Al Kresta: A Non-denominational Minister Who Became A Catholic - The Journey Home (10-1-2007)

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi the host for this program and this is our open line first Monday program in which we try and give you more opportunity to speak to a guest who has been on the program before so I'll invite back for this episode former guests and sometimes I have those that don't seem to fit the journey home program let's say someone who's a lifelong Catholic but our guest tonight certainly fits the agenda of the journey home al Kresta former non-denominational minister also the president CEO of Ave Maria radio and Krista in the afternoon I get it right now sort at 6:00 Eastern Time that's right it's great to have you on the program again before I give you space though on on-air here I'm going to remind the audience that they're in a central part of the program absolutely phone numbers are 1-800 two two one nine four six all the outside North America you give us a call at 2:05 two seven one two nine eight o or you can send us an email at journey home at ewtn.com you know al you're right up the street from me know you're in that state up north yeah yeah yeah we're just just north of you I don't harbor you're in Zanesville and that's right yeah and and Saturday's the people around us may not like one another oh it's brew in Ann Arbor there's much blood lost against Ohio State including my 18 year old son James who just decided to slap a bumper sticker on his car oh how I hate Ohio State and my wife said you can't do that your older brother Nick you know just kind of gauged to an Ohio State fan you can't what you're gonna create family conflict sounds like a conversion yeah soften his heart have that Tim one of those rare fans work how state fan almost adopted Ohio State fan but I'm not an anti Michigan fan I'm a pro Big Ten fan oh yeah yep and so I always root for everybody but but it's great to have you on the show that's great to be back I love what you do and you know as a former Protestant pastor myself I think the work that you're doing on the journey home is unparalleled anywhere neither speaking world so very much and it's always a pleasure to hear you on your radio program I've joined you a few times yet you're on your radio program and what we're doing in this episode of the journey home to help prime the pump for the callers and we hope again they're calling even now but are sending us an email give them a little five minute or so summary remind them of your journey into the church and then I've got a few questions that we can address to help give some ideas for the audience sure well I was raised in a Roman Catholic family I was the oldest of five back born 1951 and I don't remember having any big problems with the church growing up I I thought it was a tremendous mystery that it was an odd place and I had some Provost friends who would everyone saw I'd take them into the Catholic Church and you know all kinds of hot conversations would go on trust of your dress your church stinks and that's you know youth you you think this church thinks you stink and besides that you're so dumb you're going to hell and don't even know it but we converse a really deep theological questions I love the clothes theory yeah yeah I mean I loved evangelization from an early age but by the time I hit my teens adolescent doubt the common doom as Melville calls it hit me like a nuclear meltdown and I spent my teen years doing what a lot of nineteen sixties kids did my parents generation had like when women had extolled the virtues of wine women and song and so my generation which is kept yelling let's have him more intensely drugs sex and rock and roll so through through a series of pseudo mystical LSD experiences I ended up on the road falling at the feet of every guru I could find trying to come up with some explanation for these experiences I ended up with what we now call a new age group the I am religious activity and the big thing with the I am and was that you had to maintain perfect harm in your feelings and you know I was a young 20 year old guy and I've never been able to maintain perfect harmony my feelings and the reason we had to do this though was because the perfect life for the life force would enter through our pineal gland and flow through our bodies and use up heat up all their old karma and we'd eventually ascend from the earth like Jesus ascended well this this was this was it still around always beyond I was big in the 1920s filled the Shrine Auditorium in LA yeah yeah then that was followed up by other groups like the Church Universal and triumphant Elizabeth Clare prophet I I don't see them very often any longer but they're still there but for me it was actually a step towards Jesus because it it imposed a fairly strict discipline on me and it also gave me a sense of bumping up against the law I couldn't live up to this law I couldn't live up to this law I was in the Kalamazoo Public Library on lunch break one day and we weren't supposed to read any books outside of our own group but I decided to go prowling around and the religion stacks and I came across Thomas a Kempis book the imitation of Christ and I thought yeah that's what I that's it that's what I want to do I want to be like Christ now that's at that time I thought Jesus was only one of a myriad of ascended masters who were guiding the spiritual evolution of the human race but still I figured you know it had to be something there so I ply go over something through the book the imitation of Christ and before I know it a fella begins circling the little library Carol that I'm in and he's a little unkempt not especially