Day 130: The Communion of Saints (2025) - The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

Transcript

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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 130, we reading paragraphs 946, 953. 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. You can also download your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.comciy if you did, you'd know that we're on a new sheet, right? I think day 130 is the second little thing to check off the list. You can also click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. One note. Just a thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast with your prayers. Oh my gosh, absolutely necessary in your financial gifts. We could not do this without you. As I said, it's day 130. Kind of a big deal. You know, in the intro we say discover our identity and God's family as we journey together toward heavenly home. Today we're reading paragraph five. Well, you know, you know what I mean by when I say paragraph five. The communion of saints. And so we get to talk about for the next couple of days this reality of what is the Church in this mysterious. Ah, you know, we talked about the Church as the body of Christ. The Church is the family of God. The Church is all, all these things. But here's the communion of saints. And there's this something so powerful. In fact, in paragraph 946, it says, after confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles Creed adds the phrase the communion of saints. In a certain sense, this article is a further explanation of the preceding. And here's the question, what is the church if not the assembly of all the saints? And that's just what an incredible thing, that reality that here we are united in our faith, united in, well, you know what the Acts of the Apostles says that here are the believers that were united in the Apostles, teaching in fellowship, the breaking of the bread and prayers. And so we're going to recognize how we have communion in the faith. That's one thing. We have communion in the sacraments. That's another thing. We have communion in the charisms, right? The gifts of the Holy Spirit that he has given to the Church. We also, we have communion because we hold everything in common, right? And then lastly, in paragraph 953, Communion and Charity. So we're united in these. These aspects. And it's just so powerful, again, because we profess the same faith. We're united in that we have communion there. The sacraments that unite us, particularly baptism at the beginning. But then in some ways, ultimately, you might say the Eucharist, because we call it Holy Communion. Third, the communion of charisms. And again, just the gifts that God pours out to the faithful. We hold everything in common, which means that basically we recognize that we place our gifts, we place ourselves at the service of those around us, and then also we have communion in love. Now, before we jump into today, there is some Latin words that we should get used to. In paragraph 9 48, it talks about this. It says, the communion of saints, therefore has two closely linked communion in holy things, sancta and among holy persons, sancti. So here's the thing. Here's the communion of saints referring. We have communion in holy things, that's sancta. And then we're among holy persons, sancti. And so then the next big quote is Sancta Sanctis, which in English would be God's holy gifts for God's holy people. And this is just remarkable. You know, it's proclaimed actually by the most Eastern liturgies. It says that in paragraph 948, one of the things that I, you know, have maybe failed to highlight in the past is the depth to which there are various rites in the Church. You know, we don't only have the Latin rite within the Church. We have all these other beautiful rites. And one of the rites in the Eastern liturgy says this Sancta Sancti, God's holy gifts from God's holy people. And so just listen to those two terms in paragraph 9, 48, which specify that the fact that the term communion of saints has two closely linked communion in holy things, sancta and among holy persons, sancti. Here we are entering into this day communion of saints. Let's say a prayer and just thank our Heavenly Father for bringing us here to this moment. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing us into your church. Thank you for giving us communion among all believers, not just here on earth. But those believers in heaven, those are being purified on their way to you. Lord God, thank you for making us into one body. You are the gift. You are the source of all life. You are the ultimate destination of all good. Everything we are is meant to be found in you. Everything good in us comes from you. It's all meant to find its ultimate destination in you. So we ask you, God, please, on this day, as we listen to these words, as we pray this reality, help us to say yes to you. Help us to say yes to you with everything that we have so that we can on this planet be united in love and in faith. Be united in your sacraments. Be united in caring for one another. Lord God, help us to be united. Help us to truly be an image of communion to the world. In Jesus Name we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Again, it's day 130. We're reading paragraphs 9:46 to 9:53. Paragraph 5 the communion of Saints after confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles Creed adds the communion of saints. In a certain sense, this article is a further explanation of the preceding what is the Church if not the assembly of all the saints? The communion of saints is the Church. Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the Church, but the most important member is Christ, since he is the head. Therefore the riches of Christ are communicated to all the members through the sacraments. As this Church is governed by one and the same Spirit, all the goods she has received necessarily become a common fund. The term communion of saints therefore has two closely linked communion in holy things and among holy persons. Sancti Sancta Sanctis God's holy gifts for God's holy people is proclaimed by the celebrant in most Eastern liturgies. During the elevation of the holy gifts before the distribution of communion, the faithful are fed by Christ's holy body and blood to grow in the communion of the Holy Spirit koinonia and to communicate it to the world. Communion in Spiritual Goods in the primitive community of Jerusalem, the disciples devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Communion in the Faith the faith of the faithful is the faith of the Church received from the apostles. Faith is a treasure of life which is enriched by being shared. Communion of the Sacraments the fruit of all the sacraments belongs to all the faithful. All the sacraments are sacred links uniting the faithful with one another and binding them to Jesus Christ and above all, baptism. The gate by which we enter into the Church. The communion of saints must be understood as the communion of the sacraments. The name communion can be applied to all of them, for they unite us to God. But this name is better suited to the Eucharist than to any other, because it is primarily the Eucharist that brings this communion about. Communion of CHARISMS within the communion of the Church, the Holy Spirit distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank for the building up of the Church. Now to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. They had everything in common. Everything the true Christian has is to be regarded as a good possessed in common with everyone else. All Christians should be ready and eager to come to the help of the needy and of their neighbors in want. A Christian is a steward of the Lord's goods. Communion in CHARITY in the sanctorum communio, none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Charity does not insist on its own way. In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints. The least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all. Every sin harms this communion. Okay, there we have it. Paragraphs 9:46 to 9:53. I think this is just absolutely beautiful. This section on the communion of saints only lasts a couple days, because in a couple days we'll jump to not jumped, we'll travel, we'll continue on to Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church. We'll also talk about what it is to be forgiven for our sins. We'll talk about what it is to believe in the resurrection of the Body. Those are the days coming. But today and tomorrow we're talking about the communion of saints. And I just love this. This is incredible. Paragraph 946, the Communion of saints is the Church. Obviously, everything comes from Jesus. Jesus is the source, he's the head, so he's the most important member of the entire body, right? But yet the communion of saints is the Church. And then paragraphs 947 and 948 highlight this incredible way in which the communion of saints essentially comes from the Eucharist, comes from the sacraments, and also unites us together and how we belong to each other because of this. So paragraph 9:47. Since all the faithful form one body. The good of each is communicated to the others. Now, that's going to be reiterated in the last paragraph we heard today, right? Paragraph 953 we heard today that talks about. Here's a quote from Scripture that says, none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. That's from Romans, chapter 14. St. Paul went on to say, if one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now, you are the body of Christ and each individually members of it. That's 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. All of those things are so, so important because we're part of the body of Christ, right? Because we're part of the communion of saints, we belong to each other. And because we belong to each other, if one member suffers, we all suffer. And if one member is honored, we all rejoice together. That's why the very last two sentences of this entire reading for today are both inspiring and convicting. So it says, in this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all, which is so inspiring, right? The least of our acts done in charity. Even the smallest thing that you do out of love is for everyone. That's not just your virtue. It's not just your grace. It redounds to the profit of every one of us. At the same time, the very last sentence we heard today is so convicting. And every sin harms this communion. So every good thing we do, everything, even the smallest thing. If you're homebound right now, if you do nothing in the sense of like, nothing that the world would say is, oh, that's important or that's productive. But if you simply unite your