The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 320: The Truth (2024)

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

We begin our dive into the eighth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness.” The Catechism defines truth, identifies the importance of truth, and reflects on martyrdom. Fr. Mike unpacks all of this information and reminds us that our duty as Christians is to live in the truth and bear witness to the truth in what we say and how we act. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2464-2474. 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 the 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 the Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 320, we're reading paragraph 2464 to 2474. 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 your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y and you can follow, you can subscribe in your podcast app for these daily updates daily notifications you get the little alert it'd be great also quick thank you it's day 320 and I just want to thank every single person who has supported the production of this podcast thank you for your prayers I don't know if I'd be able to make a day 320 without your prayers and also your financial gifts we could not produce this podcast without your financial gifts they are necessary not produce this podcast without your financial gifts. They are necessary. So thank you so much.

Today in day 320, reading paragraphs, as I said, 2464 to 2474, we're looking at the eighth commandment. We're leaving the seventh commandment behind only in our reading, not in our lives. We need to continue to bring that into our daily lives. The eighth commandment, of course, is, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And so today, as we begin not bear false witness against your neighbor. And so today as we begin

talking about false witness, we begin by talking about the truth. In presenting the eighth commandment, the church is just so clear that what is the truth and how are we called to live? We're called in fact to live in the truth and not only to live in the truth, but we're called to bear witness to the truth. And one of the last little notes we're going to hear today is that the supreme witness that we're giving to the truth of the faith is martyrdom. That actually martyrdom is the living out of the eighth commandment because I'm bearing witness, not false witness, I'm bearing witness to the love of God regardless of where that leads.

And that's what we're all called to. We realize that all of us are called to a degree of God, regardless of where that leads. And that's what we're all called to. We realize that all of us are called to a degree of martyrdom. In fact, in Acts chapter one, what does Jesus say? He says, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you'll be my witnesses. And that word, that Greek word for witness,

is the word martyr. So we were called as Christians to bear witness, and this eighth commandment is holding us to it that we're called to bear witness and to never bear false witness. So as we launch into today, let's say a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory and thank you. We thank you for revealing the truth to us. Thank you for helping us to live in the truth and please continue to help us. Give us your grace so that we can live in the truth and we can bear witness to the truth By what we say and by what we do

Lord God help us help us to never bear false witness Help us to not lie or to live by lies Help us to walk in your grace and to walk in your truth and to always walk in your love That's what we ask Lord truth grace and love Help us to walk in these to live in these and to bear witness to these as we bear witness to you 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 320. We are reading paragraphs 2464 to 2474. Article 8. The Eighth Commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. It was said to the men of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. The Eighth Commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth expressed by word or deed, a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness, they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense,

they undermine the foundations of the covenant. Living in the Truth The Old Testament attests that God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His faithfulness endures to all generations. Since God is true, the members of His people are called to live in the truth. In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest.

Full of grace and truth, he came as the light of the world. He is the truth. Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know the truth that will make you free and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in the Spirit of truth, whom the Father sends in his name and who leads into all the truth. To his disciples, Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth, let what you say be simply yes or no.

Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it. It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons, are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth. Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness, sincerity, or candor. Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy. Men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were

being truthful to one another. The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness keeps to the just mean between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret. It entails honesty and discretion. Injustice, as a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth. The disciple of Christ consents to live in the truth, that is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord's example, abiding in his truth. If we say we have fellowship

with him while we walk in darkness, we lie, and do not live according to the truth. To Bear Witness to the Truth Before Pilate, Christ proclaims that He has come into the world to bear witness to the truth. The Christian is not to be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord. In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian must profess it without equivocation after the example of St. Paul before his judges. We must keep a clear conscience toward God and toward men. The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels

them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known. All Christians, by the example of their lives and the witness of their word wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at confirmation. Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith. It means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of

Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. As St. Ignatius of Antioch said, through an act of fortitude. As St. Ignatius of Antioch said, Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God. The Church has painstakingly collected the records of those who persevered to the end in witnessing to their faith. These are the acts of the martyrs. They form the archives of truth written in letters of blood. As St. Ignatius of Antioch further stated, Neither the pleasures of the world, nor the kingdoms of this age, will be of any use to me. It is better for me to die in order to unite myself to Christ Jesus than to reign over

the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for us. I desire him who rose for us. My birth is approaching. And in the Martyrdom of Polycarp it states, I bless you for having judged me worthy from this day and this hour to be counted among your martyrs. You have kept your promise, God of faithfulness and truth. For this reason, and for everything, I praise you. I bless you. I glorify you through the internal and heavenly

High Priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through Him who is with you and the Holy Spirit, may glory be given to you, now and in the ages to come. Amen. There we have it, paragraph 2464 to 2474. Let's go back into this. Just like in all the other commandments, the very first paragraph is the one that highlights what is the overarching teaching of whatever the commandment is. So 2464 highlights this. The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. Boom, there it is.

