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 and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 201. Day 201. We're reading paragraphs 1461 to 1467. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a foundations of faith approach. 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 and I think day 201 would be a great day to follow or subscribe or something like that

to receive daily updates and daily notifications in your podcast app. Today is day, as I said,

201. You know, yesterday we were talking about the fact we need

confession of sins. We need satisfaction. The three elements that we bring to confession are

contrition, confession, and satisfaction. If we talked about that today, we're in a new little

mini section and confession on sacrament of reconciliation. About the minister of the sacrament.

Who is it? That is the minister of reconciliation. Who is the minister of the sacrament? Like, who is it?

That is the minister of reconciliation. Who is the one who forgives us? Now, we're going to hear this.

Now, Jesus is the one who forgives sins. It's always Jesus. But he forgives sins through the ministry.

That's why the ministry question is there. The ministry of the priests. And we're going to talk about

that today, that this is a gift that Jesus

intended to give and did give when he established the church. And so we're going to talk about that,

as well as some of the responsibilities that that priest has as the minister of the sacrament.

For example, he is not the master of God's forgiveness, but he is the servant of God's forgiveness.

And so there's a responsibility. It's not just an authority thing. There's a responsibility that's been placed upon each priest who hears confessions. And they have to live up to those. We're going to hear about some of those today. So as we launch into today's reading, let's just call upon our father, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit as we pray.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory.

Thank you so much for bringing us here.

Thank you for giving us your mercy.

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