prayers, your heart to Jesus, if you unite your suffering to Jesus, that doesn't just help you and purify your heart, that helps the entire body. If you just offer that suffering up in love, say, jesus, take my suffering, Jesus, use my suffering. That doesn't just make you holy. That doesn't just sanctify you. That actually helps everyone highlight there's no such thing as private virtue, right? There's no such thing as private grace. In some ways like that, you could say it like this. At the same time, there's also no such thing as private sin. There's personal sin, right? There's things that I've done on my own, but there's no such thing as private sin because it belongs to all of us. Again, every Sin harms this communion that is both the inspiring part of being part of the communion of saints as well as the convicting part of being part of the communion of saints. There in paragraph 953. But going back to 9:47, we said this first line. Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. Yep, we just kind of highlighted. But it goes on to say, this is so powerful. The riches of Christ are communicated to all the members through the sacraments. In a few days from now, maybe two weeks, I think in two weeks from now, give or take, we're going to launch into the second pillar of the catechism on the sacraments, the riches of Christ. What Jesus has done for us come to us when they meet us, they transform us through the sacraments. And this is incredible. That's why I love this paragraph 948 that says, if you're looking at your catechism right now in the smaller script, right in the small script, it talks about Sancta Sanctis, God's holy gifts for God's holy people. Let's just read that again. God's holy gifts for God's holy people is proclaimed by the celebrant in most Eastern liturgies during the elevation of the holy gifts before the distribution of Holy Communion in the West. Typically, if you're Latin Catholic, you're familiar with. Here's the priest who says, behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who called the supper of the Lamb, and we have our response. But one of the proclamations in the Eastern liturgies is Sancta Sanctis, God's holy gifts for God's holy people. Now the faithful, the sancti, are fed by Christ's holy body and blood to grow in the communion of the Holy Spirit koinonia and to communicate it to the world. So here you are. Here I am. We're fed by Christ's holy body and blood and grow in communion. So how do we increase the communion of the saints? How do we grow in the communion of saints? Well, by letting. What Holy Communion? The Eucharist. By letting it do what it's meant to do, among many other things, it binds us together. That's one of the reasons why in paragraph 9 49, it quotes the Acts of the Apostles. And in the Acts of the apostles, chapter 2:42, it says that the disciples devoted themselves to four things, right? The apostles teaching fellowship to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. And that's why we highlight these. These elements here in the remaining paragraphs. The faithful. From the very beginning, the Church was marked by. To be a disciple was to be marked by the fact that you devoted yourself to the apostles teaching. So we're united in faith, to fellowship, that we were united in taking care of each other, caring for each other, to the breaking of the bread, which is code for the Eucharist. That's code for the Mass, essentially, and the prayers. That's why it's so powerful in the next few paragraphs. It highlights those exact communion in the faith, communion of the sacraments, communion of charisms. That those charisms are given to every person in the Church for the good of everyone. And they held everything in common. That means to say the gifts that God's given to me, that they're for the people who need them the most, that I get to place them back in the Lord's hands. I get to place them at the service of our brethren, which is so incredibly important. Because why? Because we belong to each other. And I think that's a quote from Mother Teresa that we keep coming back to again and again when she said, there's a reason we don't have peace in the world. It's because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. And here we are today, tomorrow, and hopefully for the rest of our lives, just remembering that you're not alone. And again, you might find yourself in a place of isolation. You might find yourself in a place where you do feel alone. You don't see many people, but you're not alone. You are part of the communion of saints. In fact, those who have died, they're still part of the communion of saints. Those who are in purification, in purgatory, those who are in the beatific vision in heaven, we're still united with them. So our beloved faithful, our beloved dead who have passed into God's presence, they're not separated from us. Well, they are separated from us in time and space, but they're not separated from us when it comes to being part of one body. When it comes to having communion with them, we still are united with them. And so tomorrow, as we continue to pray through this and read through this section on the communion of saints, we're going to hear a little bit more about what that means. But for right now, let's pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Fr. Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.

Podcast Summary: The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

Episode: Day 130: The Communion of Saints (2025)
Release Date: May 10, 2025
Host: Father Mike Schmitz
Produced by: Ascension

Introduction

In Day 130 of The Catechism in a Year podcast, Father Mike Schmitz delves into the profound concept of the Communion of Saints, as outlined in paragraphs 946 to 953 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This episode explores the intricate relationships that bind the faithful, both living and deceased, within the body of Christ, emphasizing unity through faith, sacraments, charisms, and charity.

Core Themes and Discussions

Understanding the Communion of Saints

Father Mike begins by contextualizing the Communion of Saints within the broader framework of the Church. He references paragraph 946, highlighting that after confessing the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles' Creed adds the Communion of Saints, serving as a further elucidation of the Church's nature.

“What is the Church if not the assembly of all the saints?” [00:05]

He emphasizes that the Communion of Saints isn't just a theological concept but a lived reality that unites believers across time and space.

Elements of Communion

Communion in Faith
Drawing from Acts 2:42, Father Mike underscores how the early disciples devoted themselves to apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers. This devotion fosters a deep-seated unity in faith among believers.
Communion in the Sacraments
The sacraments, especially the Eucharist, act as sacred links that bind the faithful to one another and to Christ. Father Mike explains that through the sacraments, particularly Baptism and the Eucharist, believers receive and share in the riches of Christ.
Communion of Charisms
The Holy Spirit bestows various charisms or gifts upon the faithful, empowering them to serve the common good. These gifts are meant to be shared, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the Church community.
Communion in Charity
Charity, or love, is the binding force that unites all members. Father Mike quotes scripture to illustrate that the sufferings and joys of one member affect the entire body, fostering a sense of mutual responsibility and solidarity.

Key Insights on Unity and Mutual Support

Unity Through Shared Goods
Father Mike elaborates on how the Church functions as a communal body where “the good of each is communicated to the others” [00:05]. This mutual sharing ensures that the wealth of Christ benefits all members through the sacraments.
Impact of Individual Actions
He poignantly states, “The least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all” [00:05], emphasizing that even small acts of love contribute to the well-being of the entire Church community. Conversely, he warns that “every sin harms this communion”, highlighting the collective responsibility of believers.
Inclusivity of the Communion
The Communion of Saints transcends earthly existence, encompassing not only the living but also those in purgatory and heaven. Father Mike reassures listeners that the departed faithful remain integral parts of this communion, maintaining a perpetual bond with the living.

Liturgical Expressions and Traditions

Father Mike introduces the Latin terms Sancta (holy things) and Sancti (holy persons), explaining their significance in understanding the Communion of Saints. He references the Eastern liturgies' proclamation of Sancta Sanctis (God's holy gifts for God's holy people) during the Eucharistic celebration, illustrating the universal nature of this communion across different rites within the Church.

“Sancta Sanctis, God's holy gifts for God's holy people” [00:05]

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Introduction of Communion of Saints

“What is the Church if not the assembly of all the saints?” [00:05]
Unity Through Faith and Sacraments

“We're united in faith, to fellowship, that we were united in taking care of each other, caring for each other, to the breaking of the bread, which is code for the Eucharist. That's code for the Mass, essentially, and the prayers.” [00:05]
Impact of Charity and Sin

“The least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all. At the same time, the very last sentence we heard today is so convicting. And every sin harms this communion.” [00:05]
Inclusivity of the Communion

“Those who have died, they're still part of the communion of saints. Those who are in purification, in purgatory, those who are in the beatific vision in heaven, we're still united with them.” [00:05]

Prayer Segment

Father Mike leads a heartfelt prayer, inviting listeners to thank God for their inclusion in the Church and the Communion of Saints. He prays for unity, charity, and the strength to reflect the communion of the saints in the world.

“Lord God, help us to truly be an image of communion to the world. In Jesus Name we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Conclusion and Forward Look

As the episode concludes, Father Mike reflects on the beauty and significance of the Communion of Saints, expressing anticipation for upcoming topics. He previews that the next episodes will transition to discussing Mary, Mother of Christ, the nature of forgiveness, and the resurrection of the body. He reinforces the idea that the Communion of Saints is both an inspiring and convicting aspect of the faith, calling listeners to active participation and reflection.

Key Takeaways

Unified Body of Believers
The Communion of Saints embodies the unity of all Christians, living and deceased, bound together through faith, sacraments, charisms, and charity.
Sacramental Life as a Foundation
The sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, are central to maintaining and deepening this communion, acting as conduits of Christ's grace.
Active Participation and Responsibility
Every act of charity and every sin has a collective impact, emphasizing the interconnectedness and mutual responsibility of all Church members.
Perpetual Bond Beyond Earthly Life
The bonds of the Communion of Saints extend beyond mortality, ensuring a continuous spiritual connection between the living and the departed faithful.
Liturgical Diversity Reflecting Unity
Various liturgical traditions within the Church, such as the Eastern liturgies, celebrate the Communion of Saints, showcasing the universal nature of this doctrine.

Final Reflections

Father Mike Schmitz's exploration of the Communion of Saints in Day 130 serves as a profound reminder of the Church's interconnectedness. By understanding and embracing this communion, believers are called to live out their faith not in isolation but as integral parts of a larger, unified body. This episode not only educates listeners on theological concepts but also encourages active participation in the communal aspects of Catholicism, fostering a deeper sense of belonging and responsibility within the faith community.

Stay Connected:
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