So anytime we're misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others, it was on to say, this moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. And so we recognize that there's offenses against this and we can do these offenses by word or by deed, by a refusal to commit ourselves to living morally uprightly, to live in such a way where I do not bear witness to the truth, where if someone saw my life and they thought, oh, that must be true. And if it wasn't true, I would be violating, right, this very call of the eighth commandment.

And all of this, of course, comes from the fact that God is the source of all truth, that he is the truth. Remember, what does Jesus say? I am the way, the truth, and the life. And in paragraph 2466, it highlights this. In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest.

That Jesus, full of grace and truth, he came as the light of the world, he is the truth. Whoever believes in me, he says, may not remain in darkness. And so this is so critical for every one of us that Jesus then puts it upon us as his disciples. He says, let what you say be simply yes or no. And that is reality.

Now, 2467 highlights that we tend by nature toward the truth no the only thing that gets us off the truth that gets us off pursuit of the truth or off of living the truth is our weakness right so what does it mean to say that man by nature tends toward the truth it means that we have an intellect so the fact that we have an intellect means that we we want to understand things right we can think and what we want our thoughts to do is we want our thoughts to correspond with the truth. And so our very nature, having an intellect, means our intellect is made for something. What is your intellect made for? Your intellect, your mind, is made for the truth.

So I don't know if you ever thought about it like that to say that you actually every human being By their very nature is oriented toward the truth It is only in our weakness that we choose something other than the truth It could be our weakness of intellect like I didn't know that was true It could be our weakness of passions right and I'm drawn to something that I know is not true could be our weakness of our will Where I choose something that I know is not true, could be our weakness of our will, where I choose something that I know is not true, I know is not good for me, because it's easier, because it is something I desire more in this moment, in my fallenness.

But by our very nature, we're drawn to the truth. Because of that, and also because it's the truth, we're obliged to honor and bear witness to it. Now, let's pause for a second. I'm using the word truth like we've defined it. I think we use the word truth without defining it many times because it's kind of like, well, it's very simple, but at the same time,

remember what Pontius Pilate had said to Jesus when Jesus said that he came to bear witness to the truth. Pilate answered and he said, what is truth? So what is truth? Here's a quick definition that I like to offer to our students. And it's a definition I think that is easy to remember. It's a sticky definition. And it's very short. It's two words. Truth is simply what is. That's all. Truth is what is.

And so a statement is either true or false to the degree that it conforms to what is. So truth is reality. And not like your truth and my truth, that's subjective truth. And there's such a thing as subjective truth, right? If I were to say, well, I like Caribou coffee up here in Minnesota, or I like Domino's pizza, those would all be true. You could say, well, I don't like Caribou coffee,

I like Starbucks. I'm like, okay, that's fine, that's your truth. Or like, I like Papa John's, like great, that's wonderful. That's your truth, that's not my truth. We can say that about subjective statements because there's such a thing as subjective truth, that's not my truth. We can say that about subjective statements because there's such a thing as subjective truth. Subjective statements are about the what?

They're about the subject of the sentence. And in those cases, the subject is I. I like a caribou coffee, I like Domino's pizza. Your truth is, well, you like Starbucks coffee or whatever it is. And so those things can be true. We can have such a thing as subjective truth, where there's your truth and there's my truth. No problem. We know ultimately though, that subjective

truth cannot contradict objective truth. We said this many times, truth cannot contradict truth. And so there's not only subjective truth, there's also objective truth. What's an objectively true statement? That could be something like you can get a medium cup of black coffee at Caribou for $2.50. Like that would be an objective statement. Now you could go check it and say, is that objectively true or objectively false? But it's a statement made about the actual price of coffee, not my thought about the price of coffee. Does that make sense? So there is such a thing as your truth and my truth. Those are subjective statements, but there are also objective statements and there are those objective statements

are true to the degree that they conform to what is. Does that make sense? So remember, go back to the high side. This is really simple. And you might be going, what in the world are you talking about? What I'm talking about is truth can be defined simply as what is. And so a true statement or a statement is true or false to the degree that it conforms to what is. And so we tend by nature towards wanting to understand what is. Does that make sense? In fact not only that but we're obliged to honor and bear witness to what is. Now paragraph 2467 highlights this. It says that we're impaled by our nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth,

especially religious truth. Not only that though, this not only to seek the truth and then to hold onto it, it so goes on to say, they are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth. Isn't that amazing?

