The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 87: Christ’s Life as Offering (2024)

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Jesus Christ’s entire life was an offering to God the Father, and he freely embraced God’s will and his plan for salvation. We learn that the Eucharist memorializes Jesus’ free offering of himself. In the garden, the night before his Passion and death, Jesus suffered real agony as he contemplated his death, yet he accepted his death as redemptive. Fr. Mike invites us to participate in this redemption by attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 606-612. 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.

I'm a 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 87. We're reading paragraphs 606 to 612.

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. We also have a Catechism in a Year Reading Plan. You can visit essentialpress.com slash C I Y to get that. You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. It is, as I said, day 87.

Well done reading paragraph 606 to 612. Gosh, we've been walking with Christ in His death, right? In His passion. And here we are today. Today, the main header is Christ offered himself to his father for our sins And so today we're gonna highlight not only the fact that here is the whole of Christ life is an offering to the father We talked about that days ago when we talked about the how the Christ whole life is a mystery His whole life is an offering to the father every even the incarnation is a yes of obedience

Yes of obedient love to his Father. So we have the Incarnation and that's so critical. His whole life, all the obedience that he offered to Mary and Joseph, every breath he took on this planet was an offering to the Father. So when he gets to the end, right? When he gets to those last moments of his life, he says this in John chapter 12, in shall I say father saved me from this hour? No for this purpose I have come to this hour and so Whole of Christ life is an offering to the father

The next part is that Jesus is the lamb who takes away the sins of the world So there's this sacrifice not only not only is he the suffering servant who silently allows himself to be led to slaughter He's also the paschal lamb. We talked about the suffering servant yesterday, right? he's also the paschal lamb who takes away the sins of the world And and this is Christ whole life in paragraph 608 says this Christ whole life Expresses his mission to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many Now in this we've made this point before I'll say it again It is not the depth of Christ's suffering as much as it is the depth of His love that entered into His suffering. So His offering to the Father is not because the Father wanted to see so much pain.

That's a distorted vision, distorted interpretation of what's happening in the Passion. But in this, Jesus freely embraced the Father's redeeming love. He loved His Father no matter what it cost. He loved his Father no matter what it cost, and he loved us no matter what it cost. Again, it's not the fact that Christ suffered so much. It is the depth of his love. That's what saves us. We need to understand that.

Jesus freely embraced the Father's redeeming love. That was free. It was a free gift, a free gift of love. Last two notes here. At the Last Supper, in the Last Supper, Jesus anticipates the free offering of his life. So how do we know that Christ laid down his life? That no one takes it from me but he laid it down? Well, you know, the next day it seems like all these people have power over him and Jesus even says you would have no power over me unless we were granted from above. But we know that Christ freely laid

down his life on Friday because we know that Christ freely laid down his life on Friday because we know that he freely laid down his life at the last supper on Thursday that as a sign of Christ's freedom as a sign of that this is a free gift a free offering of his life on the cross we have the free offering of his life at the last supper in the Eucharist which is just incredible and and Jesus instituted that and that's how he wants to be worshiped, right? That's how he wants, that will be the memorial of this sacrifice. So critical. And then the last thing we're going to note today in paragraph 612 is just a little reflection

on the agony in Gethsemane, that is agony in the garden. So we have these pieces that here is Jesus who is His whole life's a free offering to the father. He's the lamb who takes away the sins of the world He's not only the suffering servant, but also that paschal lamb. He's freely offering himself He's freely loving the father and embracing the father's will and in this he gives us the Eucharist and in this Hmm. He undergoes Real anguish Real anguish and real suffering in the garden and beyond. So just be able to meditate on this and to have a new insight into Christ's heart. Let's just pray to our Father right now.

Father in heaven, give us insight into the heart of your Son Jesus Christ. Give us insight into the heart of your son Jesus Christ. Give us insight into your heart. Give us insight into your will and how that unfolds in the middle of this broken and the middle of this beautiful world. Lord God, in our sufferings, help us to have the trust that Jesus had. Lord God, in our confusion, help us to have the love that Jesus had. Lord, in our lives, help us to have that same offering, that same willingness to offer everything in our lives to you as Jesus

offered everything, his whole life, as an offering to you. Help us to trust you and to love you for you are love. 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, it's day 87, reading paragraphs 606 to 612. Christ offered himself to his Father for our sins. Christ's whole life is an offering to the Father. The Son of God, who came down from heaven not to do his own will, but the will of him who sent him, said on coming into the world, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

From the first moment of his incarnation, the Son embraces the Father's plan of divine salvation in his redemptive mission. Jesus stated, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. The sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the whole world, expresses his loving communion with the Father. The Father loves me, because I lay down my life, said the Lord, for I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. The desire to embrace his Father's plan of redeeming love inspired Jesus' whole life, for his redemptive passion was the very reason for his incarnation. And so he asked, And what shall I say?

