The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 255: Human Solidarity (2024)

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Together, with Fr. Mike, we reach the conclusion of the article on Social Justice. Fr. Mike emphasizes that although we have a right to private property, we also have a duty to meet the needs of those around us. Every human being has a right to what they need to thrive in this life. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1939-1948. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in 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 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 families. We journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 255.

We're reading paragraphs from 1939 to 1948. 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 slash C-I-Y. You can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications, one quick note, just a thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast with prayers financial gifts

We couldn't do this without you We definitely could not make it to day 255 and also you made it today 255 We are in the next section where we're on the last day of chapter 2 of pillar 3 section 1 You know I'm saying so today we're concluding with community. We started in this pillar with human dignity. Then community. Tomorrow we're launching into salvation, which I think, well, this has been fascinating, right?

I think I, hopefully you've been fascinated by this, but it's really incredible that we're gonna be able to start talking about, okay, so what is the moral law, the natural moral law, especially the old law, the new law or the law of the gospel? And what, how does grace work in us and justification? What is that? What's merit? What's the role of merit? All those things we're going to start talking about tomorrow. Today, we're talking about human solidarity. Yesterday, you probably remember because it was only yesterday, we talked about equality and differences between people,

that we all have this equality when it comes to our dignity as being made in God's image and likeness. And the fact that Christ has died for every person, whether they know it or not, whether they've accepted that, the grace that he's offering them or not. And God has a destination for every one of us. And that destination is that he wants us to go to heaven. We can say yes to that, we can say no to that.

Because of that, we have this new, not new thing, but today we're introducing the concept of human solidarity. And human solidarity is this principle that might be, you might say, use the word friendship. You might use the word social charity, but solidarity is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. Basically, remember I think I've quoted

Mother Teresa a thousand times, and actually it's funny, you know, the quote is that if we have no peace, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to one another. I was thinking about where did I get that? Why is that one quote from Mother Teresa stuck in my head all of the time? And I realized that my mom, my mom who just had, you know, plaques all over the place, like over every door, you know, from Hobby Lobby or wherever they go, Michaels or maybe some other Catholic store. And there's all these quotes, right? You know, faith, family, fellowship or whatever.

Prayers go up, blessings come down. Some of these plaques, you know, you know what I'm talking about. My mom, one of them, I just was visiting my dad and I was just like, oh my gosh, that's where it is. There's Mother Teresa's quote. If we have no peace, it's because we've forgotten we belong to each other, Mother Teresa.

So my mom put that up and now it's in my heart. It's just like so many things, so many things we get from our family, from our parents, so many things I've gotten from my mom and dad. And that's what we talked about yesterday, right? We're not born the same. We're born equal, but we need each other. And so human solidarity is that sense

that you know something that I don't, and I might have something that you don't. And so in order to flourish in order to have a society that is like the society that God wants for us we need to have this friendship we need to have this social charity we need to have this human solidarity so we're talking about that today as well as at the end of this we got some nuggets we got a few nuggets and honestly you know how long can you go without some nuggets I don't know if I don't know how long I can last without nuggets.

So today, here we are, get some nuggets at the end of this chapter two on community. But in order to launch into human solidarity, as well as the nuggets at the end, let's call upon our heavenly Father. Father in heaven, you are good. In the name of Jesus, we ask you to please, receive our thanks.

Always receive our praise. Receive the glory that is yours. Oh God, we ask that you be known. That not only are you known in far-off places by people who have not yet heard of you, but also that you be known by us, by your children, those you have redeemed by the blood of your Son and brought to new birth through baptism and brought into your church. Help us to know you. And in knowing you to glorify you and knowing you to love you and in knowing you to also do your will.

Father, we ask that you please in the name of Jesus send that spirit, the spirit helps us to know you so that we can see you as you truly are and that we can see each other as we truly are, both in our strengths and our weaknesses, and to be brothers and sisters to the human race, to be neighbors to our neighbors, and to love and pray for our enemies. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It's day 255. We're reading paragraphs in 1939 to 1948. Human Solidarity The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of friendship or social charity, is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. Pope Pius XII stated, An error, today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality and

rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the cross to his heavenly Father on behalf of sinful humanity. Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation. Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity.

Solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business. Solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order. World peace depends in part upon this. The virtue of solidarity goes beyond material goods. In spreading the spiritual goods of the faith,

the Church has promoted and often opened new paths for the development of temporal goods as well. And so throughout the centuries has the Lord's saying been verified, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Pope Pius XII further stated, For two thousand years this sentiment has lived and endured in the soul of the Church, impelling souls then and now to the heroic charity of monastic farmers, liberators of slaves, healers of the sick, and messengers of faith, civilization, and science to all generations and all peoples for the sake of creating the social conditions capable of offering to everyone possible a life worthy of man and of a Christian.

In brief, society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due. Respect for the human person considers the other another self. It presupposes respect for the fundamental rights that flow from the dignity intrinsic of the person. The equality of men concerns their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it. The differences among persons belong to God's plan who wills that we should need one another. These differences should encourage charity.

The equal dignity of human persons requires the effort to reduce excessive social and economic inequalities. It gives urgency to the elimination of sinful inequalities. Solidarity is an eminently Christian virtue. It practices the sharing of spiritual goods even more than material ones. Right? There we have it. Paragraphs 1939 to our nuggets at the end, 1948. You know, human solidarity. Again, we can say this again and again because it's needed to be said again and again. All that we're talking about here, remember this human solidarity,

the fact that for the Christian, we're gonna hear this again when it comes to the commandment about stealing, about private property. That private property is a good. That is one of the principles of Catholic social teaching, that every person has a right to private property. At the same time, there's another Catholic social teaching called the universal destination of goods. So at one and the same time, the church holds on to these two things. The one is you have a right to your own property, you have a right to your own stuff,

and at the same time, the universal destination of goods, which means that there are enough resources in this world for all people. And that if there are some people who are not receiving the resources that they need to survive, that they need to thrive, then there is an imbalance. Then there needs to be a change in things, right? So my right to private property at some place, at some level, it ceases when we meet the

needs of those around us. But again, it doesn't cease by force. We talked about this yesterday. There's no legislation, there's no law that can change the human heart. We have this brokenness, we have prejudices, we have selfishness, we have greed in our own hearts, and no law can change that. What can change that is grace. What can change that is grace. What can change that is recognizing, okay, I belong to the Lord and here is how good

God is. God emptied himself. He poured himself out, took the form of a human being. And in that life, he continued to pour himself out. He embraced poverty. He gave himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. And so I need to have that same attitude. I need to have that same mindset that it belongs to Jesus Christ. So, you know, we're going to hear this later on.

But if I guess you have a right to private property, I have a right to private property. But because I've been loved in this way and because we have this human solidarity, we have friendship, we have brotherhood. If my brother, if my friend is going without, then I have the right and also I have the duty to use my private property for the needs of my brother, for the needs of my friend, for the needs of my neighbors. That make sense? So it's not enforced, right? It's not legislated.

It's not from law, it's from grace. But it's rooted again in this, it's rooted in justice. It's rooted in justice. That it belongs to the dignity of every human being that he or she has what they need, not simply to scrape through life, but they have what they need to thrive in this life. They have what they need to be able to say yes to the Lord.

And so what I get to do, I get to, when it comes to human solidarity, when it comes to friendship, when it comes to social charity, it's a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. I have to ask that question. If this was my actual brother or my actual sister, like the one that I know, the one that I love,

the one that I would do anything for, if this was them, what would I do then? And this is just so important because it all has to start on an individual level. Yes, it goes to social realms, it goes to associations. In fact, paragraph 1941 talks about this. It says that those socioeconomic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity, right? So we need solidarity among the poor themselves,

between the rich and the poor, workers among themselves, being employees and employees in a business, between nations and peoples, and that all those forms of solidarity where we begin to see each other as brothers and sisters, that's where it has to start. And so what it involves is involves putting on a new lens, putting on a new lens and saying, okay, this person, this stranger, okay, the stranger is my friend, the stranger is my brother,

the stranger is someone for whom Christ died, the stranger is someone, I mean, in some ways we do it like this, right? How do you do this? I would say oftentimes I have to remind myself of this. When I see someone who, for lack of a better way to describe it, someone who, I'm like, are they just there to take advantage of me?