the kind of guy I'd want to grow up to be although maybe I have I don't but he walks around the library Carol once twice three times you know I think is this you know I think the walls at Jericho are gonna fall or something but then he says to me you'll never do it I said what are you talking about he said you'll never be like Jesus and my heart just burst he then explained to me what Christians understand His grace and the need for humility and all this I didn't buy it but I couldn't deny this providential circumstance there are a number of things like that that had happened over a period of 2 3 years finally I came to the place where I began to read when I realized that the Jesus of the New Testament was not the Jesus of the New Age movement and had what evangelicals would call a born-again experience what Catholics would call appropriating the grace of my baptism and for 1974 and for 18 years then I worked with in evangelical protestant circles ran a chain of bookstores did a lot of public speaking and teaching and passenger church for five years and began the radio program that did so well years ago this year yeah 20 years ago 19 years 1987 yeah and eventually my story is not too unlike a lot of people's story when it comes to returning to the church as an evangelical pastor the questions that were forced upon me questions that I never felt I had to settle before but now as the pastoral authority I had to settle questions about the nature of the church its unity the nature of the sacraments the Lord's Supper baptism what's really going on there and I realized that the Bible alone couldn't settle these matters and so why would I take this opinion rather than that opinion and was I in the position of the Pharisees where I was teaching as binding upon the conscience of my congregation opinions which I knew simply one of many I had no authority I didn't know how close I was until an interview that I did on my radio program with father Peter Stravinsky's it was a program that we dubbed Catholic Answers for Catholic questions I had a largely Evangelical Protestant audience 80 90 percent but I knew there were Catholics out there because I met them in pro-life work and Operation Rescue and so I thought we really should serve them more specifically because the Catholic thing is a little different you know it's not just you can't there's something different about Catholics so he came on the air with us and he did a great job one caller phoned in fundamentalistic rude bitter about us Catholic sorry sack rifice in Christ that each Mass and father Peter gave him an answer that was so stirring for me that I realized that this was actually what I had been striving to teach in my congregation so I had this rush of adrenaline through me as he's speaking and I said to myself my god I'm a Catholic I didn't know I it was a little frightening because I had not considered Mary I mean I hadn't I hadn't resolved the issues of the Blessed Mother contraception purgatory there are still big stumbling blocks but it was like the lights went on and I discovered that I had walked out onto a high wire and I was Midway out yeah I looked below and I was scared to death I said you know I can't do this then I said wait a minute you got here in the dark not the lights are on you can get to the other side continue to trust God the church has been right on these things before so I assume we'll be able to resolve them so with that IRA's I offered my resignation tendered my resignation as pastor of the church I could no longer I can no longer sign the doctrinal statement it would have been disingenuous to continue on so oh it took me another year and a half this resolves on these other issues but in a Holy Week of 1992 my wife Sally and my kids came into the church and on Holy Thursday I was received as a penitent back in full communion with the Catholic Church thank you some raisin that'll tell the audience that if you want to hear more of the details of the story you can go to the old journey home program get it from the religious catalogue or download it from the internet but your stories also in surprise but surprise my truth yeah it's the final chapter there it's available on your website I think also yeah I've been wearing a radio dotnet and people can order the CD of the very good all the details I had mentioned a few questions before that I might ask you to show but I'm gonna spring one on you yeah on the program during a couple times I've talked to the audience about what I've called the verses I never saw you know verses that I thought I knew the Bible really well as a Protestant and then in that time of the journey all of a sudden some verses kind of jumping on the Bible that I swore someone's gone in the middle and I'm stuck in there and in order do you have a verse or two when you look back that was one of those verses you never saw that opened you to the Catholic Church well there were there are a few verses like that one of them in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verse st. Paul talks about how our works will be judged and our works will be tested for the purged in the urging of them we urging of our works so that we did if we our works have been good and built on the right foundation they would be regarded as gold silver and precious stones but if not they would be burned as wood hay and stubble yet you would be saved as through fire now though I understand that contextually that's referring to Christian preachers or pastors or Christian workers who are you know develop building a congregation or something but I mean it has application to all Christians but the thing that really got me was that there was this