The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 340: Scripture and the Liturgy (2025)

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

How do we pray? Prayer is essential for our relationship with the Lord. The Catechism teaches that we must study the Scriptures, learn how to pray, and have the will to pray. Fr. Mike shares two different sources of prayer: the Word of God and the Liturgy of the Church. He explains how the Holy Spirit guides us in prayer and teaches us how to speak with God. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2650-2655. 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 and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 340. We're reading paragraphs 2650 to 2655, just a few short paragraphs today. It's the beginning of chapter two. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the catechism, which includes a foundations 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 CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe to your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. You know, it's Day 340, which means what? If there's a home stretch, this is kind of close to the home stretch. And I just want to offer a word of thanks. At the end of every episode, I always say I'm praying for you, and I am. I hope you know that. I hope you know that literally every day in my prayers. I'm praying for you who are listening, who are pressing play every day and even if you miss

a day. I'm still praying for you that day. It doesn't matter. And just so grateful for everyone who has supported me, but also everyone who's part of this, producing this podcast with your prayers and financial gifts because it takes a team of people to get this whole thing done. And so grateful, couldn't know without you. So thank you.

Okay. Day 340. Let's get started here. As I said yesterday, we're starting chapter two. And the section is, as you know, if you have the reading plan, it is the tradition of prayer. And we're going to start by looking at how do we pray. And we're only doing a couple paragraphs today. I mean, we're just really dipping our toes into this because, like, in a couple days,

we'll talk about how we have prayer to the Father, prayer to Jesus. We talk about prayer in the Holy Spirit and communion with the Holy Mother of God. There's all these aspects of prayer. And so today, as we kind of just basically frame up the house, you know, a little bit, we're going to look at what is prayer what is it not in the first paragraph of today's section it it kind of highlights right away it says prayer cannot be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse that's just it's not just something that kind of just flows from us we're going to talk about this when it comes to my favorite section coming up soon it's not just something that

is always merely spontaneous obviously prayer can be spontaneous but it's not the mere spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse, we have to have the will to pray. And we have to learn how to pray. We don't know how to pray. We have to seek the scriptures to be taught by that, but also we have to be given the Holy Spirit that can teach us how to pray. And not only that, but we need the church, the living and believing and praying church to teach the children of God how to pray. You know, sometimes we want the nuts and bolts. I just tell me what it is. Tell me how to do this and let me do it on my own. Prayer is not like that. Yes, we can have tools for prayer. Yes, we can have some techniques for prayer, but prayer can never be reduced to a technique just in the same

way that it can't be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse, right? It's deeper than that. It's richer than that. That's what we're going to talk about today. What's at the heart of the well springs of prayer is what we're going to be talking about today. So as we launch into today, let's stop talking about prayer and start praying. We pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father in heaven, we give your praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us to this day. We thank you and praise your name. We bless you because you blessed us. We glorify you because you are worthy of all glory. In this moment, we pray for those who are close to us. We pray for the needs of our family members and our friends. We pray, Lord, God, for our enemies.

For those who hate us, for those who have hurt us. We pray that you give them what they need. Give them all that they need. And please, Lord, give us what we need. Because without you, we are nothing. And without you, we can do nothing. So, meet us in our need. Meet us in our poverty. And receive our hearts. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 340. We are reading paragraphs 2650 to 2655. Chapter 2. The Tradition of Prayer Prayer cannot be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse. In order to pray, one must have the will to pray. Nor is it enough to know what the scriptures reveal about prayer.

