Day 251: Authorities in Society (2026)
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What is the purpose of today’s Catechism reading on authority?
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 sure 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 three hundred and sixty-five days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 251. We are reading paragraphs. Paragraphs 1897 to 1904. 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 lastly, you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Cause today is day two hundred and fifty one. We're reading, as I said, paragraphs eighteen. We're in a new article, article two, participation in social life. Remember, we're talking, we talked. I mean, we maybe this little review is redundant for the third time in a row, maybe even fourth time in a row. But what we talked about is human dignity and the dignity of the human individual, the human person. But now we've been talking about community and the need for community. Yesterday, we kind of dived deeply, maybe dive deeply into conversion in society that.
Society's essential. Remember, we we need to live in community. We need to live in a in a society, but that society And conversion. Go hand in hand. That While human beings, individuals, live in community. That individual has to, has to, we all have to allow our hearts to be converted because the society can't convert our hearts, but our converted hearts can change our society. That's kind of a brief way to put it. Maybe I should have said that yesterday. But today we're talking we're talking about authority. And so participation in social life, beginning with this notion and the reality that we belong to an authority. Now, tomorrow we'll talk about the common good. So today we're going to note a Number of times the phrase the common good, the authority that exists in societies, because societies have to have some kind of authority.
This is just what it is. And it says here in paragraph 1897, it says, by authority, one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect obedience from them. That's that's what authority is. And I really appreciate the clarity of that definition because we're talking today all about authority, specifically when it comes to participation in social life and being in a society, being in a community. And so in order to open our hearts, open our minds to this truth about what is authority, what's the role of authority, what are the limits of authority, because authority does have limits. Let's just ask our Father and God in heaven to to bless us and to be with us right now.
So we pray. Father, you are good and you are God and we love you. You are the one who has ultimate authority over all of us. You are your truth and you are reason. You are good, you're just your merciful. You are all powerful and all knowing, and you are God, and therefore you are the ultimate authority, to which every one of us answers. Lord God, we ask that you please help us to to acknowledge you as our ultimate authority, but also we ask that you please guide those who are in authority over us. Guide those of us who have authority over others so that we can always act with justice. We can always act in truth. We can always act in right reason in our judgments and in our decisions. Lord God, every one of us is beholden to authority, and every one of us wields some kind of authority.
Help us to be obedient to right authority and help us to be right authority to those. Who are obedient to us? We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
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