. And so that's one of the things we're going to talk about today. I mean, here in paragraph 2364 and 2365, conjugal fidelity, this reality that when it comes to marriage, this is for life.

And this is not just merely for life, but it is this faithfulness that's deep here and it says in 2364 both give themselves definitively and totally to one another they're no longer two from now on they form one flesh one of the things that we've we've heard is that there's four marks of god's love and the four marks of god's love is that god's love is always it's always free he he's not coerced right it's always total it's he loves completely it's always faithful that he doesn't change his mind and it's always fruitful So these four marks, free, total, faithful, and fruitful. And there's this sentence right in the middle of paragraph 2364, both give themselves

definitively and totally to one another. So this recognition of, yeah, that faithfulness and that totality, that's one of the reasons why, as we get into fecundity of marriage, we recognize contraception, it becomes a lie, right? Because it's saying, I'm giving myself to you totally, but not really. And so we have to understand this. So going on, they give them both give themselves. definitively and totally to one another.

That's one of the reasons also why in a relationship, if you have the sense that before you get married, if someone's, you're not giving themselves totally, and I don't mean sexually, but I mean like they're not fully committed as fully committed to this relationship, that's a bad sign. Why? Because we recognize that to the degree that that relationship is under development, to be all in is a big deal. Now, of course, one can't be fully all in until marriage.

But we've always, I think common sense would say that you can. can recognize there are certain stages where if a person's kind of pulling back, that's, that's something to pay attention to. It's not always a deal breaker, but it's something to pay attention to. In marriage, if someone is not giving themselves definitively and totally to the other person, that is definitely something to attend it to. It says, goes on to say, the covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. That sense. Again, remember what a covenant is. The different between contract and covenant. A contract is an agreement for an exchange of goods or services

based off the condition. So it's an agreement for an exchange of goods or services. I will pay you this much money if you re-roof my house. And that's based off a condition. I'll pay you if you do the house, if you do the roof. A covenant is an exchange of persons. It's essentially saying I'm yours and you're mine. Not I'll do this for you if you do this for me, but it's unconditional and in exchange of persons. So it's massively different. And so it says here, the covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble, that there's no other relationship like this. And in fact, it tolerates no rivals. That's one of the realities of marriage. Marriage is the kind of relationship that does not tolerate any rival. So moving on,

in paragraph 2365, fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's word. They always point this out to our couples as we're working with them, you know, that sense that on their wedding day they will promise to love the other person. They promise to cherish other person, you know, good times and bad, all those things. And I think it's slightly ironic. Maybe I've mentioned this here. I think it's slightly interesting or ironic because the day they promised to love the other person is the day is the day they least need to promise this, right? Because on their wedding day, of course you're going to love this other person. Of course you're going to be faithful to them on their wedding day. That's not why a couple makes that vow, makes that promise on their

wedding day. They make the promise on their wedding day to love the other person because they're saying, I know the day is going to come when I won't feel like loving you. I know the day is going to come when in those good times and bad and sickness and health for richer or for poorer, better or for worse. I know that day is going to come when I won't feel like choosing you. But I'm making you this promise right now that when that day when that day does come i will choose you when that day does come i will love you so that's why fidelity expresses constancy in simply keeping one's word the one of the reasons why you know c s louis writes about this and so do a bunch of others is the depth to which marriage and faithfulness in marriage is a reflection on one's character because it's not about do i love this

or do I love someone else other than this person? Am I tired with them or are they tired with me? It's the most basic. Am I able to keep a promise? And again, that's not meant to be a condemnation on anyone who finds himself in a position where their spouse has left or finds itself in a position where maybe they have left. If they need to be reconciled to the Lord and maybe even to their spouse, that's very, very possible in very real in some cases. But the recognition of can I keep my word that's faithfulness fidelity expresses constancy in simply keeping one's word and god is faithful i love this this quote from st john christism it's one of those quotes that i i think i read probably once a week when my first couple years of being a priest because i did did a lot of weddings

and i just thought that st john christism's words is his advice to young husbands they should say to their wives i have taken you in my arms and i love you and i prefer you to my life itself for the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserve for us. That's to love you in such a way that we both make it to heaven. That's the goal. That's the ultimate goal, is to love one another in such a way that your spouse and your children make it to heaven. And that's the next piece, right, the fecundity, the fruitfulness of marriage.