post mortem experience of testing and as an evangelical protestant I believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and that there was no necessary thing that happened in between so that one jumped out at me has a post-mortem experience which was neither in heaven nor in hell so what was that a reference to wasn't necessarily purgatory in my mind but it was some sort of process state or condition by which I was going to be purified so that was one that stood out at me another one are against and some of them are the the classics right Matthew chapter 16 17 through 19 I had I had accepted as a matter of tradition Protestant tradition that Peters faith in Matthew 16 or excuse me when Jesus says to Peter you are the rock and upon this rock I will build my church his reference to he's referring to Peters faith rather than Peter as the person and I always assumed that I remember one night getting up from my I was laying bed couldn't sleep so I got up and I I where we lived in Detroit at the time we had two little bungalow houses side-by-side one of them was a library was where Sally and I and the kids lived so I got up ran across the other house pulled out some commentaries on Matthew and went over that passage and found out that Protestant scholarship had pretty well come around to the belief that what Jesus is referring to there in Matthew chapter 16 is Peter the confessing Peter but Peter it's not Peters confession that was a real that that was distressing there were a number there were a number of others baptism which now saves you from 1st Peter chapter 3 I'd always been bothered by John chapter 17 verse 21 that the world essentially Jesus is saying there that the world he gives the world the right to judge whether the father sent the son by the degree of observable love and unity that they witness on the part of his disciples and once you believe they're supposed to be visible unity it's not just a kind of a generalized spiritual unity which is which is real I mean there is that but once you realize it's supposed to take form in space and in time but there's an empirical reality that people are supposed to point to and say that's Christ's body that's the church see how they love one another look at the how they are one once you realize that you're either a Catholic or maybe a nice North alonger a problem I love that phenomenon I heard off on the show where the verse that you looked at square on many times before all of a sudden it just hits there it is and because the Lord is using things at different times of our life to awaken us and you know some of the questions I wanted to pose before you the audience may not that know that you've you've gone through some major trials in the last ten years and you know I remember when you were going through the problem with your leg yeah was that about five or six years in 2003 yeah that and I again I was just down the road from you but I mean I was shocked to hear that and the thing that struck me then as drug stood me now it's two questions you can kind of go with both or one of the two one of those is is in what way did the Catholic understanding of suffering as a part of the necessary part of our journey how is a Catholic view helped to versus where you came from and the other question with that is is is is also akin to it and that is God's will for our life the things that happen to us yeah somehow as a part of God's plan yes of our life well let me a me start with the this Catholic view of suffering first and then I'll see if I can get my way on to the understanding of God's will I should say first of all that as an evangelical protestant I would and always I never bought the idea that we wouldn't have suffering in this way health and wealth cosmic yeah I know I never I never believed that I was a fairly sober of angelical but I didn't know what to do with suffering and I knew it would come but I didn't have any good reason for it because as an evangelical justification by faith alone made suffering gratuitous it didn't have any real function in my life in terms of rendering me fit for the kingdom of God and but as a Catholic and I'll speak just from my experience i listeners may not know that viewers may not know that I was hit with the necrotizing fasciitis February 18th I think it was 2003 it's flesh-eating bacteria and within a few hours the doctors told me that they had to ride out to go into surgery and that there's a good chance that I'd lose my leg you know that was shocking yeah in at first they thought the only thing you do is you you you know you kind of throw up prayers as you were navigating the emotional currents but when I can I was unconscious for five days I did lose my leg when I came to you unconscious for five days yeah I did yeah it was it was it was strange but when I came to my daughter Alexis who at the time was 20 22 23 Lexi said dad do you wonder why you and my thought to myself why not me and I think that was a grace because I've been prone to depression in the past and I didn't have any of that just time around why not me here I was I mean I'm in st. Joseph's Mercy Hospital all right the nurses that I had number them were Christians who prayed with me they had all kinds of great medical equipment brilliant doctors they had all these Poli kind of things you know music and television I had morphine I mean when I was 17 I would have thought that was the life I'm not that's not suffering it's not like some confederate kid who takes a musket ball to the hip and then has to take a shot of bourbon as they sawed off his limbs you know understand so I didn't feel I mean I didn't feel as though this was any great matter I was void up by the prayers of God's people I had a strong sense of Mark chapter 2 where Jesus the fellows had removed the thatched roofing from place Jesus was teaching lowered somebody down on a pallet I right into the presence of Jesus well I felt as though the prayers of God's people were lifting me up into the presence of Jesus so with that in mind okay with that in mind when Alexis asked me do you ever wonder why you I just thought well why not me I'm a Christian I'm a Catholic Christian at that I understand that my Lord suffered I have an opportunity that how to follow him as I remember Bishop Sheen saying that he did not want to waste a moment of suffering and so that became my motto I don't want to waste a moment of suffering here I had them clear the room of all flowers and cards there were lots of people supporting me because I want you to make sure you audience understand what you're saying some people might miss hear you to say I don't want to waste a moment suffering well that's not what you're saying no no no no I don't want to waste a moment of suffering the suffering is given to us to help conform us to Christ's image this is something that is written about by in the first Peter is written about in Romans chapter 8 by st. Paul suffering is a constant theme in the New Testament and it's by suffering that the it's the winepress the winepress of God's love squeezing us because He loves us so that we might be formed and molded into the person of Christ into conformity for the Son of God so that's that's what was I that's what was governing my attitudes and my thinking that doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of pain there was it it didn't mean that I suffered very well I think that's another thing that was very important for me to learn and that is that in some ways trying to offer up your suffering trying to you know the st. Paul's wonderful statement that he makes up in his body that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions well that's a you know you try to do that but you know out of one side of your mouth you're praying on the other side of the mouth you say all right when when when I to do this I didn't do it very well and my friend David hop c'mere brought me a book by a Benedictine teacher called book was called icater in what the book was called now I'm thinking of the chapter was called imperfect suffering I am PE RF EC T imperfect suffering and he made the point there that how important suffering is to the Christian life but we frequently don't do it very well and then he said but you don't pray very well either you're distracted by prayer you're distracted in prayer you forget the prayer you ignore prayer okay you do the same thing with suffering you're trying to offer an up but you're distracted you forget that you're offering up and conformity to Christ he said that's that's alright you continue to pray anyways right so continue to affirm what God is doing through your life in suffering so I saw this as I saw the suffering as a way of very consciously trying to knit my intentions with the Savior's intentions I wouldn't have been able to do that as a non Catholic you know I think you know the book was released recently Mother Teresa's Tom yes yes yes you know yeah and by father Brian Cole a day-trip who's the fellow the media that's out there that have misunderstood completely what she was saying and they haven't got a clue right but I think the important thing is even as you're discussing what you were going through in a deep sense of of that suffering sometimes it isn't a doubt as the priest has said if she didn't stir it was a doubt of faith it was a trial of faith yeah and that was part of what suffering is in our life is testing our faith yeah I you know I and I I feel as though in this case you know Mother Teresa did not have counsel of consolation for years and years and years it's incredible because thinking about you I suspect you you know what I mean by this you know I feel like I'm best as a Catholic when those spiritual endorphins are pumping and you know I'm feeling good about God good about life good about the faith and you know every Eucharist is a glimpse into eternity I see thee and heavenly angels gathered about in liturgy with me mother didn't have that she didn't have that for years she was faithful to the end this was a woman this is a woman who could have been CEO of any corporation this is a woman who could have done most anything she wanted to except be a Hollywood starlet I guess but she was an extraordinary person she was faithful to the end she knew darkness and suffering and it was an extension of her ministry think about it Christ in his most distressing disguise those people she ministered to are often hard to look at it's hard to see God present there it's as though he's being trivialized the image of God doesn't look like that looks like human trash but she could see Christ and most distressing disguise there and that was her ministry of darkness that's the way she put it hell we have a caller Gary from Missouri hello Gary what's your question for us tonight hello hello Gary I have a I have a person friend who I have had discussions with him on many occasions and most of those times he agrees with me but he attributes that to my power of persuasion rather than the power of the words themselves or the truth and I just have trouble help helping him value the truth itself specifically he has issues with losing your salvation through some sort of mortal sin because his understanding is you know anyone with a relationship with God and a true love for Christ is guaranteed their salvation that specifically but just in general the necessity and the