Are they, you know, saying maybe someone begging, that kind of situation. Are they just there, are they gonna take what I'm offering them and they're gonna use it to buy drugs or buy alcohol or just waste it on themselves? One of the things I have to ask is, okay, do I remember that they have a mom? Do I remember that they have a mom? Do I remember that they have a dad? Do I remember that at some point, at some point there was someone

for whom this person in front of me was everything? And even if that individual in front of me never actually had that, to realize, oh, maybe this is someone right in front of me Who had never really loved by their mom was never really loved by their father. They They were never chosen by someone else And my heart has to go out to them. Yes, of course You know the answer is not just money right the answer is not just give this person money

Oftentimes as we all know one of the main reasons for people who are homeless, yes, can be drug addiction or can be alcohol addiction, also mental illness. And that sense of being able to say, what can we do not just to throw money at a person, but to treat a person like a person. And that's why paragraph 1942 highlights this. It says the virtue of solidarity goes beyond material goods.

That it's not just giving a person what they're asking for. It's not just giving them 20 bucks. It's not just giving them whatever the thing is. Although that's, I mean sometimes it starts there, right? Obviously. But it involves seeing a person. Again, if my brother was on the street, would I say, here's 20 bucks, I'm praying for you?

Or would there be something more? Would I say, how have you been? How's your day? And oftentimes, again, that's so small, isn't it? It's so small, just how are you? How are you doing? But sometimes it involves just treating people like people. Now I'm using this extreme example of a homeless person,

but let's make it applicable to right now to maybe your day and you have that coworker. And maybe that the coworker that you love, the coworker you enjoy, their presence, maybe it's that coworker that is kind of tough to talk to when they stop by your desk or stop by wherever you're working. It's kind of like, okay, the quicker I can get away from this conversation, the better. And, you know, a lot of us know people like that, where we find ourselves looking for the exit the moment they show up.

Maybe for that person we realize, okay, this is human solidarity. And again, this is not necessarily the same thing as here's a homeless person who needs material help, they need something from my kitchen or they need something from my wallet. But maybe it's, here's just a person who is like me, material help, they need something from my kitchen or they need something from my wallet. But maybe it's, here's just a person who is like me

or is like my sister or is like my brother and they just need some time and attention. Because how many of us, how many of us just, that's all I need, I don't actually need your money, I don't need your extra coat, I don't need, but you know, it would be really nice for someone to look me in the eye and say, how are you? I don't need your extra coat. I don't need but you know, it would be really nice for someone to Look me in the eye and say how are you and let me answer them

So again, it could be the person on the street could be the homeless person or it could be the person Maybe the person you sleep next to You know, we know this all the time that there are a lot of married couples who, they just find themselves, okay, we become roommates. And not even like really fun roommates, but just kind of like roommates who tolerate each other. And how would that change if just today, when maybe you asked your spouse, how are you? And then gave them a chance to respond

without rushing off to the next thing. I don't know, again, here I am. This is a big community, and every one of us is coming from a different place. Every one of us has different opportunities to help others, and every one of us has different needs in our own hearts. We all have these different situations, and so I'm just throwing out some of these opportunities

or some of these maybe what might be the case. This might be one of the ways that God is asking you today to exercise friendship to exercise social charity to exercise human solidarity I don't know but maybe you do again I don't know how God's calling you to move forward today but maybe you do and maybe it's going to be really hard maybe it's something that you've tried before and have been shot down in which case Let's pray for each other Because we're all in different situations. We're all in different circumstances we all have different degrees of of courage and different degrees of patience and different degrees of a

Willingness to love because we all have different degrees of wounds Let's pray for each other. I'm telling you I'm praying for you. I really am. Please pray for me My name is Father Mike I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless