Terry Barber: We, laypeople, need direction. I know that bishops teach, govern, and sanctify, but I want to have something that I know is close to your heart because of the order you belong to, and that is reparation. What can we laypeople do to help Holy Mother, the church? And this, you know, is kind of a rough time for the church, where we see things that are going on that you scratch your head, you say, what’s that? We shouldn’t be doing that, but we can’t do anything in the sense of management, and we’re just the laypeople. Can you talk a little bit about the value of reparation and expiation? Please.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes. Saint Paul is teaching about this very clearly. It says that I must fulfill with my sufferings what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the benefit of his church. This is more or less the teaching of St Paul, and because he explains that the church is a body, a mystical body. And then he says, in a body, when one member is suffering, the entire body is suffering. And therefore, when some specific parts of the body representatives, let us say, of the church, the clergy and all the others, are doing something wrong in the eyes of God, in the man, this has a consequence, an effect on the entire body, on the spiritual health, and therefore, as St. Paul says, the other members, even if they are lower in the significance, they have to do their part in The body of the church according to God’s plan, even the most, the smallest part of the body has his mission in the eyes of God, and so the every member of the church must contribute with his acts of love. This is basically the meaning of expiation, that an act of supernatural love united with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, because, of course, Jesus Christ’s sufferings are sufficient.
There is objectively no need to complement His sufferings, because he is divine; it’s sufficient that the effect of His sufferings may reach concretely in our time, specific souls or situations, therefore we must invite us to help him, so that these graces could flow more abundantly. And this is a mystery of God, that we can only open these doors for the graces in the church here on earth to be more efficacious throughout our sufferings and acts of love united With Jesus Christ’s suffering and that of Our Lady, and therefore we can offer any act of love, even the smallest one, as a sign of contribution, in humility, of expiation, of reparation, atonement for all the acts in the church which offend the holiness of God, the sacredness the commandments of God. And so we must suffer. We must offer it the best through the hands of the Immaculate Mother of God. She transmits these, our small, let us say, gifts filled with love. It can be prayers. It can be some acts of good works, but it can also be real suffering in our life, sickness, other pains of our body, even some spiritual sufferings, trials. We can use all of them in the spirit of reparation, expiation. Always united with the sufferings of Christ with an act of love, which we must do consciously, and asking our Lady to offer it to the Lord as a small contribution to repair images in his body, in his militant church here on Earth.
And so we had plenty of examples in these 2000 years, from the saints who gave us the example of a life of expiation, of reparation. We must we recent example, where the children of Fatima, who were canonized San Francisco and Jacinta, who in their tiny age were so an example moving for us adult people, how they used every occasion to offer some sacrifice, but moved by love and with these words to console our Lord, who is so much offended, especially to console the Lord in the tabernacle, Eucharist, who is so much offended there and other in because of other sins also and there, these children offer their pains, their suffering and ultimately their death, which they suffered and endured with pains, with these acts of love united with Christ And these where God considers the suffering and the prayers and the contribution of the little ones most he cherishes it because God, always in his method in History of salvation, had chosen this small one, the little one, to win the sin to win the those who are proud, those who consider themselves great.
This is the method of God. Therefore, God became a child and chose the littlest one, Maiden, Our Lady. And therefore he continues. And then he had chosen before the smallest aim, the smallest angel, the humble Angel, son Michael, to win, to conquer, Lucifer, the greatest fallen angel. God had chosen him. God had not chosen a Seraphim from the first, most great and big choir, but the small Archangel Michael to win, to conquer Satan and Lucifer. And this will always be the method of God. And therefore, you lay people in some way, you belong not to the, let us say, to the leading hierarchy, but to our members of the Body of Christ, and therefore God loves so much the contribution of the lay people, especially in difficult times of the church. God chooses the little one. Oh, his power when the great one in one in the church, let us say, the popes, the bishops, the priests, the chief or the leadership, let us say, are committing errors and are not exercising well.
They are their task, and we had examples in the church, for example, in the one of the greatest crisis, this was the Aryan crisis in the fourth century, where the majority of The Episcopacy failed, collaborated with ambiguity, with errors, with heresy, the purity of the Catholic faith in the divinity of Christ remained intact in the little ones in the church, the simple people, and they were this, this power with. Together, we stand with some. There are a small number of saintly bishops who could overcome this heresy or another example in the ages, in the last, where the papacy and the higher clergy were in such a deplorable state of immorality, you know, the 15th century and the Renaissance, bishops and they got awakened holiness in the laypeople.