moral obligation to belong to the church I have a hard time describing to him all right Gary oh the issue always it's always difficult it's always difficult in answering questions like this to know where that person is really coming from the idea of once saved always saved their eternal security or perseverance of the saints up until very recently even the doctrine perseverance of the saints was tied to perseverance how do you know who the Saints are there are those who persevere and so I think that you know we we have to understand that the scripture gives us an understanding of God's sovereignty and also of human responsibility I think in Acts chapter 2 for instance st. Peter's preaching and he says Jesus was delivered up according to the predetermined plan of God but you killed him so you've got both divine and and so I don't feel look I would be wouldn't I be less what would if I can't lose my salvation then what does that say about my relationship with God it means that somehow I've been stripped of my capacity to reject and what kind of relationship is that and then of course there's multiple biblical passages which tell us that we have to stay faithful that we have to persevere that we're not to yield of course if all the past that you mentioned earlier that our works will be judged at the end all that one was emphasizing that was everything persons still saved but that was in the context that's why we see purgatory is a part of heaven yes that's right it's the antechamber of eminence right yeah another side to this question before we take a break is this it's interesting to what you said is that up until recently the Saints included as the corollary perseverance and I'm wondering you've been in media for twenty years plus both in Protestant world and in the Catholic world I'm wondering to what extent that kind of modern slant on once saved always saved is really a stick that grew in the midst of 20th century media yeah I think there's a lot to that I think there's there's a marketing I dimension to this you know I don't know if you did used to do the Kennedy evangelism program yeah I did - if you were to die tonight Marcus why would God let you into his heaven you know and you'd have to tell me why so when you tell me why God should let you into his heaven then if you say oh because I've tried to keep the commandments oh wow you that's not how you get to heaven okay well let's see it's because I was baptized that's human works it's in its this almost range running through the questions that an insurance salesman stalk I mean it really almost does it does all of this comes back to what it means to be human once saved always saved is an affront to human dignity because it presupposes that a single decision that you make with your life at some point in the past is gonna be perpetuated through all eternity there's a one preacher down in Houston I don't know if he's still alive you may have passed on now Arby theme in this book angels Apes and peacocks said that you could become an atheist and deny God and you still would be saved so what if not some of them Oh some emotional thing you did back at some Bible Camp when you were eight years old you know that would be you know yeah and what's my life been since that time then in other words if that was the choice which is perpetuated for all eternity then what about all my subsequent choices have they no bearing at all on my relationship with God I think it's I think it's dehumanizing I think it's oftentimes well-intentioned at times I think it's meant to give people a sense of God's grace and his love and how secure we are as we walk in the we walk in the light as he is in the light and we have fellowship with God and some Jesus you know that's important and you know that particular idea is course not even the majority of you amongst non Catholics you know that's just a small review it's not a majority one thing I did notice was that often those churches that most preach the once saved always saved if you visited their church week after week after week almost every focus of every Sunday was the altar call to bring people only to Christ and Catholics of course we want that to happen but often they didn't get beyond that because the emphasis on that once saved experience once were there then they're guaranteed now we go out make sure that people have that same experience I mean you could you could be cynical and say it's like a a pyramid it's a Ponzi scheme and they really almost sounds like that I know that not all are that way we know that yeah no but there we know that they're also some that have run with that yeah and because it's a cheap it's a cheap gospel it's cheap grace and yes you're right we don't we know very good people who believe those things right but we also know people who exploit them all right let's take a break come back in with some some of your phone calls and emails for outcrossing welcome back to the journey home I'll crest Center here just a good time talking here in between we're gonna take some of your phone calls let's see we've got let's go to an email first we got a caller waiting but let's go quick - Joan from Minnesota who writes greetings Marcus and Allen mister Cresta you and your family made your journey home during the pontificate of john paul ii what was your impression of his public ministry and his teachings while you were deserting your conversion that's a good question and I've I've come to appreciate him far more since I've been a Catholic oh I had great respect for him I didn't hadn't read much of him I came I returned to the church again largely through the questions that were forced upon me the questions that I had