One must also learn how to pray. Through a living transmission, sacred tradition, within the believing and praying church, the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray. The tradition of Christian prayer is one of the ways in which the tradition of faith takes shape and grows, especially through the contemplation and study of believers who treasure in their hearts the events and words of the economy of salvation, and through their profound grasp of the spiritual realities they experience. Article 1 At the Well Springs of Prayer The Holy Spirit is the living water, welling up to eternal life in the heart that prays.

it is he who teaches us to accept it at its source, Christ. Indeed, in the Christian life, there are several willsprings where Christ awaits us to enable us to drink of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God The Church forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine scriptures. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of sacred scripture so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For we speak to him when we pray, we listen to him when we read the divine oracles. The spiritual writers, paraphrasing Matthew 7 verse 7, summarize in this way the dispositions of

the heart nourished by the word of God in prayer. Seek in reading, and you will find in meditating. Knock in mental prayer, and it will be opened to you by contemplation. The Liturgy of the Church In the sacramental liturgy of the church, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation, which is continued in the heart that prays. The spiritual writers sometimes compare the heart to an altar. Prayer internalizes and assimilates the liturgy during and after its celebration. Even when it is lived

out in secret, prayer is always prayer of the church. It is a communion with the Holy Trinity. Okay, there we have it, paragraphs 2650 to 2655, as I said, just a couple short paragraphs, but what beauty in this? I'm just so good. Right. So let's look at this. Article 1 says at the will springs of prayer. So the Holy Spirit is the living water welling up to eternal life in the heart that prays. Just realize Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us how to pray. Again, paragraph 2650, back a couple, highlights that this is not just merely spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse. We don't just do whatever we want. We have to have the will to pray. We have to be able to have discipline in prayer. That's very key. Also, we can't just see what

other people have done or how other people have prayed. So it's good to know the scriptures and see what they reveal about prayer, but then we also have to learn how to pray. So, you know, to be able to say, oh, I know that if you play the piano, there are 88 keys and they go A, B, C, D, EG, FG. You know what I'm saying? You can know how a piano works. I can see, oh, when there's little dots on the music sheet and they go up and down, that's the keys. I can know all of those things, but I have to actually learn how to play the piano. I have to actually learn not just, oh, this is what they mean, but learn how to do it ourselves. So, yes, of course, we study the scripture and see how people have prayed, and we

dive deeply into the Bible and see how people have prayed, but we also have to learn how to pray ourselves. And we do this, the last line here in paragraph 2650, we do this through a living transmission within the believing and praying church and the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God, that's you and me, how to pray. It's so incredible. And so highlighting back to 2652, the Holy Spirit is the living water willing up to eternal life. And the Holy Spirit teaches us to accept its source who is Jesus.

And then the next line says, indeed, in the Christian life, there are several wellsprings where Christ awaits us to enable us to drink of the Holy Spirit. Now, we got two of those wellsprings today. There are going to be a couple more tomorrow, but today we have two. Tomorrow we'll have two more. The two we have today are the Word of God and the liturgy of the church. So what are the well springs? What are those sources of living water? Well, obviously these sources, Christ and the Holy Spirit. But where can we go to to always come in contact with God? And this is the key.

Because remember, we say this again and again. This is not just about transfer of information. We want to come into contact with God so that we may be transformed so we can become like him. So where do we go in order to become like him? Where do we go for these well springs welling up to eternal life? Well, today, the Word of God, the liturgy of the church tomorrow, just spoiler. it's going to be the theological virtues and the recognition that each day is the day we're given this grace, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So the Word of God, if you have ever prayed with Scripture, you know how absolutely essential. It is non-negotiable. We must. We must know Scripture. We have to once again come back again and again into contact with the Lord

through Sacred Scripture. It says this, the church forcefully and especially exhorts all the Christian faithful. Think about that. Forcefully exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by the frequent reading of the divine scriptures. And that is remarkable. But also, if you've done the Bible in the year, or maybe you're doing it again, or maybe you're doing it for the first time, or maybe you're just reading the scriptures of the day or whatever your reading plan is that you're coming into contact with God's word. So amazing. But goes on to say, highlight this. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of sacred scripture so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. Now, what's that look like?

