The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 350: Persevering in Prayer (2024)

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

The Catechism teaches about the effectiveness of prayer and how to persevere in prayer. Fr. Mike explains that although God already knows what we need before we ask, he wants us to pray, and he extends us dignity by allowing us to pray and ask for what we need. In the process of prayer, we are able to learn the heart of the Father, grow closer to him, and become more like him. The Catechism goes on to state that when it comes to prayer, it is always possible, a vital necessity, and inseparable from the Christian life. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2738-2745. 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 350, we're reading paragraphs 2738-2745. As always, I am 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 you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications. Today's day 350 you guys. I am so grateful. Thank you so much for all of you who have supported the production of this podcast. We have not including today, not including today, 15 days left. Is that good math? I'm not sure. Including today 16, but thank you so much. If you've supported this podcast, your prayers, I promise you I pray, literally pray every day for y'all and I know you're praying for me and for each other as well. Thank you've supported this podcast, your prayers, I promise you, I literally pray every day for y'all. I know you're praying for me and for each other as well. Thank you for praying for the whole team that's part of this. I mean, they put so much time into this to make sure that

all of us can have access to this catechism like this. And also those of you who have supported us with their financial gifts, again, this podcast is free and it's not free to make though. So thank you so much for saying, hey, this blessed my life. I want free to make though. So thank you so much for saying, Hey, this bless my life. I want to, I want to keep it going. So thank you so much. We're here at day three 50 reading paragraph 2738 to 2745. Man, this is, this is it. This is, we get to hear one last time of the battle of prayer.

We're going to hear a little bit about it tomorrow too, but so good. We're asking the question today. How is prayer efficacious? What does it do? Right? But we're also reminded of those three aspects of prayer that we need to have because the big question that comes up is What good does it do to pray and so we need to have humility? We need to have trust and we need that perseverance So we're gonna ask the question how is prayer efficacious and then we're gonna talk about that perseverance. How do we persevere in love? Because that's critical for every one of us. We can't, we don't just pray

once or once in a while. We are called to pray without ceasing. To persevere in prayer and also to persevere in love. That's what we're talking about today. Let's say a prayer as we hear what the Lord God has to say to us through His Church today. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Father in heaven, we give you thanks and praise. In the name of your Son Jesus Christ, I ask you to please receive the praise that we offer you today. Receive the thanks that we offer you today. We know God, you are good and we thank you in the name of your son Receive our thanks be glorified our God

Let every tongue profess Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father in this day and every day for all eternity Send on your Holy Spirit father in the name of your Son Jesus Christ so that we can trust you more so that we can persevere in prayer Until the day that we spend eternity And to spend eternity with you Thank you Help us be faithful and when we're not

Need us with your grace and mercy In Jesus name we pray amen in the name of name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 350. We are reading paragraphs 27-38 to 27-45. How is our prayer efficacious? The revelation of prayer in the economy of salvation teaches us that faith rests on God's action in history. Our filial trust is enkindled by His supreme act, the passion and resurrection of His Son. Christian prayer is cooperation with His providence, His plan of love for men. For St. Paul, this trust is bold, founded on the prayer of the Spirit in us and on the faithful love of the Father who has given us His only Son. Transformation of the praying heart is the first response to our petition.

The prayer of Jesus makes Christian prayer an efficacious petition. He is its model. He prays in us and with us. Since the heart of the Son seeks only what pleases the Father, how could the prayer of the children of adoption be centered on the gifts rather than the giver? Jesus also prays for us in our place and on our behalf. All our petitions were gathered up once for all in His cry on the cross and in His resurrection heard by the Father.

This is why He never ceases to intercede for us with the Father. If our prayer is resolutely united with that of Jesus in trust and boldness as children, we obtain all that we ask in His name, even more than any particular thing, the Holy Spirit Himself, who contains all gifts. Persevering in Love Pray constantly, always and for everything, giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. St. Paul adds, Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. For we have not been commanded to work, to keep watch and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing. This tireless fervor can come only from love. Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love. This love opens our hearts to three enlightening and life-giving facts of faith about prayer. It is always possible to pray. The time of the Christian is that of the risen Christ, who is with us always, no matter what tempests may arise

Our time is in the hands of God Saint John Chrysostom stated it is possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public or strolling alone or seated in your shop While buying or selling or even while cooking Prayer is a vital necessity Proof from the contrary is no less convincing. If we do not allow the Spirit to lead us, we fall back into the slavery of sin. How can the Holy Spirit be our life if our heart is far from Him? St. John Chrysostom further states, Nothing is equal to prayer.

