← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 189: Worship of the Eucharist (2025)
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We continue our examination of the sacrament of the Eucharist, specifically how we worship the Eucharist. Fr. Mike examines how we, as Catholics, worship Christ's true and real presence in the Eucharist. He emphasizes how incredibly important the worship of Christ in the Eucharist is, specifically in Adoration. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1378-1383.
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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 pure 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 189. We're reading paragraphs 1378 to 1383. 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 also click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today, we're continuing to talk about The Eucharist. Day 189, paragraphs 1378 to 1383. Yes, you know, gosh, we're taking a big step. And the big step is yesterday we talked about how Christ is truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist. That translates into what we're going to talk about the first part of today, which is worship of Jesus in the Eucharist. Worship of the Eucharist. And that is there's something about we said before, right? The heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. At the same time. So what do we do at the Mass? Right? The Mass is the offering, the sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the heart of the Mass. At the same time, because Jesus is truly, really and substantially present body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. We truly worship the Eucharist. We worship Jesus Christ, our God, in the Eucharist. We're going to talk about that today. We're also going to talk about how the Eucharist is not only a sacrifice. Mentioned this the other day. It's also the Paschal banquet, right? The Passover, remember? The. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Eucharist is. The Mass is also not only sacrifice, it is also the Paschal banquet. And I know I downplayed it a day or two ago or three ago, whatever it was, but it is true and it is powerful. So as we enter into this day where we talk about worship of the Eucharist, talk about the Paschal banquet and the fact that the Lord God Himself wants to receive us and give Himself to us in Holy Communion. We give our hearts to him as we pray. Father in Heaven, thank you so much. We just give you praise today. We give you praise because you have given us everything. You have given us being, you've given us existence, you have given us breath. Lord God, every day we've ever lived, every heartbeat we've ever experienced, every thought we've had, Lord, has its origin in you. Let all of those heartbeats and thoughts and days, let them all be directed towards your glory. Help us to love you with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. Help us to love you with everything we have. Help us to take care of our neighbors. You've given yourself to us in love. Help us give ourselves back to you in love. And as you've shown us what it is to love without cost, we ask you to help us to love each other without cost, expecting nothing in return. Help us to give love for love. 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 189. We are reading paragraphs 39, 1378-1383. Worship of the Eucharist in the Liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other things, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. The Catholic Church has always offered, and still offers to the Sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession. The Tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in His Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the Church and and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to His Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence. Since he was about to offer Himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us to the end, even to the giving of his life. In His Eucharistic presence, He remains mysteriously in our midst as the One who loved us and gave Himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love. As St. John Paul II stated, the Church and the world have a great need for eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation, full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease. That in this sacrament are the true Body of Christ, and his true blood is something that cannot be apprehended by the senses, says St Thomas, but only by faith, which relies on divine authority for this reason. In a commentary on Luke 22:19 this is my body which is given for you, Saint Cyril. Do not doubt whether this is true, but rather receive the words of the Savior in faith, for since he is the truth, he cannot lie. In a prayer attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas we Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows shape, and nothing more. See, Lord, at thy service. Low lies here a heart lost, all in wonder at the God thou art seeing, touching, tasting, Are in thee deceived. How says trusty hearing that shall be believed what God's Son has told me, Take for truth I do Truth himself speaks truly, or there's nothing true. The paschal banquet, the Mass is at the same time and inseparably the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated, and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood. But the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ through communion. To receive communion is to receive Christ Himself, who has offered Himself for us. The altar around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist represents the two aspects of the same the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so, since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ Himself, present in the midst of the assembly of his faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving Himself to us. For what is the altar of Christ, if not the image of the Body of Christ? Asks St. Ambrose, he says, elsewhere, the altar represents the body of Christ, and the body of Christ is on the altar. The liturgy expresses this unity of sacrifice and communion in many prayers. Thus, the Roman Church prays in its in humble prayer. We ask you, almighty God, command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us who, through this participation at the altar, receive the most holy body and blood of your son, may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing. All right, there we have it. Paragraphs 1378 to 1383. Let's start back at the top. Here we have this reminder that since Jesus Christ is truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist, the Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, the son of God made man, right? So this is truly God. And therefore there is worship of the Eucharist. We bow down before the Eucharist. And this is remarkable. It's so remarkable that a couple years ago, you know, we put on some camps in our diocese. And so a lot of times you don't have, like, a Catholic campground or Catholic facility. We just use other people's facilities. And there is a denomination that allows, you know, graciously lets us, for a fee, lets us have a camp. That's incredible. And at one point, the director of the camp said, hey, you know, Father, I gotta talk to you about this, because some of our board of directors, they have a problem with Catholics being here. And like, okay, well, tell me more. And he said, well, you know, some of them are saying that they're asking the question, do we really want to have at our camp, you know, in our facility, this kind of idolatry? Like what? Say more. Those Catholics, they believe that that bread and wine actually is God. They worship. They bow down as if that bread and wine really is God. And, you know, we wouldn't want that idolatry to happen in our camp, on our grounds, right in our facility. And it was really fascinating because I was just so struck by. That's true. You're 100% correct. If what Catholics believe is not true, then what we do every day, what we do every Sunday, what we do whenever we walk into a Catholic church and genuflect before Jesus presence in the tabernacle is as bad, if not worse, than the incident of the golden calf in the Book of Exodus. I mean, he was not wrong. In fact, I was honored by the fact that he takes the person who brought up the board of directors who brought up this issue. He takes the Catholic doctrine so seriously that he's saying they're worshiping what in his mind was just bread and wine. And I'd say, absolutely, yes, he's right. If we are wrong, if we as Catholics are wrong about Jesus true presence in the Eucharist, then we are the greatest idolaters that have ever walked the face of the earth. Because for 2,000 years, we have been bowing down before what looks like bread and what looks like wine and giving our hearts, giving our love, giving our attention, giving our worship to the. Basically the work of human hands. But. But if Jesus was serious when he said, this is my body, this is my blood, this, then in that case, and that's the only case, we are not committing idolatry. In fact, what we are doing is we are worshiping. We have the opportunity to be in God's presence in this completely unique way and gaze upon the face of Jesus in this unique and hidden way and give him our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. We actually have the opportunity to not only worship in the sense that we offer up the sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to come before Jesus Christ, to bow down before him in the Eucharist, and. And to truly worship God in the Eucharistic species. And, you know, there's the. Paragraph 1381 makes it very, very clear. It says in the sacrament that Jesus is truly present. His body and blood are truly present, cannot be apprehended by the senses. Right. It's to look, to touch, to taste. Nope, that looks like bread and wine. That's it. But the sense of hearing, the sense of being able to listen, that changes everything. Because, yes, when I look at the Eucharist, I don't see Jesus clearly. I don't taste Jesus. I don't. I don't. I can't touch Jesus in that. In the same sense, I can't say it like this. I can't tell that it's him by my sight, by my taste, or by my touch. But we can tell that it's him by our sense of hearing. Because Jesus truly did say, this is my body which is given for you. Jesus truly did say, this is my blood which is poured out for you. And because of that, we trust in God who is truth. And since he is truth, he cannot lie. Does that make sense? And there's that. That reality. Of course. Yeah. A couple of those senses, they would deceive us. They would. They would lead us to believe that that is just ordinary bread and ordinary wine. Except for the sense of hearing, in which case we hear our Savior. In fact, there was a. I remember hearing about this debate between. I think it was Martin Luther and Cardinal Cajetan or something along those lines. And it was one of those situations where people were debating, maybe it wasn't Martin Luther himself, but it was someone who was saying that they were questioning the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. No, it wasn't Cardinal Cajetan. It wasn't Martin Luther. It was between Robert Bellarmine and another individual, St. Robert Bellarmin. This other individual had said that, no, the Eucharist is merely a symbol. It's merely a symbol of Jesus. It's a reminder of Jesus. It's not truly Christ's body. It's not truly Christ's blood. And at the end of. He made his case. Robert Bellarmin stood up and said, okay. You know, he's kind of a. Kind of a jokester. And he said, okay, let me get this straight. You say. You say this is not his body. Jesus said, this is my body. He said, tell me, if you were me, who do you think I should believe? If you were in my position, and it was between you and Jesus himself, and you're saying this is not his body, but Jesus said, this is my body. Just help me out. Who do you think I should believe? And because we believe in Jesus, who is the truth and he cannot lie, we will believe that Jesus is truly, really and substantially present. And because of that, we'll worship Jesus. Every time we walk into a tabernacle church, we find that tabernacle and we take a gen. Take a knee, right? We put that right knee to the ground, if we can, or a deep and profound bow. Because we recognize that Jesus is truly, really and substantially present. That is the Lord God. And that's why John Paul II says the church and the world have a great need for eucharistic worship, that Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. So, therefore, let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration. And that's. That's a huge thing. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration. I. Man, I know that there's many people who listen, who, when you have a chance, you stop by the church. When you have the chance, you place yourself in front of our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. And that is. I have to tell you this, like we said at the other day about the Mass, when you're not there, it matters. When you are there, it matters. And when you're not there, God is just that much less glorified and the world is that much less sanctified. But when you are there, the world is just that much more sanctified and God is just that much more glorified. Same thing is true when it comes to visiting our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. There is something that happens. And again, what happens? Well, we don't feel anything. A lot of times we don't get the sense of like, wow, I'm recharged. Like, you know, one of those cars that you will pull up to the charging station and you drive away with a full battery. It's not always that case. Oftentimes it's just, okay, here I am, Lord. That's all. That's one of the reasons why there's this ancient story, a couple hundred years old, of St. John Vianney, who is known as the Cure of ars. And this Ars Francis small village. At one point, the priest, St. John Vianney, he noticed that there was a shovel or some kind of farming implement that was leaning against the wall of his church or the door outside of his church every morning and every afternoon or every evening. And so he would go in and he found this. This farmer who would just sit there in the pew and he'd be looking at the tabernacle. And after he saw this farmer do this for. For days on end, weeks on end, I mean, on the way to work and on the way back home from work, he would find this farmer there. And he'd said, he asked him, he finally asked him, he said, so what do you do when you. When you're there in the church? What do you do with that time in the church? And apparently this farmer looked at him and he said, I look at the good God and the good God looks at me. That's it. So simple. On his way to work, he'd stop, put his, you know, his shovel or break or whatever it was on the outside the church and walk in, sit down, kneel down, and I look at the good God and the good God looks at me and then go back to his work. On the way home, you stop by the church and look at the good God, the good God looks at me, and go back home. We can't always tell that what's happening would always feel like we're transformed. But imagine, imagine that right down the road, right down the road from you is Jesus Christ truly, really and substantially present. And I remember when I was in 16, 16 years old or so. I heard about all these people who had just spent time in front of Jesus in the Eucharist. And so I made a commitment, okay, at least one hour a week. That's what I'm going to do. One hour a week. I'm just gonna bike over to the church, or when I could drive, drive over to the church. And it was tough in the sense of. I always say it like this. I say that, you know, I read stories of saints who. It would be in front of Jesus in the Eucharist. And they say things like, feel like minutes. And I would. I tried to kneel down or sit down in front of the tabernacle. And minutes felt like hours, I got to tell you guys. But there's something so powerful that Jesus awaits us in the sacrament of love. As John Paul II said, let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration. Lastly, I need to. We need to make this clear. The Paschal banquet. You know, as I mentioned, heart of religion is worship. Heart of worship is sacrifice. The altar is the altar of sacrifice. Yes, 100% true. And see, the Catholic Church is always both, and not necessarily either or both. And not only is the church, the altar is the altar of sacrifice, but also the altar is the table of the banquet. Right? And so we recognize that not only is this a place of sacrifice, offering the sacrifice of the Son to the Father and power of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, this is the table of the Lord. And so, yeah, I know, as I said at the beginning of this, I downplayed that a couple days ago. It shows my own bias. I apologize. It shows my own bias because the church is more. More is unbiased. The church is more well rounded, vastly more well rounded than I am. And so we recognize the incredible importance that at the Mass we are entering into the Paschal banquet, which is what we're going to continue talking about tomorrow. But today, incredible gift of the Eucharist, the opportunity to worship Jesus outside of the Mass as well as inside the Mass, and also this reminder that the Mass truly is a sacrifice and the Mass truly is the sacred banquet of communion with our Lord's body and blood. You guys, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.