My Message For All Catholics (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)

·12 min·1 clip

Fr. Mike reveals an incredible surge of people entering the Catholic Church last Easter, sparking a question about why newcomers still need a formal process.

The episode opens with Fr. Mike Schmitz noting a significant number of people entered the Catholic Church during the recent Easter season. He identifies three primary routes people take into the Church: intellectual study, being loved through relationships, and attraction to its beauty. Fr. Mike observes that each path can lead to a 'sanitary' or idealized view of the Church, which clashes with the 'rough edges' encountered in actual parish communities. He describes how converts might find priests less knowledgeable, community less warm, or liturgy less beautiful than expected. The central message is a call to 'embrace all of it'—the intellectual greatness and simplicity, magnanimous love and coolness, grandeur and ordinary Masses. Fr. Mike illustrates this with the story of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose mother died as a martyr after converting to Catholicism and being abandoned by her family. Tolkien's faith embraced both the mystery and the everyday brokenness. Fr. Mike reads a letter from Tolkien to his son, advising receiving communion even in 'affronting' circumstances like with a 'snuffling priest' or 'ill-behaved children,' as a way to focus on Jesus. Tolkien is quoted further stating he would not leave the Church due to bad priests but only if he stopped believing. Fr. Mike ties this back to the OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) process, emphasizing it helps people navigate both the beauty and messiness of the Church. He promotes Ascension's 'Invited' program, which includes presenters sharing their faith journeys. The episode ends with an invitation to learn more at ascensionpress.com/invited.

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