Day 244: The Virtue of Charity (2025)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Ascension
4.9 • 11.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The greatest of all the theological virtues is charity. Fr. Mike explains that charity, or love, is to love God above all things for his own sake and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This includes loving our enemies and also obeying God's commandments, two actions that are not always easy. Most importantly, today's readings remind us that true charity is not loving the Father as servants in fear or as mercenaries looking for a reward but rather as his beloved children responding to him who "first loved us." Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 1822-1829.
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.
For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy
Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, |
| 0:09.2 | where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down |
| 0:13.5 | through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by |
| 0:16.5 | Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, |
| 0:41.2 | discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 244. We are reading paragraphs 1822 to 1829. As always, I am 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 slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates |
| 0:46.2 | and daily notifications because today it's day 244. As I said, we were reading paragraphs 1822 to 1829. |
| 0:52.8 | Yesterday we talked about the virtue of hope before that. |
| 0:54.5 | We talked about the virtue of faith. |
| 0:56.0 | So guess what class we are talking about? |
| 0:59.2 | Virtue of charity. |
| 1:00.2 | One thing right off the bat, I think it's worth acknowledging that charity is love, but it's a very |
| 1:04.8 | particular kind of love. |
| 1:06.7 | In paragraph 1822, it says, charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all |
| 1:11.9 | things for his own sake and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. So as we launch in to love, |
| 1:17.5 | as we launch in to charity, let's call upon the God of love and that triune God, the Trinity, |
| 1:22.6 | Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and ask him to be with us to give us His Holy Spirit, to give us His |
| 1:27.0 | blessing, to give us his love in this moment. |
| 1:29.7 | We pray, Father in heaven, we know that you are love. |
| 1:32.6 | We know that you are the fullness of everything that we desire. |
| 1:36.1 | We know that you're the source of all love, that none of us can actually love without you. |
| 1:41.2 | Because you are love. |
| 1:42.6 | In this moment, Lord God, we ask you to send your holy spirit |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ascension, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Ascension and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.