For what is impossible, it makes possible. What is difficult, easy. For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly, ever to sin." St. Alphonsus Ligori stated, Those who pray are certainly saved. Those who do not pray are certainly damned. Prayer and the Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love, the same filial and loving conformity with the Father's plan of love, the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and

more to Christ Jesus, the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us. Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give it to you. This I command you, to love one another. Origen stated, he prays without ceasing, who unites prayer to works and good works to prayer. Only in this way can we consider as realizable the principle of praying without ceasing.

All right, there we have it, paragraph 2738 to 2745. Man, so good. Question, how is prayer efficacious? Here's the big question. You just have to ask. Okay, if God is good, and God knows everything, then He already knows what we need before we ask. We know this, the scripture says this very, very clearly in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 6, verse 8. We know that God already knows this and if he's already good then he's already gonna do it Right, isn't that isn't that just the case?

So how in the world is prayer efficacious if God already wants to give us good things? Why would what's the point? What's the point of praying and asking God if again? Let's say this again He already knows and he's so good that he already wants to give us this. There are a number of reasons and one of those reasons is back in paragraph 2736 from yesterday where it says, God awaits our petition because the dignity of his children lies in their freedom. What does that mean? It means that God is so good and I remember hearing this great quote from Blaise Pascal. He said, God loves us so much that he extends us

the dignity of being causes. What does that mean? Well, what it means is that here's God who, yes, he is good, but he doesn't always want to do the good without our participation, without our cooperation, that in so many ways, I always think about it like this. Way back in the day, my dad built a shed in our backyard.

And right now it's this massively heavy wooden green shed. And my dad probably could have gotten some of his buddies, he maybe could have even done it himself really, really quickly, but he did it with all of us kids. I think there was five or six of us working on this shed, including my dad, at one point. And it was one of those situations, I remember just like the chaos

of building this shed with my dad and thinking like he could get this take get this done so quickly without us but the truth is he didn't want to do it without us yes he could do it without us he didn't want to do it without us he wanted us to be able to look in the backyard and say I built that shed with my dad I built that shed with my siblings like we built that shed he didn't just want us to look in the back shed and say my dad built that shed with my dad. I built that shed with my siblings. Like we built that shed. He didn't just want us to look in the back shed and say, my dad built that shed. He wanted us to be part of it in some similar way.

Here is God who extends us the dignity of being causes, saying, yes, God can do it on his own. He doesn't want to do it on his own. This is the mystery. So yes, God wills the good always, always, because God is good, right? He can't other than will the good but oftentimes

He waits, right? He waits for our participation for our cooperation in what he wants to accomplish and he does this because then we get to be again We have this freedom we get to participate we get to be the kind of person who gets to say Oh man that shed in the backyard. I did that with my father So there's this great dignity. But also think about the time. Think about what happens when I got to spend that time with my dad.

Now it wasn't always pleasant, I'll tell you that. And when building that shed, I remember I made a lot of mistakes and I remember hearing about it, hearing about those mistakes I had made. But you get closer to the person. That is true when it comes to prayer. We spend time in prayer and we get to know the heart of our father. Just like when I spent that time building that shed or doing other things

with my dad, I got to know the heart of my dad. And something's happening in that time. Just remember the quote from yesterday. It was a quote from Evagrius Ponticus in paragraph 2737 where he said, do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask37, where he said, do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask him, for he desires to do something even greater for you while you're clinging to him in prayer. That yes, the shed wasn't built for a long time, but during that time, the process,

during the process, I was getting to know my dad. During the process, I was learning how to do what my dad does. And something very, very similar is true when it comes to our prayer. In the process, we get to know the heart of our father and in the process, we get to become like him. So these are a couple of key reasons.

God extends us the dignity of being causes and that he wants to get close to us. We get to know the heart of our father. When we pray, when we intercede on behalf of others, this is efficacious prayer. It actually does something. And remember hearing this from C.S. Lewis, who was describing how prayer is efficacious. And he said that the people, you know, this is a paraphrase obviously, but the people who

complain and say, well, no, if you really trusted in God, then you wouldn't pray. You just would, God will just do it. He says those people, they never, they never walk outside the front door in a rainstorm without an umbrella saying, well, if God wants me to stay dry, He'll make the rain fall around me. Those people, they don't say, well, if God wants me to be fed, He'll give me food today. No, they get up and they go out and they go to work and they buy food from themselves. See, it's so many ways we recognize that in other areas of our lives, that God is involved in every area of our life, that we realize it don't make sense that that yeah, God does what he does,

but we also have to cooperate with this. And so, yeah, I don't just wait for God to bring me food, I go get it. I don't just say, if God wants me to be dry in a rainstorm, he's gonna make the rain fall around me. Like, no, I bring an umbrella. In similar ways, we'd say, well, if God wants me to have this thing,

he'll just bring it to me, I'm not gonna pray. No, we pray because that's part of the process That's part of how it goes that makes sense because we believe that the prayer of Jesus makes Christian prayer an efficacious Petition he's its model he prays in us and with us and therefore because of that because of that We have to center our hearts on The giver remember because here's Jesus, he even begs his Father, he begs his Father, Father let this cup pass from me, yet not what I will, but your will be done. He knew what he wanted, to be

spared the cross, yet what he wanted ultimately was to do the Father's will. That's why it's so, so critical. Paragraph 2741 highlights this. It says, if our prayer is resolutely united with that of Jesus in trust and boldness as children, then we obtain all that we ask in His name. Even more than any particular thing, we get the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts. Remember that's what Jesus had promised. That if you pray in my name, anyone who asks will get the Holy Spirit. And not just any one gift or any particular thing, but you get the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit contains all gifts.

Now lastly, how do we have persevering prayer? This is beautiful. It says, this love, the love we have, remember the humble, trusting, persevering love. This love opens our hearts to three enlightening and life-giving facts of faith about prayer. First, it's always possible to pray. Second, prayers of vital necessity. And third, prayer and the Christian life are inseparable. So it's always possible to pray. One of my favorite quotes from St. John Chrysostom because it's just St. John Chrysostom had some powerful words. I mean he he was a incredibly articulate, eloquent, fiery preacher and I love this

word of encouragement he gives. He says, it's always possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public or strolling alone or seated in your shop while buying or selling or even while cooking. I just love that last one. Or even while cooking. So chefs, you're not off the hook. You can still pray at any given moment.

It is always possible to pray. Number two, paragraph 2744, prayer is a vital necessity. This is so important. If we do not pray, if we do not allow the Spirit to lead us, we fall back into the slavery of sin. In this quote from St. Alphonsus Liguori is, oof, it is strong, it is powerful. Those who pray are certainly saved. Those who do not pray are certainly damned. It's very similar to a quote I remember hearing a priest say years ago who's also, I don't know if he'll be canonized someday, he might be, but he's canonizable, I'll tell you that. He said, serious prayer and serious sin cannot coexist.

There are some people out there, right, who really struggle with serious sin and they keep falling back into the serious sin So he said okay Here's what you need to know serious prayer and serious sin cannot coexist one will kill the other So if you find yourself struggling with this serious sin and repeated sin get out of weakness or habit or whatever the thing is Keep praying Because you can't do both At some point at some point you'll get so discouraged just stop praying or at some point, at some point, you'll get so discouraged you'll stop praying. Or at some point, the grace will win and you'll stop sinning.

So make your choice. Those who pray are certainly saved. Those who do not pray are certainly damned. Thirdly, prayer and the Christian life are inseparable. And it's so important, right? We have to, we have to pray. Whether or not we pray, it's only an option of when we pray. And as we heard in 2743, it's always possible to pray of whether or not we pray. It's only an option of when we pray. And as we heard in 2743, it's always possible to pray.

So we need to have both the Christian life and prayer. If we don't pray, we're not living the Christian life and we cannot be walking in the way of Jesus. So my brothers and sisters, what are we going to do? We're going to pray. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless