The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 31: The Meaning of Faith (2026)

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

The Catechism wraps up our “I Believe in God” paragraphs with an In Brief and “The Implications of Faith in One God”—or, what God’s being means for us and our lives. Faith in our God means knowing his greatness, living in thanksgiving, knowing the dignity of all men, making good use of creation, and trusting God in every circumstance. Fr. Mike reminds us that “in every circumstance,” meaning even in adversity, God uses all things for the good. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 222-231. 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 sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. It is day 31. You guys.

Well done. You've made it. I mean, if you had every day this year, it's January, it's a full month. It's the longest month. I mean, 31 days or the longest month. You know what I'm saying? Okay, anyways, it's day 31. We're reading today paragraphs 222 to 231.

As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. But you can, of course, follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. Also, you can follow, you can subscribe, you can click whatever there is to get received daily notifications and daily updates when new videos, new, new, uh,

What do you call these podcasts? When new episodes are uploaded, wow, feeling goofy today. Apparently, day 31, you know, you just have a sense of accomplishment. Not goofy, but really, actually, I'm really moved by the paragraphs today. What we're going to read from the catechism today is striking. So it's the last section of this, it's the last section of this first section, right? Last section of this first paragraph. And so it's, again, paragraph 222 to 231.

And the title, a subtitle, before we get to the in brief, is the implicative. of faith in one God. And so, you know, we've been talking the last few days about, okay, God reveals his name. I am who am. God reveals that he is merciful and gracious, that he is slowed to anger, abounding and steadfast love, right? We heard yesterday that God alone is, and he is, and he is love. And we ended, of course, yesterday with that incredible, incredible statement that by sending his only son and the spirit of love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his inner most secret that God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father Son and Holy spirit and that he's destined us to share in that exchange, which is, again, I know I went nuts

over it yesterday, but I will go nuts over it for the rest of my life because it is, it's incredible. It's incredible. But here, the very next paragraph, their very next words are, what are the implications? The implications of faith in one God. And so we're going to talk about this. So believing in the only God, the only one who exists and loving him with all our being, has enormous consequences for our whole life. A couple little bullet points means coming to know.

God means living in Thanksgiving. It means knowing the unity and dignity of every human being. It also means making good use of created things and also trusting God in every circumstance. We're going to talk about all of those things. And also we're going to hit the last four paragraphs. There are the in brief of this section before we go on to the next paragraph on the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, which is just awesome. Again, you guys, this is amazing.

If you have that catechism in your reading plan, you can see where we are. You can also see where we're heading. If you have a catechism, you can flip back and forth, you can see how tomorrow we're going to jump into what's called paragraph two. That might be confusing. I keep saying, we had paragraph one, and now we're going into paragraph two tomorrow. And then I say, we're reading paragraphs 22 to 231. So the catechism made a little bit of a confusing thing for us in the sense that each one of the bullet points, each one of the numbers, references what we call paragraphs. but they also have times where they'll specify, oh, here's another paragraph, and they call it

paragraph two or paragraph one, whatever. And so if you're looking at your catechism, you can see that on page 75 of the, at least the ascension edition of the catechism, it says paragraph two, but whatever, here we are. The implications of faith in one God, let's say a prayer because there are massive implications, enormous consequences, in fact, that the catechism states for coming to believe in one God. And one of them is that we get to have a relationship with him. And we get to pray to our Father. So let's pray to our Father now. Father in heaven, we thank you so much. Thank you for this day. We thank you for revealing yourself to us as the God who is, the God who is truth, the God who is love, and the God whom we can trust with our whole being. We can entrust everything

we are. We can entrust everything we have, everything we've done, everything we will do. We can entrust our past to you, we can entrust our future to you in this moment, Lord God. We entrust our present to you. We entrust this present moment with the hearts that are inside our chests. We give them to you because you are absolutely, you're the only one who is absolutely trustworthy. And so we absolutely trust you in this moment. We make this prayer. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As I said, it's day 31. We're reading paragraphs 222 to 231. The implications of faith in one God.

Believing in God, the only one, and loving him with all our being, has enormous consequences for our whole life. It means coming to know God's greatness and majesty. As the book of Job says, Behold, God is great, and we know him not. Therefore, we must serve God first. It means living in Thanksgiving. If God is the only one, everything we are and have comes from him. As 1 Corinthians says,

What have you that you did not receive? And as the Psalm 116 asks, What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me? It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men. Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God. It means making good use of created things. Faith in God, the only one, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to him,

and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from him. As St. Nicholas of Flew said, My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you. My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you. My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you. It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adverse. A prayer of St. Teresa of Jesus wonderfully expresses this trust. Let nothing trouble you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes. God never changes. Patience obtains all. Whoever has God wants for nothing.

