The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 74: The Christmas Mystery (2026)

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

Diving deeper into Jesus Christ as Mystery, the Catechism describes the deep mystery in the preparations for Christ’s coming—also known as Advent—as well as the mystery of his first coming in Christmas. Fr. Mike points to one of the last sentences of today’s readings—”Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us”—and reminds us that Jesus is the star of the story, not us. Our goal is to become children in relation to God. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 522-526. 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 a Year is brought to 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. Toard our heavenly home, it is day 74. We're reading paragraphs 522 to 526. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. You can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your catechism in a year reading plan

by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. As I said, say 74. Yesterday we talked about how Christ's whole life is a mystery. Remember that? It's mystery where he is a revelation of the father, where his whole life is a mystery of redemption. His whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. And we are brought into that communion with the mysteries of Jesus. And we're called to live in him all that he himself lived. So here is Jesus who enters into everything we can go through. He enters into all of humanity, not only stopping at death, but also our destiny, that what God wants for us is to rise to new life in him in the eternal resurrection to glory. He's done all that. He redeemed all that,

which is amazing. But also we're going to talk now, the next couple steps. We're going to talk about the mysteries of Jesus' infancy and hidden life. Again, yesterday, Christ's whole life is a mystery. or is mystery. Today, only five short paragraphs. We're going to talk about Jesus' infancy and hidden life, and now that also is mystery. Now, we're not going to get through all of the infancy. We're not going to get through the hidden life. We're just going to go from Advent, all the preparations, essentially, for the incarnation, all the preparations for his birth, and then the Christmas mystery. And so tomorrow, the next day, we'll talk about Jesus' infancy, that hidden life in Nazareth. We'll talk about his public life after that. But today, we are just going to stop with these

five very brief paragraphs talking about, again, the preparations like Advent, but the actual Advent, the actual preparation that lasted roughly a couple centuries, and as well as Christmas. What was the mystery of Christmas? So one of the things you're going to hear today is, I love this, paragraph 522, it's the opening paragraph for today. The opening line says, the coming of God's sun to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. And it goes on to say, he makes everything converge on Christ, all the rituals and sacrifices, the figures and symbols of the First Covenant. He announces Him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans, a dim expectation

of this coming. Now, one of the things that this highlights for us and reminds us of is the fact that the Old Testament, right, the covenant that God made with his chosen people of Israel, that was to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. And they go, all the ups and downs, all of the struggles, remember all of the sufferings they went through, as well as all the blessings that God had given to them. All of that was to prepare them to have hearts that were ready and desiring to welcome the Messiah, ready to recognize Christ when he actually came. Now, also, I love this last sentence. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans. I remember this is preparing the Jews and all the rituals and sacrifices, all the

figures and symbols of the First Covenant, but also God awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming. You know, C.S. Lewis, he wrote about, he spoke about this a lot. Or sometimes people would say, well, it seems like Christianity, you know, has certain, you know, hints in other religions and other philosophies, where they talk about dying and rising, where they talk about, here's a God who comes close. And he says, yeah, the fact that some of those things exist, And again, they don't exist in the way that they exist actually historically in Christianity. But the fact that some of those stories exist, he says he called them good dreams. And the good dreams of humanity would long for this truth that maybe there is more to life than just death.

Maybe there's a resurrection after death. That maybe there is out there a God who cares. Now, no one ever came to that conclusion ever, ever, ever until God revealed that about himself in the Jewish scriptures. and the covenant that God made with his people. And it comes to fulfillment, obviously, in Jesus. But the hope for that, the longing for that, that those are what, again, C.S. Lewis would call the good dreams that God had given to people who didn't know him. And imagine that.

Imagine being among the people who had never known, never known that God is one, that he is good, that he cares, that he reveals himself, that he wants to have relationship with you. And so here's the preparations. Now there's the distant preparations, right? Centries, over centuries. But there's also more immediate preparations. In paragraph 523, it talks about St. John the Baptist. And now he inaugurates the gospel, even from his mother's womb.

Then later on, in paragraph 524, it talks about here is why the church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, where we actually get up roughly four weeks and we place ourselves in a position where we are preparing ourselves to not only commemorate, right, the first coming of Jesus, but also Advent is there to prepare to welcome Christ at his second coming, his last coming. Now, obviously, there's the first coming of Jesus in Christmas, the first Christmas. There's the final coming of Christ at the end of time. The church also holds out to this intermediate coming that Jesus comes into our lives in a particular way in the Eucharist, but it also comes into our lives every time we pray.

