Joe Pacillo: Once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial, 103.9 on your FM dial, serving the New York City metropolitan area. Please be sure to download the Veritas Catholic Radio Network mobile app so you can have access to all of our station’s content. And, of course, follow Joe and me wherever you find us on social media, primarily on YouTube at The Frontline TV, or on our website at thefrontlinetv.com.
Today, Joe and I are very pleased and honored to welcome His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider. We are going to be talking about his most recent book, which was published, correct me if I’m wrong, Your Excellency, by Sophia Institute Press, correct? Excellent. The book’s title is The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy. This is going to be a great and very informative conversation. Many of you in our listening audience already know who Bishop Athanasius Schneider is. That said, here is a very brief introduction.
He was born in 1961 in Kursewol, Kazakhstan, to a German family, and baptized with the name Antonius. In 1973, the family immigrated to Germany. He joined the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross in Austria in 1982 and received the religious name Athanasius. He was ordained a priest in Brazil in 1990, having earned a doctorate in Patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome. Since 1999, he has taught at the seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
In 2006, he was ordained bishop in the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome and appointed Titular Bishop of Celerina and Auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda. From 2011 to the present, he has been Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Chairman of the Liturgical Commission, and Secretary General of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan.
Bishop Schneider is the author of two books on the Holy Eucharist: Dominus Est: It Is the Lord and Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church.
Your Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, welcome to The Frontline with Joe and Joe.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you for your invitation.
Joe Pacillo: You’re welcome.
Joe Rossnello: Your Excellency, we always begin with a prayer because all good things start with a prayer, and this is a very good thing. Would you please lead us?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes. 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.
Joe Rossnello: Your Excellency, before we get into the book, I’d like to talk about your background. I find it, honestly, to be fascinating. Your parents were German, you lived in Germany, you lived in Brazil, you were educated in Rome, and now you serve in Kazakhstan. It really is a broad background, and clearly it had to have an effect on you in terms of how it formed you as a Catholic, how you found your vocation, as well as your worldview. Could you speak a little about that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It is the providence of God, evidently, that all these steps and places in my life were directed by divine providence. My experience in these different parts of the world, where divine providence guided me, was not by my choice. All was directed by divine providence. For me, this shows that the most important thing, and what unites us all, is the Catholic faith.
This experience truly shows what it means to be Catholic. Catholic means, as we know from the Greek, universal or embracing all. This is Catholic. Therefore, it is a very valuable experience for me that in all these places I could live and experience the fullness, the truth, and the beauty of the Catholic faith, of the Catholic liturgy, and of Catholic life. This is the most important thing for our life and for our current situation in the Church.
Joe Pacillo: His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider is joining us here at The Frontline with Joe and Joe, going into the breach and discussing his new book, The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy. So let’s jump in, if you will, Your Excellency, and talk a little about the liturgy. You stated in your book, clearly, I might add, that we are living through a period of liturgical exile. I find that an interesting phrase. How would you describe that to our audience? What is this period of liturgical exile, and how would we understand it?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: There have been exiles in history. The first, very well known and famous, was the Babylonian exile of the people of God, Israel. They no longer had the temple. They had to abandon it and go into exile. They had only a simple form of worship in their place of exile, no longer the solemn and beautiful forms of the temple of Jerusalem as they had before. This was one experience of the people of God, an exile related also to the liturgy.
Another example in Church history was the famous exile in Avignon, in France, when the papacy abandoned Rome. The center of Christianity was abandoned, and they went to France. Rome fell into decay, even materially. Then God awakened saints to call the popes back to Rome to end the exile. These were the voices, as we know, especially of Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Bridget of Sweden. Saint Bridget lived in Rome, and Saint Catherine in Siena, not far from Rome. Thanks to these voices of simple but courageous women, the popes ultimately returned to Rome. Saint Peter’s Basilica was renewed, and the life of piety was restored.
This is an experience similar to our own day. For decades now, we have been in what I call a liturgical exile. It means that, generally speaking, we no longer have, all over the world, this form of liturgy that is more sacred and sublime, which truly gives us the sense that we are at home when we enter a church. Today, we do not know what surprises may await us when we attend Mass in various parishes around the world. We are often exposed to subjectivism and the personal inventions of the celebrant or the community.
