Father Randy Koenigsknecht
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“I Have Kept the Faith” — The Five Precepts of the Church
In this inspiring homily, Fr. Randy reflects on St. Paul’s powerful words: “I have competed well. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”
He reminds us that our journey of faith has clear guideposts—the Five Precepts of the Church—that keep us running in the right direction:
- Attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.
- Go to confession at least once a year.
- Receive the Eucharist during the Easter season.
- Observe days of fasting and abstinence.
- Provide for the needs of the Church.
These precepts aren’t limits—they’re foundations. They set the course so that each of us can grow closer to God and one day echo St. Paul’s words with confidence and joy.
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Father Randy:
I’ve competed well. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Lord, may my last words be as awesome as these ones. St. Paul—he knows how to write an inspiring line that pretty much everyone can relate to. We all know that feeling of striving, of fighting for something, finally achieving it, just being able to rest, to celebrate in victory. And as Christians, this is what we want to be able to say at the end of our lives: I’ve competed well. I’ve kept the faith.
But if we’re trying to be competitive or trying to keep the faith, how do we actually judge whether or not we’re doing that? That we’re on the right path? You know, if you want to run a race or play soccer—both things I try to avoid and recommend avoiding—you first have to make sure you’re kind of like following the basic rules. If it’s a race, you’ve got to run in the right direction. I’m told you can’t trip the other runners—it’s frowned on. Or Father Chaz, he wants to try and use golf balls and his clubs to play soccer… it’s not playing soccer. It’s not working.
So we naturally understand that when it comes to sports—there are basic rules, basic guidelines that ensure we’re actually doing what we’re saying we’re doing. We’re actually running a race. We’re actually playing soccer. But the faith is a lot more nebulous. Most people would probably struggle to define what are the basic standards for being a practicing Catholic. What does it take? Fortunately for us,
The Church has actually given us five concrete, very concrete standards for living as a practicing Catholic—for what it looks like. And these are known as the Five Precepts of the Church.
So what are they?
The first one is that Catholics are to attend Mass every Sunday and on Holy Days of Obligation to keep holy those days. Sunday is the day that’s been set aside for us to worship God, to enter communion with Him. When we worship God, we recognize Him for who He is. He’s the one who made everything; He holds us in being. He’s the one who loves us, who offers us eternal life and joy with Him. So worship is simply giving God thanks and praise because He deserves it. We lay down our lives before Him because He is God and we are not. So worship is how we give God what is due to Him—our lives, our praise, and thanksgiving.
This is why, in many ways, Mass is not so much about our subjective experience, about our feelings. Those are important and good—I hope that you enjoy coming to Mass, I hope you like it—but at the same time, the central reason why we do it is to give worship to God. The focus is meant to be on Him, not on us. And then as we worship Him, we recognize Him for who He is. We’re invited into the work of our redemption. We’re invited into this place of relationship with Him.
So in a few minutes in the Liturgy of the Eucharist here, we will offer our lives—all the sacrifices, all the good things that we do—on that altar with Jesus. And then, if we’re properly disposed, we enter communion with Him, receiving Him in the Eucharist—the deepest unity that we can have with God here on earth. There are many other ways that we can worship God, many other places that we can find Him and spend time with Him. But the way that God prefers us, the way that He asks us to be with Him, to give Him worship, is the Mass.
Specifically, setting aside Sundays and these Holy Days of Obligation—that is what He’s asked of us. The Holy Days of Obligation commemorate the six most important events and teachings in the life of the Church. So there are only six days—bonus days we have. One of them is Christmas, so really only five, because everyone shows up on Christmas. We all love Christmas; we get it.
But these Holy Days of Obligation—they’re really the equivalent, if we want to use a family analogy, of remembering and celebrating your wedding anniversary and all your kids’ birthdays. You know, things that happen every year, and yet we still celebrate them each time because they’re important. They’re important to the life of our family. The Holy Days of Obligation celebrate events that are important in the life of God’s family—our family here.
And so we attend Mass every Sunday and on those few special days throughout the year. That’s the first precept.
The second and third precepts go hand in hand. They’re focused on relationship—how do we repair our relationship with God and how do we deepen it? The second precept is to go to confession at least once a year, and the third is to receive the Eucharist at least once a year during the Easter season.
Father Ricardo once said that in every marriage, there are five essential words that need to be said and said often: I’m sorry and I love you. In any marriage, and in any relationship in general, it’s not enough just to imply that you’re sorry when you mess up—you actually need to apologize directly. You can’t just act like nothing happened when you hurt or offend someone.
And likewise, it’s often not enough just to assume that your spouse knows that you love them. Although they probably see it in all the things that you do, they most likely want to hear it—at least every now and again. But if we need to do that with our human relationships—if we need to say those words—we should also be willing to do the same in our relationship with God. They help form that foundation.
The way that we tell God “I’m sorry” and “I love you” is by going to confession and receiving Him in the Eucharist. They’re essential parts of growing our relationship. And notice that the Church only requires that we do them once a year. We’re expected to go to Mass every Sunday, but we only have to receive the Eucharist during the Easter season.
So, I want to use a bit of an analogy. I’m going to pick on the husbands in the crowd here—sorry guys, but wives, it might apply to you too. Feel free to throw elbows as needed. Husbands, do you think it’s a good idea to tell your wife that you love her at least once a year? A few people nodding—alright. Do you think she might like it if you told her that more than once a year? Maybe on both her birthday and your wedding anniversary, for example? Exactly. She probably wants to hear it pretty frequently. And she’s going to want to hear that you’re sorry whenever you majorly mess up—not just once a year when you sum up all the things you did wrong.
So while it’s only required that we go to communion or confession once per year, it’s probably a really good idea to go more often—to make a habit of it, to go to confession whenever we majorly screw up. That way, we can receive Jesus well, worthily, and have full communion with God.
So that’s the second and third precepts. The fourth is to observe the days of fasting and abstinence that have been set up by the Church. Strictly speaking, that refers to Fridays in Lent and Ash Wednesday and Good Friday in particular. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we eat less and abstain from meat. The rest of the Fridays of Lent, we don’t eat meat. The Church also strongly recommends that during the weekdays of Lent, we have some kind of fasting or penance that we take on because it’s really good—it helps us enter into the season.
I also recommend that on all the other Fridays throughout the year, we take on some kind of fasting as a way to commemorate our Lord’s death on the cross, to honor Him. These acts of fasting aren’t meant to be punishments. They’re not meant for us to look at our lives and say, “Wow, I messed up in all these ways and need to suffer a little to make up for it.” No—they’re meant to help us. They’re meant to prepare us to celebrate the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They help us enter into what’s happening at Easter.
That’s why we have all this time of Lent—so that we can really be walking with Him, walking the way of the cross. And at every Sunday Mass, we also celebrate that very same mystery—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. During Lent and during these times of fasting, we’re invited to really see ourselves carrying our crosses with Jesus, walking with Him, putting to death our sins with Him on the cross, rising with Him to new life and freedom. That’s the goal of the fourth precept.
The fifth and final one is very general: to provide for the needs of the Church. God has given us everything, and so we’re invited to make some kind of return to Him—whether that’s materially, or by service, with our time, our talents, etc. The needs of the Church are varied. We need a lot of different things and a lot of different people.
So it’s up to your own discernment how God is inviting you to do that—to serve, to provide for the needs of the Church. It might be in a small way, or He might invite you to something big. The key is to ask Him: Lord, how are You inviting me to provide here? What are You inviting me to do?—and then to be willing to carry it out, to follow through.
So these five precepts—the five standards for how we live as a practicing Catholic—are:
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Attend Mass every Sunday and on the Holy Days of Obligation.
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Go to confession at least once a year.
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Receive the Eucharist during the Easter season.
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Keep the days of fasting and abstinence that prepare us for those gifts.
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Provide for the needs of the Church.
And if you hear these things and recognize, maybe I’m not doing so great at all of them—that’s okay. This is the time to start working on it. This is a good day to start, to make a personal commitment and ask God to give you the grace to follow through.
Now, maybe you’re already doing all of these things—great work. Praise God. Amen. But now is the time to ask Him how He’s inviting you to go deeper. These precepts get us on the right track for the race. They give us the basics. But if we want to really run well—to run strongly and be competitive—it often requires more from us.
So we have to keep asking God how He’s inviting us to grow, to go deeper, so that at the end of our lives, we can really say with St. Paul:
“I have competed well. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”