← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 202: How Confession Heals (2026)
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What happens to us when we go to Confession? Fr. Mike explains the powerful ways the Sacrament of Reconciliation spiritually restores and perfects us. We also learn about the eternal and temporal consequences of sin, and finally, Fr. Mike discusses the four aspects to an indulgence and how these aspects require our cooperation with God's grace. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1468-1473.
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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 sure 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 202. We're reading paragraphs 1416. 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. Comes right to your I don't know what it comes right to. Comes right to your app. I think so. Something like that. Today is day 202, 1468, 1473, you guys we get to talk about the effects of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Yesterday we talked about the minister of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the great dignity, the great responsibility that is placed upon the priest who's working by extension of the bishop. Yet today we get to talk about the effects of this sacrament. What happens when we go to confession. And not only do we experience forgiveness, of course, mercy, of course, it reconciles us with the Church. And also it's an anticipation. I love this. It's an anticipation in a certain way of the judgment to which we all will be subjected at the end of our earthly lives. In some ways, it's practice of coming before God as we are, with the full truth that he is love. And also that we have failed to love. And leaning into that, it's remarkable. We're also going to talk about something that a lot of people have a lot of questions about. We're talking about indulgences today. And so one of the questions is, wait, you guys still believe in indulgences? And the answer is, look at paragraphs 1471-1473. The answer is a big yes. And we'll talk about that today. Before we launch into today, let's take a moment and just call upon the name of Jesus Christ and pray in the Holy Spirit to God our Father, Father in Heaven. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the great sacrament of reconciliation. We thank you for the mercy that comes to us through the ministry of your church, through the ministry of your priests. We ask that you please draw us closer to your heart. Please reconcile us to yourself. Help us, especially those of us who have hardened hearts to you, to your mercy, to your grace, to love. Help us to have softened hearts that are open to your grace, hearts that are willing to to race to you. Lord God, draw all of us to take the next opportunity to say yes to you in confession. Help us to be purified from all of our attachments to sin. 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 202. We are reading paragraphs 1468 to 1473. The effects of this Sacrament the whole power of the sacrament of penance consists in restoring us to God's grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship. Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of penance with contrite heart and religious disposition, reconciliation is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation. Indeed, the sacrament of reconciliation with God brings about a true spiritual resurrection, restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God. This sacrament reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church, which suffered from the sin of one of her members. Re established or strengthened in the communion of saints. The sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland. As St. John Paul II stated, it must be recalled that this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations which repair the other breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his innermost truth. He is reconciled with his brethren, whom he has in some way offended and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church he is reconciled with all creation. In this sacrament, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life. For it is now in this life that we are offered the choice between life and death and it is only by the road of conversion that we can enter the kingdom from which one is excluded by grave sin. In converting to Christ through penance and faith, the sinner passes from death to life and does not come into judgment. Indulgences the doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of penance. What is an indulgence? An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian, who is duly disposed, gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church, which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. An indulgence is partial or plenary, according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin. The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead. The punishments of sin. To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the eternal punishment of sin. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures which must be purified either here on earth or after death in the state called purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the temporal punishment of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin. But temporal punishment of sin remains while patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds. And when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive, by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the old man and to put on the new man. All right, there we are. Day 202, paragraphs 1468 to 1473. You guys, we're going to talk about indulgences in a second, but let's highlight first the effects of the sacrament of reconciliation. What an incredible grace. Love. The first sentence restoring us to God's grace, joining us with him in an intimate friendship, this is remarkable. I think, obviously, the whole power of sacrament, of penance, reconciliation is we're forgiven of our sins, but also realize we are restored, we are restored to our relationship with God. One of the things that we realize is that, you know, St. Paul has said, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So here, you can picture it like this. This is my image. You're trucking along, trucking along, and you're going at, like, I don't know how to do this visually when you can't see me. But you're going around at a level. You're at level seven, okay? You're at level seven and you're trucking along, trucking along. And then, bam, big deal sin. And you crash. You're down to zero, right? You lose it all. When we come to the Lord in confession, when we come to the Lord in the sacrament of mercy, he doesn't just elevate us back up to level seven. Or sometimes we might even think, well, now I'm at a level four, I got to work back up to seven. Like, no, that's not how it works. God's grace restores us and elevates us. So grace does this. It elevates and perfects. So it brings us back to 7. But because of God's grace, now it's 7.5, now it's an 8. The idea behind this thing, again, just the. The imagery here is where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more where I fall and am raised back up by the Lord. When you let God do that, you're actually holier after the fact than if you had never sinned in some mysterious way, right? And in fact, this is so profound, it's such a mystery in Paul's letter when he says this, but he addresses the next question. Because the next question is, wait a second. If when I fall and let God forgive me, I'm even holier than I was, if I didn't fall at all, then why not just keep sinning and get holier and holier? And that's why Paul says, by no means don't do that. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically says, don't do that. But because we recognize the great, incredible grace of humbly coming before the Lord, allowing him to pick us up, restore us to an intimate friendship, and reconcile us, the abundance of mercy that comes to us is remarkable, which is one of the reasons why, says in paragraph 1468, this reconciliation is usually followed by peace and Serenity of conscience, with strong spiritual consolations. There is a true spiritual resurrection, restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God. Imagine. Imagine. Here is God, the God we've offended, the God that we've said no to, the God that we've said. God, I know what you want. I don't care. I want what I want. Who restores us to friendship with Him. True friendship. Just consider that for one moment. I don't know if you've ever paused to even reflect on the fact that here is the source of all being, the Source of all good, the source of all truth, of all love, the Creator of everything that exists, who knows your name and wants you to exist. And not only that, but it matters to him whether or not we choose Him. It matters to him what we do. We have these small, seemingly insignificant lives on this planet that last however long they last. And for whatever reason, for some crazy reason, it matters to God what we do during this life, because he wants to be our friends. That just blows my mind. It should be something that we pray about on a regular basis, because. And then when we fail, it matters to him. Matters to him so much that he died for us, to restore us to friendship. Confession also, one of the effects of confession is in 1469. It reconciles us with the Church. And remember, when one member suffers, we all suffer. When one member is strengthened, we are all strengthened. And I love how it says this. It says, in the sense penance, reconciliation does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but also has a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church, which suffered from the sin of one of her members. Like that, the recognition is, yes, we really believe that all the members suffer when one of us says no to the Lord. We all suffer in some remarkably mysterious way. And yet to be healed. When one of us is healed, we're all healed in some remarkably mysterious way. And it's just incredible. Again, let's highlight this in paragraph 1469. Re established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the body of Christ. Remember, made stronger, even stronger afterwards. Say, well, in what way are we made stronger? Well, maybe a bunch of ways. Here's one way we recognize that the source of all. I don't want to say the source of all sin, but kind of the source of all sin. The primary sin that leads us away from the Lord is pride, is that sense of, I can live my life without the Lord. What do we need in order to return to confession? Well, we need the opposite of pride. We need humility. And if the greatest of all vices in some ways is pride, then the greatest of all virtues in some way. In some way would be humility. I mean, obviously St. Paul says the greatest of these is love, which, yes, I'm not going to argue with Scripture, but we recognize that what brings us back to the Lord after we've fallen? Well, a spirit of humility, a spirit of humble trust. Humble trust in God's mercy and God's love for each one of us. And so keep that in mind. We keep growing. These are some of the ways we keep growing when we fall and come back to the Lord. How am I growing? Even if I'm not growing in faithfulness, I am growing in humility. But then that leads to growth and faithfulness. Last thing before we go talk about indulgences. In 1470, in the sacrament, the sinner placing himself before the merciful judgment of God anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which you'll be subjected at the end of his earthly life. We recognize that we are given