The true and the beautiful, with the simple truth of Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church, through Scripture, Tradition, and the Catechism. And now, your host, Jim Hayes.
Jim Havens: It is great to be back with you on The Simple Truth, where we proclaim the life-giving reality of Jesus and His Catholic Church. We consecrate everything to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the pure, strong Heart of Saint Joseph. We have a very special episode for you today. Our guest is Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He is Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan, as well as Secretary General of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan. He is also a prolific author and has a great new book that is now out through Sophia Institute Press, Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith. SophiaInstitute.com is where you can get it. Your Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, thank you so much for being with us. Welcome back to The Simple Truth. How are you, and will you lead us in an opening prayer?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you for your invitation. So let us pray at the beginning.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Jim Havens: All right. Thank you so much. So again, the name of the book is Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, Sophia Institute Press, SophiaInstitute.com. It has the imprimatur of the Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, July 7, 2023. On the page before the table of contents, you have two short quotes. One is Luke 6:48, when a flood came, the waters beat fiercely upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. And then also Saint Ambrose, the simple faith of truth is greater than the ambitious lie of eloquence. Bishop, why these quotes and why this compendium now?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, the faith is the greatest gift that God gave us. This is the supernatural knowledge of God and His eternal truth. Therefore, we have to keep this treasure with much care, attention, and love. The faith is compared in Holy Scripture, and by our Lord Himself, to a rock. This is the foundation, the solid foundation. This is the beginning. Without faith, no one can be saved, it is said. So we have to strengthen ever more, always, our faith. As we hear in Holy Scripture, in the Gospel, a man was crying out, shouting out, O Lord, strengthen my faith. And the Lord gives us this gift. The entire Church is keeping the faith. We have the documents of the faith, the Creed, the symbol of faith, for example, and especially the catechisms, which are a clear, unambiguous explanation of the main truths of our faith. Therefore, I also quoted Saint Ambrose, who says that simple faith is stronger. It is more valuable than any eloquence of ambiguity. Today, we are witnessing this within the Church, this eloquence, these words that pretend to explain the faith, but they are oftentimes full of ambiguity. This has no value in the eyes of God, ambiguity about faith. Only the simplicity, the purity, the integrity, and the solidity of faith.
Jim Havens: Thank you so much for writing this book, a very valuable text. You write in the preface that, in preparing this text, my intended audience has been chiefly God’s little ones, faithful Catholics who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine. It is therefore in obedience to my duty towards them, laid upon me in my episcopal consecration, to preach the truth in season and out of season, see Second Timothy 4:2, that I published this compendium at present. End of quote. What more can you tell us about how you view your responsibility as a bishop to faithful Catholics who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: A bishop is, by his nature, by his ordination, a successor of the apostles. So we have to live as bishops as the apostles did. We have to preach as the apostles did. We have these examples in the writings of the apostles and then in the writings of their immediate disciples, the Apostolic Fathers and the other Church Fathers. This is the same voice of the Church of all times. The faith was always preached in the same meaning, in the same sense, for two thousand years. Therefore, the bishop is called, by the ordination rite, the teacher of faith. Even more, he is not only the teacher of faith, but a bishop is a witness of truth, because this is a truth. I would say the substantial mission of a bishop is like that of Saint Paul, who said, I handed over to you what I have received. The bishop has nothing to invent or to adapt to the spirit of the world or to philosophies, but simply to hand over what he received. This is the task of a bishop. He is an administrator, a steward. He is not the owner of the faith. He is a servant, and so a witness of what we heard, what we received from our Lord Jesus Christ, from the apostles, through the uninterrupted living tradition of the faith. This we witness. The bishop has to witness this, to transmit it, and to teach it.
Jim Havens: Yeah, this book is such a great blessing. Again, it is called Credo. We are talking with His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. You also write in the preface, may the Lord, with His abundant graces, reward all true Catholic faithful who labor today in an exemplary manner for the preservation, transmission, and defense of the Catholic faith once delivered to the saints, Jude 3. How can this compendium be best used as a helpful tool by such Catholics?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I think first in families. Several topics are addressed. It depends on the audience, on the age of the children or youth whom you teach. Parents can simply choose the simplest questions and answers about our faith, about our moral life, about prayer, for example. For adult persons who are already trained in the faith, who know better the texts of our tradition, one can choose other questions that are more detailed and need to be explained more deeply. I think those who use this compendium can choose several topics and questions and use them in this way. It is wonderful.
