The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 4: Our Capacity for God (2025)

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

The Catechism begins to explore what it means “to believe” by examining our innate desire for God and all the ways we can come to know him. Fr. Mike grounds us in a refrain he promises to repeat throughout the year—God loves you. Not in an abstract way, but in a concrete, unique way. God knows you, and he wants you to know him. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 26-35. 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 four. You guys, yesterday we had the introduction of part one. We got done with our syllabus days. We got done with that day one and two, the prologue of paragraphs one through 25. Today we're starting paragraphs 26 through 35.

FYI, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. If you can follow along with that one, that's great, but you can use any recent version of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. If you can follow along with that one, that's great, but you can use any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also, if you want to download your own Catechism and your reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe

in whatever podcast you're listening for daily notifications and updates. As I said, this is day four. We're reading from part one, What we believe, section one, divine revelation, and then here's chapter one on the search, paragraphs 26 to 35. And this very beginning is about man's capacity, human beings' capacity for God. Now, one of the things you're gonna hear me say when I'm reading from the Catechism is man. And you probably figured this out already, but man is the classic I mean in the English language man simply means humanity and does not refer to male or female just that's that makes sense

I just I want to get out there because today we're to talk about this like man's desire the human heart man Is created by God and for God and God never ceases to draw man to himself What that means is you regardless of whether you're male or female, just human beings. So I just want to say that right out here in these first few paragraphs, paragraph 26 through 35, we're going to hear about this. We're going to hear about the desire for God that's written in the human heart and in all the ways in which we are in many ways you could say a religious being. That what human beings are, are religious beings. That at the very heart of who we are, we're never happy,

we're never fulfilled until we encounter God because we're made by God and made for God. And so we only can actually find our identity in God. And then, so God reveals himself to us and in paragraphs 31 to 35, it talks about ways of coming to know God. And some of the ways are through the world around us. We can look at the world around us and we can discover that God is real and God exists by just looking at the world. We

also, the other way that the Catechism highlights in these first paragraphs is through ourselves, through the human person, that actually our own hearts, our own experience, our own minds reveal that God exists and so we have both the desire for God as well as a ways of coming to know God. That's what we're gonna talk about today in paragraphs 26 to 35. Before we launch in, let's say a prayer. Father in heaven, oh my gosh, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Enflame that desire that we have to know you. Enflame the desire that we have to be

found by you and inflame that desire that we have to find you. You reveal your heart to us. Help us to reveal our hearts to you. Help us not be numb to the reality that you are. Help us not to be numb to the reality that you are love. Make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord, name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. As I said, we're reading today paragraphs 26 through 35 in that part one, the profession of faith. We begin our profession of faith by saying I believe or we believe. Before expounding the church's faith as confessed in the creed, celebrated in the liturgy, and live in observance of God's commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what to believe means.

Faith is man's response to God who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search in chapter 1, then the divine revelation by which God comes to meet man in chapter 2, and finally the response of faith in chapter 3. Chapter 1. Man's Capacity for God. The Desire for God. The desire for God is written in the human heart because man is created by God and for God

and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. As the Second Vatican Council states, the dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues

to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his Creator. In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior, in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being. As St. Paul said in the Acts of the Apostles, would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for Him and find Him, though indeed He is not far off from each one of us.

For in Him we live and move and have our being. But this intimate and vital bond of man to God can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes, revolt against evil in the world, religious ignorance or indifference, the cares and riches of this world, the scandal of bad example on the part of believers, currents of thought hostile to religion, finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call. Psalm 105 states, Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Although man can forget God or reject Him, God never ceases to call every man to seek Him so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, an upright heart, as well as the witness of others who teach Him to seek God. St. Augustine once wrote, You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you, this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but

a small part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself. And our heart is restless until it rests in you. Ways of Coming to Know God Created in God's image and called to know and love Him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know Him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of converging and convincing arguments, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.

These ways of approaching God from creation have a two-fold point of departure, the physical world and the human person. The world, starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and end of the universe. As St. Paul says of the Gentiles, For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

And St. Augustine issues this challenge. Question the beauty of the earth. Question the beauty of the sea. Question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself. Question the beauty of the sky. Question all these realities. All respond, see, we are beautiful. Their beauty is a profession.

These beauties are subject to change. Who made them, if not the beautiful one who is not subject to change? The human person, with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this, he discerns signs of his spiritual soul.

The soul, the seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material, can have its origin only in God. The world and man attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather they participate in being itself which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality that everyone calls God. Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal

God, but for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with Him, God willed both to reveal Himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason." Okay, guys, so here we are. Day four. Here we are, part one, what we believe. Section one, divine revelation, and chapter one on the search and at the beginning, paragraph 26, which is actually before, technically, before chapter one. It's kind of a little teaser where it says that we're gonna look at these three

chapters chapter 1 consider the search for God then divine revelation by which God comes to meet us chapter 2 and then finally our response of faith with chapter 3 the word of the day of course is faith we're gonna get to that technical definition when we get to I think it's like something along the lines of day 17 or 18, but today the church simply and very clearly defines faith as our response to God. You know, later on it'll be a personal adherence to God, but the beginning here is just what's our response to God and it's remarkable because not only is God our source,

not only is God our final end, but God also is the the ground of all being that holds us into existence and it's actually the catechism says his love that holds us into existence and that's remarkable quoting basically the second Vatican Council it says this it says for if man exists it's because God has created him through love and through love continues to hold him in existence one of the things we'll hear and we're gonna hear this you know for the next year is that God loves you. Maybe this is something that you have heard your entire life. Maybe you've never heard it

before, but you likely have heard that God loves you. I am convinced that most people who hear this word that God loves them, they don't truly believe it. They believe that God merely tolerates them. Or they'll say, well yeah, I know God loves me, but he loves everybody. That's not, you're not wrong. God does love every every person he's ever created. But you have to think about this. You and I didn't have to exist, but we do exist. The reason you exist is because God wants you to exist and So we realized that wait a second. So yes, God loves everybody

