← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 184: The Movement of the Mass (2025)
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There is great depth to the movement of the celebration of the Mass. Fr. Mike highlights the role of Christ as the head and high priest and the role of the laity as the body of Christ at Mass. Fr. Mike also emphasizes the importance of the altar at Mass, reminding us that the heart of religion is worship, and the heart of worship is sacrifice. Lastly, Fr. Mike explains how God’s love requires a response from each of us, making it both inclusive and exclusive love. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1348-1355.
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Father Mike Schmitz
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 to our heavenly home. This is day 184. We. We are reading paragraphs 1348-1355. As always, I'm reading from 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 lastly, you can click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. This is the first full day that we are on the back end of the Catechism, maybe just cresting the hill, if my math is correct. Day 183, the middle of day 183, yesterday was the middle of the whole kit and caboodle. So here we are on day 184, you know, cresting the hill. It's great. And what we're going to talk about, obviously, well, if you, if you've been listening, and most likely you've been listening because why would you just jump in randomly at day 184 is all about the Eucharist. You know, yesterday we talked about how Justin Martyr had written to non Christians, in fact. Right. He wrote to the Roman Emperor and he described here is what Christians do when they get together. Here is how Christians worship their God. We remember this, that the heart of religion is worship and, and the heart of worship is sacrifice. So today we're going to talk about what is the movement of the celebration. It's going to be pretty familiar for every person who has been to Mass before. And if you're kind of familiar with the Mass, you'll say, oh yeah, this is what happens when I go to Mass. And maybe you knew the names of these things, these movements, maybe you didn't know the name of these movements, but you're going to know them by the end of the day today because this is going to be review in many ways if you've lived the Mass for your life and it'll be new if you have not done that. So let's get started with a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the gift of your Son. As always, Lord God, we can never thank you enough for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. For the gift of your Holy Spirit that makes actual what your Son has made possible. Your Holy Spirit that moves in the lives, in the actions, the words of the priests, the words, actions and lives of the people of God. Every time we come together and worship, help us to worship you the way you deserve. Lord God. The next time we go to Mass, help us to worship you as if it is our first Mass, our last Mass, our only Mass. Help us to belong to you and to live lives worthy of you. This day and every day, 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 184. We are reading paragraphs 1348-1355. The movement of the celebration. All gather together. Christians come together in one place for the Eucharistic assembly. At its head is Christ Himself, the principal agent of the Eucharist. He is High Priest of the New Covenant. It is He Himself who presides invisibly over every Eucharistic celebration. It is in representing him that the bishop or priest, acting in the person of Christ, the head in Persona Christi capitis presides over. The assembly, speaks after the readings, receives the offerings, and says the Eucharistic prayer. All have their own active parts to play in the celebration, each in his own readers. Those who bring up the offerings, those who give communion, and the whole people whose Amen manifests their participation. The Liturgy of the Word includes the writings of the prophets, that is the Old Testament, and the memoirs of the apostles, their letters and the Gospels. After the homily, which is an exhortation to accept this word as what it truly is, the Word of God, and to put it into practice, come the intercessions for all men. According to the apostle's words, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions. The presentation of the offerings. Then sometimes in procession, the bread and wine are brought to the altar. They will be offered by the priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice, in which they will become his body and blood. It is the very action of Christ at the Last Supper. Taking the bread and a cup, the Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator when she offers what comes forth from his creation with thanksgiving. The presentation of the offerings at the altar takes up the gesture of Melchizedek and commits the Creator's gifts into the hands of Christ, who is in his sacrifice brings to perfection all human attempts to offer sacrifices. From the very beginning, Christians have brought, along with the bread and wine for the Eucharist, gifts to share with those in need. This custom of the collection, ever appropriate, is inspired by the example of Christ who became poor to make us rich. As St. Justin Martyr wrote, those who are well off and who are also willing give as each chooses. What is gathered is given to him who presides to assist orphans and widows, those whom illness or any other cause has deprived of resources, prisoners, immigrants, and, in a word, all who are in need. The Anaphora with the Eucharistic prayer, the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration, we come to the heart and summit of the celebration. In the preface the Church gives thanks to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit for all his works, creation, redemption, and sanctification. The whole community thus joins in the unending praise that the Church in heaven, the angels, and all the saints sing to the thrice Holy God. In the epiclesis the Church asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit or the power of his blessing on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and so that those who take part in the Eucharist may be one body and one Spirit. Some liturgical traditions put the epiclesis after the anamnesis. In the institution narrative, the power of the words and the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine, Christ's body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all. In the anamnesis that follows, the Church calls to mind the passion, resurrection, and glorious return of Christ Jesus Christ. She presents to the Father the offering of his Son which reconciles us with Him. In the Intercessions, the Church indicates that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole Church, in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead, and in communion with the pastors of the Church, the Pope, the diocesan bishop, his Presbyterian, and his deacons, and all the bishops of the whole world together with their churches. In the communion preceded by the Lord's prayer and the breaking of the bread, the faithful receive the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of Christ, who offered himself for the life of the world as Saint Justin Martyr further states, because this bread and wine have been made Eucharisted according to an ancient expression, we call this food Eucharist, and no one may take part in it unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught. All right, so there we have it, paragraphs 1348 to 1355. My guess, as I said at the very beginning of this, is that this will all sound very familiar to you, but hopefully, I mean, maybe you learned something, maybe just got reminded of something, but nonetheless, this recognition of here is the movement of the celebration. Did we know the depth of this? For example, in the very first paragraph, paragraph 1348, we talk about, yeah, all Christians come together in one place for the Eucharistic assembly, right? But did you know what we believe is at its head is Christ Himself, the principal agent of the Eucharist. He is the High priest of the New Covenant. It is he himself who presides invisibly over every Eucharistic celebration. There are some just really moving images, paintings and drawings and such of people who have. Have depicted the Mass. And like, they pull back the veil. You know, we see the priests, we see the servers, we see the altar, we see the bread and wine. But what we don't see is we don't see the heavenly host, right? We don't see the great High Priest, Jesus Christ himself, who presides invisibly over every eucharistic celebration. We don't see the Father receiving the gift of His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. And yet we believe that Jesus Christ, again, he's the one high priest, he's the principal agent of the Eucharist. He's present, not only present in the Eucharist, right? Not only is he present body, blood, soul and divinity, he is present as the great high priest, functioning as priest. And it's representing him is what the bishop and the priest do. They act in the person of Christ the head. And that is, you know, in Persona Christi capitis is the technical Latin term, in the person of Christ the head. But here the lay faithful act in the person of Christ the body, which is remarkable, as it says in 1348, all have their own active parts to play. And this is so important now, it says each in their own way, like readers, those who bring up the offerings, those who give communion, yes, those are special extraordinary ministries in the Mass. But the great part that every baptized Christian plays in the Mass, remember this, don't ever forget this. You get to exercise your kingdom priesthood, you get to exercise your baptismal priesthood, this gift that when you are anointed prophet, king or queen, and you are anointed priest. And so the recognition of exercising this every time we come to worship. Because remember, the heart of religion is worship, and the heart of worship is. Is sacrifice. And so we're going to get to that at the end. We just. Well, maybe we'll get that sooner than later, but we recognize that then we have Liturgy of the Word, obviously. Well, I say obviously because if you've been to Mass, you know that, and if we just listen to what we just read, you know that as well. But in paragraph 1350, it talks about the presentation of the offerings. This is the offertory, where everything goes to the altar. The bread and wine go to the altar. And this is just. Let's highlight this. The fact that in every Catholic Church, there is a, for lack of a better term, piece of furniture that we cannot treat like a table. It is in some ways a table, but it's a piece of furniture that is unique. And it is unique because only only in Catholic and Orthodox churches can this kind of piece of furniture be found. And that piece of furniture is the altar. What happens at an altar? Again, we see it so often, and sometimes it's like, oh, come to the table. Fine. Yes, yes. There is an element of the Eucharist that is. It's the meal, right? It is the holy meal. It is the Last Supper. Yes, definitely. Of course, that is. I don't mean to dismiss that in any way, shape or form. So I kind of sounded like I did a little bit. But I'm not dismissing this. The altar, though. The altar is the place of sacrifice. And I mean, in so many ways, the heart of every Catholic Church is the altar. Obviously, the tabernacle is incredibly important, where the presence of our Lord resides and abides. Yes, totally. But where the sacrifice happens is at the altar. Remember, the heart of religion is worship. Heart of worship is sacrifice. And so we have these gifts, right? This bread and wine, and we bring them forth, where we bring them to the altar. In this last line of paragraph, 1350 highlights this. It says the presentation of the offerings at the altar takes up the gesture of Melchizedek, remember we talked about him, and commits the Creator's gifts into the hands of Christ, who in his sacrifice brings to perfection all human attempts to offer sacrifices. Every religion in the world, Basically, the heart of every religion in the world is this attempt to give God what you think God wants. And yet here is what God has done in the New Testament, what Jesus has indicated to us. He's indicated, I want you to do this in memory of me, do this, participate in this sacrifice, participate in his sacrifice, that one sacrifice once for all, that we get to participate in a non bloody way every time we go to the Mass. And that's why let's highlight this, that yes, one of the incredible, amazing gifts of the Mass is we get to receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord, as he promised in John chapter 6, that the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world and that if you feed on me, you live forever. There is this incredible promise, absolutely not diminishing that in any way, shape or form because it is insane. It's incredible. It's beyond our imagining, right? Beyond our even. Who would even know that you could possibly desire to have this intimacy with our God Himself, that He comes to us as food and just in under the disguise, right under the disguise of bread and wine. Yet the action of the Eucharist, the action of the Mass is not just simply the reception of Holy Communion, but the action of the Mass is the offering of the sacrifice, the participation in the great sacrifice once for all that Jesus offered. And whenever we do that, what we get to do is we get to worship God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for His praise, for his glory, and we get to participate in this amazing, amazing way. We're going to talk about that more and more tomorrow. But I just wanted to get us locked and loaded when it came to getting our hearts ready, our minds ready. We're talking about this again. Sacrifice of praise tomorrow, sacrifice of thanksgiving tomorrow, Sacrament of our salvation is going to happen. It has happened. It's accomplished in Christ and we get to participate in it in the Eucharist. But man, just what an incredible gift. Get this in your head. So Tomorrow on day 185, we get to hear more and more about the sacrifice of our Lord. Now last thing I mentioned this yesterday, the extended quote from St. Justin Martyr about yesterday we had him basically describing the Mass to the Emperor. And then I went on and found another writing and this writing is another one we heard today in paragraph 1355. And that is the exclusive and inclusive love of God. God's love is incredibly, incredibly inclusive, right? It's inclusive in the sense that there is no one who has ever lived, is living or will ever live for whom Christ died. Jesus did not suffer and die to redeem our Lord offered the sacrifice for everyone. His love is absolutely inclusive. And at the same time, God's love is exclusive as well. He has an exclusive claim on us. And so because of that, we have to respond, right? Because of God's inclusive love, he wants all of us to be part of that family. He wants all of us to be part of his body. He wants all of us to have unity with him and unity with each other. But in our response to that, he makes an exclusive claim on our lives. And if we don't allow him to do that, then we may not participate in the Eucharist. Does that make sense? So this paragraph 1355, that again from the year 155ish. Justin Martyr says, we call this food Eucharist and no one may partake in it unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught. There's this unity that has to be present. There's this sense of, I responded to God's exclusive claim on my heart because he's included the whole world in his love, yet he makes an exclusive claim. If I haven't responded to that exclusive claim, then I may not partake of the Eucharist. And yet this is for everybody. Whether you're listening to this and you're Catholic or you're not Catholic, I just say this with all my heart. God's invitation for you is for you to be fully united in the body. It's fully united in the Catholic Church. That if over the course of even talking about the Eucharist here, talking about what we believe as Catholics, has touched the hearts of any Christian who's listening to this, who doesn't happen to be Catholic. This is part of the invitation. Part of the invitation is, you know, the church was one once, and I believe that God wants the Church to be one again. And we experience this division at every Mass when we can't extend the offer of Communion to all those who are not Catholic, we're not practicing Catholics. And yet I believe what God wants all of us to be. He wants all of us to be Catholic. I think he wants all of us to be practicing Catholics. And so if you're listening to this, I really believe this is an invitation, and I believe it's an invitation from the Lord to take that step, to look at the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults or the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, to look at your local Catholic church and say, I believe the Lord is calling me to investigate even more fully. I mean, I think the Lord has made Himself clear. I think you know that he wants you to be Catholic. And maybe you want that, too. So don't be afraid. Do not be afraid. You are made for the Eucharist. And the Church is not whole without you. So take that step, and I promise you I'll be praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.