Jim Havens: Yeah, one of the great aspects of this work is that it applies the faith to so many of the popular errors of our day. You are shining a light, making very clear what those errors are, how we ought to look at them, and what the answers to those errors are. It is very, very helpful. The breakdown here is an introduction outlining Christian identity and doctrine. Then part one, faith, which relates to what Catholics believe, following the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, Lex Credendi, the law of right believing. Part two on morals explains the principles of right moral action and their application, following the commandments, Lex Vivendi, the law of rightly living. Part three, worship, treats the grace and the means of sanctification, with a focus on prayer and the sacraments, Lex Orandi, the law of rightly praying. There are also some great appendices, including the five major creeds, demonstrating through these famous dogmatic summaries that the Catholic Church continues to hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, Ephesians 4:5. There are also some of the more prominent prayers and liturgical items from Catholic devotional life, as well as an index of subjects for quick reference. This is, again, a phenomenal work. I want to encourage everybody to get their hands on it. Again, it is called Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, published by Sophia Institute Press, SophiaInstitute.com. We are going to be right back with His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. We are going to ask him some more questions and let him expound upon some of these beautiful teachings that he has put forth for us, handing on faithfully and applying them to the popular errors of our time in so many ways that are such a great blessing for us. He gives us clarity so that we can rightly understand how to navigate things in our time and how to hand on the faith well to our children and grandchildren, going forth for blessed generation upon generation. We will be right back. Stay tuned.
Jim, welcome back to The Simple Truth. Very special episode here today, Jim Havens with Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He is the author of the new book, Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, published by Sophia Institute Press, SophiaInstitute.com. Bishop Schneider, in the introduction, you write regarding the Christian identity, you say this quote, by the wondrous gift of sanctifying grace, we become adopted children of God the Father, brethren of the eternal Son, and living temples of the Holy Spirit. End of quote. More than mere disciples, we are disciples of our Lord Jesus. But more than that, we are called to live in God’s sanctifying grace as children of the Father, brothers of Christ, living temples of the Holy Spirit. Why is this understanding of our identity so foundational?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is the greatest dignity which God could give a creature, to the Divine affiliation and to participate in God’s own life, supernatural life. More, to be elevated to the dignity unspeakable, to the Divine affiliation. This is oftentimes forgotten in our days or confused with ambiguous teachings and ambiguous terminology, as we sometimes hear today that all are children of God, even non-Christians. This is not true. In some way, they are children insofar as they are creatures. But this expression is not used by our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. Children of God are only those who are reborn to a new life in Christ, through faith and baptism. There is no other possibility. Then there is a tendency in our day, even in some teachings of representatives of the hierarchy, toward a naturalism, meaning to equate the natural life with the supernatural life. There is a substantial difference between natural life and supernatural life. Therefore, we have to stress this difference, to highlight the unspeakable gift and dignity of a life in the state of grace, a life in Divine affiliation, and to be inhabited by the Holy Trinity through sanctifying grace.
Jim Havens: Yes, yeah, I think I had heard a little bit of confusion regarding this, but you state it very clearly here. I will give you a chance to clarify for anyone who might be confused. In section one, God the Father and Creation, it is in a Q and A format. It says here, what is the Catholic meaning of human fraternity? You write, there are two kinds of fraternity, that of blood in Adam and Eve, and that of grace in Jesus Christ, given through His Church and Sacraments. The distinction between fraternity based on nature, the bond of blood, and fraternity based on divine election and revelation is indispensable. Perfect human dignity and fraternity for all human beings can only have one source, Jesus Christ, since it is only through the incarnate Son of God that human dignity has been restored, even more admirably than it was created.
To the next question, is a merely human fraternity sufficient for man? You write, no. A fraternity of blood limited to peaceful coexistence and kindness implies an extraordinary spiritual poverty, a deficient life, and an illusory happiness. It lacks the most important thing in the entire world and in all of human history, namely Christ, the incarnate God, the only begotten, eternal Son of God, the brother, friend, and Bridegroom of the souls of all those who are reborn in God.
To me, this makes perfect sense. I think there is some confusion, perhaps in the way the word dignity is being used, where some might say this distinction between dignity means that those who only have this bond of blood, without sacramental grace, without the grace of God, without being made children of God by baptism, have a lesser dignity. I would say no. Not a lesser dignity in the sense of inherent human dignity for all, but rather pointing out that there is an even greater dignity that we are made for in the grace of God, that we are called to, that Jesus came to bring.
Can you speak to clarify this? Certainly, you are not disparaging the human dignity of people who are outside of sanctifying grace, but you are pointing out that there is more to be attained, and they need to enter into sanctifying grace for the fullness of their human dignity. But they are not to be mistreated in any way.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, exactly. You quoted already. I quoted the prayer of the Church, which says, O God, you have wonderfully created the dignity of the human being, but more wonderfully, you have renewed it, restored it in Christ. I do not deny the dignity of creation. In this phrase, and in other places in this compendium, I also speak of the basic dignity, for example, of the human body. So humans have dignity. When I speak, I simply want to highlight and stress the essential difference between the dignity that is created and the dignity in Jesus Christ of those who are children of God. This is a substantial, essential difference. Therefore, we have to state this and show the incomparable beauty of the dignity of a life in the state of grace and being children of God. Of course, those who are baptized receive this higher dignity of being children of God. But they can lose this dignity by aan evillife, a life of sin, a life of errors. I also indicate this in another question, where I make a comparison: the dignity of Adolf Hitler is not the same as the dignity of Saint Francis of Assisi, for example. Here, I mean spiritual dignity, the dignity to live in the state of grace. Persons who perpetrated unspeakable evils, like Hitler and others, were not living in the state of grace. Their spiritual dignity is clearly lesser and diminished.
Of course, basic dignity also remains, as philosophers call it, logical dignity, even in a condemned person, as long as existence itself is not canceled by God. Existence and being are inherently good and carry dignity. I did not address this in the compendium because it is a more difficult question. A compendium cannot explain all things; otherwise, it would be a thousand-page dogmatic manual. My intention, in view of the great ambiguity and abuse of the term human dignity today, which is often not clearly defined, is to stress the incomparable dignity of the children of God and those who live in the state of grace.
Jim Havens: Yes, thank you, Your Excellency. We are talking with Bishop Athanasius Schneider about his new book, Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, published by Sophia Institute Press, SophiaInstitute.com. Bishop, this work that you have put together is so helpful in applying the faith to popular errors of our time. We have the universal catechism promulgated by Saint John Paul II in 1992. So much has happened since then, so many new errors, and you address them head-on. You shed light on them and help us to understand how to navigate them.
I want to ask you first, before I bring up some specific errors, what do you think is really at the top of the list that you would want to share with people regarding understanding any popular error of our time, and helping people to navigate it?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I think one of the basic errors of our time is relativism regarding doctrine. That means that there is no permanent and unchanging truth. According to this relativism, truth can always change. This is a consequence of the wrong philosophy of Hegel, for example, Hegelianism, or the Marxist materialist vision, which despises doctrine and truth and only emphasizes practice without truth. For decades, we have lived in a climate in the Church where truth is relativized. In one sentence, they affirm the truth, let us say, that marriage is indissoluble, the Catholic sacramental marriage. Then, in some cases, they allow those who are divorced and living in a stable partnership to go to Holy Communion. This practice undermines the truth that has been stated and is a de facto denial and relativization of truth.
We now see similar undermining with new norms admitting homosexual couples to be godparents. This is also undermining the truth that homosexuality is a sin. The practice and ideology of homosexuality are against God’s order and truth.
Jim Havens: Yes, this is so good here, Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, SophiaInstitute.com. Just as the bishop’s intention in putting forth this text is to be faithful to his vocation, to humbly echo the truth of our faith that Jesus died to give us, Jesus giving us His Catholic Church and this faith that He wants to transmit to us, we ought to humbly receive it, striving to fulfill our vocation and calling. Let us humbly receive it and strive to live it. We will be right back with more of Bishop Schneider. Stay tuned.