Father save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. And again he said, Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me? From the cross, just before it is finished, he said, I thirst. The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes and also the paschal lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover.

Christ's whole life expresses his mission, to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus freely embraced the Father's redeeming love. By embracing in his human heart the Father's love for men, Jesus loved them to the end. For greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. In suffering and death, his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men. Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his passion and death,

saying, No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. Hence the sovereign freedom of God's Son as he went out to his death. At the Last Supper, Jesus anticipated the free offering of his life. Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve apostles on the night he was betrayed. On the eve of his passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men, saying, This is my body which is given for you.

This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of His sacrifice. Jesus includes the apostles in His own offering and bids them perpetuate it. By doing so, the Lord institutes His apostles as priests of the new covenant. He said, For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

The Agony at Gethsemane The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father's hands in his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, making himself obedient unto death. Jesus prays, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life, but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death.

Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the Divine Person of the Author of Life, the Living One. By accepting in His human will that the Father's will be done, He accepts His death as redemptive, for He Himself bore our sins and His body on the tree. Wow, okay you guys, day 87, powerful, this is incredible. Just again, to recap some of these big points, these hinge moments. First, paragraph 606 and 607, Christ's whole life is an offering to the Father from the first moment of the incarnation. Everything, everything is, I do as the Father commanded me.

That's it. So that the world may know that I love the Father. And so even when he gets to that, those last days in his life, he asks the question, what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I've come to this hour. And even as we're gonna bookend this with Gethsemane today, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prays, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Which, again, I love how paragraph 612, we're jumping to the end of today's section, paragraph 612 says, thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. So Jesus allowed himself, he allowed himself to be, not only enter into death, but also in some crazy, mysterious way, again that word mysterious, mysterious way. He entered into the horror that death represented

for his human nature, for our human nature. And he does it in a unique way. He goes on to say, like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life. Our human nature, destined for eternal life. But unlike ours, his human nature is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death. And so, of course, by accepting in his human will that the fathers will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,

which is just incredible. Because why, as we said in paragraph 6.08, he's not only the suffering servant, he's also the paschal lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Remember that phrase, the lamb of God that John says, that we're reminded of here in paragraph 608, that is, there's a context for that.

The context is, wait, the lambs are, not because they're just cuddly and cute, and oh, the lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, and he's cute and gentle and cuddly. No, the lamb is offered as a sacrifice. And that sacrifice is in some mysterious way, again, a foreshadowing of the atonement, foreshadowing of redemption, a foreshadowing of forgiveness.

Jesus is the true Lamb of God who truly takes away the sins of the world. Amazing. And he does this freely. Again, he loves his Father, he obeys his Father, but he does this freely and that sign of that free gift is the Eucharist. Paragraph 611 is remarkable. The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment, remember the Last Supper, will be the memorial of his sacrifice. This is it.

Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it. In doing so, he makes them priests of the new covenant. And that's just incredible. And we get to experience this so regularly. We get to experience this every day if we wanted to, to be able to go to mass and be participants in what Jesus himself has done.

Which is, that's my invitation. How about this, you know, the sense of like, we've said this many times, this Catechism in the year is not just about information transfer, it's about transformation, right? It's not just about data, it's about conversion. It's about not just, okay, my mind has some new facts in it. Like, no, my heart has more space to love God because of his grace and because I'm getting to know who he is in a deeper way.

And so today, my invitation, you have not yet, uh, you have the opportunity to go to mass today or tomorrow, just take that next step. Because we get to be part of that memorial that that offering of Jesus to his father. Why well because he loves his father and that's it. My food is to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work and also because he loves you and he loves me. It was just incredible. I can hardly hardly believe it and hardly imagine it, but it is true how much he loves you

I'm praying that you know that truth. I'm praying that you and I can live that truth Let's pray for each other that we can that we can let that truth change our lives I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.