Every time we encounter him in the sacraments, every time we encounter his grace, he once again breaks into our world as it were. So Advent is meant to highlight these three comings of Jesus, the initial coming at Christmas, the ultimate coming, the final coming at the end of time, and also how God breaks into our lives. Now, the last two paragraphs, 525 and 526, again, I told you, it's going to be pretty brief today, is the Christmas mystery that here is Jesus, who is born in a humble, stable, into a poor family. And the first people, to recognize him, the first witnesses were simple shepherds. And in the midst of that poverty, heaven's glory was made manifest. Which is just incredible. We're going to sing this song from,

I'm not going to sing it, but I'll recite the song in paragraph 525 from Kintakian of Romano's, the melodist. And it just talks about how the virgin today brings into the world the eternal, and the earth offers a cave to the inaccessible, just beautiful. Lastly, in paragraph 526, we recognize that to become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. So here is Jesus. Here's the eternal God, right? Here's the second verse of the Trinity who becomes a child. And for us, we also must humble ourselves and become little in relation to him. And we have to actually, in fact, even more to become children of God. We have to be baptized, right? Born of above, born of God. And so that's the incredible and marvelous exchange.

that our creator has become one of us, born of the Virgin, that we've been made shares in the divinity of Christ who humbled themselves to share our humanity. We pray that oftentimes. In fact, every priest prays that last part at every single mass. But here we get to pray that today. Again, day 74, as we launch into the mystery of Jesus' preparations and birth, let's just pray and call upon a God and Father. We pray Father in heaven. We give you praise and we give you glory. We give you Thanksgiving, just like the angels, saying your praises, singing holy, holy, holy, saying glory to God in the highest. The angels continue to sing Hosanna. The angels continue to cry out your name in prayer, in praise, in Thanksgiving, giving you glory. We too join our

voices to the voice of the angels, singing glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of goodwill. We cry out like the angels in heaven singing holy, holy, holy. We cry out like the angels in heaven singing holy, holy, holyly cry out. We just praise you, Father. Help us to become like children in relation to you. Help us. Help us to accept you and to let you love us. That's the love that can change our lives.

It's the only love that can change the world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. As I said, it's day 74. We're reading paragraphs 522 to 526. The mysteries of Jesus' infancy and hidden life. The preparations

The coming of God's son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ, all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the First Covenant. He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans

a dim expectation of this coming. St. John the Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare his way. Prophet of the Most High, John surpasses all the prophets of whom he is the last. He inaugurates the gospel already from his mother's womb, welcomes the coming of Christ, and rejoices in being the friend of the bridegroom, whom he points out as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Going before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elijah, John bears with, witness to Christ in his preaching, by his baptism of conversion, and through his martyrdom.

When the church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, the church unites herself to his desire. He must increase, but I must decrease. Christmas mystery. Jesus was born in a humble stable, into a poor family. Simple shepherds were the first witnesses to this event.

In this poverty, heaven's glory was made manifest. The church never tires of singing the glory of this night, as in the cantacion of Romanoos, the melodist. The virgin today brings into the world the eternal, and the earth offers a cave to the inaccessible. The angels and shepherds praise him, and the magi advance with the star. For you are born for us.

Little child, God eternal. To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more, to become children of God, we must be born from above, or born of God. Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this marvelous exchange. As we pray in the liturgy of the hours, O marvelous exchange,

man's creator has become man, born of the virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity. Okay, as I said, it's a short one today, but at the same time, it is potent, right? It is packed. Not only do we have this, yeah, fact that here is God who, for centuries, prepared his people for his arrival,

right? He's the coming of God's son to earth. I love that first sentence in 522. The coming of God's son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. And also, here's John the Baptist, who is his immediate precursor or foreigner. And it says this. It says that John inaugurates the gospel in a number of ways.

First, already from his mother's womb, he welcomes the coming of Christ. Second, he rejoices in being the friend of the bridegroom, whom he points out as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. and he goes before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elijah. That's third. And fourthly, John bears witness to Jesus by his preaching, by his baptismal of repentance and conversion and through his martyrdom. And that's just, again, it's just remarkable.

Here is John the Baptist who has that immediate preparation. Now, I think a lot of us for all of our lives, right, we have that distant preparation. In fact, John Ball II, he talked about this. He said that when you're preparing for your vocation, like vocation to marriage, a lot of your life is called remote preparation, right? Remote preparation where you see other relationships. You see your parents maybe. You see, oh, that's good, that's bad.

And you kind of learn, okay, this is, you're being prepared or you're being formed. And then there's more proximate formation where you're in a relationship yourself. And you realize, okay, this is how I am in relationships. And this is helpful for me to know. This is how other people treat me. I should treat other people. This is good. This is bad.

And then once a person gets engaged, there's what they call the immediate preparation for marriage. And that's when it's like, okay, let's do this work because it's coming like this. We're about to enter into this sacrament, but we're about to enter into this vocation. So you have this remote preparation, a more proximate or closer preparation, and then the immediate preparation. And there's something just like this that happens and happened in the history of humanity. But here's God who has this remote, distant preparation for his own coming into the world. Then there's this more proximate preparation. And then John the Baptist helps people with their immediate preparation as he prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah. And again, for all of us,

we're in one stage or another. In so many ways, I think we can probably be in all stages at any given moment. Like we might still be in distant, remote preparation for what God wants to do in our lives in the distant future. We might be a more proximate preparation for what he's about to do and then even more immediate preparation for what he's calling us today to do, which is just kind of remarkable to realize that God is so patient with us. He's always working with us. He's always cooperating with us. He's always calling us closer to himself. In some ways, that's what Advent is. In paragraph 524 talks about the liturgy of Advent, that the church makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah. And that's remarkable because we went to like inflame into

our hearts during that season of Advent, this expectancy that not only are we going to celebrate his original coming in the first Christmas, but also. Also, as I said before, we're going to prepare for his final coming and even his moment to moment day to day coming into our lives right now. And so one of the ways we prepare is to prepare like John, who said, he must increase, but I must decrease. That's part of the desire is just that, oh, Lord, I want you to reign. I want you to be glorified. I want you to be the star of my life. You know, so often, I'm sorry, second or the last thing here, so often we desire to be the star.

We desire to be the protagonist in our own story. Which makes sense. I mean, we are the ones who get to choose. We're the ones who have to act. At the same time, I think we can probably be the protagonist that God wants us to be while remembering that he is the actual star, that he is the actual one whom even my life is about. And in so many ways we can realize, okay, my life is not about me. And your life is not about you.

Yes, we're responsible for it. But at the same time, Jesus gets. to be the star. He must increase, but I must decrease. In the last two paragraphs, 525 and 526, how here is Jesus born in a humble stable, into a poor family, simple shepherds of the first witnesses, and yet into this poverty, heaven's glory was made manifest. I love that second line in that, that song right from the cantacion of Romanoos the melodist. The Virgin today brings into the world, the eternal, and the earth offers a cave to the inaccessible. The earth offers a cave to the inaccessible, the inaccessible God is born in a cave. Just incredible. As I said, last thing is

this line in paragraph 526, there's two lines in fact that I think are just remarkable, but only when Christ is formed in us, will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us? Only when Christ is formed in us, will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us? And this reality that I mentioned the other day, yesterday was it that salvation is being saved from being unchristlike so to become more christlike right when he is formed in us then christmas is fulfilled i mean we we love presents right we love the decorations we love the songs we love family coming together if you get to be part of that kind of a situation if your christmas is like that as are all gifts and even if your christmas is not like that the pain in your heart is because like yeah but it could be and i wish it were but even in the

midst of that, we recognize that the beauty of Christmas, the mystery of Christmas is not just in those externals. The mystery of Christmas is, and here is, our Lord God, who draws near to us. And as it says in the last quote, we've been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled themselves to share our humanity, that he has shared our humanity. And it is when Christ is formed in us, the mystery of Christmas is fulfilled in us. When he's formed in us, then we become even more deeply and fully conformed to the mystery of the divinity of Christ in us, which is just, I can't pray about this. I mean, it's one of those things.

And if we just took it on the surface, it would be, that's a really neat idea. But we interiorize this and realize, oh, my goodness, Lord, this is what you want for me. This is what the whole point is that here's Jesus, who humbled himself to share our humanity. And so I now can share in his divinity. Just to leave you that one quote again, only when Christ is formed in us, will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. I'm praying for that for my own life. Please, please pray for that for me. I'm praying for that for you as well. Our name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.