Oftentimes, the sense of sacredness and the atmosphere of divine sublimity are lacking. Especially, the veneration of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist is diminished in many places, particularly because of the practice of Communion in the hand. The small pieces of the holy host, the fragments, often fall to the floor or stick to the fingers and palms of people’s hands. This also exposes the Eucharist to theft through this practice of Communion in the hand. No one can deny this. It is proven and evident.
For me, this is our deepest wound, the loss of reverence, care, and security toward the Holy Host. This is not just bread; this is our Lord, with all His ineffable holiness, divinity, and love, and yet He is so often trampled underfoot. I call this phenomenon a liturgical exile. We need voices to remind the Pope and those in Rome who allowed these practices, and who do not intervene, to bring back the greatness of our Lord in the liturgy and in the Eucharist.
Joe Pacillo: Thank you for that. Bishop Athanasius Schneider is joining us here at The Frontline with Joe and Joe. I’m Joe Pacillo, with Joe Resinello. We are discussing his new book, available at Sophia Institute Press, The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy.
Joe Rossnello: As you went through that litany, I would agree with you one hundred percent. What I don’t understand, Your Excellency, we talk to a lot of people on our show, many authors, many academics. I cannot claim to be an academic, but I am fairly well-read in our faith. I don’t understand how it cannot be followed, because it’s written down.
I understand the sinfulness of man. I am a sinner, and I understand that, but it’s all written down, and there’s an authority structure. As a regular person, my family immigrated from Italy, and we were simple people. My father was a barber. I was educated, but at the same time, all you have to do is read, and you see it. I don’t understand how it’s not implemented. If you could talk about that a little bit, because it boggles my mind.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: This is also a very sad phenomenon, that so many priests are careless in celebrating the Holy Mass and do not observe the rules. This comes from a lack of education in priestly seminaries, which, in my opinion, is one of the roots of this problem.
Another reason is a lack of personal faith in the Eucharist. When you have a deep Catholic faith as a priest, you cannot behave like a showman during the Holy Mass. You cannot disregard the liturgical norms and rubrics when you have deep love, faith, and reverence for the Lord. The behavior of priests who act as if they are the owners of the liturgy, or as if the Mass is a performance, shows a lack of humility and reverence.
There is a phrase in Psalm 113 that I love, which appears in the Vespers psalms of Sunday evening. In Latin, it says: Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory.” This, I believe, expresses what the priest should always remember. Unfortunately, when one observes some celebrations of the Mass today, it seems that the words have been reversed to say, “To us, O Lord, to us, and to our name give glory.”
This describes many Masses today in so many places, where the celebrant or the community begins to make a show rather than an act of adoration, to fall to their knees in love and humility, to create an atmosphere of true prayer, contemplation, silence, and praise of God. The centrality of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist should be visible during the Mass, even in our bodily gestures and behavior, showing that all glory belongs to Him.
However, this problem is not only due to poor priestly formation or personal lack of faith and love for the Eucharist. There is also an objective lack of laws to protect our Lord. The permission from Rome to give Holy Communion in the hand should be withdrawn. Rome gave this permission, and this has led to great harm. There must be stricter norms from Rome and the Pope to protect what is most sacred and holy for us, our greatest treasure in the Church.
Joe Pacillo: Your Excellency, Bishop Athanasius is joining Joe and me at The Frontline with Joe and Joe. I’m Joe Pacillo, with Joe Resinello, and we’re discussing his recent book, available at Sophia Institute Press, The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy.
Your Excellency, let me ask you this. Joe and I go out of our way not to come across as judgmental. We don’t. Some people just don’t know. Truly, some people just don’t know. But you mentioned earlier what seemed like the narcissism, let’s call it that, of some priests. There is also a kind of narcissism among the laity as well. I attend both the Novus Ordo Mass and the Latin Mass. The Church teaches that the Novus Ordo Mass is acceptable, and I listen to the Church. As Joe Resinello always says, we ought to listen to the Church. So I have no problem with either form.
What I do find, Your Excellency, and I’d love for you to address this, or perhaps what we can do about it, is that there’s a narcissism among the laity, too. I hear people say, “I don’t want to be treated like a child and have the priest feed me,” referring to receiving the Eucharist on the tongue. Or, “I don’t want the priest turning his back to me.” My response is, “Would you prefer that the priest turn his back on Jesus?”
Again, I try to be understanding, but you hear some of the most inane things. How do we address this? How do we help people understand that the Mass is not about them, that the Mass is about Jesus Christ?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I completely agree with you, and thank you for that observation. This is exactly the problem: people simply do not know. There is a lack of knowledge about what the Holy Mass is, what the Eucharist truly is.