the choice in this life between life and death, between God and anything other than God. And God will give us what we've chosen to be able to choose confession, to choose God's mercy, to choose the grace that he offers to us is anticipation for death. Where I want to at my death, I want to choose God. And so in so many powerful ways, going to confession is choosing to allow the Lord to love me as I am. And that's what I'm going to say once again. What is confession? What is the whole Christian life? The Christian life in so many ways is the revelation that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that all those who believe in him would not perish but would have eternal life. And so here's the message, the invitation. God loves you. All of Christianity can be boiled down to this question and this answer. Will you give God permission to love you as you are? That's the question. What's the answer? Will you give God permission to love you as you are in so many ways? Going to confession, saying, okay, God, this is where I'm at. This is what I've struggled with. This is where I've failed. This is where my heart has been hardened. This is where my heart has been broken. This is where I've hurt other people. This is where I've hurt myself. This is where I've violated your laws, your commands. I violated your love. I've thrown it back in your face. And I will let you love me as I am. This is the heart of the Christian life. And this is the heart of confession. This is the choice every one of us will get to make and have to make in the course of our entire lives. Will I choose God? Meaning will I let him love me as I am, do his will, or will I choose anything other than God? And that leads us to the indulgences. Will I choose God, or will I choose anything other than God? Now, okay, we have a big definition of indulgences. Let's look at this. First of all, you could say the question I asked at the beginning. Wow, you guys still believe in indulgences? Yes. Here it is in the catechism. Well, what is it? First of all, it's in a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. Okay, so that's just the very beginning. That's the beginning of a very long sentence given to us by Pope Paul vi, the definition of indulgence. So it's the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. Now, we'll talk about the rest of the definition in just a second, but let's highlight. What are we talking about? Well, there's a double consequence of sin. So that's in paragraph 1472. Double consequence of sin. The first consequence of sin is eternal punishment. We are eternally separated from God. When I say to God, God, I know what you want. I don't care. I want what I want. I'm separating myself from the Lord. And there's an eternal consequence. What's the eternal consequence? Well, I don't spend eternity with God. Right. Hell is the other way to say it. The eternal consequence of sin is. Is Hell. Okay, what happens? Jesus, in his great love and mercy, has taken care of the eternal consequences of sin by dying on the cross for us. Because of that, you and I, when we get baptized, we're reconciled with the Lord. When we, after baptism, go to confession, we're reconciled with the Lord. Our guilt has been forgiven. That eternal consequence of sin has been dealt with. So let's even use that word. You know, in paragraph 1471, it says the temporal punishment due to sin. And in 1472, it uses the word that I really like a lot more. It's consequence. So temporal consequence due to sin, or the eternal consequence due to sin. Why do I like that more? Just a little pause. A little caveat here. I like the term consequence instead of punishment because our minds are so distorted that when we think punishment, sometimes we think that this vengeful God who's like, inflicting punishment from without, right? Who God's just saying, like, this is what I'm going to do to you versus consequence is, oh, this is just what happens. Like, this is an intrinsic reality. This is just the cause and effect, right? This is the. I'll say it like, say it five more times. This is the natural or supernatural consequence of what I've chosen. And the consequence of what I've chosen. The eternal consequence is if I say no to God, then I get not God. The temporal consequence of sin is my heart is now distorted when I choose to say, God, I know what you want. I want what I want. Not only is there an eternal consequence that Jesus pays the price of and that we get absolved of in confession, but there's also a temporal consequence. What I mean by that is that again, my heart is distorted now. I'm now attached to these things. So think about your own life. Maybe there was a time where you committed one sin for the first time and it was a big deal. Like, you were like, oh, my goodness, what have I done? You've just, you looked at yourself and thought, I need to get to confession as quickly as I can, as soon as I can. And maybe you did that. You experienced that relief of going to confession and just that, okay, I'm reconciled to the Lord, I'm forgiven of my sins. And the next time you committed that same sin, it's like, wait a second, I'm a little less hurt by that, a little less bothered by that. And also it was easier to choose that sin. And then the next time it was even easier to choose that sin. And the next time it was even easier to choose that sin. We call that is. We call that an attachment to sin. We recognize that all of us, sometimes we have a healthy attachment to creatures like the God's gifts. Sometimes we have an unhealthy attachment to God's gifts. Sometimes we have an unhealthy attachment to. To sins. Even though I've been forgiven of this sin, even though I don't want it in my life, I still have an attachment to it. We call that the temporal consequence of having chosen the sin. My heart is now distorted. It's easier to choose it in the future. And I kind of don't know if I can live without this Thing. Think of any bad habit that you and I have ever, have ever developed. At some point you're like, ah, man, I know I need to stop that. I know I need to, you know, stop chewing or smoking or drinking or whatever the thing is. But we say like, ah, but when am I going to stop? Like, when am I going to stop? We have an attachment to that thing. It might not even be, even be an addiction, but it is something that holds us back from the fullness of life. It holds us back from freedom. That is a temporal consequence of having chosen the thing. Okay, we understand, hopefully we understand now that there is an eternal consequence of sin. That's hell. Jesus has dealt with that when we're forgiven. And there's a temporal consequence of sin, and that is the attachments that we have to that sin because of this. It's one of the reasons why we talked about the other day. We do penances after confession. It's like the rehab. It's like the physical therapy after a surgery. But there's also the grace that God has given to the church. And the grace God has given to the church is called an indulgence. And so the definition of indulgence goes on. Remember, it says indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment or consequence due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. Goes on to say which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed, like you're open to this, gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church, which as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction of Christ and the saints. Now that sounds like a mouthful of words, and it is, but here's what it means. It means that the Church has the ability to. Because God has given her the authority, the Church has the ability to say, okay, if you do these actions, these are the kind of actions that heal you. These are the kind of actions that will remove those attachments of your heart to sin. The actions that remove the attachments of your heart, the unhealthy attachments of your heart to creatures. And so typically when performing an indulgence, there are four aspects to it. So the first one is the action itself. And the action could be, pray the Stations of the Cross in a church or oratory, or pray the Rosary on Divine Mercy Sunday, or pray the Divine Mercy chaplet on Divine Mercy Sunday, or do whatever the thing is, like write the action. The second part is to receive Holy Communion. The third part is to go to confession within a week of doing that thing, especially for a plenary indulgence, right? Or a full indulgence. And finally, the fourth part is to pray for the Holy Father. So to pray for the intentions of the Pope. Now, big question. Why would these four things be important? Well, first of all, the action itself is that rehab, right? It's that physical therapy. It's me saying yes to something the Church has asked me to do. Remember, the source of all sin is pride. It's me saying, God, I know what you want. I don't care. I want what I want. But when I do what the Church is asking of me, I'm walking in humility, right? So it's healing in that case. Secondly, receiving Holy Communion is important because this is receiving the very body and blood of our Lord. This is communion with the Church, is communion with our Lord himself. It's this strength. And again, remember, Holy Communion, the Eucharist is the great remedy for sin. So secondly, Holy Communion. Thirdly, going to confession is important because it means that I'm reconciled, right? I'm forgiven by the Lord and His mercy, he's dealt with the eternal punishment of sin. And lastly, praying for the Holy Father is important because it's me recognizing that my sin has not only affected my own heart and my relationship with the Lord, it's also affected my relationship with the whole Church. Remember, we don't exist in isolation. We're part of the Body of Christ. So when I pray for the Holy Father, I'm praying for the universal Church. And so these four things, these four aspects that make up indulgences, are remedies that heal our hearts. Okay, so all of this, what does it all entail? It all requires God's grace, and all requires our cooperation with God's grace. Like we could do. None of this, none of this is possible without God's grace. None of this is possible without God having given his authority to the Church to bind and to loose. Keep this in mind. Who is the Church to say, you know, that this is an indulgence and that's not an indulgence? Well, remember Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God, gave to Peter and to the Apostles the authority to bind and to loose. This is an exercise of that authority that Jesus Christ has given to His Church. This is one of the reasons why we are able to lean into indulgences. Now, you can obtain an indulgence for yourself, or you can apply them to the dead. So you might say, well, I think I'm okay. Maybe you are okay, but there is someone I love who has passed away, someone I love who has died. And I want to apply this indulgence to that person, to the purification of their heart, to the freedom of their soul. I want them to experience the grace of God in heaven, in eternity, quickly and soon. Well, then you can look it up. Look up plenary indulgence, look up or even partial indulgence. Let's look up indulgences that you can do, that you can pray and say, I apply the grace of this indulgence to my wife. I apply the grace of this indulgence to my deceased husband, or to my kids, or to my parents, my grandparents, my friend, who I don't know if anyone's praying for him or her. But to do that is to exercise the communion of saints, which is what we're going to talk about tomorrow. That fact that you're not alone and we're not alone. It's been a long day. I'll tell you this. You're not alone in this day. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.