There is a thing called Lexio Divina. You probably have heard of Lexio devena. We might talk about it later on. But Lexio has actually, it means holy reading or divine reading, sacred reading. It usually involves maybe, we'll say, four kind of steps. Now, these steps aren't like automatic. You go to one to two, two to three, three to four. They sometimes go back and forth. But the first step in Lexio devena is reading. It's the Lexio part. So we read sacred scripture. And then the second step in lexia divina is called meditatio right so meditation we just basically that's fancy word for think about it you think about what you just read and the third step is that's called oratio now oratio means prayer so you think about this okay so i've say i've taken sacred scripture taking the word of god and i've read

this the small section or i've read this whatever the section is for today now i'm going to go so far as to say you can also listen so and that's a little side point so we read that scripture then we think about it like basically engage our brains with it like it's one of those kind of situations where you might say here's the story of jesus walking in water and he invites peter out on the water with him and so you read through that you might say you know what i'm going to think about i'm going to think about where jesus says take courage it is i do not be afraid i'm just going to i'm just going to meditate on those words like oh here's the lord in my life and he says take courage it is i do not be afraid i'm going to meditate on that just ponder what that means how could i apply that to my life but then there's that

next step and the next step is prayer. You realize up to this point, it hasn't been prayer yet. Up to this point, there's been reading and there's been meditation, there's been thinking, but no prayer. Remember, prayer is between you and God. It is some kind of communication between you and God. And so I always say it like this to our students. I say at one point, you know, even if you're reading scripture of a bunch, even if you're thinking about God a lot, at some point you have to look up. At some point, you know, your nose is in the book and your your mind is in your own brain or your thoughts are in your own mind and at some point just look up and talk to god about what you've been thinking about talk to god about what you've been reading and that that's that

prayer part and that's what paragraph 2653 highlights let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of sacred scripture so that dialogue takes place between god and man so there's the reading the thinking and then the prayer and i love this it says for we speak to him when we pray we listen to him when we read the divine oracles people who say ah god never talks to me. Well, have you read his book? That's the big question. I'm not trying to dismiss that because I know sometimes it'd be frustrating. But the thing is, the Lord continues to speak to us through the Church, the Holy Spirit, but always, always, always, also through His Word. Now, in liturgy, the Church as well, this is key. The Liturgy of the Church and the sacramental liturgy of the church,

like say all of the sacraments, but particularly the Mass, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation. Every time you go to Mass, let's highlight this. This is so beautiful how it's put. Every time you go to Mass, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present and communicates the mystery of salvation. That is remarkable. That is, it's really present. The mystery of salvation is truly present. It's really proclaimed and also communicates to us. Like, it's transmitted to us. And then it goes on to say, which is continued in the heart that prays, which is continued in the heart that prays.

So those of you who are like athletes or maybe like exercise physiology, this kind of thing, there is this concept, I don't know how accurate it is, but it's called the afterburn. The idea behind it is if you exercise, if you get your heart rate up and all the kind of things, get the blood flowing, and then for however long after you've done exercising,

there's the afterburn. The afterburn is all the calories you're burning because you're ramped up your system. So I think there's been some studies that say, oh yeah, it exists. Oh, no, it doesn't really exist. the point of it is this though or maybe not it doesn't exist like we think the point of it is like this it's kind of like the spiritual afterburn so you go to mass and the reality of the mission of

Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is proclaimed is made present it's communicated and that's continued in the heart that prays that if you have a heart that prays there's like the spiritual afterburn that long after you've gotten done with mass, that the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is still made present, is still communicated, still proclaimed. Isn't that remarkable? Is that kind of cool? I think that's amazing.

That's one of the reasons why the spiritual writers sometimes compare the heart to an altar. Because when you pray, you're internalizing, you're assimilating what happened in the liturgy even after the celebration. During it, of course, you're there, you're present, you're praying. But even after a celebration, it's lived out. It's lived out.

And that's remarkable. think about this to be able to realize that everywhere you go you are carrying the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit out into the world proclaimed made present and communicated and that's if we pray and that's if we pray we need to have the heart to prays so the heart can become an altar and so I'm praying for you please pray for me my name is Father Mike I cannot wait to see you tomorrow God bless Thank you.