← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 119: The Church’s Missionary Mandate (2026)
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Together, with Fr. Mike, we explore the many aspects of the Church’s missionary mandate. Fr. Mike emphasizes the importance of engaging and living out Christ’s great commission. We conclude today with a reflection on the fact that it is the love of Christ that urges us on in our mission of patience in bearing witness to the Gospel. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 849-856.
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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 119. We're reading paragraphs 849, 856. 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. Also, you can download your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com ciy and you can also click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 119. We're reading paragraphs 849 to 8:56. Yesterday we talked about Catholicity, the Church's relationship with non Catholics or non Christians. And we asked the big question, what is that relationship? And is it true that outside the church there's no salvation? What does that mean? And we looked at this. We looked at what looked at outside Jesus, there's no salvation. And yet is it possible? Is it possible that the Lord can save those who, through no fault of their own, don't know Him? Is it possible that moved by his grace, they can actually choose him? And the Church says, yes, that's possible. But because here's the thing, we need to understand and affirm and assert and be reminded of this so many times. We are only and always saved through Jesus Christ. That's it. If someone is in heaven, they were saved through the ministry of Jesus wasn't because they were saved by being a good Hindu or saved by being a good Muslim or saved by being a good person. No one is saved by being a good person. We are only saved by Jesus Christ. That's so important because why? Today we're looking at the Church's missionary mandate that we're called to be on mission. In fact, if we're not on mission, we're not the Church. Pope Paul VI had a document called Evangelii Nunciandi. That's another Latin term, evangelization in the modern world. Basically said if we're not living on mission, then we're not actually disciples of Jesus and so the church has to be missionary. And so we're looking at this, the missionary mandate, like we were sent by Jesus. Looking at the origin and purpose of mission. What's the whole point of it in the first place? We're looking also at the missionary motivation. Why are you doing this? Like, why would you? Why would I? Why would the chur move forward? What's the motivation? Also what's the missionary paths like? How do we do this? How do we go forward? Is it dominating a culture? Is it being powerful or is it being small? Is it humble self service and self sacrifice? Well, yes, that's the answer. Spoiler. Also, we're looking at this depth to which we're called to have a relationship with the people around us as we're on mission. The church is called to enter into this mission with patience and with respect. And that's really, really important. As we begin this day, let's just call upon our Heavenly Father as we pray. Father in heaven, we know that you have met us with your grace. We know that you have given us your Holy Spirit. We know that you have sent your son into this world to be our Savior. He becomes our brother. He is our God. You've used other people in our lives to bring us this knowledge of truth. There are people in our lives who have given so much that we could know the truth. Today, Lord God, we ask you to give us a missionary spirit. Give us the same spirit that lived in those people who brought us the gospel. Give us a heart for others. Give us a faithfulness and a contagious teachability. Give us availability so that we can be sent on mission. We can bring your truth, your word and your grace to a world that longs for you, even if they don't know it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 119. We're reading paragraphs 849 to 856. A requirement of the Church's catholicity, the missionary mandate, having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be the universal sacrament of salvation. The Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the gospel to all men, as Jesus said. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always until the close of The Age the Origin and Purpose of Mission the Lord's missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal love of the Most Holy Trinity. The Church on earth is by her nature missionary. Since according to the plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in in their spirit of love. It is from God's love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of our missionary. Dynamism for the love of Christ urges us on. As St. Paul wrote to Timothy, indeed, God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church to whom this truth has been entrusted must go out to meet their desire so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary. Missionary Paths the Holy Spirit is the protagonist, the principal agent of the whole of the Church's mission. It is he who leads the Church on her missionary paths. This mission continues and in the course of history unfolds the mission of Christ, who was sent to evangelize the poor. So the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and obedience, of service and self sacrifice even to death, a death from which he emerged victorious by his resurrection. So it is that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted. Only by taking the way of penance and renewal, the narrow way of the cross, can the people of God extend Christ's reign. For just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men by her very mission. The Church travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world. She is to be 11 and as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God. Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ, continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are a sign of God's presence in the world and and leads to the foundation of local churches. It must involve a process of enculturation. If the Gospel is to take flesh in each people's culture, there will be times of defeat with regard to individuals, groups and peoples. It is only by degrees that the Church touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is catholic. The Church's mission stimulates efforts towards Christian unity. Indeed, divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects. The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel. Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God. They proclaim the good news to those who do not know it in order to consolidate, complete and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations and to purify them from error and evil for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man. Okay, so day 119, paragraphs 849 to 8 56. As we said, yes, God can save. God can save those who do not yet know him always. He saves them through Jesus, saves them through the body of Christ the Church. And yet, you know, here's the remarkable thing. And yet we have to go on mission. Why? Well, first of all, because paragraph 8:49 says, Jesus sent us out. Jesus sent the apostles out. He sent the disciples out, saying, go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you always until the close of the age. That is a missionary mandate. We are commanded. You know, it's called the Great Commission. There's a book I remember reading a bunch of years ago. It was called the Great Omission. And it was the idea that here's all these Christians who have received the commission by Jesus himself, received the commission by God to go out into the world to proclaim the gospel, and we don't do it. Instead of being the Great Commission, it's the Great Omission. It's this thing we don't do. Now, the origin and purpose, like why you Know, that's one of those things where I remember talking to many, many people who have said, well, what the heck? If God can save all those, we don't even know him, then why go out? Well, what's the purpose? What's the origin? It says very, very clearly in paragraph 8:50. The Lord's missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal love of the most Holy Trinity. Like here is God himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, an eternal exchange of love. What does God want to do? Well, his ultimate purpose of this mission is none other. The last sentence here in paragraph 850, none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in their spirit of love. God loves them. Why does he send us out to all people? Because there are people in this world who are living as if life doesn't mean anything. They're walking through this world. They have no idea that God exists. They have no idea that here is the Lord God himself, who loves them so much, who knows their name, who cares about them, who loves them so much that he actually sent his own Son into this world so that they can be saved. Also, he gives His Holy Spirit so you can have a relationship with Him. Like, why in the world would we not. Why would we not. Not go out to all the world? Like, busting down doors and running through the hallways? You know, there's this saint, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Xavier had a conversion in college back, I think, the University of Paris by a man named Ignatius of Loyola, who was the founder of the Jesuits. And he was sent by Ignatius to India and other places in the. In the Far East. When he wrote back to his brothers back in Europe about how many people in India longed to hear the Gospel, how many people in India were being lost because there was no one there, he said, there's no. The only reason they're not Christians is no one's here to make them Christians. No one's here to help them become Christians. And he said, how I would long to go back to the halls of the universities all throughout Europe. And I'd run through the hallways like a crazy man saying, how many people are dying because you don't love them? How many people are dying because you're not willing to give your life so they can hear the Gospel of Jesus. And, you know, there's that powerful, powerful love in us. That's. That's maybe some guilt right there, but I didn't mean it like guilt. It's that sense of like, is my love so small? They're not willing to leave my comfort in order to bring the Gospel somewhere. Because God's whole point, his origin is so that they can come to know his love. That's the missionary motivation. Paragraph 8. 51. It is from God's love for all men that the church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism. Why? For the love of Christ urges us on from 2nd Corinthians, chapter 5. The love of Christ urges us on because we know this. We know that God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. But how can they come to the knowledge of truth if no one's out there to speak the truth, to bring them the truth, we. Again, we. Gosh. It says this. Those who obey the prompting of the spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. So anyone who has the truth has some degree of way of salvation. But he says, but the church to whom this truth has been entrusted must go out to meet their desire so as to bring them the truth. That's this. So, so powerful. So what's the missionary path again? The missionary path is not power. The missionary path is not. Well, you come in and dominate. No, the missionary path is the path of Jesus. It says, we unfold the mission of Christ, who is sent to evangelize the poor, so that the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and obedience, of service and self sacrifice, even to death. And that is so important for all of us. That's one of the reasons why this ancient saying from Tertullian is the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. Those martyrs who bore witness to the gospel, who bore witness to the truth, who bore witness to God with their very lives, not in power, but in what looked like destruction, what looked like pain, weakness that became the seed of the Christians. And there's something about this that when we as Christians don't walk in in power, we're not the dominant religion or the dominant cultural influence, but we are walking authentically. We're walking like our Savior. We're walking like Jesus. I don't know if there's anything more powerful when it comes to passing on the gospel than that last couple things. It says Here in paragraph 8. 54, it says, Missionary endeavor requires patience. If you've ever tried to share the gospel, you know that that is 100% true. Maybe you know. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Missionary endeavor requires patience. And it does. It can be so painful. In, in fact, the second to last line in that paragraph 854 says, There will be times of defeat. I just want to speak into that, just for a second. There will be times of defeat. You know, we've been called to go out into the world. We've been called to do our best to bring the truth of Jesus Christ and the love of Jesus Christ to a world that even if they don't know it, they long for the truth. They long for that love. Why? Because they're made for truth. Every human being is made for truth. Every human being is made for love. And yet at the same time, every human being has a heart that's broken. Every one of us has an intellect that's been dimmed. And every one of us sometimes has the temptation to run away from truth and to hide from love. So it requires patience. And there will be times of defeat. And yet, apparently God says that you are worth fighting for. Apparently in Jesus, God says you were worth fighting for. And someone fought for you in spite of your stubbornness, in spite of your rejection of the gospel, and in spite of your coldness. That's what happened to me so many times. So many times, even after I came to know who Jesus was, after I came to know the Eucharist and came to know the church, there were so many times when I had a hard heart, when people were speaking the truth to me and that they spoke that truth. And God says, okay, you are worth fighting for. Are you willing to fight for others who are worth fighting for? God says to you, you are worth loving even when you are hard to love. Are you willing to love others when they are hard to love, that you are worth chasing down and seeking out and bringing the gospel to? Are you willing to take that step so others can know the love that you know, so that others can have a relationship with the Father that you have? That's our call. That's our missionary mandate. That's the Great Commission. At the heart of it is love. So I'm just. I'm just going to pray that we pray for each other, that that love grows, that gets stronger, gets more powerful, that we can't be contained. We bring that love to the world. This world needs Jesus. This world needs the healing that the church can bring. So I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.