So we recognize that not all marriages are able to be naturally fruitful. Like not all marriages are able, not all couples are able to conceive, so I'm trying to say. And yet all marriages between a husband and wife are ordered towards fruitfulness in the sense that the sexual act is ordered towards fruitfulness. So if a couple is unable of conceiving, whether that's because of infertility or because of age, whatever the reason is, the action they enter into, right, the sexual act between husband and wife is that kind of act that has the potential for creating human life. Therefore, they can enter into that sexual act within good conscience, right? Because that is the action. It's very different than we talked about before. Yesterday, we talked about homosexual acts or the day before we talked about masturbation, those kinds of situations, or even as we're going to talk about today, contraception. The action of the sexual act of husband and wife entering into sexual intercourse, that is an action that is oriented towards life, even if life doesn't come out of this. And even if you know life can't come out of this, it is still of its very

nature the kind of action that is morally licit, right, if that makes any sense, because it's oriented towards this. So again, there are some couples that are unable to have children because of whatever reason. That doesn't make them any less married and doesn't make the sexual act any less beautiful. It just means that that sexual act does not have on its own a natural fruitfulness. And so we just recognize that when it comes to the end being life here. But the catechism goes on to say, the church is on the side of life. And it teaches that it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life, which essentially means sexual intercourse, right? Not any other kind of sexual action,

but each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the proclamation of human life. Therefore, any time someone is interrupting that, again, whether they're working against the procreative aspect or the unitive aspect, then that would be gravely sinful, gravely evil. Now, what do I mean working against the procurative act or the unitive act? Consider this. It is possible to work against the unitive act in the context of marriage. I remember having a conversation with a young couple who came through school here and they were dating and they got engaged and they were getting married. And at one point, they were talking about, he was very upset that he said, wait a second. So after marriage, there's still rules because their thing was during college.

it was like, okay, we're really struggling, really striving to have a pure relationship, but they weren't necessarily always succeeding, but it was one of those situations where they were like, okay, but when we get married, then it'll be just like, then it'll be easy. And he, I just realized, wait a second, there are still rules after you get married. And I was like, yeah, but those rules are good. They're actually meant to be for you. And he was kind of discouraged. And he said, what do you mean good for me?

He's like, not just good for you, good for you and your relationship, good for you and your wife. And I said, how about this? Imagine the situation where you, you know, you guys come home from. for work and you're feeling a little frisky. And so you make a move with your wife. And maybe she says, I'm not in the mood right now and she says no. So here's the thing. If you aren't in your own control of yourself, if you're not actually able to love, truly love your wife, here's what you're going to do. You're a good guy. So you're not going to pitch a fit, right? You're not going to

flip a table. You're not going to do anything like that. What you're going to do is you're going to leave her alone and you're going to go sit in the couch or sit in the chair and watch a twins game. right and she's going to walk in she's like what's wrong and you're going to say nothing nothing's wrong no big deal she's not let's talk you're like now i'm watching the game no big deal so what's going to happen is if you make a move and she kind of quote unquote like shoots you down because whatever reason what you're going to do is you're going to sulk and so what she'll learn is okay either this either i give him what he's what he wants or i have to put up with him sulking and as it was this describing this, he was kind of, there's his look of like, I realize this, this is true. I have the

potential to do that on his face. And she was looking going like, wow, yes, that's what would happen. And it was really beautiful because they recognized that, oh, it is possible to work against the unitive aspect of marriage in that sense of, okay, I've been coerced into this, or I've been kind of manipulated into this sexual action. So it's possible to work against the unit of aspect. I mean, then that's the, I might say like the tamest way I could describe this, the least tame and the most violent way would of course be as with physical force and that clearly would be working against the unitive aspect of the sexual act. But it's also possible to work against the procurative aspect. And that's one of the reasons why the church teaches

that each and every act of contraception, intentional contraception, is intrinsically evil. Now, at the same time, I have a lot of people who have written to me and have been very upset and I think this is interesting. I think it reveals something about all of our hearts. I think it reveals that we maybe aren't necessarily selfish. I think we're afraid. We talked about yesterday. I think we're afraid of being alone. I think we're afraid of having a family that I can't support. I think we're afraid of being out of control. And one of the things that contraception does for couples is it helps them feel like they're in control. But the church is calling us to refuse contraception. The church is calling us to, at the same time, be open to life and to trust in the Lord, but at the same time,