But he loves everybody infinitely uniquely and infinitely on purpose and it's just it's it's remarkable you And I didn't have to exist yet. We do why? Because God loved us into existence. That's why. To be able to receive that. And every human being, whether they know who God is or don't necessarily have a belief in God, we have this longing inside of our hearts. And here's what, again, 2nd Matic and Council, paragraph 29, calls an intimate and vital bond of man to God you know that vital and intimate bond as the catechism goes on it says it can be forgotten overlooked or even explicitly rejected ah

isn't that completely true so every one of us has been made by God's love and is made for God's love and yet that for God's love. And yet, that can be forgotten. It can be overlooked or even explicitly rejected. We can be indifferent to it. In fact, it says those attitudes, that attitude of rejecting, forgetting, or overlooking God's love can have a lot of different causes.

One is there's evil in the world. And so we rebel against that evil by rebelling against God. Or it says religious ignorance or indifference. If there is anything that marks our day and age, it is religious indifference. Indifference to the bigger questions and difference to God himself. Goes on to say, the cares and riches of this world, the scandal of bad example and the part of believers, and also even current thoughts hostile to religion, and and lastly our human hearts.

Our human hearts that want to run away from God and want to, you know, flee from his call. And this is one of those pieces that is true for every single one of us. And yet in the midst of this, God never ceases to call us to seek him. But the catechism specifies this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect So we have to we have to think you mean that we have have to think a sound will Meaning that it can't be fickle, right? I can't just choose one thing and then choose the next thing I can't be of two minds as scripture says an upright heart is necessary Why because I've got to be a person of character and I've got it

I've got a you know It's one thing to hear the truth and even one thing to know the truth. It is an entirely different thing to walk in the truth or to acknowledge that to the depths of what we're called to acknowledge the truth. So an upright heart is necessary. And then the fourth thing that's needed is the witness of others who teach us to seek God. So think about those. We need an intellect, of course, a sound will that's not fickle, an upright heart, depth of character,

as well as the witness of others who call us to seek God. That's so, so important. Lastly, I just wanna highlight the Catechism then specifies ways of coming to know God. So those ways are the world and the human person. We can look at the world around us and we can see, we can conclude that God exists. In fact, he mentions a couple different ways and they just name the arguments, arguments from movement, from becoming, from contingency, from order, from beauty.

To highlight this is crazy because the arguments behind all those are so deep and so rich and so complex and the Catechism just gives us the words, you know, contingency. What does that mean? Well, think of it in these terms, that if you look at around you right now, if you're driving in your car right now, your car doesn't need to exist. It is contingent, right? It's not necessary. And if you think about like the road you're driving on, that road doesn't need to exist. It is not necessary It's contingent its existence is based off something else And in fact, if you look at the world around us, the entire planet is contingent, right? It's it's not necessary. In fact, none of us are necessary

We don't have to exist So the entire creation is contingent meaning it doesn't have to exist It's not necessary and And yet it does exist. And since it does exist, there must be a prior necessary being that brought all other contingent beings into existence. Does that make sense? It just that that is that is a thumbnail sketch of the argument from contingency about God's existence.

I think it's fascinating that the catechism quotes Saint Paul and Saint Augustine and points to beauty because we look at beauty in this world. That beauty in the world points to the beauty of the artist, the creator of this world. Lastly, the human person, recognizing that we have an openness to truth and beauty, knowing that we have a sense of moral goodness, knowing that we have an openness to truth and beauty. Knowing that we have a sense of moral goodness,

knowing that we have freedom and a conscience, knowing that we long for life, we long for happiness, that there's something in us that questions there must be more because we have an appetite for more. C.S. Lewis even kind of highlights this. He says, you have hunger. Well, there's such a thing as food. You have thirst. Well, there's such a thing as food. You have thirst Well, there's such a thing as drink. You are sleepy. There's such a thing as sleep and

we crave God there is such a thing as God and This is just so beautiful that even that hunger in every one of us reveals that God exists That's why st. Thomas Aquinas says in different ways, all these different ways, human beings can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and the final end of all things. A reality that St. Thomas Aquinas says

that everyone calls God. And it's so great. And the last paragraph highlights this, that human beings faculties, our intellect and our will, make us capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God, but for us to actually have an intimate relationship with Him, God has to reveal Himself. Not only that, God has to give us the grace to know who He is and to respond to him with all of our heart.

And so that's one of the things we're praying for. Not just to know about God, but also for that grace that God gives us. To know him. Not just to believe in God, but to believe God. And for that, we need his grace. For everything, we need his grace. For everything we need His grace. And so that's what we're praying for. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.