Called to Communion - 1/21/21 - with Dr. David Anders

starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests why do catholics worship mary why do i need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the bible i think the pope has too much authority what's stopping you you are called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question about the catholic faith we're here to help you get the answer here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 now if you're listening or watching us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates for some people may apply and for those of you watching us on tv today you can participate as well our email address ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com michael mccall is our producer today we also have michael birchfield as our call screener and jeff burson is on social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now just put your question in the comments section jeff will shoot that to us right here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend oh i'm doing decent thank you getting through the winter months that's all we can do right well we might be able to do a bit more than that well let's hope so here's a very interesting question that came in from alberta kansas this is uh canada alberta canada this is from leduc my question is about the souls in purgatory can they pray for us i was always taught that they can't pray for themselves but they can pray for us what do you think david um yeah thank you i really appreciate the question so the souls in purgatory cannot merit all right that's important to understand so the the they have the degree of charity in their soul that you know they're going to have it death and they're not going to be able to merit an increase of grace or a higher place in heaven because of good deeds that they do you know prayers for the faithful or so forth and purgatory okay um however they are united to god in charity and all the souls in purgatory are saved they're part of the church they have god's grace in their soul um and if they if they're united to god in charity then they're in fellowship with him in some way in a remote way not like the souls in heaven but just like we are in fellowship with god remotely right through sanctifying grace and uh and so it seems very reasonable to conclude that they are that they're willing what god wills i mean that's what prayer ultimately is you know thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven and so god can answer uh prayers he can answer when people ask him for favors or blessings on others he can certainly respond to those and make those part of the instrumental cause of playing out his providence in the world and so most theologians it's a it's a it's a common opinion it's not a dogma of the faith believe that the souls in purgatory can and do pray for us okay leduc thanks for listening to us there in canada good to hear from you today here's a really tough one david this is from paul dr anders i just recently lost my nephew to an overdose he was a kind and loving young man but as far as i know did not go to church i'm praying for him but i wonder if the overdose was a mortal sin does he have a chance at going to heaven thanks paul yeah thanks paul i really appreciate the question so obviously to to take the kind of drugs that would cause an overdose and death is is gravely harmful to ourselves and others and therefore gravely wrong we can never condone that or approve it or excuse it on the other hand whether or not a particular immoral act is imputable to an individual is something that we can't we're not really in the condition of judging god judges that because we we're not in that person's head we don't know the extent to which they were acting freely rationally without compulsion uh you know was there was there not some mental illness involved i mean these are these are we can't weigh those factors and so we can always maintain a lively hope uh that our prayers for souls will have some effect and we should in fact pray for them and love them and and hope for their salvation okay paul thank you so much for your letter very sorry about your loss a joy in argentina says we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves even our enemies and at the same time we're taught that many of the people we're commanded to love will suffer terrible torments in hell forever so how can a how can heaven be a promise of eternal bliss and happiness if while we are there we know that people that we love are suffering eternally yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so let's have let's get our heads wrapped around what heaven is what the bliss of heaven is okay so you know the sort of popular picture of heaven is that we get to heaven and we get our hearts desire you know so if you want if you like playing golf you have the infinite you know golf course ahead of you or whatever if you like you know bob dylan you get to stream bob dylan for all eternity whatever it might be and that's the way that greeting cards and television shows tend to depict it heaven is kind of the pleasures of earth writ large that's not the christian conception it's not the biblical conception it's not the catholic conception of heaven uh what we look forward to in eternal life is the vision of god right that we would know god in himself as he knows us and god of course is the is is the source of all good things everything that's good in the world is good because it participates or is like somewhat like unto god and it's it's his goodness that makes this particular goodness available to me and so you know the finite good of an apple or a tree or golf course is minuscule in comparison to the goodness that is god himself and when you get to heaven and you have that beatific vision that where your soul is entirely taken up with the experience of infinite beatitude infinite goodness infinite bliss there's literally nothing left