The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 332: Prayer Converts Our Heart

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

The Catechism discusses the significance of prayer beginning with the prophets and their observations about the Temple and ritualism. It is noteworthy that while we must worship the Lord externally, this must be in tandem with prayer and cannot remain external. With Fr. Mike’s insight, we see that our thinking affects how we act, and our behaviors can influence beliefs. Taking this to heart, if we ever feel that we are just “going through the motions”, we should persist and continue praying. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2581-2589. 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 in God's family as we journey together to our Heavenly Home. This is a 332 out of 365 and, 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 to mix it up a little bit.

I'll let you know we're reading Paragraphs 2581 to 2589 to download your own Catechism in a year reading plan, which you would actually already know, which Paragraphs are reading, you can go to ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. You can also click follow or subscribe to the podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications, because today is day 332 and yesterday, you know, we're into it. We're into the fourth pillar of the Catechism now, and we talked about God's promise to Abraham and how Abraham responded in faith. Abraham's his own prayer of faith. Talk talked about Moses in his prayer of faith that as he got to know God and know the very heart of God, he became an intercessor and he had this intimacy with God. He was humble and he trusted the Lord. We talked about

David a little bit and David how he has the prayer of the king. He is in 2579. He is a king, a person after God's own heart. The shepherd who prays for his people and prays in their name. And he has submission to God. So even this David, this David who has done many wrong things in his life. So like all of us, he still was a person after God's own heart because he submitted to the will of God. He would praise God.

He repented when he sinned. And he's a model of prayer for the people. And so we recognize this. Now today, we're taking this next step and looking at Elijah, not only Elijah, but also the prayer of the Psalms. We're concluding this very first article in this fourth pillar of the catechism by highlighting Elijah and how the prophets called for a conversion of heart, how God wants our heart and we give him our heart and worship, of course, but also in prayer and that one-to-one encounter with God, as well as we're going to hear about the Psalms, which is known as the prayer of the assembly.

And the Psalms are still so very important for us as Catholics. So we're going to talk about the Psalms today and how they can help us, not just help us in our prayer, how they can be our prayer in so many ways. So let's take a moment and call upon our Heavenly Father as we pray in His name, with the praying the name of Jesus Christ. We pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Father in heaven, you are good and your deeds are good. You are to be glorified in every moment, in every stage, every state in life.

We give you praise and we ask that you please teach us how to pray because we do not know how to pray as we ought. Help us to pray like the prophets. Help us to give our full heart to you. Help us to live as we pray and to pray as we live. Help us to allow your word to speak to us and to guide our prayer through the Psalms. And long ago, in this moment, we asked that you receive this time, receive this time of listening to the teaching of your church, receive it as an act of prayer, receive it as an your church. Receive it as an act of prayer.

Receive it as an act of worship. Receive it as a sacrifice of thanksgiving and a praise to you for your glory and for the salvation of your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen and to stay 332.

We are reading paragraphs 2581 to 2589. Elijah, the prophets and conversion of heart. For the people of God, the temple was to be the place of their education in prayer. Pilgrimages, feast and sacrifices, the evening offering, the incense, and the bread of the presence, showbred, all these signs of the holiness and glory of God most high and most nearer were appeals to and glory of God most high and most near were appeals to and ways of prayer. But ritualism often encouraged an excessively external worship.

The people needed education and faith and conversion of heart. This was the mission of the prophets, both before and after the exile. Elijah is the father of the prophets, the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of the prophets, the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Elijah's name, the Lord is my God, foretells the people's cry and response to his prayer on Mount Carmel. St. James refers to Elijah in order to encourage us to pray, saying, The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

After Elijah had learned mercy during his retreat at the Wadi Cherith, he teaches the widow of Zarifeth to believe in the word of God and confirms her faith by his urgent prayer. God brings the widow's child back to life. The sacrifice on Mount Carmel is a decisive test for the faith of the people of God. In response to Elijah's plea, Answer me, O Lord Answer me! The Lord's fire consumes the Holocaust at the time of the evening oblation.

