Day 160: The Liturgical Year (2025)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) – Day 160: The Liturgical Year

Introduction

In Day 160 of "The Catechism in a Year" podcast, Father Mike Schmitz delves into the intricacies of the Liturgical Year and the Sanctoral as outlined in paragraphs 1168 to 1173 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This episode, released on June 9, 2025, serves as a comprehensive exploration of how the Church structures time to reflect and celebrate the pivotal events of the Christian faith.

The Centrality of the Liturgical Year

Father Mike begins by emphasizing the Easter Triduum as the cornerstone of the liturgical year. He explains that the Triduum—comprising Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday—represents the holiest days in the church calendar, focusing on Jesus Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. He underscores Easter's preeminence, stating:

"[Easter] is not simply one feast among others, but the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities." (00:15)

This centrality is further highlighted by comparing the Easter Triduum to other major feasts like Christmas, Epiphany, and the Annunciation, all of which commemorate significant moments in the Paschal Mystery—the mystery of Christ's redemption.

Understanding the Cyclical Nature of the Church Year

The liturgical year is described as cyclical, with each season reflecting different aspects of the faith and leading back to Easter. Father Mike explains:

"The new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance." (09:45)

This cyclical structure allows believers to continually return to the foundational event of Jesus' resurrection, celebrating a "mini Easter" each week through the Sunday Mass. This ongoing celebration reinforces the message of hope and salvation central to Christianity.

The Easter Triduum: Heart of the Liturgical Year

Delving deeper into the Triduum, Father Mike explains its significance as the "Great Sunday" and the "Great Week" in Eastern traditions. He notes:

"The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates our old time until all is subjected to Him." (15:30)

This period encapsulates the essence of the Christian faith—the transformation from death to life, despair to hope, and bondage to freedom. The Triduum serves as a continual reminder of Christ's ultimate sacrifice and victory over sin and death.

Council of Nicaea and the Determination of Easter's Date

Father Mike touches upon the historical aspect of Easter's calculation, referencing the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). The council established that Easter should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. However, due to varying calculation methods between Eastern and Western churches, Easter often falls on different dates. He expresses hope for unity:

"The churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection on a common date in the liturgical year." (22:10)

This effort underscores the desire for unity within the Church and a shared celebration of the most significant event in Christianity.

The Sanctoral: Honoring Mary and the Saints

Beyond the major feasts, the Sanctoral encompasses celebrations honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary, various saints, and martyrs. Father Mike explains that these commemorations serve multiple purposes:

1. Modeling Holiness: Saints and Mary exemplify lives of unwavering faith and devotion.
2. Community and Family: These feasts remind believers of their spiritual family within the Church.
3. Inspiration and Intercession: Saints are presented as intercessors who draw the faithful closer to God.

He elaborates:

"The Church proposes them to the faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ and through their merits." (35:20)

Celebrating saints like St. John Vianney and St. Therese of Lisieux inspires believers to pursue holiness in their own lives, reflecting on how ordinary individuals can be transformed by God's grace.

Practical Implications for the Faithful

Father Mike concludes by encouraging listeners to internalize the lessons from the liturgical celebrations. He emphasizes that each feast and memorial is an invitation to:

• Reflect on Christ's Sacrifice: Understanding the depth of Jesus' love and its implications for personal faith.
• Embrace Holiness: Striving to emulate the virtues of saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary in daily life.
• Community Participation: Engaging actively in the liturgical calendar fosters a sense of belonging within the Church family.