God alone is enough. In brief, Deuteronomy 6 states, Here O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Dertullian, wrote, The supreme being must be unique without equal. If God is not one, he is not God. Faith in God leads us to turn to him alone as our first origin and our ultimate goal, and neither to prefer anything to him nor to substitute anything for him. Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words. St. Augustine said, If you understood him, it would not be God. The God of our faith has revealed himself as he who is, and he has made himself known as abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness.

God's very being is truth and love. Okay, so as I said, today is awesome, so incredible. Because, I mean, always, we always want to know what is God's deepest identity, but there are consequences. In fact, as Catechism 222 says, there are enormous consequences for believing in God, the only one, and loving him with everything. we have. And again, what are the consequences? There's this bullet list. And I think every article on this bullet list could be something that every one of us could take to prayer, probably should take to prayer. So, for example, the first one, it means coming to know God's greatness and majesty. That sense of recognizing, okay, gosh, God, you are God, and I am not. And as the Gaticism has

said before and said here in the in brief, even when God reveals himself, he remains a mystery beyond words, St. Augustine, if you understood him, it would not be God. So it means coming to know God's greatness and majesty. And that's so powerful that we realize, okay, God, you are always more. So you imagine this. To be able to know, God, as deeply as we can get to know you, as closely as we can come to you, you're always more. There's always more of you that is than we could possibly know. He is capital and mystery. So that's one, coming to know God's greatness and majesty. The second one, It means living and thanksgiving. We realize if God is the only one, right?

If God is and He alone is, everything we have, everything we are comes from him. And St. Paul said in 1st Corinthians, what do you have that you did not receive? Which is completely true. What do you have that wasn't given to you by the Lord? I mean, even life, even breath in this very moment, it means living and thanksgiving to God. The third thing, it means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men. Right. so if if God is our source, God is our origin, and God made us all in his image and likeness,

that means that we're united. We belong literally to one family of the human race. And that because we have God as our source and because we're mating God's image and likeness, every human being has dignity. And I love how it uses the term true dignity of all men. It's not, it's not an imparted dignity. It's not a dignity that is granted to us by a certain organization or by a government, or by a culture, it is a true dignity that is innate, intrinsic in every human being. The fourth piece is it means making good use of created things. Right? So we recognize that God made us in his image or likeness, and he gave us this world that he

created, that he made for our use to help us get close to him. And I love that prayer from St. Nicholas. So good. My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you. If it takes me away from you, take it away from me. my Lord of my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you. You know what that means? That means everything.

When we say everything in that case, it means, yeah, there are sometimes that our blessings bring us closer to God and there's sometimes where our crosses can bring us to our knees. And our crosses can bring us closer to God. And so we recognize that, okay, God, yeah, bring me everything that brings me closer to you. And then third, will my Lord of my God detach me from myself to give my all to you. because as we know, every one of us knows this, that we have a temptation sometimes to hold on to ourselves more and more.

Okay, that's the first four, coming to know God's greatness and glory, living at Thanksgiving, knowing the unity and dignity of all men, making good use of created things, and the last one, it means trusting God in every circumstance. If God is good,

if God is truth, if God is love, then we can trust God in every circumstance, even in adversity. And this is so, so powerful, so important for every one of us. Because right now, I don't know. I don't even know what I'm going through right now. I don't know what you're going through right now.

We don't know what each other are going through. Really serious things. And yet, if God is, if God is truth, if God is love, then we can trust him in every circumstance, even in adversity. paragraph 229. It says, faith in God leads us to turn to him alone as our first origin and our ultimate goal and neither to prefer anything to him nor to substitute anything for him. How often, in adversity, how often in our lives, even not only in adversity, but also in abundance, do we substitute that abundance for the Lord? And we're willing to turn away from him.

not just in adversity. We're willing to turn away from him in prosperity. And so it's moments like this where we just say, okay, God, please bring me back. Bring me home. Bring me back to your heart. Because there are consequences for your existence. There are consequences for believing in you

and loving you with all our heart. And so part of those consequences mean and trusting you with our whole heart, which is so important. But also something that can only be done by God's grace. and so we're praying. We pray with each other. We pray for each other.

I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.