← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 197: Forms of Penance (2026)
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Together, with Fr. Mike, we continue our examination of the sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance. In particular, we explore the different forms of penance, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, as well as other things people can do that orient their hearts towards conversion. Fr. Mike emphasizes the importance of taking up our own personal cross, accepting the suffering that is given to us by the Lord to carry with him each and every day. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1434-1439.
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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. It's day 197. We're reading paragraphs 1434 to 1439. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a 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 on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today, day 197. You know, we've been talking, well, paragraphs 1434, 1439, we've been talking about conversion. And not only the conversion, the baptized that Jesus calls all to conversion, calls us to conversion. And conversion is a process. We talked about this yesterday. It's an interior repentance, is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, all these things. Incredible. And so today we're talking about the many forms of penance in Christian life. And so we know that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We know that those three tasks, those three movements, those three elements of conversion, they are the things that Scripture presents to us as ways to turn to the Lord. At the same time, we know, because we heard yesterday that that they're not just tasks that remain on the surface. They're not meant to be just simply external things. They're actually meant to reach our hearts. We're talking about that today, as well as the fact that conversion is accomplished in daily life. There's gestures of reconciliation, there's reaching out to our brothers and sisters. There's concern for the poor. There's fighting for justice and fighting for the right. There's all these. Okay, let me just tell you. Today we're going to go through a list of things, a list of, I don't want to say tasks, because that's too shallow. A list of movements, a list of things that people can do essentially, that orient them more and more towards conversion. And all of these come from Scripture. So this is kind of. You're in for a treat today. From paragraph 1434 to 1439, there's going to be all these ways in which here's seasons of penance, here's what reading sacred scripture can do. Here is the Eucharist and penance, and here's what taking up one's cross can do on a daily basis. It all is oriented towards giving our hearts or making our hearts more like Christ. Because ultimately this is going to be the goal. Yes, we turn away from sin. Yes, we turn more fully toward the Lord. But the goal in so many ways. Well, the goal is God. God's always the goal. He himself. But the goal in our hearts is to have a heart like Jesus. The goal in our hearts is to become like Christ. That's the goal. That's the goal of conversion. That's the goal of repentance. That's the goal of holiness. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's begin our prayer. Father in heaven, we praise you, we glorify your name. We thank you for not giving up on us. We thank you for constantly, constantly calling us to turn from sin, to turn towards your heart, towards your love, towards your mercy, towards your grace. Help us, Lord, each day to become more and more like you, to become more and more like your son, Jesus Christ, who has a heart that hates sin, heart that loves you, heart that loves us. Jesus has a heart that loves the poor and those others forget. God, give us a heart like his. Help us help us to hate what he hates, help us to love what he loves, and help us to become like our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We make this prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 197. We are reading paragraphs 1434-1439. The many forms of Penance in Christian Life the interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God and to others. Alongside the radical purification brought about by baptism or martyrdom, they cite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins, efforts at reconciliation with one's neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints and the practice of charity, which covers a multitude of sins. Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness, taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance. Eucharist and Penance Daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist, for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God. Through the Eucharist, those who live from the life of Christ are fed and strengthened. As the Council of Trent stated, it is a remedy to free us from our daily faults and to preserve us from mortal sins. Reading Sacred Scripture, praying the liturgy of the Hours in the Our Father Every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins. The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year, Lent and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord, are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self denial, such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing, charitable and missionary works. The process of conversion and repentance was described by Jesus in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the center of which is the Merciful Father. The fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the Father's house, the extreme misery in which the Son finds himself after squandering his fortune, his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate, his reflection on all he has lost, his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his Father. The journey back, the Father's generous welcome, the Father's joy, all these are characteristic of the process of conversion. The beautiful robe, the ring and the festive banquet are symbols of that new life, pure, worthy and joyful of anyone who returns to God and to the bosom of his family, which is the Church. Only the heart of Christ, who knows the depths of His Father's love, could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way. Okay, there we are. Day 197, paragraphs 1434-1439 there is something so beautiful about just, you know, as I said, there's kind of a list, a list of a number of ways in which we can turn back to the Lord. The list starts with the three forms of penance, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. I love how the catechism just kind of in an offhand way throws out that those three forms of penance, fasting, prayer and almsgiving, they express conversion in relation to oneself, to God and to others. Think about this. So fasting, yes, that's conversion related to myself. I'm denying myself something I want. I'm fasting from that. This is about myself. Prayer in relation to God. Of course, prayer is conversation with God, is talking with God. Prayer is my relationship with God and almsgiving in relationship to others. And that. I don't know if you've ever thought of it in that simple a way. Fasting, prayer and almsgiving, conversion of myself in relation to me, conversion of myself in relation to the Lord, and conversion of myself in relation to others. I think that's just. It's so. So simple, so straightforward, and also at the same time so powerful. Now, alongside this conversion that happens because of baptism or martyrdom, that's another one the Fathers and the Scripture cites as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins. Things like effort at reconciling with one's neighbor, tears of repentance bring about that conversion of heart, concern for the salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints and the practice of charity, which, as St. Peter says, covers a multitude of sins. So love covers a multitude of sins, not like the affection of love, but the actual, as it says here, the practice of charity, the action of love. So one of the things we recognize, and we've talked about this before, is love is effective in the sense of. With an A. Right. It's affection. Yeah, of course there's. There is feeling, there's emotion behind love, but also if love is going to do anything, it has to be effective. And that's. That's a really critical thing. For obviously, we love the affective love. We. We love affection because it feels good. At the same time, the kind of love that changes the world is effective. And so that practice of charity is effective. Love. It does something. Now, the next couple of paragraphs, starting at 1435, actually continuing from 1434, there's this list, and the list is, here are ways in which we experience conversion. Here are the ways we experience repentance, and here's the way we experience this interior. Remember this interior conversion, this radical reorientation of our whole life. And they can be summed up here in 1435, gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, all those elements, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. All of those are ways in which you and I experience conversion. If we're willing to do these things, again, they're not magic, but they are the steps we need to take. For example, I mean, just to think about it like this. You get healthy by starting to go for a walk, right? You get healthy by going for a run or going for a bike ride, by moving your body, essentially. And any way you move your body, you're going to become healthier in that body. That's just kind of how it goes, right? If you like biking, you're biking. If you like walking, you walk, you like running, whatever that, swimming, whatever you're doing, you're moving your body, you're using your body so similarly with the soul. Paragraph 1435 and beyond that too, describes these are ways in which we engage in these spiritual practices. Just like, you know, you could go for a run, you could go for a walk, you could swim, you could dance, whatever it is, if you move your body, your body's going to be transformed in some way. Similarly, all of these aspects of conversion are ways in which you can exercise your soul. So, I mean, and we should embrace all of them, obviously. But in many ways, I don't want to say the highlight, but the Last sentence of 14:35 says, and taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance. Why? Because to take up my cross means to accept life as it comes to me. I mean, in so many ways, I mean, it might mean other things too, but to take up my cross each day means to accept life as it comes to me. And so if what comes to me today is the need to defend those who are victims of injustice, if what comes to me today is the poor who show up at my door, if what comes to me today is the need to admit my faults to my brethren, if what comes to me today is the need to correct my brethren, whatever that acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution, whatever comes to me today, that in so many ways is my daily cross. And so taking up one's cross each day, I mean, it means, again, as I said, it can mean a lot of things. But one of the things that it almost always means is accepting life as it is, and not just as it is, but as given to me by the Lord to bear with him, given to me by the Lord to carry with him. We know that one of the reasons why we have crucifixes is to remind us of God's love for us. It's not keeping Jesus on the cross. It's to remind us of God's love for us. When we look at the cross, we know how much God loved us back then. But we also are reminded that when we are on our cross and we accept and carry our crosses, that Jesus is not far from us. In fact, he's very, very, very close to us. When we're willing to carry our cross each day and follow Jesus, that he is so close to us. And so taking up one's cross each day kind of is that again, is that acceptance of whatever the Lord allows into my life today and to carry that with him. Now, moving on, we have Eucharist and penance as this daily conversion. We recognize that we can go to Mass every single, many, in many places of the world. Not everywhere in the world, but in many places of the world. We have the opportunity to go to Mass every day, or at least more than just simply once a week. And we recognize that it says here through the Eucharist, those who live from the life of Christ are fed and strengthened. We talked about this before that the Eucharist, what does it do? It heals venial sins and preserves us from future mortal sins. It gives us this strength to continue to put one foot in front of the other. And if you can't go to Mass on a regular basis, there is this thing called the Sacred Scriptures. There's this thing called the Bible, another thing called the Liturgy of the Hours. And I cannot, cannot recommend more fully, more forcefully, I don't know what the word is, more encouragingly, sacred Scripture, or. And praying at the Liturgy of the Hours. If you've never read the Bible, I just, I invite you. There's this podcast out there that sometimes people can read the Bible to you and explain it a little bit. I recommend it. I think it's pretty good. But also this thing called the Liturgy of the Hours, which basically is the prayer of the church, right? Five hours a day. You don't have to. They don't literally take. They don't take literally 60 minutes. There's just five moments of the day where you would stop, pray through the Scriptures, pray through the Psalms, pray through the prayers of the church, and just sanctify each moment of the day. We've talked about it before, but talk about it now is so good, too. If you can't make it to daily Mass. One great, great thing is to decide, even simply maybe to I'm going to pray morning prayer, or I'm going to pray evening prayer. Just a really incredible way of uniting your prayer with the prayer of the whole church. One of the things that I think is so helpful for us is the fact that the church gives us seasons of penance. So if penance was up to me, if my time of denying myself, fasting, abstaining from meat, whatever the thing is, was up to me, I would regularly forget it. And even when the church gives us seasons and days of penance, it's sometimes easy to forget. One of the most regular and frequent days of penance is just simply Friday. Every Friday throughout the entire year is meant to be a day of some kind of penance. And that penance, the church gives us the freedom to choose how it is that we want to observe that day, the day of our Lord's passion and death. Every Friday, you know, during Lent, of course, we are called to abstain from meat on that day. But all throughout the year, every Friday is for the church, for every Catholic Christian, every Friday is a day of penance. Some kind of self denial, whatever you think would help you the most to have a heart that's converted more and more like Jesus or some kind of good thing, act of charity or an act of prayer or something like this. Those are Fridays. Every Friday can be one of those reminders of, oh, today's a day I'm going to simply give up something where that fasting, prayer and almsgiving is meant to be exhibited and exercised in your life on a regular basis. In my life, on a regular basis. Again, I can forget so easily. And so the church reminds us that there are seasons and there are days of penance. The last Note here in 1439, I think it's so beautiful, is just this kind of this really quick summary of the parable of the prodigal Son or the parable of the forgiving and generous Father. It's just remarkable because it highlights, yes, when Jesus told this story. There's all these aspects. There is the fascination of illusory freedom that the Son has and the abandonment of the Father's house, the misery in which sin leads him to, but also his desire to come back home. The Father's generous welcome, the Father's joy. All of those, it says here, all of those are characteristics of the process of conversion. The last sentence is, I just think it's so powerful. And we'll end on this. He says, only the heart of Christ, who knows the depth of His Father's love, could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way that you and I, if you've been raised Christian, we've heard the parable of the prodigal Son ever since. You know, ever since we can remember, probably. And yet, where do we get this parable? We get it from Jesus himself. And only the heart of Jesus, who knows the depths of His Father's love, could even possibly reveal the depth of God's mercy in so simple and so beautiful a way. You know, today. Today is a funny day with all these lists of. These are all ways we can come back to the Lord, but the heart of it is coming back to the Lord. Like all these. Yeah. There's all these things that we can do and all these things that the church even invites us or asks us, tells us to do, they're all real. But the heart of it is come back to the Lord. Come back to the Father. You know, even though we're still pressing play, even though it's day 197 and for 197 days, we've been pressing play, I know that life still happens, and I know that hearts are still broken. I know that hearts still wander away from the Lord. And you might find yourself on a day like today being like, okay, I press play. But I just had the worst day of my life yesterday. I had the worst season in my life recently, the worst week of my life. But here you are. And here is the voice of the Father who has not forgotten you. Here's the voice of Jesus Christ who says, you're worth his very death. You're worth his very life. And he pours out his spirit on you right now, on every one of us listening to this right now. And he invites us to do what he has invited us to do all along. Come home. Come back to the Father. Allow the Father to clothe you once again in the finest robe. Allow the Father to put that ring on your hand. Allow the Father to put sandals on your feet. Allow the Father to rejoice over you. Because, my friends, my brothers and sisters, the Father rejoices over you. Whenever we come back to Him. Whenever we turn from sin and turn to the Lord, the Father rejoices over you. And he does that right now as you turn back to Him. As I turn back to Him. As we turn back to Him, I'm going to pray that that's what happens today. I'm praying that. And on your worst day, you and I still turn back to him. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.