Here I recall the words of our Lord in the Gospel of John, when He said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God.” We must say to these lay people: if you knew how great and unspeakably holy the Mass is, if you knew how great and divine is the little host, in which is hidden the immense divinity and sacredness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, if you knew, you would instinctively fall to your knees. You would open your mouth like a child, like the humble sinner standing at the back of the temple.
You would not be like the Pharisee in the first row, saying, “I have a right, I have this.” You would strike your breast like the sinner and hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “You are justified by Me.” Continue to be humble, and I will give you abundant graces of salvation, joy, wisdom, and faith.
If you knew what the Holy Mass is, this is substantially the sacrifice of Calvary. It is not simply a gathering. We are not just assembling like the Protestant communities. No, we are truly at Calvary, mystically but really present at the sacrifice of Christ. Before your eyes, He is offering Himself and dying in a mystical way, but His presence is real. The sacrifice of Calvary is truly present at the altar.
Joe Pacillo: Thank you for that, Bishop Athanasius.
Joe Rossnello: You would then have the desire not to look continuously at the face of the priest. You would say, “Father, please, let us turn together to the Cross,” because we are truly, substantially, present at the sacrifice of our salvation, before the open heaven.
Also, I think at the root of it, there’s a lack of understanding in America. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Your Excellency, but there was a Pew Research poll showing that only about thirty percent of baptized Catholics believe in the true presence of the Eucharist. Pew is a fairly respected polling organization.
People don’t know that it is Jesus on the altar. Most people, I’ll be completely honest with you, don’t understand that. I was educated in Catholic schools, but I truly didn’t come to that understanding until I was an adult, through adoration. And I think that is the solution. Adoration, which thankfully has become more common in America, allows people to sit before the Lord, and their hearts are moved. Their minds and hearts become one in that reality. But until then, there will always be this divide.
Talk about the need for adoration, because truly, I believe, Your Excellency, if someone sits before the Lord and says, “I don’t believe that’s You, but I want to. Help me,” He will. He will show you, and that changes everything. That’s the game changer.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, we have to promote Eucharistic Adoration. This will lead people deeper into belief, helping them to know the unspeakable holiness and greatness of the Eucharist, of this little host before whom you are kneeling. It is important to truly kneel before the Lord, to realize that here is the Lord, here is a piece of heaven already.
You can go before Him, adore Him, and rejoice that you can do this. You can repeat, “I believe,” like the saints, with the beautiful prayer that the Angel of Fatima taught the children: “My Lord, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I ask pardon for all those who do not believe in You, who do not adore You, who do not hope in You, and who do not love You.”
Repeating this simple prayer often will help you. You can also read beautiful meditations on the Eucharist from the saints. There are so many treasures in our Catholic Church. I very much recommend that people who go to adoration read the meditations on the Eucharist by Saint Peter Julian Eymard. He was a great apostle of the Eucharist in France in the nineteenth century, and his small booklets on Eucharistic meditations are available in English.
I would also recommend that every parish have Eucharistic Adoration during the day and, when possible, even during the night, Perpetual Adoration. It should also be done in a spirit of reparation for all the sacrileges committed against our Lord, to console Him and to love Him. This is very important in our days: to begin adorations of reparation and atonement.
Joe Rossnello: I would agree. Another thing I think we can do, speaking from the perspective of the American Church, since I don’t have the breadth of knowledge of the universal Church, is to renew the focus on confession. This is something that is not emphasized enough.
My wife and I, my wife is of Haitian descent, and I am of Italian descent, we go to a Polish parish because they are very faithful. The priest there hears confessions before every Mass. And our hearts, like Saint Paul said, are blind. We don’t receive grace because we don’t go.
I don’t think people are going to confession regularly. The need for confession to grow in virtue simply isn’t there. And again, this isn’t me being judgmental. I go to confession twice a month. But I have eyes, and I don’t see the lines. Yet the lines for receiving our Lord every Sunday are long.
Speak to that need, because confession opens people’s eyes, just as Saint Paul’s eyes were opened. Exactly.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you for that observation. It’s so important. The link between the Sacrament of Penance and the Eucharist is inseparable. When you know what the Holy Eucharist is, the immense holiness of the Lord, and you truly believe, then you have the instinctive desire to purify your soul.
