Day 117: The Church Is Catholic (2026)
4/27/202622 min
We continue our examination of the four marks of the Church with today’s mark: catholic. Fr. Mike explains that “catholic” means that the Church is universal in two senses. The first is that Christ is fully present in her, and so receives the fullness of the means of salvation. Second, it goes out to all peoples; everyone belongs. Today’s readings from the Catechism are paragraphs 830-838.
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.
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Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMike Schmitz· Host0:00
[gentle piano music] Hi, my name's Father 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 three hundred and sixty-five days, we will read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together towards our heavenly home. It is day one hundred and seventeen. We are reading paragraphs eight hundred and thirty to eight hundred and thirty-eight. I am using the, as always, Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. Of course, you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your free Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com/ciy. And also, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today, day one seventeen, we're going to be starting at paragraph eight thirty to eight thirty-eight. We're gonna talk about the fact that yesterday was the Church is holy, two days before, the Church is one, and today we're talking about the fact that the Church is Catholic. Remember these four marks of the Church, one, holy, catholic, coming in a couple days, apostolic. But today, the Church is Catholic, so the question is, what does catholic mean? So the very first paragraph, eight thirty, says the word catholic means universal in the sense of according to the totality or in keeping with the whole. So, and then it goes on to say, okay, so what that, what's that universality mean? Well, how is the C- Church catholic? And there's two ways. First, the Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. So it is