The Eastern liturgies repeat Elijah's plea in the Eucharistic epiclysis. Finally, taking the desert road that leads to the place where the living and true God reveals Himself to His people, Elijah, like Moses before Him, hides in a cleft of the rock until the mysterious presence of God has passed by. But only on the mountain of the transfiguration will Moses and Elijah be hold the unveiled face of him whom they sought. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the face of Christ, crucified and risen. In their one-to-one encounters with God, the prophets draw light and strength for their mission. Their prayer is not flight from this

unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to the Word of God. At times, their prayer is an argument or a complaint, but it is always an intercession that awaits and prepares for the intervention of the Savior God, the Lord of history. The Psalms, the Prayer of the Assembly. From the time of David to the coming of the Messiah, texts appearing in these sacred books show a deepening in prayer for oneself and in prayer for others. Thus, the Psalms were gradually collected into five books of the Psalter, or praises, the Masterwork of Prayer and the Old Testament.

The Psalms both nourished and expressed the prayer of the people of God gathered during great feasts at Jerusalem and each Sabbath in the synagogues. Their prayer is inseparably personal and communal. It concerns both those who are prang and all men. The Psalms arose from the communities of the Holy Land and the diaspora, but embrace all creation. Their prayer recalls the saving events of the past, yet extends into the future, even to the end of history. It commemorates the promises God has already kept, and awaits the Messiah who will fulfill them definitively.

Prayed by Christ and fulfilled in Him, the Psalms remain essential to the prayer of the church. The Psalter is the book in which the word of God becomes man's prayer. In other books of the Old Testament, the words proclaim God's works and bring to light the mystery they contain. The words of the psalmist, sung for God, both express and acclaim the Lord's saving works. The same spirit inspires both God's work and man's response. Christ will unite the two. In Him, the psalms continue to teach us how to pray. The Psalters many forms of prayer take shape both in the liturgy of the temple and in the human heart. Whether hymns or prayers of lamentation or thanksgiving, whether individual

or communal, whether royal chants, songs of pilgrimage or wisdom meditations, the Psalms are a mirror of God's marvelous deeds in the history of His people, as well as reflections of the human experiences of the Psalmist. Though a given Psalm may reflect an event of the past, it still possesses such direct simplicity that it can be prayed in truth by man of all times and conditions. Certain constant characteristics appear throughout the Psalms, simplicity and spontaneity of prayer. The desire for God Himself through and with all that is good in His creation. The distraught situation of the believer who, in His preferential love for the Lord, is exposed to a host of enemies and temptations, but who waits upon what the faithful God will do, in the certitude of his love,

and its submission to his will. The prayer of the Psalms is always sustained by praise. That is why the title of this collection, as handed down to us, is so fitting, the praises. Collected for the assembly's worship, the Psalter both sounds the call to prayer and sings the response to that call, hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lord. As St. Ambrose wrote, What is more pleasing than a psalm? David expresses it well, praise the Lord, for a psalm is good, that there be praise of our God with gladness and grace. Yes, a psalm is a blessing on the be praise of our God with gladness and grace.

Yes, a psalm is a blessing on the lips of the people, praise of God, the assembly's homage, a general acclamation, a word that speaks for all, the voice of the church, a confession of faith in song. There we have it, paragraph 25-81-25-89. We first go back to the prophets. It is just remarkable. Well, here's one thing you probably already know, but let's cover this again, paragraph 2581. It says very, very clearly, the first lines. For the people of God, the temple

was to be the place of their education and prayer. So remember that the place of worship is gonna be the temple. That's the only place you can offer sacrifice at a certain point in the covenant. And so that's gonna be the place of their education and prayer. That's where they're going to learn how to pray

through their pilgrimages, feast sacrifices, the evening offering, the incense, the bread of the presence, all those, it says here, all these signs of the holiness and glory of God most high and most near were appeals to and ways of prayer. Now, this is so important for us because as Catholics, we recognize that the mass, right? And even the Catholic church there with the altar,

the altar of sacrifice, with our incense, with the, not the bread of the presence, but the actual true, truly substantial, real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the fulfillment of the bread of the presence. We go into our prayer as well, and the God most high is also the God most near for every one of us.

