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 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 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. It is day 120 reading paragraphs 857 to 862. 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. You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily notifications and updates. Also, just, you know, it's Day 120. Thank you so much to all those who have supported the production of this podcast with your prayers. Thank you for, oh man, all the financial gifts that have kept this podcast going.

We could not do this without you. You know, today we're launching into the fourth mark of the church. The first three, the church is one, holy and Catholic. We talked about that the last couple days. Today, the fourth mark is the church is apostolic. And there's a couple reasons. Well, there's a couple reasons why the church is apostolic. No, there's one reason why the church is apostolic. It's because she's founded on the apostles. Paragraph 857 highlights. She's apostolic for that one reason, founded on the apostles. But she is apostolic in three ways. And she was and remains built on the foundation of the

apostles. That's a big deal. The help of the Holy Spirit, the church keeps in hands on the

teaching of the apostles essentially. And thirdly, she continues to be taught sanctified and guided

by the apostles in the person of their successors, right? The bishops, the college of bishops,

assisted by the priests, united with the successor of Peter, aka the pope. So we're going to talk about that today as well as the fact that

the apostles received their mission from Jesus. And they also have this sacred duty then, of course,

because Jesus Christ has entrusted to them not only his mission, he's also entrusted to them

his spirit. So basically, when Jesus

says, he who hears you, hears me, those who accept you, accept me, those who reject you, reject me.

So we're talking about that today. That's the core from paragraph 857 to 862. In order to just

highlight, in order to highlight our hearts, no, in order to prepare our hearts,

just receive this gift of the word, this gift of this good word that the church is not only one holy and Catholic, but also apostolic.

Let's just ask our Father to give us His grace.

So we pray, Father in heaven, thank you so much.

Thank you for bringing us to this day. Thank you for bringing us to day 120. We thank you for

continuing to guide the church that you built on the foundation stones of the apostles. Thank you for giving us their

successors. Thank you for continuing to sanctify your church. Thank you for continuing to guide your

church. Thank you for continuing to guard your church. We ask that you please those who are our bishops right now.

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