Even if, by God’s grace, you are not living a sinful lifestyle or committing mortal sins, we are not angels. We are not saints; otherwise, we would be Pharisees. We have our daily faults and defects, and we must recognize, in humility before the Lord and His representative, that we are sinners. We must beg His pardon and ask, “Please, cleanse my soul with Your Precious Blood.”
Holy Confession is the sacrament where Christ cleanses and purifies your soul with His Precious Blood. The Church Fathers called it a kind of “second baptism”, not literal, of course, but in a spiritual sense. We must have great esteem for this sacrament. Every confession, when done well, is an act of humility. And to the humble, God gives grace.
When you confess rarely, your conscience loses sensitivity to the Lord. The danger then is becoming, even implicitly, like a Pharisee, believing that you no longer need to be cleansed.
Joe Pacillo: Bishop Athanasius Schneider is joining us on The Frontline with Joe and Joe. I apologize, Your Excellency. We need to take a short break. We’re discussing Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s new book, The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy. You’re listening to us on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network. Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back.
Welcome back, everyone, to The Frontline with Joe and Joe. I’m Joe Pacillo, with Joe Resinello. We are deep in the breach with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, discussing his new book, The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy, available from Sophia Institute Press. With that, Joe Resinello, I may have cut His Excellency off. I don’t know if you want to continue with the confession, but Joe, you take it wherever you want.
Joe Rossnello: I think we should continue with that. I can relate to it personally, as a husband and father of five. Being a father humbles you, the limits of your patience, and the times you lose your temper. We’re all imperfect. What I think about confession is that not only are we forgiven, but God gives us the grace to heal and improve, to grow in virtue. That’s the goal. But that’s no longer taught or practiced. We’re not moving forward. In many parishes, confession is offered for only forty-five minutes on Saturday, and then only during Advent and Lent. We sin every day, even when we try our best. This truth seems lost, at least in America. The need for confession must be promoted again.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I fully agree with you. We must promote confession, but this responsibility lies with bishops and priests. They must promote it and offer opportunities for confession, not only offering the sacrament but preaching about its meaning and the graces that come through more frequent confession. As you rightly said, Holy Confession is a sacrament that helps us grow in our Christian life, to become more sensitive and develop a finer conscience, to be more aware of our sins, imperfections, and the desires of the Lord. It is a powerful means of grace to sanctify us.
The Second Vatican Council called all to holiness. For decades, we’ve spoken about this “universal call to holiness,” but what does it mean concretely to grow in holiness? You cannot grow without the sacraments. They are the first means of holiness. The Eucharist alone is not sufficient without confession. Receiving Holy Communion regularly without frequent confession will not help you grow. On the contrary, when you receive Communion often but rarely confess, your faith in the Eucharist weakens. The Eucharist then becomes something habitual, even routine.
For example, in the Orthodox Church, here in Kazakhstan, where I live, the Russian Orthodox maintain a strict link between the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Confession. In their Church, before every Holy Communion, one must first go to confession, regardless of whether there is mortal sin or not. It is a rule.
Because of this, they do not receive Communion as frequently as Catholics, but we can learn something from them. In the Latin Church, we should increase this practice. However, I believe the Church needs clear laws about this. Without laws, it’s difficult to improve the situation. Laws help us, just as traffic rules help us. Without them, our human weakness, due to original sin, makes us lax and careless. We need laws to support us.
Therefore, I would suggest that the Church establish a rule: those who receive daily Holy Communion should go to confession at least twice a month. This would serve as a helpful guideline and orientation for both the faithful and the priests. Priests would then know they must offer more opportunities for confession. For those who receive Holy Communion weekly, every Sunday, I would suggest going to confession at least once a month. This would already be a great help. And again, we must preach about the meaning and the spiritual benefits of Holy Confession.
Joe Rossnello: Your Excellency, we’ve talked to many people, and many are sincere. Someone whose words really resonated with me was Dr. Ralph Martin in America. I think he was speaking about what you’re saying, specifically regarding the spirit of Vatican II. Many people believe that to bring others into the Church, we should simply welcome them, and over time, they’ll understand on their own. I think that’s wrong.
Ralph Martin, a very intelligent man, said clearly that this approach doesn’t work, and it hasn’t worked for decades, yet it continues. Many people are sincere, and I give them the benefit of the doubt, but I would say they’re sincerely wrong. Their idea of “accompaniment” is not correct.
Please speak about proper accompaniment, loving people as they are, but without lowering our standards. The Missionaries of Charity do this very well, and I’m very familiar with them. I think that is the way to lead people to God, because the other way hasn’t worked. It hasn’t borne good fruit.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, we must practice accompaniment as our Lord Jesus Christ did. Whenever He assisted sinners, He said to them, “Go, and do not sin anymore.” Our Lord taught that sin must be abandoned.
We know these expressions in the Gospel: He said, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out,” or, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” These are very radical expressions of our Lord’s love for sinners, calling them to abandon their sinful lives. All the saints accompanied sinners with the same advice: to take God’s grace seriously, to fight and battle against sin, and to leave behind the circumstances of sin.
We also read in the Letter to the Hebrews, “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Imagine that, resisting sin even unto blood. That was the language of the apostles and the first Christians. We must return to that seriousness. The greatest distress and unhappiness in this world is sin, conscious sin. There is no greater misery on earth than living in sin. We must tell our brothers and sisters who live in sinful situations that sin itself is their greatest unhappiness.
We must help them with patience, yes, but also with clarity and truth. The Church and her priests are like doctors of the soul. A good doctor accompanies his patient with strict and honest advice. He doesn’t yield to a patient’s unhealthy wishes. Thanks be to God for good, strict doctors who help us heal. Otherwise, we would continue in self-indulgence and grow worse.
That is the true task of accompaniment, to bring people to the happiness that comes from no longer offending God. As Our Lady of Fatima said, “Stop sinning. Stop offending God, for He is already too much offended.” We must show people what sin truly is and the beauty of living in friendship with God, in His grace. Jesus told us we must be ready to lose all earthly advantages rather than damage our immortal soul or offend the immense love of God.
Joe Pacillo: You’re listening to The Front Line with Joe and Joe, Joe Pacillo and Joe Roscenello. We are deep in the breach with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, discussing his new book The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy.
Your Excellency, let me ask you this. Joe and I on our show are big proponents of the idea that there’s a lot to get angry about out there, crumbling institutions, nations falling apart, widespread sexual perversion, it all makes you want to throw your hands up. There’s just so much.
But the saints, Joe and I believe that God will raise up saints, as He has before. Saints like Padre Pio and St. John Vianney helped the faithful in dark times. We believe, especially in America, that it will be the faithful Catholics who help save our nation.
How did saints like Padre Pio and St. John Vianney help the faithful enter into a profound spiritual experience during the Mass?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: These two saints were especially known for promoting the practice of confession. This is a truth testified by many saints and good priests: the sign of a spiritually healthy parish is the frequency of confessions. That is the mark of a living parish in the eyes of God.
The more a parish practices confession, the more alive it is, because through confession, we constantly acknowledge our weakness, and God raises us again, helping us to grow in grace. Both of these saints gave everything, all their physical and spiritual strength, to hearing confessions, even to the limit of their endurance. That is a heroic example.
We must pray that God will send us new Padre Pios and new St. John Vianneys in our own time, priests who will revive the practice of confession and devotion to the Eucharist. Both saints were deep lovers, defenders, and promoters of the Holy Eucharist.
We know that St. John Mary Vianney built a beautiful new altar for the Lord. He purchased the most expensive vestments and sacred vessels for the Mass. Even today, in Ars, in the small museum near his rectory, you can see behind glass those beautiful, precious chasubles that he bought and used. Beside them hangs his old cassock. The saying about him was, “Such an old cassock fits perfectly beneath a beautiful chasuble.” He wanted to give honor to the Eucharistic Lord at Mass.
Padre Pio also celebrated Mass with extraordinary reverence. Those who attended said it was as if he were standing at Calvary itself. No one who attended a single Mass with Padre Pio ever forgot it. They carried that sense of holiness and the greatness of the Mass for the rest of their lives.
The Church will be renewed not only through priests but also, beginning with families. We need holy Catholic families, large families where the Lord is at the center, the Eucharist is at the center, Sunday Mass is at the center, and where faith and love for God and for one another flourish. From such families will come good, holy children, and from those children will come good, holy priests.
Joe Rossnello: Your Excellency, you mentioned St. John Vianney and Padre Pio. The two virtues that immediately come to mind when I think of them are humility and obedience. Both of them came from humble backgrounds. They were humble and they were obedient.
I say this often, perhaps because my patron saint is St. Joseph, a humble and obedient man; we must be obedient. There is too much hubris today. Everyone thinks they know better. We don’t know anything. God knows better. I have seen this with my own eyes: when we remain attached to the vine, we bear fruit. I’ve said this many times on the show. I learned at 22 years old that my own way doesn’t work.
But that’s not the way many people think, from the top to the bottom. We have to get back to humility and obedience. Please speak to the need to be obedient and to be humble.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: You know, this is the greatest example of our Lord and His greatest virtue. As St. Paul writes, He was God, and yet He humbled Himself, became man, took the form of a servant, imagine, a servant!, and was obedient, obedient even to death, and death on the cross. This is the deepest humility and obedience of our Lord. He said, “My food is to do the will of the Father, not my will.” Obedience was the sustenance and content of His life.
This is also the greatest wound of our human nature from original sin. All of us are inclined to follow our own will, to be proud. This is the wound we must heal. Our Lord healed it through His humility and obedience. His deepest humility is manifested in the Eucharist, where He humbles Himself further, becoming truly present under the small, fragile species of bread, allowing all to do with Him as they will. Unfortunately, this is not always recognized in our churches.
When you look upon the Holy Host, consider this humility, the greatest humility of our God. We must stress this example of our Lord: His obedience and humility. Remember His words: not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God, but those who do the will of the Father.
To me, the most beautiful and important words are in the Our Father: “Thy will be done, not mine, on earth as it is in heaven.” This should fill us with the deep desire to live for God’s will, not our own. By doing so, even amidst suffering and the cross, we find true happiness and bear great spiritual fruit in this life and for eternity.
We must preach this: people should love to obey the Lord. The Lord also said in the Gospel: “I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.” Whoever teaches others to disregard even the smallest law will be called least in the kingdom of God.
Joe Pacillo: We only have a few minutes left, Your Excellency. I apologize for cutting you off, but there’s one question we especially want to ask.
The Catholic Church is universal and holy; it is meant to be one. Sadly, it seems to Joe and me that there is a great divide in the Catholic world. Some claim to be “progressive Catholics,” some “traditional Catholics.” Yet, as Your Excellency has noted in the book of John, Jesus prayed that “they may all be one, as You and I are one.”
How can we best avoid false labels and identities and simply live and worship as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church Christ intended us to be? We have about four minutes.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: We must simply be Catholic. We should not add any extra labels. We are Catholic. As St. Vincent of Lérins said in the fifth century: What is Catholic? Catholic is what was always believed, everywhere, by all. This is our faith. To be Catholic is to believe what the Church has always believed, not only in recent decades but in all ages and places, and to live that faith.
Tradition is another word for Catholicism: keeping the faith of the apostles, transmitting it, and living it. Saint Paul said, “I gave you what I received.” This is the task of the Church and of every one of us: to transmit the simple, true, integral Catholic faith to the next generation and to be ready to suffer for the purity and integrity of faith.
Being Catholic involves three inseparable things: believing in a Catholic manner, worshiping in a Catholic manner, and living in a Catholic manner. The Catholic faith is not a fashion. It remains unchanged, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We must simply be Catholic.
Joe Pacillo: Thank you for that, Your Excellency. We have about a minute or so left. Could you offer some final words of encouragement? There is so much darkness in the world right now, Ukraine and Russia, the moral crises in nations, and offenses against God, especially in America and Europe.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: When we are united with the Lord, doing His will, loving Him, and adoring Him, we are already the winners. We must be confident because the Lord is with us. We should not be afraid; we must be hopeful.
Christ is the ultimate victor, and our faith prevails, even amid the current crises in the Church and the increasingly hostile world. These difficulties should not scare us. We must be courageous and say, “I am not afraid, because Christ is with me.”
The gates of hell will never prevail against the Church. Even in moments when it seems they might, they will not succeed. We have the Lord with us, and we are under the mantle of Our Lady. We must consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart, and she will protect us and the Church.
Joe Pacillo: Your Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, thank you so much for your wisdom and for writing The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy. We encourage all our listeners to purchase the book from Sophia Institute Press and other online outlets.
Would you give our audience a final blessing, please?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes. Dominus vobiscum.et cum, spiritu tuo. Benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper. Amen. Praise be Jesus Christ!
Joe Pacillo: Now and forever. Bishop Schneider, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to all our listeners at The Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 AM, 103.9 FM, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith in the New York City metropolitan area.
Remember: until next time, our conversation is your conversation, and that conversation is ongoing.