← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 219: Marriage in God’s Plan (2025)
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Together, with Fr. Mike, we begin the section on the sacrament of holy Matrimony. We unpack two elements of the sacrament, namely marriage in the order of creation and marriage under the regime of sin. Fr. Mike emphasizes that marriage is a partnership between man and woman that is oriented towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1601-1608.
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Fr. Mike Schmitz
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 219. We're reading paragraphs six, 1601 to 1608. 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 lastly, you can click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. As I said today, day 219 yesterday we had our last day of holy orders. Today we have our first day of holy matrimony. You probably already knew that was coming because I mentioned it a bunch of times yesterday. And so as we launch into today, what we're going to see is we're going to see what is marriage in God's plan? So there's two aspects we're looking at first. Then tomorrow we'll look at more aspects about marriage and God's plan. But the first two are marriage in the order of creation and then marriage under the regime of sin. Those are the two kind of like maybe handles we're going to look at today. So how did God intend this to be? What did God intend for marriage to be? And then how do we experience it now in the fact that, you know, we live in a broken world. We have original sin. We have our own actual sins that we tend to choose in our daily lives. And so how do we experience it? So what was God's intention? How do we experience it? And tomorrow we're going to look at marriage under the pedagogy of the law and also marriage in the Lord. So looking at that, but today these two aspects we're looking at more in a deeper way. Just a couple paragraphs each. Marriage in the order of creation. What was God's intention? What's God's vision? What is God's vision for marriage? And then what? What's our experience? What's marriage under the regime of sin like? How do we experience this great gift that's been distorted. It's not lost, but it has been broken in some ways. And so we're looking at those two aspects of marriage as we launch into. Ah, this is so good. You know, I think maybe sometimes you might have. We might think that, oh, we're going to talk now about the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. And we're going to begin by saying, you know, Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is such and such and kind of like this really antiseptic or really kind of sterile vision of it. Not that at all. We're looking at what is marriage in God's plan, which is that the word that comes to mind. Mind is the word robust. I'm not sure if that's the best word, but it is full, it is dynamic, it is active, it's alive. And because God's plan is rightful, it's active, God's plan is alive. And so marriage and God's plan is going to be a great gift. Oh, so. So as we launch into this study, learning about this great gift, maybe even being reminded of some aspects of this great gift, let us call upon our Father and call for the Holy Spirit to come in and guide our minds, enlighten, lighten them, and set our hearts on fire. So we pray. Father in heaven, in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we ask you to please receive our prayer this morning. Through the power of your Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, that you give to us freely and give to us for our sanctification, for our salvation, for our growth in becoming more and more like you. We ask you to please teach us today. We ask you to please help us to be docile to your movement, to your word, to your vision for what marriage is supposed to be, what marriage is meant to be, and also how you can even work in our brokenness and you can still bring beauty out of ashes. So, Lord God, we ask you to please meet us in our need, especially those of us who have had difficult experiences when it comes to the sacrament of Holy matrimony. Those who experience brokenness, those who experience betrayal, those who have experienced hopes that have been crushed. We ask you to please be with all of us who have experienced that brokenness, and please be with us who are preparing for the great gift of matrimony and those who are living in the great sacrament of matrimony. Basically, Lord, be with all of us as we take these first steps in learning about your plan for marriage. 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 219. We are reading paragraphs 1601 to 1608. Article 7. The sacrament of matrimony the matrimonial covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. This covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament. Marriage and God's plan. Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of the wedding feast of the Lamb. Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its mystery, its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations through the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal in the Lord in the new covenant of Christ and the Church. Marriage in the order of creation, the intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. God Himself is the author of marriage. The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution, despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. The well being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life. God, who created man out of love, also calls him to love. The fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God, who is himself. Love. Since God created him, man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good in the Creator's eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another. It is not good that the man should be alone. The woman, flesh of his flesh, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a helpmate she thus represents God, from whom comes our help. Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been in the beginning. So they are no longer two, but one flesh marriage. Under the regime of sin, every man experiences evil around himself and within himself. This experience makes itself felt in the relationships between man and woman. Their union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. This disorder can manifest itself more or less acutely and can be more or less overcome according to the circumstances of cultures, eras, and individuals. But it does seem to have a universal character. According to faith. The disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin as a break with God. The first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations, their mutual attraction, the Creator's own gift changed into a relationship of domination and lust. And the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply and subdue. The earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work. Nevertheless, the order of creation persists, though seriously disturbed. To heal the wounds of sin, man and woman need the help of the grace that God, in His infinite mercy, never refuses them. Without his help, man and woman cannot achieve the union of their lives for which God created them in the beginning. Right there. That's amazing. Paragraph 1601 to 1608. Wow. We have a picture of marriage that is. I don't know if you caught. This is so clear. This is such a clear picture. We live in a culture right now. I mean, you don't need me to tell you this, that what we're talking about right now has been muddled, has been muddied, has been. I don't want to say overlo. Confused. I would say this. Our culture has been talking so much about marriage, is talking about relationships, to talk about men and women and the difficulties that men and women have with each other. But it seems like there's a lot of confusion. And yet in these short paragraphs 1601 to 1608, there is. I get the sense. So much clarity. So let's begin at the very beginning. In paragraph 1601, it kind of basically in some ways just defines what Marriage is. And the whole point of marriage, remember that holy orders and holy matrimony, they're the two sacraments of service. They're oriented not for the individual necessarily, but they're oriented for others. This is a way in which we live our discipleship in Jesus. So paragraph 1601, it says the matrimonial covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life. So even right there, the very beginning, what do we know? Okay, well, a. It's a covenant exchange of persons, not an exchange of goods or services by which a man and a woman. So again, just really clearly, and I mean, you're on day 219, so isn't going to be a shock for anybody. That means marriage is between one man and one woman. So that's very clear. Establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life. So again, it's not with a bunch of people, it's between themselves. And it's a partnership of their entire lives. And it's going to be. This is going to be marked by a couple things. That this is permanent their whole life. That this is faithful their whole life. That this is oriented towards freedom their whole life. And goes on to say it's by its nature ordered toward two things, the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. So this is the point of marriage. And this is one of the. If you want to get to the heart of what marriage is about, it is this partnership of the whole life between a man and a woman. That's by its nature. Now, there's a lot of other good things. There's a lot of other great things that can come from marriage. But the very nature of marriage is oriented towards these two goods, the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. So two ways to look at this are two things to kind of highlight the good of the spouses. So you can get married out of love. That's wonderful. And that's great. As we are going to highlight in the very next paragraph, the mystery of the marriage covenant is that it's an image of the Trinity. It's an image of. Of God himself. So, yes. And Isaiah. Thanks. Paragraph 1604 talks about, here's God who is love, creates us out of love and calls us to love. That this is so, so critical and that in marriage there is an icon of the Trinity. Right. So love is at the heart of this whole thing. I mean, I'm not trying to downplay love. What I'm highlighting Though is even in the midst of that, even in the midst of the fact that marriage is a place that men and women are called to be an image of, live out the image of the Trinity. What's it oriented towards? It's oriented towards the good of the spouses. So here is a man who lays down his life for his brides for her good. And here is a bride who lays down her life for her husband for his good, oriented towards the good of the spouses. So this is, remember, this is, this is a vocation of service. It is not in some ways like a man doesn't get ordained to the priesthood so he can be happy. He doesn't get ordained to the priesthood to fulfill all of his dreams. He hopefully experiences a call to this and is saying yes to a call to take him out of himself. And so that's, that's the good of the spouses. Here is it a vocation of service that you say, yes, because I want your good. And what is love? Love is willing the good of the other. So that's critical. The second part is it's oriented toward the procreation and education of children. Procreation, education of offspring. And this is so important. One of the things that I will almost. I don't want to say it like this. I often maybe say it like that. I will often say the vocation to marriage and the family. Because in our culture right now it seems like the family part, right? The people, more than just husband and wife, have seemed to become optional in our common worldview, in our perspective on this. And yet at the very heart of marriage is, yes, the good of the spouses, husbands willing, the good of the wives, wives willing the good of their husbands. But it's oriented towards the procreation and education of offspring. It's oriented towards family. Now, obviously, as we know, painfully, not all couples can have children naturally. And that's such a difficult, such a heavy and painful cross for so many couples to carry. And yet the relationship is the one of the very nature of the relationship that is oriented towards and ordered towards the procreation and then education of children. Procreation. Because here's. This is where the sexual act happens in the context of marriage. That's the oriented procreation and education, meaning it's not just have as many children biologically as you possibly can. It's because of the stable nature of the relationship, the lifelong, remember the partnership of their whole life, the stable relationship between husband and wife that provides the context for the education of offspring that they can be raised in a stable environment. That's the whole, the whole point. The good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. Now I'm hammering that away because our culture has lost a sense of the true purpose of marriage. And so I don't mean to put too fine a point on that or too heavy a hand on that, but I do want to establish that as being incredibly, incredibly clear now. Ah, there's so much beauty that's communicated in the next few paragraphs. One is that scripture talks all about marriage. It starts with the beginning, Adam and Eve, that marriage of the first man and first woman. It ends with the wedding feast of the Lamb. All throughout the Scriptures, marriage, family is a critical, critical image, especially the relationship of the bridegroom, Jesus to the bride. The church now going on marriage in the order of creation. I mentioned those two handles. Marriage in the order of creation and marriage under the regime of sin. Super important. Marriage is not a purely human institution, that God himself is the author of marriage. And we recognize that marriage predates every culture. Marriage is the building block of society. Marriage is the fundamental building block of society. And makes this point here. The catechism does, in paragraph 1603, it says the well being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life. This is so important. This is man. When, when marriages are healthy, when families are healthy, cultures are healthy. Not only is our secular culture healthy, our Christian culture is healthy. And when you have the, the breakdown of marriage with the breakdown of family, what that's a sign of. That is a sign of a lack of health in our secular culture and a lack of health in our, in our Catholic culture, our Christian family. God calls us by the very, very nature. God calls us to love because he made us in his image like this. We talked about this so many times. Now not everyone has the opportunity, not everyone is called to holy matrimony. But marriage is good, in fact, very good in the Creator's eyes. And this is the love that God blesses and is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of creation. Right, God, what happens the very beginning in Genesis chapter one, God blessed them and he said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. So this is so important. I love this. I want to make a little point here. When we read the Bible in a year and we read the first chapters of Genesis, we talked about the creation of Eve, right? From Adam's side and how God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I should make a helpmate. And that term helpmate, some people could look at that and say what that is like. That's kind of demeaning. And yet the catechism highlights here very, very closely, very clearly that that term helpmate is a scriptural term that doesn't, isn't demeaning. It's not made right. It's not. It's not a butler. It is that word helpmate. The term ezerkonegdo in Hebrew is often used for the Lord. And so it says here, the woman, flesh of his flesh, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a ezer konegado, as a helpmate. She thus represents God from whom comes our help. And that's so important. Again, this is not meant to be demeaning. This is again very, very clearly his equal, his nearest in all things. And yet we live under the regime of sin, right? Because of brokenness, we don't experience this wholeness. We don't experience always happiness or healthiness, health when it comes to our relationships, when it comes to marriage. So because of this, because of sin, the union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. And we know this is true because again, even though marriage is given to us as a great, incredible gift, a lot of so many of us, maybe all of us, have experienced the brokenness and pain of that gift that we recognize not only is jealousy and discord a spirit of domination, infidelity, but even it says here, conflicts that can escalate into hatred, separation. That's that painful reality of living in this broken, broken world. Of course, the catechism highlights that the pain doesn't stem from the nature of man and woman, but it stems from sin. And when we break with God, we break with each other, right? That's what sin does. It breaks us. The relationship we have with God, breaks our relationship with each other, even breaks our own hearts. And that's what happens right away, right? And as, as soon as they eat the. Of the fruit of the treats, our eyes are opened and it says their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations. You know, Eve, Adam says, the woman, you get put here with me. And then Eve says, well, this, you know, the serpent, you know, tricked me into it. Their mutual attraction, which was create the God's, God's gift, was changed into a relationship of domination and lust. And that beautiful vocation to be fruitful, to multiply, subdue the earth is now marked by the pain of childbirth. Fruitful, multiply. Yeah, but now it's painful in childbirth. And subdue the earth. Yeah, but now it's painful in the toil of work. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, God's grace comes to us. And God, in his infinite mercy, never refuses his help. Never refuses us help. And so we recognize this. Without God's help, we cannot achieve the union of our lives. And without God's help, we could never live out the beauty of this high call. Because that's what it is. That's what marriage is. Matrimony given to us by God is a great gift. It's also a high call. And it's a difficult call, clearly, because of sin. And yet so many of you listening. That's your gift, and that's your call. That's your gift, and that's your cross. That's your gift, and that's your burden. And so I'm just praying for you today. I'm just praying that you guys are able to say yes to this gift and say yes to this burden. To say yes to the blessing and to say yes to the cross. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.