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 journeyed together to our heavenly home. This is Day 130, reading paragraphs 946 to 953. 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 a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com if you did, you'd know that we're on a new sheet, right? I think day 1.30 is the second little thing to check off the list. You can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. One note, just a thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast with your prayers. Oh my gosh, absolutely necessary. In your financial gifts, we could not do this without you. As I said, it's day 130. Kind of a big deal. You know, in the intro we say, discover our identity in God's family as we journey together toward heavenly home today today we're reading paragraph five well you know

you know what i mean by when i say paragraph five the communion of saints and so we're going to get to

talk about for the next couple of days this reality of what is the church in this in this mysterious

ah you know we talked about the church is the body of christ which is the family of god the churches

all these things but here's the communion of saints.

And there's this something so powerful. In fact, in paragraph 946, it says, after confessing the

Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles' Creed adds the phrase, the communion of saints. In a certain sense,

this article is a further explanation of the preceding. And here's the question, What is the church, if not the assembly of all the saints?

And that's just what an incredible thing.

That reality that here we are united in our faith, united in, well, you know what?

The Acts of the Apostles says that here are the believers that were united in the Apostles'

teaching and fellowship,

the breaking of the bread, and prayers. And so we're going to recognize how we have communion

in the faith. That's one thing. We have communion in the sacraments. That's another thing. We have

communion in the carisms, right, the gifts of the Holy Spirit that he is given to the church.

We also have communion because we hold everything in common, right? And then lastly,

in paragraph 953, communion and charity. So we're united in these aspects. And it's just so powerful,

again, because we profess the same faith. We're united in that. We have communion there. The sacraments

that unite us, particularly baptism at the beginning, but then, you know, in some ways, ultimately,

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