The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 329: The Gift of Prayer (2024)

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

St. Thérèse said that “prayer is a surge of the heart.” Do we pray from our pride or from a place of humility? The Catechism tells us that “humility is the foundation of prayer.” In humility we can feel God’s thirst for us, accept his gift of prayer, and pray to him from our heart. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2558-2565. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we Journey Together Toward Our Heavenly Home. This is day 329. We are reading paragraphs 2558 to 2565. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a 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 slash C-I-Y. And you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today is day 329 yesterday we had the opportunity to talk to sister Miriam what a gift incredible gift and today we're launching into this final fourth and final pillar and yet we're talking

about section one prayer in the Christian life there's something remarkable because the first very first question that gets asked in this section is what is prayer? And the definition that's the answer that's given to us is not even a technical definition. It is definitely a good definition but it's a definition that comes from experience. It's a definition that comes from the heart. It's a definition that comes from a young girl named St. Therese of the Sioux, and the catechism asks, what is prayer? And she responds, for me, prayer is a surge of the heart. It is a simple look, turn toward heaven.

It is a cry of recognition and love, embracing both trial and joy. We recognize that, man, again, that definition or that explanation, it's not technical, but it comes from experience. That's her experience. It comes from the heart. And that's what prayer is.

Prayer, we can say our prayers, or we can pray, or we can do both. But the reality of course, is that at some point, we recognize that prayer is when the thirst of God meets our thirst. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. That prayer is actually God's gift. That God actually thirsts for us. It is He who first seeks us and asks us for a drink, it says

in paragraph 2560. And so in our prayers, every time we pray, it is always a response, a response to God's love. And so as we enter into this section of the catechism, we also enter into prayer. And so let's talk to the Father who is so good and loves us. Father in heaven, we thank you. You have loved us first, and we give you permission to love us. We ask you, give us hearts that can love you in return. Give us hearts that can love our neighbor as you love them.

Lord God, help us to be men and women of prayer. Help us to be sons and daughters who turn to you our Father in every situation and every circumstance, embracing both trial and joy. Father, be with us this day and help us to be attentive to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father, in of the Son, in of the Holy Spirit, amen. This is day 329. We're reading paragraphs 25-58 to 25-65. Section 1, Prayer in the Christian Life. Great is the mystery of the faith.

The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed, part 1, and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy, part 2, so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father, part 3. This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer. What is prayer? St. Therese of Lesault said, For me, prayer is a surge of the heart.

It is a simple look turned toward heaven. It is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. Prayer as God's gift. Saint John Damascene said, "'Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God. But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will or out of the depths

of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted. Humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that we do not know how to pray as we ought, are we ready to freely receive the gift of prayer. As St. Augustine said, If you knew the gift of God, the wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water. There, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is He who first seeks us

and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts. His asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. Godirsts that we may thirst for Him. You would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. Paradoxically, our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. Prayer as Covenant Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks, sometimes, of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart, more than a thousand times. According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays.

If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain. The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live. According to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place to which I withdraw. The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others. Only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because we choose life or death. It is

the place of encounter, because as image of God, we live in relation. It is the place of covenant. Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father in union with the human will of the Son of God made man. Prayer as Communion In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with His Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit.

The grace of the Kingdom is the union of the entire Holy and Royal Trinity with the whole human spirit. Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice holy God and in communion with Him. This communion of life is always possible because, through baptism, we have already been united with Christ. Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the church, which is his body.

Its dimensions are those of Christ's love. There we have it, paragraphs 25-58 to 25-65. What an incredible start. I mean, yesterday was the start with Sister Miriam, but what an incredible start to what prayer is. So I love this summary that is given to us in paragraph 2558. It says, the church professes this mystery, the mystery of faith. The church professes this mystery in the Apostles Creed. That was part one, right? Pillar one. Celebrates it in the sacramental

liturgy. That was part two, pillar two. So that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father. Part three, pillar three, the moral life. This mystery then, this is great, it keeps amping up. This mystery then requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live it from a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. Those are the first three pillars we've been talking about for 320 plus days.

That is amazing. This mystery requires that the faithful believe in it. Remember, because it's true, that we celebrate it, because we're called to worship the true and living God and that we live it from a vital, this is the key part too, that we live it from a vital and personal relationship with the true and living God. Remember all the things we've been talking about, like when it comes to the profession of faith, it's not just, oh we believe x, y, and z and amen, done, I did it, I said it. Or when we go into worship, when we enter the sacraments, we're not just going through the motions,

and also in the moral life, it's not just, okay, check the boxes and be a good kid instead of a bad kid. Not that at all. But this has to be lived from this mystery of faith. It's lived in a vital and personal relationship with the true and living God. All of this,

all of this is directed. It comes from and is directed towards that vital, meaning it's alive, it's essential, it's important and personal, meaning that it's your relationship, not someone else's relationship. This is so, I want to say vitally important, but it is so vitally important that we all remember this, that man, when it comes to our faith, yes, there's a faith we share in the church. Absolutely. It is a communal faith. And yet our faith must be personal.

It must be personal. It's not private, right? It's not just between me and Jesus. But it has to be personal in the sense that it is between me and Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit, that we recognize that this is the living out the relationship of the living and true God is prayer. This is prayer and I love I mentioned the St. Therese's quote but we also got another quote from St. John Damascene so St. Therese I always talk about this when we're talking with our students so Therese says for me prayer is a surge of

the heart and we're gonna talk about the heart in a second it's a surge of the heart. And we're going to talk about the heart in a second. It's a surge of the heart. It's a simple look turned toward heaven, a cry of recognition and of love embracing both trial and joy. Now, we'll talk about this many, many times as we move forward through this section on prayer. The one thing is prayer is a simple look turned toward heaven and it's a cry of recognition and of love. What does that mean? Well, one of the many things that means is we're gonna get to this place in the Catechism where we will be reminded of what Jesus taught about prayer.

Jesus said to his disciples, when you pray, do not babble like the pagans who think that because of their many words, they'll be heard. And so sometimes people look at that and say, oh yeah, Catholics, you guys all, you repeat yourselves, you say the Hail Mary a bunch of times, you say they are fathers,

you say the chaplet, you say whatever. You repeat yourself and so what you're doing is you're babbling like the pagans, right? You're repeating yourself. But that's not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is referring to pagans who would believe that if they would say the right things in the right way, over and over again, if they would do some kind of big,

big action over and over again, that they would do some kind of big action over and over again, that they would be able to get the God's attention, right? The God or Goddess. They'd be able to get their attention. And Jesus says, oh, here's the deal. When you pray, don't babble like the pagans who think that because of the many words they'll be heard, right? We don't have to say many, many words in order to be heard. He says, but when you pray, simply say, our Father who art in heaven. Again, this whole section in prayer, we're going to talk about the our Father to tee up right now and realize that as we launch into prayer, one of the things that St.

Therese is saying is reminding us of what Jesus is going to be teaching us. It's a simple look toward a turn toward heaven, cry of recognition and of love. That when we when you turn your thoughts we turn your heart towards God you realize oh he is already looking at you you already have his attention like right now in this very moment just consider this I mean just right now turn your heart to the Lord like attend yourself like putting turn your attention to God himself right now and realize, even as you're listening to these words, God is attentive to you. You don't have to fight for His attention.

When St. Therese says, prayer is just a simple look toward heaven. She turns toward heaven and realizes that heaven's looking at her, right? She turns to the Father and realizes the Father's already looking at her. Just like Jesus said, when you pray, you don't have to babble like the pagans. You don't have to fight for the Father's attention. You already have His attention. That's why it's a cry of recognition and of love. That's why it also embraces both trial and joy because at every moment,

every moment of your life, you have the Father's attention. Every moment of your life, you have the Father's heart. You have the Father's attention every moment of your life. You have the Father's heart. And that's the quick definition of prayer. And Saint John Damascene goes on, right? His prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God, or the requesting of good things from God. Thank you, Saint John Damascene,

for this quick and easy definition. So incredible. But the author of this fourth pillar of the Catechism asks us the question But when we pray like when we raise our heart and mind to God or ask good things of God Do we speak from the height of our pride and will or out of the depths of a humble and contrite heart? And here we have the church reminding us that Humility is the foundation of prayer humility is the foundation of prayer. What's the foundation of prayer? Humility is the foundation of prayer. In fact, I believe it was St. Augustine who was once asked,

what are the three most important aspects of prayer, concepts, essential elements of prayer? And he said, humility, humility, humility. I don't know if that's a true story, but it's an anecdote that I heard years ago. Humility is the foundation of prayer. How do we approach God? How do you and I approach God? Do we approach God and speak to him out of the height of do we approach God? How do you and I approach God? Do we approach God and speak to him out of the height of our pride and will? God, here, let me tell you what needs to happen. God, here's the deal.

If you give me this thing, then I'll give you that thing. Or God, if you know it's good for the people in my life, then you're gonna do this thing. Or do we come to the Lord in humility, knowing that we do not know how to pray as we ought and we're ready to simply and freely receive the gift of prayer, realize that prayer is a gift. My gosh, and it's also, as it says in 2560,

paragraph 2560, it's a quote from St. John's Gospel, chapter four, when Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, if you knew the gift of God, and who was speaking to you, you'd have asked him for a drink and he would have given you living water. This is paragraph 2560 and 2561. And we realize it is God who seeks us first. Again, just like going back to this, where Jesus reminds those who want to know how to

pray, you don't have to babble like the pagans who think because of the many words that they'll be heard. Your father already knows what you need. your father is already attentive to you. If you only knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Paragraph 2561 says, paradoxically, our prayer petition is a response to the plea of the living God. That every time we approach God, this is one of the fundamental premises of Christian prayer, it is always a response. God is the one who moves first.

Every time you've ever wanted to pray, it was because God was drawing you into prayer. He thirsts for you so that we can then thirst for him. This is so important. And yet too often, too often we think that, no, no, no, I have to fight for God's attention. You don't. God is fighting for your attention.

Or we think like, no, I have to say these words just the right way. No, you don't. Prayer is covenant. As it says in paragraph 2562, prayer is covenant. It says this, where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, like we genuflect, we kneel, we make the sound of the cross, there's gestures there or words. We pray the Our Father, we pray the rosary, we pray the mass, you know, all these things.

It says, it is the whole man who prays, the entire person who prays. He says, but in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or spirit the most often of the heart. According to scripture, it is the heart that prays. So if our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain. What does that mean? You know, we've been going over that third pillar, this third section of the catechism, and in the third section we talked about the moral life, right? The life in Christ. And this is one of the places where we can take our heart away from the Lord. If we're choosing to live in rebellion, that means that I might find myself in the vicinity of God, right? I might find myself going to church, I find myself maybe even approaching God in prayer. But if I haven't surrendered my heart to Him, meaning if I haven't chosen to say,

okay, God, whatever I know you've called me to do, I'm just going to do it. I'm not going to live in rebellion. I'm going to live in obedience. If we're living in rebellion, our heart is far from God and the words of prayer are in vain. And this is one of the moments we just get to ask ourselves and examine our conscience and say, is that me right now? After listening to the whole third pillar, that section on moral life in Christ, are there places in my life where I'm not just resistant, I'm not just questioning, I'm not just struggling, but I'm in rebellion. I refuse to do what you're asking me to do, God.

If that's the case, and my heart is far from God, and the words of my prayer are in vain. Why? Because paragraph 2563, one of my favorite paragraphs, love it, I'm gonna say this 20 more times, but paragraph 2563 is so important. The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live. According to the Semitico-Biblical expression, the heart is the place to which I withdraw.

Now, again, here's the church that reveals to us, the heart is our hidden center. It's beyond the grasp of reason and of other people. Only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. And it's amazing. The heart is your hidden center and only God can understand it fully. But that's great news in so many ways. Why? Because the deepest secret about you, God understands. The deepest secret about you and your life,

your struggles, your joys, your weaknesses, your strengths, your gifts, your burdens, the hidden center of you, only God understands. But also God understands, which is amazing. I love how it goes on to say in paragraph 2563, it says, the heart is the place of decision. Deeper than our psychic drives, it is the place of truth where we choose life or death, you know in that last third pillar Where we talked about morality we also talked about, you know sin

We talked about venial sin and mortal sin and and so oftentimes there is this you know that the things that can mitigate Our culpability that here is something that's grave matter I know it's grave matter, but sometimes through fear, through habit, through whatever the thing is, we might choose the sin. And we say, well, how do we know? How do we know whether this is a mortal sin or it's only a venial sin or I'm not as culpable for it

because of all the things that are working in my heart? Well, here, the catechism is saying that your heart is the place of decision, it's the place of truth. That's where we choose life or death. So amidst all of the realities, all the factors that are weighing in and battering our hearts

and pulling us this way or that way, God who understands your heart fully, in fact, God who is the only one who understands your heart fully knows what we've actually chosen. He knows what we've actually decided and that's the place of truth where we choose life or death. It's one of the reasons why it is so important for us to do everything we can to understand our own heart. To understand it. What am I really choosing now Lord? Not to give ourselves a pass and not to condemn ourselves

But to get to this place of truth because that heart is also as it says in 2563. It's also the place of encounter Because since we're made in the image of God we live in relation right God is love therefore made for love Therefore the heart is the place of the Covenant It's incredible and that's the place that we want to learn how to pray from. We want to learn how to not just say our prayers. We want to learn how to pray from our heart. We want to learn how to live from our heart. And so that's what we're praying for as we begin this last and final pillar of the catechism, To allow the Lord into our heart,

the only one who understands it, to humbly approach him and to choose him freely and fully from the depths of our heart. That's what we need and that's why we need God's help. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.