This line in paragraph 2581 is remarkable, and it just highlights the fact that for the people of God, the temple is that place of their education and prayer. That's where they learned how to pray. Here for us, the people of the new covenant, those churches that we go to every day or every Sunday. That's where we learn how to pray. God most high and God most near.

Those are appeals to prayer, but here's the problem. The problem then is the same problem now. It says, but ritualism often encouraged an excessively external worship. How many times have you heard someone say that I just feel, you know, I go to Mass, but I feel like I'm just going to the motions. Yes. And so here is the catechism that says, yep, but we know that that happens. In fact, the prophets knew that that happened as well. In the old covenant, they would go to the temple and they would see, yeah so here is the Catechism that says yep, but we know that that happens in fact the prophets knew that that happened as well

In the old covenant they would go to the temple and they would see that this is the temple of the Lord But ritualism those rituals often encourage an excessively external worship if I can keep God over there Then I don't have to bring him inside my heart. That's why it's always on to say here The people needed education in faith and conversion of heart That was the mission of the prophets, both before and after the exile. And here that's the mission right now. Obviously, right? That is the call for every single one of us that called to need us. We have to worship God externally because he's commanded us to. Obviously, we have to do

this. But it can't remain external. It's meant to come from our heart. It's meant to actually change our heart and then come from our heart, It's meant to actually change our heart and then come from our heart, right? So we realize this. There are two ways of looking at belief and behavior. One is that if you have this metanoia, right? Metanoia is conversion of thought, conversion of your mind, which is great. We all need that. Or thinking with a new mind, St. Paul invites us to do that, encourages and commands us to do that. We, Christ calls us to repentance, that metanoia, that change of how we think, and how we think changes how we act a lot of times. And so now that I know, okay, God is good,

and God is just, God is merciful, I have to strive to be good and just and merciful, just on a basic level, at the same time. We also realize, you know, a lot of, I came across some, I guess, we've more recent studies that show, demonstrate, that oftentimes belief can follow behavior as well. And so God calls his people to worship,

He calls his people to prayer. And if it's external at first, I would say that God is okay with that. If it's an external prayer first, God's okay with that. Why? Because belief can also follow behavior that we recognize. I mean, think about it in terms like this,

this is what the studies were talking about when it comes to like say exercise. I don't want exercise, but okay, get out the door and start to exercise and then you want to. So you have your behavior, you've decided this is the behavior that is good, this is the behavior that's required of me or the behavior that I'm going to choose.

And by doing that and by choosing that again and again, it changes our beliefs. It changes us into the people, kind of people who now I think, okay, I'm going to eat healthy, I'm going to run, I'm going to get up on time, I'm going to go to work, those kinds of things. And something similar is true when it comes to prayer. Is that God invites us into prayer, He invites us into worship. And whether we feel like it or not, to go, yeah, you can feel like, it's on the surface,

just going through the motions. Well, you could or you could say, I'm going to actually allow these motions to do what they're supposed to do. Not only they, they give God glory, I'm going to allow these motions to actually pierce my heart, allow them to get past the surface and go to the depths. The mistake many people make is we think, I'm just going to the motions. I don't, I don't only feel it. And so we stop the motions. But that makes no sense. I mean, literally, it truly, if these motions are actually powerful, if they're efficacious, right? If prayer means something, if worship is something, then we do it, whether we feel it or not. Amen? Amen, people. Just like,

you know, you take your vitamins every day. Why? Not because when you take your vitamins, you feel like pop I all of a sudden. And like, I mean, that's literally how I thought of them as a kid. It took me a flinstone vitamins. And yeah, but, Debra, do here we go. It's like, now I'm, or pop I've been

in shape to vitamins, where I was like, yeah, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, or like, I'm gonna eat some spinach and I can just now pick up a truck. I can, I thought that was how, I didn't think that's how it worked because I took a vitamin once and it didn't work that way. So I can learn at some point,

