The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 319: Summary of the Seventh Commandment (2024)

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

We have reached the In Brief section, or nugget day, on the seventh commandment. Father Mike reiterates that the right to private property comes from our dignity as humans, and the Church has a duty to weigh in on economic or social matters where that dignity is threatened. He challenges us to ask ourselves, do we see Jesus in “the distressing disguise of the poor” and just walk by him, or do we respond to him? Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2450-2463. 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 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 319. We're reading paragraphs 2450 to 2463. As always, I am using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes 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 and your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash DIY and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates Daily notifications you though have been here for 319 days and you know what today means paragraph 2450 to 2463 What are they they are nuggets and so we are coming to the conclusion of the seventh commandment And so we have the summary, you know, I don't know if I mentioned this before I used to skip all the nuggets. I used to skip all the in briefs. Well, I already read the paragraph. Why do I need to read the in brief? There's something really, I'll say it like this,

pedagogically effective. So you kind of learn it when you have this summary. I remember hearing someone once said, actually many people have once said that when you give a talk, if you can't summarize what you just said in one sentence, then you probably don't even know what it was you were trying to communicate. All of these nuggets are basically one sentence and all these nuggets of one

sentence are like, yeah, that was that. That was, this is a summary of what that section was about. This is a summary of what this section is about. And so, you know, my appreciation for nugget day has grown and grown over the last 319 days, which brings us to today, the summary of the seventh commandment. Let us pray as we launch into nugget day. I didn't want to, I did want to rhyme there. That was intentional.

Here we go. Mother in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing us all the way, all the way through this catechism in year to this day. And thank you for bringing us a year to this day. And thank you for bringing us through life to this day. Lord God, we ask that you please continue, continue to challenge us, continue to convict our hearts

where our hearts are not like yours, where we don't love what you love, where when we don't see the way you see, then we don't act the way you are calling us. And you've created and redeemed us to act we ask that you please send your Holy Spirit to come and meet us in this moment send your Holy Spirit to come and continue to guide us to continue to convict and console us as we are reminded of your

high call the high call of the disciple when it comes to the use of goods we make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. It is Day 319. We are reading Nuggets 2450-2463. In brief, you shall not steal. Neither thieves nor the greedy nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The Seventh Commandment enjoins the practice of justice and charity in the administration of earthly goods and the fruits of men's labor. The goods of creation are destined for the entire human race. The right to private property does not abolish the universal destination of goods. The Seventh Commandment forbids theft. Theft is the usurpation of another's goods against the reasonable will of the owner. Every manner of taking and using another's property unjustly is contrary to the Seventh Commandment.

The injustice committed requires reparation. Commutative justice requires the restitution of stolen goods. The Moral Law forbids acts which, for commercial or totalitarian purposes, lead to the enslavement of human beings, or to their being bought, sold or exchanged like merchandise. The dominion granted by the Creator over the mineral, vegetable and animal resources of the universe cannot be separated from respect for moral obligations, including those toward generations to come. Animals are entrusted to man's stewardship.

He must show them kindness. They may be used to serve the just satisfaction of man's needs. The Church makes a judgment about economic and social matters when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it. She is concerned with the temporal common good of men, because they are ordered to the sovereign good, their ultimate end. Man is himself the author, center, and goal of all economic and social life. The decisive point of the social question is that goods created by God for everyone should in fact reach everyone in accordance with justice and with the help of charity.

The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and beneficiary. By means of his labor, man participates in the work of creation. Work united to Christ can be redemptive. True development concerns the whole man. It is concerned with increasing each person's ability to respond to his vocation and hence to God's call. Giving alms to the poor is a witness to fraternal charity. It is also a work of justice pleasing to God. How can we not recognize Lazarus, the hungry beggar in the parable, in the multitude of human beings without bread, a roof, or a place to stay? How can

we fail to hear Jesus, as you did it not to one of the least of these? You or a place to stay. How can we fail to hear Jesus as you did it not to one of the least of these? You did it not to me. There we have it, paragraphs 24.50 to 24.63, or nuggets 24.50 to 24.63. As I said in the intro, the power, I think, that the wisdom of having an in-brief, of having this summarized,

what we've been walking through for the last number of days in the seventh commandment, to have it summarized like this, makes it absolutely clear what we're called to. So not just not take other people's property, but also that people can have property, right? There's a right to private property. And there's this thing called

the universal destination of goods, right? That the resources of the world are meant to meet the needs of the world that the resources that are provided for us are meant to meet the needs of those of all of us and that recognition that if that if that's the case then I might need to have my lens reshaped right remember remember we do be in when it came to the Bible in a year, we recognized that what that was doing is giving us a biblical worldview. And this is what the Catechism in a year is doing as well.

It's giving us a scriptural and Catholic worldview, which is meant to be the worldview of God himself. How does God look at the world? How does God look at stuff? How does God look at labor? And how does God look at creation? And finally, how does God look at need, right? How does he look at labor? And how does God look at creation? And finally, how does God look at need, right? How does he look at the poor?

And so we have this, we have this right to private property because you have dignity. Therefore you have a right to own stuff. You have a right not to have that stuff stolen. You have a right that if that stuff is stolen, that you have a right to reparation, the restitution of stolen goods, or you have a duty to do that

if you take someone else's stuff. You have a duty to give them reparation or to give them back their stuff. Also, human beings with their dignity may never be enslaved or never treated like merchandise. That we remember, we say this so many times, that human beings are always meant to be loved, things are meant to be used, never the other way around.