Welcome back to the simple truth. Jim Havens here with Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He is the author of Credo, a compendium of the Catholic faith. You can get it@sophiainstitute.com Sophia institute.com Your Excellency, you write, under the section on God, the Father in creation, chapter five on man, you write, how could a human individual not be a human person? Thus, the fruit of human generation from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being. End of quote. This is refreshing to simply hear this truth being proclaimed. We know it is true that every human being is a human person, and that we cannot intentionally, directly, willfully kill innocent human beings. The church should be able to say that loud and clear, especially in this time, when we have this ongoing daily mass murder of our littlest brothers and sisters in the womb, by the 1000s in the US, but by the hundreds of 1000s worldwide every day. How are we to think about this when we have these unjust laws that are dehumanizing the child in the womb? And yet it seems like the church should be proclaiming this louder than ever. And it just seems like it’s not, I would say it doesn’t. It’s not the same proportion it ought to be for the time that we are in; we need to be hearing this, I would say, almost every day until this thing ends. What can you share with us about the time we’re in and this truth, every human being is a human person. We can’t be killing innocent human people like is taking place with abortion today.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, a human being is not becoming your human being. You are a human being from the first moment of the conception as our Lord Jesus Christ incarnated, and we celebrate His incarnation exactly on the first moment our Lady conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit and the same we celebrate the Immaculate Conception, the first instant of the existence of Our Lady in the womb of her mother, st Anne, the Immaculate Conception so She was already a person and our Lord Jesus Christ was already a person in the first moment, because he was a divine person. But in the case of Our Lady, she was a created person. And the same is true of any human being conceived the first moment, and that he’s a human person. It has all the protection needed to protect human, innocent human life and being, and now we are witnessing with this mass murder, genocide of the unborn, an unprecedented horror in the entire human history on that worldwide scale. And worse, justified by laws, and even worse, declared as a human right in some constitutions of some states, it is a cruelty, unspeakable cruelty. And so we are living in a very sophisticated technology world with all this exterior cleanness and and then the same time It is perpetrating going on an horrible genocide of the most vulnerable, innocent, defenseless human persons, because it’s a human person, because from the first moment of the existence of the in the conception of A human being, God creates a soul, an individual, an repeatable soul, and this soul has a name by God. And so I’m thinking we have to protest against this injustice and horror as long as. As we can daily. But this has to do with the pope in the first place, and the bishops and all people of goodwill, even non-Christians, we have to make a world alliance to stop this genocide of the unborn, innocent human persons.
Jim Havens: Thank you so much, Bishop Schneider, for that and for the way that you lay it out here. I think it is very helpful in forming the intellect. You give us this category of legalized murder, and you say, what forms of legalized murder have become all too common in many societies, and you list five. Abortion number one, which intentionally destroys a child in the womb by chemical, surgical, or other means. Two, contraception, which poses some temporary or permanent sterilizing obstacle to the conception of new life, and often causes abortion as well. Three, euthanasia, which ends the life of the sick, handicapped, or elderly. Four, in vitro fertilization (IVF methods), which inevitably leads to the destruction of cryopreserved frozen embryos. And five, political vengeance, in which political prisoners and so-called enemies of the state are put in camps and even executed without due process of just laws.
In the next question, you ask, what demonstrates the close connection between contraception and abortion? You are right, this connection is being demonstrated alarmingly by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices, and vaccines, which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being. You go on to say that the church infallibly teaches that direct abortion is intrinsically evil. That has always been the teaching, and those who commit sins of murder while claiming good intentions, it does not work that way. The end does not justify the means.
I want to highly recommend this to everybody: Credo, Compendium of the Catholic Faith, sophiainstitute.com. Anything further you wish to say to us today, just about this teaching that is so unpopular in our time, and one that needs to be proclaimed even louder? We need to humbly receive this truth, which we can know by natural law alone, but our Lord has also, in His holy Church, made very clear that this is not up for debate, that this is something to be humbly received and lived. We really do need to step forward as He calls us to in Matthew 25, whatever you do to the least of these, you do it unto me. Whatever you do not do, you do not do it unto me. Our judgment is tied to it, the judgment of nations. Anything further you want to speak about our responsibility for those who perhaps do not understand this? What is our responsibility for working to help other people understand this and end this evil in our time?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: First, I think we have to discover ever more the beauty of the truth, that the truth is beautiful, that the truth gives us true freedom, that the truth sets us free, and makes human life beautiful and harmonious. In this Compendium, I try to show the greatness of God’s truth in its many forms and their beauty. We have someone who is in person and truthful. This is Jesus Christ. He is the truth, but excellence itself, Jesus Christ.