but I wanted it to work that way. I wanted it to work where you take your vitamin and you're automatically healthier. We recognize that it's over the course of time that this actually does change us. Something similar is true when it comes to prayer. I might not feel it at this moment, but I realize that over time something is changing,

even if I'm only going through the motions, going through the motion of taking a pill, going through the motion of going for a walk, going through the motion of showing up to mass and worshiping, or entering into prayer and praying. That is meant to touch our hearts, and so the prophets here, as it says in this section, especially Elijah, the father of the prophets,

what he's calling people to do, is he's calling people back to life. He's calling people to actually conform their hearts to their outward selves, right? So conform their inner man to their outer man, to conform the depths of them to the surface. We have these stories here in 2583, Elijah learning the mercy of God at the Wadi-Cherith. He teaches the widow, his erafeth, to believe in the word of God. Incredible.

He brings her son back to life. Remember that sacrifice I'm out in Carmel, where you have the prophets of Baal versus the true and living God. And Elijah has his prayer, Answer me, O Lord, Answer me, incredible. And God answers with fire. And that desert road that leads to the place where Elijah is on the mountain. And he God passes by. And remember, he passes by in this still small voice. And when Elijah hears that still small voice, he hides his face in the cleft of the rock until the mysterious presence of God has passed by. So he's been in God's presence, but it says here in paragraph 25, he says, but only in the mountain of transfiguration, right, in the New Testament, with Jesus, only on the mountain of the transfiguration will Moses

and Elijah behold the unveiled face of him who they sought. It was just incredible to realize that during his lifetime on earth, Elijah did not see the face of God, even though he was close to God. God most high and most near, but it wasn't until the transfiguration. I'm out table, right? There's Moses and Elijah, and here is Jesus completely transfigured, and the glory of God shining through the face of Jesus upon the face of Moses and Elijah incredible paragraph 2584 says in their one-on-one encounters with God the prophets draw light and strength for their mission Again, we're called to the same thing remember your baptized is priest-profit king

So in their one-on-ones encounters with God the prophets draw draw light and strength for their mission. God has given you a mission. He is anointed you, a kingdom priest, a member of the kingdom, a royal family, a beloved son or daughter of the father. He is anointed you, a prophet, therefore, in order to live out your mission and my mission, we have to have these one-on-one encounters with God. We have to have prayer. And I love how it's specified here. Their prayer is not flight from this unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to the word with God. We have to have prayer. And I love how it's specified here. Their prayer

is not flight from this unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to the Word of God. This is so important for all of us. The prayer is not running away from the world. Prayer is not running away from one's responsibilities. It is instead attentiveness to God's Word, listening to God's Word, so as to receive direction from the Lord, or receive strength and support from the Lord to receive insight and wisdom from the Lord, even just simply to have closeness and intimacy with the Lord. The last lines of paragraph 2584 highlight says that times their prayer is an argument or a complaint.

And that's true. Remember we talked about this. Our prayer has to be honest. Our prayer has to be honest. The prophets knew they could trust God, and so their prayer was honest. At time, it's an argument or complaint, but always an intercession that awaits and prepares for the intervention of the Savior, God, the Lord of history. So even if they're complaining to God, they're complaining to God because they believe that He hears. Even if they're arguing with God, they're arguing with God

because they know they believe that He cares, that He's near. That is so important for all of us in our prayer. Now, the Psalms today is so important. We're going to talk about the Psalms as we continue. Yet tomorrow, we have a little nugget day, so we'll talk a little bit more about the Psalms. But today, let's suffice it to say that the Psalms have become the prayer of the church. The Psalms are the prayer of the church. As often as we pray the Psalms, we are praying in God's very word, which is just remarkable. So whenever you hear the Psalm sung at Mass, or you go to the book of Psalms, or maybe pray liturgy of the hours, it's just so important.

Because what we're doing is, when we're praying, we're uniting our hearts to the heart of God expressed in the Psalms. And so we'll talk more about that tomorrow on Nugget Day. But today, I want to let you know this. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless. you