The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 342: Trinitarian Prayer (2025)

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

What is the significance of praying to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? As we explore the path of prayer, the Catechism elaborates on the concept of trinitarian prayer and underscores the importance of establishing a relationship with each member of the Holy Trinity. Fr. Mike emphasizes that Christ is the focal point of Christian prayer, and he underscores the profound power of invoking the name of Jesus, as it represents his very presence. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 2663-2672. 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. This is day 342. we are reading paragraphs 2663 to 2672. 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 slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today's Day 342. Well done, getting it all the way here. You know, in paragraph 2663, we're starting with a new section. And the new section is talking about the way of prayer.

So yes, yesterday we had the great gifts, the well springs, the day before that, the Word of God, these four well springs, among many, the Word of God, the liturgy of the church, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, and also today, knowing that we can only find God today. And if we can't find God today, then we will not be able to find God at any time. If we can't find God here, we'll never be able to find God anywhere. And so taking this next step in Article 2, the way of prayer, it's just remarkable because with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right, the Holy Trinity, there is this living tradition

of prayer that the church proposes to every one of us. And this living tradition of prayer is prayer to the Father, prayer to Jesus, and also prayer by the Holy Spirit. Right? So even paragraph 2670 says, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Every time we pray, every time we begin to pray to Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit who draws us on the way of prayer by his prevenient grace. that grace it even just acts on us in this remarkable, mysterious way. It's just so incredible. So we also pray to the Spirit as well. And this is remarkable. So we pray to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And again, today it's kind of brief. But the briefer it gets, the more space, my invitation is the more space to make for prayer. And so here's a little challenge slash

invitation to use the silence after this episode to actually pray to the Father, to pray to the Son and to pray to and through the Holy Spirit. That's my invitation. Let's pray right now. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father in heaven, we give you praise. Jesus Christ, you only begotten Son, we give you praise.

Holy Spirit, we give you praise. We know that we know we can pray to you at all times. Lord God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. We know that at all times you are attentive to us. At all times you are calling us. You're moving us by your prevenient grace to attend to you. and to respond to your voice, Lord God, help us in this moment. Help us to be vulnerable before you. Help us to be honest in your presence. Help us to be humble. And help us to be patient.

Let us be patient with the silence of prayer. Help us to be patient with the dryness of prayer. Help us to be patient with the way of prayer. And we'll 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 a 342, we are reading paragraphs 2663 to 2672. Article 2. The Way of Prayer In the Living Tradition of Prayer, each church proposes to its faithful, according to its historic, social, and cultural context, a language for prayer, words, melodies, gestures, iconography. The Magisterium of the Church has the task of discerning the fidelity of these

ways of praying to the tradition of apostolic faith. It is for pastors and catechists to explain their meaning always in relation to Jesus Christ. Prayer to the Father There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray in the name of Jesus. The sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father. Prayer to Jesus. The prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. Certain Psalms,

given their use in the prayer of the Church and the New Testament, place on our lips and engrave in our hearts prayer to Christ in the form of invocations. Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God, king, beloved son, son of the virgin, good shepherd, our life, our light, our hope, our resurrection, friend of mankind. But the one name that contains everything is the one that the son of God received in his incarnation, Jesus. The divine name may not be spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity, the word of God hands it over to us, and we can invoke it. Jesus. Yahweh saves.

The name Jesus contains all, God and man, and the whole economy of creation and salvation. To pray Jesus is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the risen one, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him. This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. The most usual formulation transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mount Athos is the invocation Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners. It combines the Christological hymn

of Philippians chapter 2 verses 6 through 11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light. By it, the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy. The invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the holy name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost by heaping up empty phrases, but holds fast to the word and brings forth fruit with patience. This prayer is possible at all times because it is not one occupation among others, but the only occupation that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus. The prayer of the church venerates and honors the heart of Jesus, just as it invokes his most holy name.

It adores the incarnate word and his heart, which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins. Christian prayer loves to follow the way of the cross in the Savior's steps. The stations from the Praetorium to Gagatha and the tomb trace the way of Jesus, who by his holy cross has redeemed the world. Come Holy Spirit. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Every time we begin to pray to Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit who draws us on the way of prayer by his prevenient grace.

Since he teaches us to pray by recalling Christ, how could we not pray to the Spirit too? That is why the Church invites us to call upon the Holy Spirit every day, especially at the beginning and the end of every important action. St. Gregory of Nazianzus stated, If the Spirit should not be worshipped, how can he divinize me through baptism? If he should be worshipped, should he not be the object of adoration?

The traditional form of petition to the Holy Spirit is to invoke the Father through Christ our Lord to give us the Consolar Spirit. Jesus insists on this petition to be made in his name at the very moment when he promises the gift of the Spirit of Truth, but the simplest and most direct prayer is also traditional. come Holy Spirit And every liturgical tradition

Has developed it in antiphons and hymns Come Holy Spirit Fill the hearts of your faithful And kindle in them the fire of your love Heavenly King, Consolar Spirit Spirit of Truth present everywhere And filling all things Treasure of all good and source of all life

Come dwell in us Cleanse and save us You who are all good The Holy Spirit whose anointing permeates our whole being is the interior master of Christian prayer. He is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer. To be sure, there are as many paths of prayer as there are persons who pray, but it is the same spirit acting in all and with all. It is in the communion of the Holy Spirit that Christian prayer

is prayer in the church. Okay, there we are paragraphs 2663 to 2672. Man, isn't this beautiful? This is just so compelling. Okay, so paragraph 2663 highlights. There's many forms of prayer. And they come out in various, you know, kind of small teach traditions around the world and various church around the world. And the recognition is the Magisterium of the church, right? The teaching office of the church has the task of discerning the fidelity of those ways of praying to the tradition of the apostolic faith. So not just any kind of form of prayer that arises, whether that be here's a song or here's a way of praying gesture and prayer. Sometimes we have, you know, certain gestures. And in this part of the world, they use like this gesture. You know,

they make the sign of the cross like this or they bow down over here or even iconography and various images that we people use to pray with that ultimately the magisterium has the task of discerning whether that is a faithful way of praying in the overall tradition of the apostolic faith and so that's remarkable and then of course we have to explain this now that's a very important note to make but then paragraph 2664 launches us into trinitarian prayer and the very first line in paragraph 2664, it says this, there is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Now, that might seem so obvious to you. At the same time, we recognize that we live in a very pluralistic world, right? We live in a world where all these alternative forms of, you know,

quote unquote meditation, all these alternative forms of what you might call prayer have just kind of in some ways usurped the role of Christian prayer. And we have to realize that if there is a prayer that does not involve Christ, then that is not Christian prayer. There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. And so I could be on thin ice in this saying this, but we have to recognize that there are various ways people have taught a thing called like centering prayer. And that was kind of big back in the day. And centering prayer, there is a way, I think, in which a person could take some of the aspects of centering prayer and incorporate those things like stilling the mind, you know, calming oneself down and kind of reaching a place of

peace, interior peace. We recognize that not all people who taught this thing called centering prayer had Christian prayer at heart because at heart there's no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. It goes on to say whether our prayers communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray

in the name of Jesus. And again, I bring up the idea of centering prayer only because it made a big splash in the church for a while in certain circles and people were kind of like taken in on this. I mean, there were monasteries and convents and other really prominent teachers in the faith who would teach

this method of prayer but and so maybe you've done this before maybe you've had like that i like this it was really helpful for me because it helped you calm yourself down because it helped you get to a place of peace and then you would have access to scripture then you would pray in the name of jesus then you'd pray in the power of the holy spirit that's the case that's wonderful but how it was taught didn't always include the way of jesus it didn't always include the scriptures it didn't always include praying in the power of the holy spirit and so we have to realize that if anyone presents to us prayer, and they call it prayer, and they claim that it is Christian prayer, but it doesn't involve Jesus or the name of Jesus. Then we have to hit the brakes pretty quickly on that and really

discern is this Christian prayer. Hopefully that makes sense and doesn't get too off track because the next line is prayer to Jesus, and this is just amazing. He says in 2665, the prayer of the church nourished by the word of God and the celebration of the liturgy teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. In the next sentence, I love it because it says, even though her prayers addressed above all, to the Father, pause on that. Have you ever noticed that? That the prayer of the Church is addressed above all to the Father. You know that when we're at the Mass. We're praying the Mass, almost every prayer, not every prayer, but almost every prayer is directed to God the Father. And this is important because we recognize that what's happening at the Mass? In the Mass, we're offering the sacrifice

of the Son to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. So it can help us many times when we're crying out in Mass, you know, Lord or calling out God. We're talking to the Father himself. Now, of course, the Trinity can't be separated, but there are three distinct persons in one God. Maybe it'll help you, helps me pray in the Mass when I know I'm talking to the Father, I'm talking to Abba, I'm talking to Dad, and I'm talking to Dad, our Heavenly Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ. And it's just so remarkable through the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. Amazing. Paragraph 2665, yes, we do talk to Jesus. We do worship and pray to the Lord Jesus. And I love this, the New Testament places on our lips and engraves in our hearts, prayer to Christ in the form of invocations. And then there's this list of invocations we can have of our Lord Jesus, like Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God.

Remember the couple of days ago we talked about praise, prayer of praise? Sometimes we just simply praying these titles, essentially, of our Lord Jesus can be a form of prayers of praise. you are the beloved son. You are the son of the virgin. Lord God, you are the good shepherd. You God, Lord God, you are our life. You're our light. You're our hope. Like all of those that can be used. And so if you're wondering ever, what are some of the ways that I can, I can praise the Lord, I can give him glory in my speech through these titles essentially. Here's a whole, you know, it's a small list, but it's still a list. But then 2666 highlights, but the one name and this is, oh my gosh, it just break your heart. Is this amazing? The one name that contains

everything is the one that the son of God received in his incarnation, Jesus. And this is, guys, I will often say that Jesus is the one name, that when we say the name Jesus, he is present. Simply by praying the name Jesus, he is present in a unique way. And I didn't just make this up. In fact, paragraph 26, 66, it says this. It says, to pray Jesus, is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence

it signifies. See, I don't make stuff up. I get this. I get it from the scripture. I get it from the teaching of the church. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is his name is his presence and his presence is his power and is amazing, incredible. So you can just, you can simply pray the name Jesus. Or paragraph 2667 highlights a prayer that we talked about a couple days ago, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, or have mercy on us sinners. It is incredible, just so beautiful. 2668 highlights that the invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the Holy Name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost. We're not just, again, it's not a mantra. The name of Jesus is

not a mantra. As Christians, we can't use it like that. We are calling upon God himself. When you say the name Jesus, we are calling upon Him, the personal God. to be present to us, to be with us, and we're calling ourselves to be attentive to him. Again, so it's not heaping up empty phrases, but this prayer holds fast to the word and brings forth fruit. And it's possible at all times because I love this. It's not one occupation among others, but it's the only occupation, that of loving God. It's not like, I'm doing all these things.

I'm also calling upon the Lord Jesus. I'm doing a bunch of things at once. a multitasking. Well, here it says, no, no, no, it's not one thing among others. It is the only thing that when you say the name, when we pray the name of Jesus, we're loving him. And it's amazing, amazing. 2669 highlights that we also honor and venerate the heart of Jesus, just like we invoke and honor and venerate his holy name. And it's so beautiful, Christian prayer also follows the way of the cross. So here is all these prayers to Jesus. Also, we have prayer in the Holy Spirit and prayer to the Holy Spirit. You might say, hey, why don't we pray to the Holy Spirit? I have to say this. If you don't

pray to the Holy Spirit, it's only because you don't pray to the Holy Spirit. It's not because the church told you not to pray to the Holy Spirit. We, of course, pray to the Holy Spirit. I love this quote from St. Gregory of Nazanza. If the Spirit should not be worshipped, how can he divinize me through baptism? Like, if the Holy Spirit isn't actually God, how can he divinize me? Oh, he was on to say, if he should be worshipped, well, should he not be the object of adoration? So we get to pray, not only through the power of the Holy Spirit, but we also pray to the Holy Spirit. And this is remarkable because when we say,

come Holy Spirit, we're praying to the Holy Spirit. And this is, you know, the liturgical tradition of the church has all of these prayers to the Holy Spirit. Even in the Mass, there's come Holy Spirit, feel the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. And in the Byzantine liturgy, they have this longer prayer.

Heavenly King, Consolar Spirit, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere in filling all things, treasure of all good and source of all life. come dwell in us cleanse and save us you who are all good and it's just i love it this is so good now this is today prayer in the trinity prayer to the trinity right to god himself tomorrow we'll be looking at what does prayer look like in communion with the holy mother of god and why would we have prayer in communion with the holy mother of god well those are great points and a great question but we'll talk about that tomorrow today you have an opportunity to pray calling upon the father son

Holy Spirit, realizing that when we pray to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we have a God who already is loving us, and we are just simply loving him in return. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.