And also animals, creation, that those are things, creation in animal, yeah, we meant to treat animals with kindness, at the same time, we can have the just use of animals, provided that we remember that we are stewards and that animals, by their very existence, are stewards and that animals by their very existence they bless and glorify God. That's so good and the church paragraph or nugget 2458 highlights this it says the church makes a

judgment about economic and social matters then the church does this and the church can do this can make a judgment about economic and social matters it goes on to say when when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it and that it makes sense for the church to be involved or for members of the church who have had their heart, their worldview, their life shaped by the revelation of God in the church for them to make an impact on economic or social or political life. Why? Because the church is concerned, as it goes

on to say 2458, the church is concerned with the temporal common good of men. Why? Because the temporal common good of men is ordered to the sovereign good, their ultimate end. And so this recognition of, you know, how we live this life matters for eternity. And if people are being objectified, if people are being trodden upon, if people are not being lifted up and not treated as individuals made in God's image, then the church will weigh in. And if there's economic systems that are unjust, the church is gonna weigh in. If there are social systems and social structures and political structures that are not just, the church is going to weigh in. Why? Because it that has to do with the dignity of the rights of the human person and the salvation of souls.

So important. Paragraph 2459 once again reminds us that what is the center of all economic and social life? The human person. That is the author, the center, and the goal of all economic and social life is the human person. And so then goes on to say in paragraph 2459, the decisive point of the social question is that goods created by God for everyone should in fact reach everyone in accordance with justice and with the help of charity.

And that work, every work, all labor is a gift. All labor has value. I know we've mentioned this before. Let's take a moment. This catechism even mentioned Christ the carpenter, that Jesus worked with his hands for years. But have we talked about this, that the Greek word that is used in scripture

for what Jesus and Joseph did, how they made their living, is the Greek word tecton, T-E-K-T-O-N, if I believe, you know, the English rendering of the Greek word tecton. And tecton can mean craftsman, right? It can mean carpenter in the sense of what we think of when we think of a carpenter We think of like, you know The the carpenters workshop where they're working with wood and they're making tables and chairs kind of like in in the movie the passion

Of the Christ when they have the flashback to Jesus and building a table building some chairs That it can mean that but the word tecton, kind of overarchingly, simply means laborer. So it can mean someone who works in wood. It also can mean someone who works in stone, like a mason. It also can mean someone who simply carries stone. I remember reading a book by Fr. Benedict Rochelle years ago about St. Joseph. And in it, he kind of dived, dove, he went a little deeply into his kind of just his imagination of what could it have been that Joseph and Jesus did when they worked. And he described how at the time of Jesus's youth,

there was a city that was being built a couple of miles from Nazareth. And it is likely, he proposed, it is likely that Jesus and Joseph would get up every morning and they would walk to wherever the construction of this city was going on and all day they might have just hauled rocks. That was it, just hauling rocks so that people could build their homes, haul rocks so that people could, you know,

pave the roads, just haul rocks all day. And it could be the case, I'm not saying this is the case, it could be the case that that is what was meant by, oh, we know who Jesus is, isn't he the son of Joseph the tecton? Isn't he the son of Joseph, the guy who just carried rocks all day? Isn't he, Jesus is even called the carpenter, isn't he just the tecton?

Isn't he just the guy who carried rocks all day? If that's the case, or if it's the case that Jesus was a carpenter in the way that we like to imagine, what we're trying to say is in paragraph 2460, the primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and beneficiary, that by means of his labor, man participates in the work of creation, and work united to Christ can be redemptive, all work. In this recognition, I tell this to the star students all the time. There is no such thing as work that's beneath you because here is here is God Himself who

for 30 years before he preached and healed and for you saved the world he worked as a tecton. Carpenter, mason, guy who carried rocks. No such thing as work that's beneath me. No such thing as work that's beneath me. No such thing as work that's beneath you. Because our God Himself has sanctified all labor. And lastly, of course, the fact that the nuggets at the end highlight the fact that God has a preferential option for those who are in need. God has a preferential option for those who are the weakest and most vulnerable among us. God has a preferential option for the poor and remember that that parable Of Lazarus that's that's cited in paragraph 2463 from from Luke chapter 17 the the poor man Lazarus

Who was ignored by the rich man remember remember how that ended that? Lazarus was in a place of peace in Abraham's bosom and the rich man was in a place of torment Not because it says the rich man was a horrible and Every morning he saw Lazarus sitting there and kicked him as he walked by doesn't say that He just simply saw Lazarus and ignored him. He saw this person in need and he ignored him and this is this is the ultra convicting thing for you and for me is Who are the people around me

who are in need. I don't want to ignore Jesus. I don't want to see Jesus in what Mother Teresa called the distressing disguise of the poor and just walk by him. Not only because I want to save my soul but also because if that's Jesus I don't ever want to miss him. Also, but here's the big question, what do you do? Right? What do we do when we see the Lord in the distressing disguise of the poor? Do we stop every time we see a person on the side of the road?

I don't know. Do we stop every time someone and give something to someone every time they ask for it? I don't know the answer to that question. And yet what we need to do is ask, if this was Jesus asking me, what would I say? That's one of the ways we can move forward. Again I don't know the answer to the question but I do know that we've been given a challenge by God himself and

that challenge is to see him in the least of these. So I hope I pray that all of us live up to that challenge. Tomorrow we're gonna move on move on and talk about the 8th commandment bearing false witness. But today, I want to let you know that I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Micah and I can't wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.