to deal with as a Protestant pastor and he didn't have much of a you know his books his Remy's encyclicals his writings didn't have much influence on me what I always loved about Pope John Paul the second is that he he was definitely a person who exhibited the lordship of Christ over all areas of life so this was a man who understood Christ in the arts Christ and science Christ and education Christ and family Christ and gender Christ in politics Christ in economics all and so I thought he was an outstanding Christian teacher and of course when I but I became convinced the papacy whether john paul ii was there or not you know saying i I'd like to say I'd like to say that he had a lot to do with my becoming Catholic I think but he mean that I wasn't aware of that at the time and I I think actually Benedict the sixteenth would have been better for me really yeah I I think I just think is his style of writing would have cut through a lot of my question you know I'm taking this moment to encourage the audience to read John Paul and Benedict yeah because often we think what's the writing of a pope encyclical it sounds so up there that you don't want to go there but they're all wonderful yeah in fact you meant we talked about suffering earlier that John Paul's is cyclical and suffering is a Bible study yeah on that difficult verse in Kalasha well there's a fella in Cincinnati Rob Schroeder who's publishing a book a commentary on John Paul the second letter on human suffering so that's our sunny visitors gonna have that that's gonna be coming out this year sometime my daughter Alexis read that to me when I was finally conscious and could sustain thought well I laid there in the hospital Alexis read me his letter on suffering yeah so maybe put another word in case you don't realize that every Tuesday night father Pacwa has a special program on Tuesday nights in which over I don't know how long he's been doing that but he's been teaching through the encyclicals of John Paul so you wanted tuned into that program to help them explain some of those more difficult passages but you'll you'll appreciate John Paul it's the seconds writings very winsome writings very fine right let's take this next caller George from Alabama ho George what's your question I've kind of in the boat I think a lot of people are where you you read and you study for a while and you you realized that that the Catholic Church's is where I belong and is probably my spiritual home but I'm married my wife has not made that leap yet and her concerns or her friends and family how what are their reactions going to be if we make that jump what are their how how are we going to be treated so my question to you is how were you treated you were a pastor of a church you had you know people that relied on you trusted on you were your friends presumably and my question is how did they treat you when you finally did make the jump George the first thing I'm going to say is that I want everybody listen to be praying for you and I particularly know a lot of men women who know exactly what he's gone through we called it the no-man's land it's coming on network here you're gonna you can't go back and you can't go back and you can't go forward well George let me only tell you that first of all you can't control what other people are going to think I Y was blessed I say the most common reaction that I got when people learned that I was returning to the Catholic Church was that of respectful perplexity they wondered why would you do that you know they like me and you know they thought well of me but they couldn't figure out why I'd want to become Catholic so I didn't under I didn't undergo a lot of slings and arrows I did have some I did have a few people who tried to undermine my job in in talk radio because I had become Catholic I had I had one good friend who I still loved a great deal in our journey had been parallel for so long and when I returned to the Catholic Church he met it with a with silence I wouldn't talk about it I tried to talk about he wouldn't talk about it oh hi so you know I I don't I I didn't suffer when it came to return to the Catholic Church to me I I felt a guy had all the good things that had been part of my Evangelical Protestant experience were being fulfilled I was being enriched and I was seeing things I'd never seen before as a Christian but when it comes to this problem how other people are going to respond you can't do a thing about it except to be respectful as articulate as God has given you and charitable as God has given you and then you just have to let it fall let the chips fall where they may when it comes to your spouse that's a little that's a little more delicate if your spouse shares I was fortunate and that Sally had respect for the Catholic Church and felt like she was discovering stuff all the time about the Incarnation the Blessed Mother was close to her she loved reading Carol Hollander so that was easy we didn't have any conflict so I'm sorry but it's not always the case no it's not Jim I'd like to encourage you if you'd like to go to connect with us at the coming home Network International our website is ch network dot o RG our original reason for existing was to stand beside Protestant clergy on the journey but we also work with laity because a lot of lady just as you've expressed has some of the same issues that arise when they have the audacity of examining the Catholic Church you may not lose your job but you never know it's just been the case so if you'd like to contact the coming home Network International and we've got people that can help you our goal is not to push pull or Prada anybody in the church but to stand beside I with you yeah I have a friend now that is ready to enter the Catholic Church his wife has just slammed the door and it's I don't know what's going to happen but she won't read a book she doesn't talk about it she won't visit with Catholic friends it makes it difficult to move anything along Jim thank you so much for calling let's take well that was a Jim no George George George I'm sorry I'm sorry if I got the name wrong let's take our next email Erin from Ohio dear Marcus and guests I also came from a non-denominational background and left Christianity and religion around 14 I was received in the Catholic Church two Easter's ago my question is this both of both of my parents are remarried twice and somewhat anti religious I know the Church's position on divorce and I'm just wondering is there a place for them in the church I pray constantly that they discover Christ please help Erin thanks for email yeah well if there was a place for the woman at the well who had five husbands there was a place for your parents they've only got two I think that you you really have to understand God's grace is far beyond what we can imagine it is it is deep enough for an elephant to drown in and then the shallow enough for an infant to wade in so you don't put anything beyond what God can do and remember that your parents are hardwired for God they were created in His image and likeness they will not find their fulfillment until they find it in him and it's possible that the marriage irregularities whatever the history has been you know that may have been a groping for love it may have been an attempt to find fulfillment in a person a human person rather than in God a lot of times marriages break down because we expect our spouse to be an infinite reference point for us this is where we got drive all of our meaning this is true remember Sheldon van alkanes poem a severe mercy that the story is told so well there about his wife her passing and why he thought that it occurred he had some letters from CS Lewis that were there so I think marriages sometimes fail because we asked our spot we believe because we don't have a relationship with God our spouse has to carry the burden of all of our meaning and love and significance it has to come from our spouse no marriage can stand that it's gonna crumble so keep that in mind as you pray for them and Marcus I'm sure has resources available through the coming home network branding at work we can do that as well as EWTN so again go to our website and be connected and now this is the reason I was I forgot George's name is because our next caller is Jim and I was gonna next up already sorry about that George Jim from Atlanta what's your question for us tonight hi good evening welcome to the church I heard you say Jim and I kind of panicked there I've got two questions kind of I want to know what you think is the best and most effective way to explain our faith in the Eucharist and visas true presents to a Protestant Christian and particularly to one who may have been a Catholic and left because of not feeling welcomed we're really not feeling or seeing that faith in their own parish church because many places I know I've seen this particularly in the north where I grew up is a declining respect for the Eucharist among Catholics and I will let you go and thank you very much for email good question well how person comes to understanding the Eucharist has a lot to do with who they are and what their history is and first of all some people especially if this is a former Catholic it's quite possible that he's got residual memories of the sacredness of the Eucharist that if he's put back in that context where the mass is done according to the rubrics and with all the reverence that might register with him again so let's call that for the sake of discussion we call that the the mystical of the mystical approach where there's something about you know when you walk into a cat I remember this even as a non Catholic I remember going going into Catholic churches in the old cliche of feeling like when you walked in there you weren't alone you know there was Jesus something was going on there beyond your sensibilities so that's possible and in once a person experiences that it's fairly easy to talk about the theology involved so but the second the second approach is more propositional it's more going to the scriptures and I think there are a few passages that you can point out I think when st. Paul teaches that we have to receive the Eucharist worthily and that some have in Corinth we're not receiving worthily some were showing up with the Lord's a table drunk there were there was greed and the division people were not receiving the Eucharist surely they were not discerning the body he says that summer have become sick some have even died as a result of that now you know I don't know how you want to deal with that but that's there in the biblical text and if you just believe that that the Eucharist is a symbolic memoriam then what are you supposed to do with that verse you may not you may not end up with the Catholic understanding of it but you're not going to end up with a purely symbolic view of it you know the verse one of the verses I never saw a quote that was sort such a strong encouragement to me to listen to the Catholic view was that I had my favorite verse of scripture a chapter in Scripture with John 15 vine and branches and it says you know you know bite in me and I in you know that ports and then someone pointed out that the only verse in scripture where Jesus says how to abide is in John 6 oh that's good yes I mean think about the theology of that yeah that's good unless you eat if you eat my body and drink my blood you abide in me and I knew you put those two together and you've got to deal with that yeah yeah and it forces you into John 6 to see what does he really mean because if you want to abide in Christ it's like you said you come into our church and you can receive Jesus yeah not just talk about I would also say don't forget Ignatius of Antioch here some there are a lot of Christians who do not understand the Apostolic fathers Ignatius of Antioch Clement of Rome the Shepherd of hermas the decay the martyrdom of Polycarp Ignatius of Antioch is is great because he his life overlaps that of the last apostles he's writing around 110 as he's going to Rome to be martyred and he calls the Eucharist the medicine of immortality he also says that it's not to be practiced without the bishop in other words is that there's a there's an aura around this Eucharistic practice which makes you say there's something more going on here than a symbol very good let's take at least one more email Tom from Illinois ow welcome back to the Catholic Church thanks your former evangelical prize and tradition did doctrinal questions arise as a result of Sola scriptura if so what means were used to resolve those issues well in in my own life I would try to resolve them just by study I mean I would try to come up with I said I had a library of about 25,000 books and I would lots of commentaries I'd do my best to understand what was being said there is no great effort to resolve doctrinal controversy within Protestantism this is a sad this is a sad truth most Protestant traditions and denominations have accepted their ecclesiastical independence and that's that's the way it is in fact father Newhouse we became Catholic when he realized that the Lutheran Church that he had been a part of had was no longer working to reform the church it had separated from but that it was simply maintaining its own ecclesiastical independence and I knew their church you would have the three different major bodies now there were four at the time when he came that had deep theological doctrinal difference even then amongst those Amorim selves Lutheran groups yeah versus the Missouri Synod Lutheran's Eck rejected the world Lutheran Lutheran World Federation signing of that doctrinal accord with the Catholic Church on justification Missouri Synod Lutheran's wisconsin's and Lutheran's rejected it I don't think it's sad and actually one of the things that drew me back to the Catholic Church and I would say drove me back to the Catholic Church I did believe in unity I believed in visible unity I believed in a unity of spirit I was Catholic with the small see all my Christian life and when it occurred to me that there was there was not going to be reconciliation of these doctrinal differences it made becoming Catholic a lot easier now we just got a couple minutes left how about if I give you these last couple of minutes to make a pitch for the importance of supporting Catholic radio yeah well I'm glad to do that first first of all New York Times was once a great Christian newspaper I don't know if you know that was started by a devout Presbyterian Henry Raymond back in 1851 I think that's no longer the case right now we have alternate media Catholic radio is one these Catholic television Catholic radio is part of the alternate media it's absolutely necessary because we have a comprehensive vision of Jesus as lordship we believe that it applies to the arts and the sciences the education of politics to economics we believe that secondly in Catholic radio you not only get a Catholic view of the world but you also get remedial catechesis this has been a bad 40 years for the Catholic Church in America many adults simply don't know what they believe many of them don't know what the Immaculate Conception is they think it's a matter of utter indifference as to how many nature's Christ had or the number in the Trinity you know who's counting anyways I mean so we need to do remedial catechesis so one a comprehensive vision of life rooted in the Catholic faith to Catholic radio does remedial catechesis because Mother Angelica is the pioneer in that whole area the third thing is the secular media doesn't understand our story they talk about the environment we talk about creation we talk about history moving towards the coming of Jesus for them history is just so much sound and fury signifying nothing so those three things comprehensiveness of vision remedial catechesis and we've got to be there because the secular press just doesn't get our story one of the reasons that I believe so much in Catholic television and Catholic radio versus this Christian television radio is because oh we have the consistency of the message that is going to be there absolutely when when Catholic we just went through a membership drive the relationship between the Catholic host and the Catholic audience is different than between the prods and host and the Protestant audience Catholic host and the Catholic audience are working in a mystical body to proclaim one message they are the echo chamber of the word okay that's what we are so Wow thank you so much thank have you here it's great to be here I love it and God bless you and your work and I look forward to seeing you again soon and all the best for you and your family thank you thank you for joining us on the journey home again encouragement to support Catholic television radio god bless you see you again next week

Channel: EWTN

Views: 10,768

Rating: 4.884892 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Non-denominational, Pastor, JHT01150

Id: 9oaK2SRqFvk

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 07 2015