it's very clear in the teaching today, the church is not calling couples to have as many children as physically possible. In fact, paragraph 2368 says, a particular aspect of this responsibility, the responsibility to procreate and educate their children concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. And that's real. And so the church is not saying, have as many children as physically possible and put yourself into destitution in order to remain open to life. The church is not saying that. In fact, the church is saying what you need to do, what couples need to do is they need to make sure that every each and every act is open to human

life, open to new life, but also that their goal is not just procreation, but procreation and education of children. And so if a couple finds themselves in a place where like, wow, we are just, we are stretched beyond our capacity. We are stretched beyond our capacity. We are stretch beyond our means. And so we may have to space the births of our children. Like, that is a legitimate thing to do. And how do you space the birth of your children? Well, the culture will say through contraception, but the church says, well, actually, there's such a thing as natural family planning. Now, someone might hear natural family planning and think, okay, wait a second. First of all, that is, I know it doesn't work because my grandma talked about being on the rhythm

method and that's how my dad was born, that kind of situation. Like, well, okay, a couple things. one is the rhythm method was an early form of natural family planning that virtually no one uses anymore there are other forms of natural family planning that are 98 to 99 percent effective which is pretty pretty effective and pretty helpful secondly you say well well if you're going to do natural family planning why not just do contraception it's the same thing what do you mean is the same thing well it means no baby like you have no conception if if you use contraception there's no baby if you use natural family planning, natural family planning, there's no baby. So how you do it, it doesn't matter. Well, remember, it's not simply, the ends don't justify the means. The means are

actually very important. In the example, I remember, I think it was maybe Christopher West or someone else who would use this example, and I've repeated it. They said, okay, what about this? You're saying that there's no difference between contraception and natural family planning, because in the end, there's no conception, there's no baby. What about this? What about, he used the example. He said, what about, okay, simply waiting for, you know, grandma's sick. You know, simply waiting for grandma to die or like you know taking a pillow over to her on her bed and you know holding it over her mouth until she just so she passes away like what's the difference because you know in the end it's the same thing dead grandma and the differences he says differences

well one is the natural course of female life the other one is murder and the recognition here is is very similar when it comes to this contraception versus natural family planning in one i'm directly working against life. And the other, I'm allowing, or a couple is, you know, using the natural rhythms of a woman's fertility to either conceive or to avoid conception. But it's not working against conception. It's kind of like, as I mentioned, I think yesterday, when it came to the ends of eating, right? The goal of eating is nourishment and the goal of eating is pleasure. Now, if someone chooses to say, okay, I'm in a hurry, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to quick grab a, like, you know, a power bar or something like this on the

out of the door in order to get to work. I'm not eating that for pleasure. I'm simply, I need to get nourishment in my body. But even though a person just eating that, does somebody get nourishment in there, they're not working against the other end of pleasure. They're just not choosing. That's not the emphasis. Similarly, here's a couple. And they're working with the natural rhythms of a woman's body. And so this is a time of natural infertility. So they're not stopping anything from happening. They're not preventing anything. They're not working against life, they're simply working with, with life. Does that make any sense? Hopefully it does and hopefully recognize that the call here, the call is always to love. And love is always what,

it's always free, total, faithful, and fruitful. There's that quote in paragraph 2370 in the middle of this. It says that when a couple enters into contraception, it is an objectively contradictory language You know, John Paul the second points out that the body has a language. And as often as husband and wife come together in the sexual embrace, they're saying something to the other person. They're saying, I'm yours freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully. To introduce contraception into that, says, I am freely yours, but not really. I am totally yours, but not really.

I am faithful yours, but not really. I am fruitfully yours, but not really. It introduces a contradictory language, namely, that. of not giving oneself totally to the other. And it does something to hearts. We know that this is the last thing. We know that the divorce rate in the United States at least is what around 50% somewhere in there, 40, 50%.

Couples that use natural family planning, right, couples that do not use contraception. And also that, you know, pray and also go to mass, this kind of thing. They have tried to make their life coherent, their faith coherent. it turns out that that divorce rate is somewhere along the lines between two to four percent. That should teach us something. It should reveal something to our hearts that maybe there's something here when it comes to natural family planning over and above contraception. Again, this is challenging.

This is difficult, but love is challenging and love is difficult. Yeah, Father, who are you to tell me this? You're right. I'm nobody. But this is the Lord. speaking through the church to God's beloved children. I'm praying that we all here. I'm praying for you.

Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.