He inspires believers to recognize their potential for sanctity:

"God has made you, and he's made me to be a saint. He has redeemed you and redeemed me to be nothing less than a saint of God who gives Him glory for all eternity." (42:50)

Conclusion

Day 160 of "The Catechism in a Year" offers a profound exploration of the Liturgical Year and Sanctoral, highlighting how the Church's temporal structure is deeply intertwined with its spiritual mission. Father Mike Schmitz effectively conveys the importance of celebrating major feasts like Easter, recognizing the exemplary lives of saints, and understanding the cyclical nature of liturgical seasons. By doing so, he provides listeners with a richer appreciation of their faith and a clearer understanding of their place within the Catholic tradition.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• 00:15 – "Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities."
• 09:45 – "The new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance."
• 15:30 – "The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates our old time until all is subjected to Him."
• 22:10 – "The churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection on a common date in the liturgical year."
• 35:20 – "The Church proposes them to the faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ and through their merits."
• 42:50 – "God has made you, and he's made me to be a saint. He has redeemed you and redeemed me to be nothing less than a saint of God who gives Him glory for all eternity."

Final Thoughts

Father Mike Schmitz masterfully guides listeners through the Liturgical Year, elucidating how each season and feast day contributes to a deeper understanding of the Catholic faith. By highlighting the centrality of Easter and the role of saints, he invites believers to engage more fully with their spiritual journey, fostering a profound connection with God and the broader Church community.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, my name is Fr. 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 161. We're reading paragraphs 1168 to 1173. 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.com ciy and you can click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Speaking of that, you know, we talked about yesterday. The big word was today. So today I want to just offer a quick thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast with your prayers, with your financial gifts. We couldn't make this podcast without you. So thank you so much on this day, day 160, which is pretty incredible. You know, yesterday we asked the question, when is the liturgy celebrated? And we talked about liturgical seasons. We talked about the great word, right? The word is today. And how we celebrate the Mass, how we celebrate the Lord's resurrection, celebrate the heart of the, you know, time in the church year is Easter. And the Easter we celebrate on every Sunday, we celebrate a mini Easter every single Sunday. Today we're talking about the liturgical year, paragraphs 1168 to 1170, as well as the sanctoral in the liturgical year. Now, what is that important? Well, the liturgical year is highlighting what are the big feasts that we celebrate every single year. Remember, we talked about these yesterday? When it comes to seasons, it's very cyclical. Well, number one is the Easter. Triduum is the number one, right? So you have Holy Thursday beginning with Holy Thursday, right? You have Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. Those three days are called the Easter Triduum. It is the holiest days of the church year. That's the heart of everything. Because Jesus. Jesus's suffering, death, and resurrection are what saves us. So that becomes the source of everything. But then also we recognize that Easter is not just one feast among others, it's preeminent. But we also have other feasts we have things like Christmas, we have things like Epiphany, we have the Annunciation, and we also have, I use that term, the sanctoral in the liturgical year. That's paragraphs 1172 and 1173. What's the sanctoral? Basically, it's the fact that in the course of the Church year, we have other feast days, feast days honoring Our lady, feast days honoring us Saints, and other events in Church history. So keep those things in mind. That's what we're talking about today, liturgical year, as well as the sanctoral in the liturgical year. As we launch into today, let's say a prayer. Father in Heaven, we give you praise, we give you glory. You are the God of heaven and earth. You are the God who made all time. You are the God who made all space. You are the God of it all. And we ask you to please, not only sanctify all that you've created, not only sanctify all the space you've created, all the places you've created, sanctify time, Sanctify our time. This day, Lord God, let this day be a day that is consecrated to you, a day that is dedicated and set apart for you. No matter when we're listening to this, Lord God, let this day be your day. And may you be glorified in the ordinary. May you be glorified in the normal. May you be glorified this day and every day. 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 160. We are reading paragraph 1168-1173, the liturgical year. Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection is fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a year of the Lord's favor. The economy of salvation is at work within the framework of time. But since its fulfillment in the passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated as a foretaste. And the kingdom of God enters into our time. Therefore, Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities. Just as the Eucharist is the sacrament of sacraments, the great Sacrament. Saint Athanasius calls Easter the Great Sunday, and the Eastern churches call Holy Week the Great Week, the mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death permeates with its Powerful energy, our old time until all is subjected to Him. At the Council of Nicaea in 325, all the churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Because of different methods of calculating the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the date of Easter in the Western and Eastern churches is not always the same. For this reason, the churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection on a common date in the liturgical year. The various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfolding. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the Incarnation, Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany. They commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the paschal mystery. The sanctoral in the liturgical in celebrating this annual cycle of the Mysteries of Christ, Holy Church honors the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, with a special love. She is inseparably linked with the saving work of her Son. In her the Church admires and exalts the most excellent fruit of redemption and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, that which she herself desires and hopes wholly to be. When the Church keeps the memorials of martyrs and other saints during the annual cycle, she proclaims the Paschal mystery in those who have suffered and have been glorified with Christ. She proposes them to the faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ and through their merits, she begs for God's favors. There we have it. Day 160 paragraphs, 1168 to 1173, the liturgical year. The highlight here is the fact that Easter is the preeminent feast, right? Easter is the source of everything. Because what Jesus did on the cross for us, dying, rising from the dead for us is the source of everything. And so, of course, this is the, as it says, the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities, just like as we will talk about this later on, the Eucharist is the sacrament of sacraments, right? It's the great sacrament. So all other sacraments are sacraments of Christ's actions. The Eucharist is not only Christ's action, it is Christ himself. And that's going to be a very important thing in this we talk about Easter as the heart of everything. Because why? Because what Jesus did on the cross is the heart of everything. Now, little Note in paragraph 1170. I think this is very interesting. So Council of Nicaea, we all know about that in 3:25, the churches agreed. All the churches, right. So we recognize that there are various rites that sprung up when Christianity was essentially planted. If you want to say it like that, it's Christianity spread. There were rights that developed locally, and so they had different dates for different celebrations. So at the Council of Nicaea in 325, all those various rites, all those various churches agreed that Easter, Christian Passover, will be celebrated around the time of the Jewish Passover, right? So it would be the Sunday following the first full moon, the 14th day of Nisan after the vernal equinox. But what happened was because of different methods of calculating that date. So the east and the west, we don't celebrate Easter on the exact same day every year, but says in here, 1170, that we're working on this. We're working, working on it, working on seeking an agreement in order to once again celebrate the day of the Lord's resurrection on a common date, a mutual date, which would be great. Really incredible. Now, we also have other major feasts over the course of the year, and that's things especially celebrating, commemorating the Incarnation. So you have the Annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary nine months before Christmas. You also have Christmas. You have epiphany when God is revealed to the world in the form of, you know, we celebrate the Magi, come and visit the infant Jesus and Mary and Joseph, and we have all of those moments, but we also have in the Church's the sanctoral. And that sanctoral is the feasts commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary, for whom the Church has a special love as well as the saints and martyrs. And why? Why does the Church do this? Well, not only because we have a special love for Our lady, but also because she is the model. Her life of faith, her yes to the Lord is unparalleled. And so the Church presents us with her and reminds us of her so that we can say, yeah, that's right. That's what I'm supposed to be. That's the disciple that I'm called to be like, as well as the other martyrs and saints, to be reminded of the fact that you have a family. We have a family. And so we're reminded every, you know, August 4th is the day of St. John Vianney. We're reminded of his life. We're reminded on October 1st, I think it is. We're at Saint Therese of Lisieux of her life. And we're called to just say, okay, how has the Lord worked in those people's lives. He's taken ordinary people and made them extraordinary. He's taken, you know, broken people like you and me and made them saints. So how can he take me and make me a saint? How can he transform my, you know, hesitant yeses and make them into holy yeses, permanent yeses, yeses, where I just always come to the Lord and say, thy will be done. So that's. That's one of the reasons why the Church gives us this liturgical year. We celebrate Easter at the center and also these Feast of Saints and of Our lady, so that we can realize that's where we belong. We belong in that pantheon of saints. God has made you, and he's made me to be a saint. He has redeemed you and redeemed me to be nothing less than a saint of God who gives him glory for all eternity. And we can start that right now. Remember that word today by giving him glory today. So that's what we're going to do. And I'm praying that you do that. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.