Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.

So a number of years ago, one of our students, she's a young woman, she had a friend and

she read it to her friend to go with her to mass off campus because school wasn't in

session, it was summertime.

And so she drove this young man to the cathedral and on the way there he was raised Catholic.

On the way there, she said, you know, if you aren't a practicing Catholic, you can't

receive Holy Communion unless you go to confession first.

And he was like, wait, what?

What?

I was raised Catholic.

And she's like, yeah, but you're not a practicing Catholic, practicing Catholic.

And so then when school started like the next week, he gave to Mass and afterwards he said,

I have some questions and his big question was this, what is it to be a practicing Catholic?

I thought that's a great question.

So we started meeting and talking about what it is to be a practicing Catholic.

So what does the church say?

It is to be a practicing Catholic.

What is it to say?

I'm not just Catholic and name only, but it's a part of my everyday life.

Well, a couple of things, the church says, well, we have to observe the Ten Commandments.

We have to ascend to church teaching.

And then the third thing is to do our best to follow the five precepts of the Catholic

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