They say it so simply and so straightforwardly that it just pierces the heart that when you come to know the truth, when I come to know the truth, I am now morally bound to adhere to the truth once I come to know it. And not only that, to direct my whole life in accordance with the demands of truth. So once I come to realize that Jesus is who he says he is, then I am bound to adhere to that truth and to direct my whole life in accordance with the demands of truth. We just talked about this last couple days. Once I know that God has a preferential option for the poor, then I am bound to adhere to

that truth and to direct my whole life in accordance with the demands of that truth. Which is a challenge, right? As opposed to just forget that truth or to know it but not act on it. That would be a violation of the Eighth Commandment. It's amazing. Just incredible. Now it goes on to say, paragraph 2469 says, Men cannot live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they're being truthful to one another. And the virtue of truth gives another person their just do. So under the umbrella of justice is truth or truthfulness. Now, at the same time, we're going to talk about this more as the days unfold. Truthfulness keeps to the just mean

between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret. So there's both honesty and discretion. So keep that in mind is that truthfulness, there's this middle road between what ought to be kept secret and what ought to be expressed that we're not obliged to say even what's true at all times. So we know this intrinsically, I think. I think a lot of us have the common sense that says, okay, just because someone's asked me if I think that these pants make me look good or not good, they might be asking a deeper question here. And so I'm going to answer their deeper question. And the deeper question is you are loved as you are. There is a just mean between what ought to be expressed

and what ought to be kept secret. The disciple of Jesus consents to live in the truth. This is paragraph 2470. That is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord's example abidingiding in His truth. This is a quote here from 1 John chapter 1, where John writes, he says, If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie, and do not live according to the truth. Now, we're called to live in the truth, we're also called to bear witness to the truth. And this is pretty remarkable because here in paragraph 2472, it says, All Christians, by the example of their lives and the witness of their word

wherever they live have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in baptism and reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at confirmation. Remember we talked about scandal and the sin of scandal. Scandal is bearing witness to something that is not true. And by my actions, I am living in such a way that I am saying that this thing that's wrong is actually right. Or the thing that's right is actually wrong. And I think the example that I gave when we were talking about scandal is cohabitation,

right? Living together before being married. Someone could say, well, it shouldn't matter to other people what I do. And yet, for the Christian here, we are called, it says, all Christians, by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they put on in baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at confirmation that every one of us,

wherever we live, is called to bear witness to the truth. And when we don't bear witness to that truth, then we have to repent of that. You know, I think about this a lot in my own life, and I wonder if Christianity became illegal, if it became illegal to be a Christian, and they brought you into court, would they have enough evidence to convict you? I remember hearing that question I think I was in high school. If Christianity became illegal and you're brought into court and accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict? And of course I'd

say well yeah of course I mean clearly I pray a couple times a day and I go to Mass every day and I go to mass on Sundays, of course. But they say, okay, excluding that, that's very important, of course. But excluding that, do I live any differently? Does my life bear witness to Christ? Does my life bear witness to Christianity? Or does my life simply bear witness to me and what I want?

Does my life look just like everyone else's life here in Wherever you find yourself living. I Mean there was a time when in the West at least there was it you might call it like a Christendom you might call it kind of a Christian culture. And so you might maybe again This is kind of a stretch, but you might have been able to say okay. I live just like my neighbors That's that's a good thing because my neighbors are Christian But I don't know if we're in that place anymore and say, okay, I live just like my neighbors. That's a good thing, because my neighbors are Christian. But I don't know if we're in that place anymore.

I have a sense that if we are actually going to bear witness to the truth of Jesus, that my life can't look like my neighbors, in some respects. That my life has to look different in some respects. Not, again, not all respects, but it has to look different in some ways. And so the question that I'm facing right now, and guys guys were walking through this just like when we're walking through

The Bible I'm letting hopefully letting the Holy Spirit convict me as well I would say man if Christianity if it became illegal to be a Catholic If it became illegal to be a disciple of Jesus and I was brought into court Would there be enough evidence to convict outside of the fact that I pray and read the Bible and go to mass? Will there be enough evidence in my life?

What am I bearing witness to? Pg. 2473 and 2474 highlight the fact that martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the faith. It means bearing witness even unto death. And so we just pray. We pray for the grace to be able to be martyrs. And I would say this, not only the grace to be red martyrs, but also, you know, that we're literally shedding our blood for Jesus. But the grace to be white martyrs, you know, they call them white martyrs in the sense that no, they, they spent their life for Jesus. They spent their life bearing witness to Jesus.

It didn't out and out kill them like the red martyrs who beheaded or we talked about St. Lawrence the other day who was grilled alive. Maybe not that way. But I remember hearing white martyrs described as they shed their blood for Jesus drop by drop. You just on a daily basis just bearing witness to him and giving their lives for Jesus and for the truth and bearing witness to the truth of Jesus, just drop by drop, every single day. And that's what most likely God's destiny is for you. Most likely it's not to be a red martyr, but it is to be a martyr, even if only drop

by drop. Because of that, we need God's grace. I need God's grace. Because I know that I don't live like that and I know I'm called to and so Please pray for me. I'm praying for you. My name is father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow God bless