We have to not only know the truth, which is necessary to defend the truth, but we have to love the truth, not only as knowledge or theory, but we have to love Jesus Christ personally, in a deep personal relationship with Him. As St. Paul says in his letter to Timothy, I know in whom I believed. I know. And this knowledge, this awareness, I know that Jesus is the truth, and I believe in Him and in all the other truths which He revealed in the Church, kept and transmitted. For this truth, for Jesus Christ, we have to be ready to die with God’s grace, for Him, for His person, and for all the truths which He revealed. We cannot deny one truth without denying Christ entirely. We cannot divide Christ. Christ is the truth.
If you deny, for example, God’s commandment or the divine revelation that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil, and then say, I believe in Jesus Christ, and propagate and spread the illicitness of these acts against nature and divine will, then you are denying Jesus Christ. You are no longer a Christian. The Church Fathers give other examples. When someone denies the divinity of Christ, the full divinity consubstantial with the Father, then he cannot say, I believe in Jesus Christ. This is fake faith, a fake Catholic.
We have to be convincing Catholics, joyful Catholics, sure Catholics, solid Catholics, and love Jesus Christ more than anything else and more than our brothers.
Jim Havens: Outstanding Bishop Athanasius Schneider is with us. Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith is the new book. sophiainstitute.com. As you talk about that Bishop, I am thinking that yes, everything flows from this love of Jesus first. Our receiving His love for us and love Him back. He died to give us the gift of His Catholic Church for us to enter into communion with Him, to be members of the Catholic Church, to be incorporated into Jesus in His mystical body.
If we love Jesus, then we want to receive all that He is transmitting to us, all the truth He is pouring out for us that He is handing on to us in His Catholic Church authoritatively on faith and morals. We want to receive the doctrine. We want to receive the deposit of faith. That means we want to study it.
That is why this is such a great gift this Compendium of the Catholic Faith Credo that you offer us here at sophiainstitute.com. In it, you write about the study of Christian doctrine. Here are a couple of questions and answers leading us into the break.
Why is Christian doctrine the science of religion, the most excellent of sciences? Because it is most certain, the most beautiful, the most consoling, and the most necessary of all sciences. Is ignorance in matters of religion a very great evil? Yes, ignorance is the source of countless disorders in individuals and society, and culpable ignorance leads to eternal damnation. When should we begin to study Christian doctrine? In early childhood, children with the use of reason are bound to know love and serve God. Their simple souls are naturally disposed to receive the truths of religion, and virtuous habits are most easily formed and maintained from the early years, even before reason is fully operative.
So, in the context of what Bishop Schneider was sharing with us earlier, this is a great, helpful tool. Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith is first for families to hand on the faith to our children. We want to receive it. We want to live it. We want to hand it on. This is a great tool to do that.
It is not going to ignore the great problems of our time. It faces them head-on and applies the timeless truth of our faith directly to these issues, and helps us navigate them. Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith, sophiainstitute.com, is where you can get it directly from the publisher.
We are going to be back with Bishop Athanasius Schneider right after this break for a final segment. There is so much more in this text, and you really need to get it yourself. It speaks beautifully about handing on the faith to your children as well as guiding children in matters of education.
Welcome back to The Simple Truth. Jim Havens here. Special episode today talking with His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider on his new book Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith. You can get it at sophiainstitute.com.
Final segment here. There is so much in this book. I wish we could get to more, but we only have a little time. A coupleof things I would like you to speak to, however, you would like Bishop.
One is the era of so-called transhumanism. You write thman’sans attempt to negate his creatureliness and elevate himself to a higher level of existence by manipulating human nature through techno, logic, genetic engineering cryonicsn, implants with brain computer interfaces, and so on in order to achieve self-perfection or alleged immortality. Transhumanism embodies man’s original sin of wanting to be like God without grace.
Similarly,y you speak about every human person being created as a man or woman, male or female?. You say the male and female sexes are fundamental and unalterable biological realities. The body of each person reveals whether they are a man or a woman. Male and female God created them, Genesis 1 27. He who made man from the beginning made them male and female in Matthew 19:4.
What if the claim is made that gender may not correspond to biological sex? You say the error of gender ideology denies the reality of the two sexes and replaces it with unlimited private choice. It claims that inner thoughts and feelings or social conditioning constitute the so-called gender or true self. This is a gnostic and ultimately satanic dualism that must be rejected.
Why does the error of gender ideology appear more prevalent in our time? You say the abandonment of reason is the typical outcome of sins against chastity and vice versa, as seen in Romans 1, which are common today. Fallen man is tempted to make his own mind the source of truth rather than conforming to the objective laws of nature and revelation as seen in Second Corinthians 10:5.
This is relativism playing out on a larger scale in our culture,e especially in the United States, es but across the world. We need to understand this. We need to live the truth. It is authentically loving to share this truth and live it fully rather than submitting to coercive pressure or the pride of human respect that tells us to remain silent. Anything further you would like to share with us today?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is one of the greatest dangers of humanity to play God, to take the place of God, to reject God as He revealed Himself in creation, and to create our own world. This is a revolt against God to make an anti-creation to be God in place of God. This is the highest form of idolatry.
Transhumanism and gender ideology are concrete manifestations of this attitude of anti-creation pride and revolt against God. At its deepest root, this is ultimately satanic because Satan always revolts against God and seeks to take His place and prerogatives as Creator. It seeks to establish a world where there is no place for God the Creator. This is modern culture.
This is the true spiritual sickness and the most dangerous spiritual virus of opposing God and dethroning God even as Creator. But it will collapse and not succeed. This false creation cannot exist. Transhumanism will not succeed. Gender ideology will not succeed. These practices destroy the human being.
The nature God created is stronger and will remain. We have hope that humanity has enough strength given by God to resist these diabolical errors and revolt against the Creator.
Jim Havens: Yes, it’s very well said. At one point early in the text, you write about the principal source of the error,s the main errors against divine revelation. You say, si,n pride and luxury darken the mind and especially lead man to prefer his own judgment and personal comfort over submission to a divinely revealed body of doctrine, morals, and worship.
At the end of the day, it is very clear again. We can go to Psalm one. There are two ways. The way we want to go is the way of our Blessed Mother Mary, by the new Eve. Humility, receiving the truth, living it to the full. That is who we are called to be.
Wherever we are,e we want to avail ourselves of the sacraments of penance and confession and be there in sanctifying grace, receiving our Lord in the Holy Eucharist as often as possib, le certainly on Sunda, ys holy days of obligati, on but as often as we can and adoring Him in the Holy Euchar, ist having a vibrant life of prayer.
There is so much that is good and helpful in this work, Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith, at sophiainstitute.com. I know we are getting close to the end of the program here, Bishop. What else would you like to share with us before we close today?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I would like to encourage all parents to be the first teachers of faith to their children, to be the first catechists. Therefore, take the good old catechisms which you have or acquire them. Let us say the Baltimore Catechism and others, and teach your children this beautiful truth. Deepen yourself as an adult person in a knowledge of faith. Read good expositions and compendia about the Catholic faith. Read also the examples of the saints. The lives of the saints are examples for us, showing that they lived the Catholic faith and applied it concretely in their lives.
This is our aim, not only to know the faith but also to live the faith to apply it concretely with God’s grace every day in our lives and then to glorify God. We must not forget this. The last section is what we pray, how we pray to believe, live, and pray to glorify God. This is the aim of our existence, why we were created. This is the aim of all creation to glorify God.
Jim Havens: Yes, you give some great instructions here in the end about families truly living as the domestic church today, and about the blessing of large families as well. The Church has often praised large families. You echo that here so much. So good again. Credo Compendium of the Catholic Faith sophiainstitute.com. Your Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider, thank you so much for being with us. Will you close us out with a final blessing?.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Dominus vobiscum, et cum, spiritu tuo. Et benedictio dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et spiritus Santi descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen