The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 54: The Fall of Man (2026)

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

The Catechism introduces us to the Fall, beginning with the reality of sin and the mystery of evil. Fr. Mike highlights the fact that sin is not “a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure,” but it is man saying, “not your will, but mine be done” to God. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 385-390. 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 it down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in the 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 journeyed together toward a heavenly home. It is Day 54, we're reading paragraphs 385 to 390. I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundation of the faith

approach. You can follow along, though, with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also, you can download your catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash cIY and also you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily notifications and updates as I said it's day 54 reading paragraphs 385 to 390 the whole point of the next few days is going to be the fall and the reality of uh gosh that god made us free and yet we experienced suffering God made us good yet we experienced suffering God is good and yet where does evil come from this is the big question the big question that we

experience. And yet, the catechism will say and highlight this, that the only answer, you know, we said this before, that there's no easy answer, there's no simple answer. In fact, remember we said this before that there's no part of the Christian message that is not, at least in part, an answer to the problem of pain, right, to the problem of evil. And so here what we have in paragraph 385 is this mystery of lawlessness, right? The mystery of evil is clarified only in the light of the mystery of our religion. What's remarkable there is we all, we all know the problem of pain. We all know the reality of evil.

And the only people who can understand where this comes from, the only people who can understand, why does it still persist? Why does it still exist? It doesn't really exist, really. Evil's not a thing. It's a privation of a thing or the distortion of a good thing, misuse of a good thing. But why do we have it? Why is it even there?

The reality, of course, is we can't understand. understand that fully until we understand the good news of Jesus Christ. And it goes on to say, paragraph 388, we must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. That even the Old Testament, even though, you know, our stories in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, especially that third chapter that highlights the introduction of sin, the introduction of suffering and the introduction of death into our world, the catechism notes that even the people of the Old Testament, even the Jewish people can't fully grasp the reality of the human condition unless we grasp the reality of Jesus and that Jesus fully makes known the wretchedness of

sin and also the goodness of God's grace. And so one of the things we're going to look at today is the reality of sin. Again, where does this come from? What is sin really in itself? Some things that people have offered as a description of sin is maybe it's merely a developmental flaw. This is a paragraph 387, developmental flaw. It's a glitch in the system, right? Here's the program we were made with and it's, we're just broken. Maybe it's a psychological weakness. Maybe it's a mistake.

Or maybe it's the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure. Like if we just, if we got the world right, then people would get right. And yet we realize that that is none of those things, those all things might be realities in our lives, but none of those are the sources of sin. None of those are actually even what sin is. Sin is rebellion against God. And we only can understand sin if we understand the fact that we're made to be in relationship with God. I mean, think about this.

We can only understand sin if we understand that you and I are meant to be in relationship with God. So every sin, the source of all evil, is a rejection of that relationship, is a refusal to live in right relationship with the source of all good. And that's just so profound. So we have to recognize that the heart of sin is relationship. And the ugliness and depth of sin is in direct contrast to the beauty of a kind of relationship we were supposed to have. And also, ultimately, the relationship that gets restored in Jesus Christ. Because one of the sections today we're going to read is where sin abounded, grace abounded,

all the more. We have to recognize that the original sin took place at the beginning of the history of man, That's how the Catechism says it, that we know that our first parents are the ones who first sin. They took the goodness that God had made them in, took the freedom, God had made them in, that original justice, that original holiness. And they misused it. And so here we are as experiencing the consequences of that, but also as Christians, we experience the consequence of Jesus.

Yes, through the sin of one man, death entered the world, but also through one man, Jesus Christ, life has entered the world. Grace is possible and redemption is real. And so we're going to talk about that today. So, you know, especially when we dive deeply into sin, when we dive deeply into suffering, we need God's grace. And so let's turn to our Father in heaven and just pray. Father in heaven.

We know that you have made this world good. You know that you have made us human beings in your image and likeness. You've given us body and soul. You've given us intellect and will. You've given us freedom. You've made us for love. And yet we so often turn from your love. We also often choose slavery over freedom.

please send your Holy Spirit to us right now. Send your Holy Spirit to us wherever we're listening to these words and we ask you to please unpack not only the reality of sin in our lives, but also the devastating reality of sin. Help us to appreciate what sin really is so that we can appreciate the relationship and the friendship we're supposed to have with you. Help us know the darkness, Lord, so that we can know even more fully the light of your grace and the light of your love.

and help us to walk in that light. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As I said, we're reading paragraphs 385 to 390. The Fall. God is infinitely good.

And all his works are good. Yet, no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature, which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures. And above all, to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? St. Augustine said, I sought whence evil comes, and there was no solution.

And his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God, for the mystery of lawlessness is clarified only in the light of the mystery of our religion. The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time, the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace. We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror. Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. The reality of sin.

Sin is present in human history. Any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God. For only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity's rejection of God and opposition to him. even as it continues to weigh heavy on human life in history. Only the light of divine revelation clarifies the reality of sin, and particularly of the sin committed at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge revelation gives of God,

we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another. Original sin, an essential truth of the faith. With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated.

Although to some extent, the people of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story's ultimate meaning, which is revealed only in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must know Christ as the source of grace, in order to know Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit Pericles, sent by the risen Christ, came to convict the world concerning sin by revealing him who is its redeemer.

The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the reverse side of the good news that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with a revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ. How to read The Account of the Fall. The account of the fall in Genesis chapter 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event. A deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.

Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. Okay, as I said, we're talking about the reality of sin today. And so again, paragraph 385, we are reminded of this truth. God is infinitely good, and all his works are good. That is the starting point always. God has revealed himself in this way. God has revealed the goodness of creation in this way. And so that's the starting point. The next step, of course, is that no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils a nature which seemed to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures. Where does evil come from? I love the fact that here is St. Augustine who says, I saw it whence evil comes and there was no solution.

He wanted to know. Like he experienced, even before he was a Christian, St. Augustine experienced the reality we all experience. Like, oh my gosh, this world is made for us. Then why is there so much brokenness? Why is there so much suffering? He could only understand where evil came from. That question would only be resolved by his conversion to Jesus Christ. For the mystery of lawlessness is clarified only in the mystery of our religion. And that's so important. The very next line in paragraph 385 says, the revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace.

It's remarkable, I think, only in Jesus. The revelation of divine love manifests what, the extent of evil, how deep evil goes, and the superabundance of grace. do we mean by that? Well, what we mean is, what is the price of evil? Well, the price of evil is the death of God, right? That Jesus Christ becomes human being. Here is the divine person of the Trinity, second person in the human nature. And in that human nature, the second person of the Trinity suffered, was rejected, was tortured, was murdered, and rose from the dead. He shows us. And this is divine love, right? This is how far love goes, but it's also how far

our love has to go because it reveals the extent of evil and also the superabundance of grace. You know, the next line is where sin abounded, grace abounds all the more. This recognition, this reality that God is revealing to every single one of us is that, yes, no matter how deeply sin goes, grace is still the winner, that grace still conquers. I love this last line of paragraph 385. It says, we must therefore, since Jesus in the divine love reveals the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace, says we must therefore... approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror.

We first look at Jesus, and Jesus is the one who reveals to us what it is to have sin and what it is to be redeemed from sin. I love this in paragraph 386. It says that sin is present in all human history. We can't ignore it. We can't give this dark reality any other name. In order to understand what sin is, we have to first recognize the profound relation of man to God. And that's so important. It's not, a mistake. Sin is not an accident. Sin is not I broke a rule. You know, when I speed or when I violate a traffic law or break any kind of rule, you know, take the tag off my mattress, whatever that rule is, that is impersonal, right? It's, I'm violating this. The only word is rule, right? I'm violating the thing that was expected of me or told of me. But sin, while commandments

might be written down, so in many ways they are rules. When we say yes to obeying the commandment, We're not saying yes to the rule. We're saying us to the person who gave the rule. When we say no to the rule or no to the commandment, we're saying no to the person who gave us the rule, the person who gave us the commandment, that we recognize we're made to be in relationship with God. And every, the heart of every sin is,

God, you do not want to be in relationship with you. And that's so critical. We're actually not rejecting a thing. We're rejecting a person. We're rejecting God himself. And that's the thing. we need to highlight, as I've said many, many times. I will define sin like this. And you're going to hear this a thousand times as we continue to journey. Sin is not just a mistake here, as it says in

paragraph 387. It's not a developmental flaw. It's not a psychological weakness. It's not a necessary consequence of inadequate social structure. Like, you know, if we, again, if we get the education system right, then there'll be no more sins. If we get, you know, poverty solved, there'll be no more sins. Now, we know that our hearts are broken. And one of the manifestations of that is we keep saying, this, God, I know what you want, but I don't care. I want what I want. That's how I always describe sin because we have to understand it as a relationship, as I'm violating the relationship. God, I know what you want. I don't care. I want what I want. And so here in baragraphs 388 and 389, we realize that with the progress of revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. So the people of God in the

Old Testament, we talked about that. They tried to understand the reality of the human condition in the light of history, again you narrated in Genesis, and they got a lot of it. But they could not grasp this story's ultimate meaning, which was revealed only in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. And so the church says we can't fully understand original sin unless we understand to some degree grace. As paragraph 389 says, the doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the reverse side of the good news that Jesus is the Savior of all men. Why? Because the doctrine of original sin highlights the fact that, okay, we are created good, but broken. And we need salvation.

We need salvation. The gospel is, here is Jesus, the savior of mankind, the savior of the world. If I don't understand original sin, I will never understand my need for salvation. If I don't understand my brokenness, I will never ever understand why God himself had to become one of us in order to redeem all of us. We will never get it. We can never get it. And so we have to understand that here's the last line in paragraph 389. It says this, the church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ. There are people out there, even now, even Christians, who will ignore original sin.

Again, we'll write off our human brokenness as simply a developmental flaw or a psychological weakness or a mistake or we just need better social structures. And yet, if we're really going to truly understand the gospel, the whole of the gospel, we have to, have to understand original sin. You know, everything we're going to talk about when it comes to Christ saving the world, it all comes back to how do we view the human person and how do we view the human person in relation to God? And how we say it as Catholics is we were.

made good. We're made in right relationship with God. Remember we had original holiness, original justice. We had this even original nakedness in front of each other. And then that was broken. We remain good. We remain in God's image and likeness ontologically. And also we find ourselves broken. We find ourselves in the possession of the evil one. That's how we're born into this world. And that's what paragraph 390 says. It says, yes, the account of the fall in Genesis chapter three uses figurative language. Like there's a piece. piece of fruit. There's a serpent. But this affirms a primeval event, something that actually happened at the beginning of the history of man. It's one of the realities. We know that scripture is always true.

Scripture is true. And sometimes it is a historical truth. And sometimes it's a literal historical truth. What the Gatigism is saying is that in Genesis 3, it's an historical truth, absolutely. But it is not a literal historical truth. Using figurative language, it talks about a real thing that really happened at the beginning of the history of man where we freely, our first parents, freely rejected that relationship with God. That's the last line here. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. And that's where we find ourselves. Now, tomorrow, we're going to look more deeply into the fall of the angels. And then we're going to look at,

again, original sin in even more depth. And I'm so excited for that. We're also going to look at the consequences of sin for all of humanity. and also the reality that now we find ourselves in the midst of a hard battle. And yet, into that battle, God did not abandon us to the domain of death. He did not abandon us. We're going to cover all of those parts, all those points, because we have to understand the fall. We have to understand how good God made you, how good God made me, how good God made us to understand how far we've fallen, to fully understand how deeply God is willing

to go to rescue us. He loves you so much. You guys, I'm so grateful. If you're here at day 54, you have shown so much tenacity. You've shown so much willingness to just keep pressing play and keep learning. And I just have to offer one word of encouragement because we're doing this together and you keep on pressing play. You know, I talk to people who are saying like, you know, it really helps to know that other people are journeying with me. It really helps to know that, you know, I might have missed a day, but here I'm back. I'm pressing play again today. That's so important. because we know. We're going to hear later on,

you know, some of the consequences of original sin. One of those is a weakened will and sometimes we know I want to press play but I don't end up pressing play. You did today though,

and that is awesome. I am so grateful. I'm so grateful that we have each other, so grateful that you all have each other. Please pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike

and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.