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 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journeyed together toward our heavenly home. It is day 17. We are reading paragraphs 120 to 127, seven short paragraphs. A few reminders before we get started. As we get started, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. You can follow along with that Catechism or any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also, if you want to download your own catechism into your reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily notifications like today. It is day 17. You guys, I am so grateful, so grateful that you are journeying with us in this catechism. I don't know if you notice this, but things are kind of picking up speed in the sense. They're not going to take off. They're not going to get beyond you. Again, we're only doing a couple paragraphs today. But it's, I think it's maybe closer to the stuff that's on our minds, right? So today, what we're going to look at is the canon of scripture. We're going to look at both the Old Testament and the New Testament and the ways in which we need both, right? We need the Old Testament. There are people in the past who have said that when Jesus came along, the Old Testament was rendered void, was rendered moot. It was completely unnecessary. In fact,

some people, they're called heretics, but some people would even say that we can completely

dismiss and not even pay any attention to the Old Testament because of the New Testament. In fact,

some people would even say that there are two different gods, one in the Old Testament and one in

the New Testament. Again, that's rejected by the church, and we'll see how that's rejected today.

We also have the New Testament and how the Gospels are the heart, the core of the New Testament.

And so I'm really excited about this. We're also going to look at, lastly, that we distinguish

three stages in the formation of the Gospels. There's first the life and teaching of Jesus on the ground, then there's the oral tradition, and then finally the written gospels. And that's how the gospels were formed. That's how the New Covenant, New Testament, has been formed. So we're going to look at all three of those aspects, the Old Testament, the Canada of Scripture, Old and New Testament, and the formation of the Gospels, which is just, again, exciting in only, what, seven paragraphs,

something like that. It is day 17. We're reading paragraphs 120 to 127. Before we do that,

let's say a prayer right now. I think that'd be a good idea. Father in heaven, we thank you. We give you praise. You enter into time with

us. You enter into this space that we occupy. And you enter into our lives and in a very real,

in a very, very true way. Lord God, our lives are messy and even the way in which we've discovered who you are.

You've revealed yourself to us has been messy, but we trust in you. We trust that you are in the mess.

You're in the mess of our lives. You're in the mess of history. You're in the mess of our culture.

Because that's where you want to be. Where we are. That's where we live. And so we ask that you

please, into the mess, bring clarity, into the brokenness, bring healing. Into our confusion,

bring illumination and bring light so that we can understand who you are

more clearly, who we are more clearly, and that we can love you with all of our hearts. In Jesus'

...