for you to desire and part of that is that you you now will understand uh god's justice and mercy in a way that you presently don't understand it and so there are things about the faith that are mysterious and to be honest with you the doctrine of hell is one of those it's kind of hard to wrap our heads around these questions will be answered these paradoxes resolved in the beatific vision god of course suffers no diminution of his of his eternal and uh infinite bliss uh because of human ills or failures uh i mean these these play out in the course of his providence for his purposes but he himself is unchanging in his own in his own beatitude we'll share in god's beatitude which includes his conception of justice and mercy joy thanks so much for listening to us in argentina very glad to hear from you today and by the way if you'd like to send us an email for a future show here's the address ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com all right in just a moment here we're going to get to the phones we were talking to uh ad in london uh that's the london in england also a larry in worcester mass and we have a couple of lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 it's called a communion here on ewtn to stay with us [Music] this is conversations with consequences where we delve deeper into issues affecting our church our country and our core the family as catholics we need to be informed aware and able to talk through some of the tough topics that we're facing in our culture and our world conversations with consequences gives us the tools to do so it's not enough to pray we have to be a light for the world conversations with consequences this saturday at 5 pm eastern on ewtn radio [Music] hello i'm evangelist alvita king of priest for life with pro-life update in the our father we pray hallowed be thy name when the people of god live in a way that reflects the holiness justice truth and love of god himself then god's name is honored in other words god's people give god a good reputation and the word christian is something people want to identify with but when god's people are unfaithful god's name is dishonored this is what happens when god's people turn the other way and ignore the abortions that kill thousands of babies every day or even participate in them this designers both the rights of that child and the honor of god hallowed be thy name through our commitment to life hallowed be thy name through the sacrifice we make to defend life and the care we give to mother and child alike i'm evangelist alvita king on the ewtn global catholic radio [Music] network [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin with ad in london uk listening on youtube today hey there ed what's on your mind today i'm going to ask dr david anders a question so i'll keep it as brief as i can i'm in rcia and i uh i intend to uh get baptized uh this uh easter hopefully and um essentially i'm coming from the protestant uh uh tradition and uh the last the last wing of the protestant tradition that i tried was calvinism and essentially my problems there was um i mean you'll see what i'm just building on my question really quick my problems there was like this question of the am i saved or not so essentially i got the feeling that i wasn't like the other columnists uh that i was seeing on on youtube uh we i didn't share the same spiritual life and i thought i i i something was incomplete and i was like i might save am i saved i felt like i was on the outside uh looking in on a club and i'm trying to get in and i'm like and i'm just trying to see like what kind of advice they had for me and it was essentially things like um do you have that one moment you can look back in your life where you can identify some mentorship in your spiritual life and you knew you were safe so like you were you were a drug addict and the heavens split open and now you're a devout christian or they essentially just say just repent just repent and neither of those two really helped me at all i got the feeling that there's something i must be missing and um coming across the uh catholic tradition and the orthodox tradition that no baptism saves you i'm asking my question is essentially was i correct when i felt like i was missing something and was is baptism that thing and what should i what should i expect uh post baptism um in in my life i don't want to have like an unrealistic um irrational expectation such as like oh i'm gonna have this great religious emotional experience but what real effects should i uh expect what what a magnificent question i i just love this question i think it's fantastic so uh you were correct to feel ill at ease with the calvinist view of assurance built into calvinism built into presbyterianism is the idea that a christian should have assurance of his salvation and in fact the westminster confession which is a calvinist confession of faith says the believer can have an infallible assurance of his salvation and and uh and you put your finger on the key difficulty with that is that the criteria for knowing am i saved or am i not saved are not consistent within calvinism and so it is possible for the calvinist to believe at one moment that he's saved and then in another moment to call that conviction into question and say well maybe these signs or testimonies that i that i'm pointing to maybe they weren't genuine and uh presbyterian fellow i know put the dilemma this way he said the elect know for sure they're going to heaven and i might be one of them right and so it leads to a kind of spiritual schizophrenia if you will yeah and i i'm deeply familiar with this because i used to come from that tradition and i understand the the being told it's very important that you have assurance of your salvation and then having the very grounds of that assurance called into question constantly so it's it's a very neurotic way to think about the spiritual life fortunately catholics are not in that boat we have a whole different way of conceiving our relationship to god here's how catholics understand it baptism does not guarantee that you will go to heaven that's not its function baptism does a number of things first of all it introduces us to the church it it's the door into the christian life into the catholic church and and makes us partakers in all of the goods and privileges and duties of being a catholic uh makes us members of christ's body secondly baptism uh makes us priests in the catholic church you know st peter says we're a kingdom of priests and priests job is to offer sacrifices and baptism makes us share in that priestly ministry we offer our very lives our bodies as living sacrifices so that our lives become lives of worship and adoration to almighty god that's affected through baptism baptism washes away original sin our sins and our actual sins are forgiven and we are made partakers of god's nature right through sanctifying grace god's grace comes and dwells within us now what does grace do grace empowers our lives and makes it possible for us to live a holy life to walk with god and do his will to love god and love neighbor and all the other sacraments of the catholic church deepen and intensify and extend that experience of grace so that it comes to penetrate us more and more until we are filled with all the fullness of god and that is the vocation the end of all the saints that we would grow in grace and holiness all our lives until the end now here's why baptism does not guarantee salvation baptism introduces us to the path the door the body of christ all of the graces we need to be saved but we must cooperate with those graces we have to walk in them we have to remain and persevere in them jesus says whoever perseveres to the end will be saved so baptism makes salvation possible for us in fact jesus says his his uh his yoke is easy and his burden is light it makes it very doable for us but we still have the obligation to participate to cooperate with grace to remain on that path to persevere into the end jesus says whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life so communion is for us a sign of our ongoing participation in christ confession is a sign of our being continually reconciled to him so walk the walk stay the path persevere to the end so do we have absolute assurance that we're going to go to heaven when we die no and and such a thing is not possible what we have is hope we have hope okay is that helpful for you ad yeah very helpful um thank you guys and um yeah i'll uh i'll i'll just hang up in this one very good all right ad thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders 833-288-3986 let's go to larry in worcester mass listening online ewtn.com a first-time caller hey there larry what's on your mind today hi good afternoon dr anders thank you for a very educational show i'm confused and bewildered and i'll make this as brief as i possibly can on ewtn i hear father groeschel speaking against abortion and defining what catholics responsibilities are to oppose abortion i know what the pope's position is i just heard alvida king give an anti-abortion presentation during the break and i'm hearing on the radio today that 50 percent of catholics plus voted for pro-abortion candidates i guess what confuses and bewilders me is that all this seems at best well at best hypocritical end and for people outside the church very confusing and bewildering we seem to be saying one thing and doing something else when we see a cardinal on television distributing communion to senior senior politicians who are openly anti-abortion so how can i help you abortion i'm sorry how can i help you well the question the question is what am i missing here in that i'm hearing two positions one in action one in verbiage from the catholic church okay thanks i appreciate the question so here's how i look at it that catholics are not immune to the dangers of ideology and uh you know catholic moral theology and catholic social doctrine propose values to us values like the dignity of the human person or the sanctity of life uh the principle of solidarity subsidiarity these kinds of things and and the church tells us that we must work as people as catholics to to live these values in society and bring them into our civilizations and make them uh real beacons of light to the people around us and the church is to be light and salt in the world um but but the church does not prescribe to us uh the you know the particular kinds of political systems or or movements or ideologies that are that uh that we have to follow and in catholics are can certainly be caught up in the spirit of the age and and drawn off into one or other sort of ideological system now the church warns us against ideology not not you know this ideology or that ideology but ideology as such what do i mean by ideology well audiology is when you have a real kind of locked tight system that you think explains social phenomena and prescribes specific courses of action that you have to take change civilization in ways that you think are beneficial and you can have right-wing ideologies you have left-wing ideologies but they tend to be rigid and intolerant of people sort of on the other side of the aisle so to speak and uh and and when people get wrapped up in ideologies well that the ideology can become more important to them than maybe the particular items sort of the moral uh data that the church proposes to us and if that happens well that's bad right i mean we we all we ought not to let our political theorizing um diminish or dilute our catholic commitments um but it seems to me this is a perennial temptation i mean it's not it's the present age is not the only one in which we've seen catholics be ideologically possessed and uh and drawn asunder you know one way or the other and uh you know we can point fingers at people that kind of give a wink and a nod to sort of leftist politicians but we can we can point fingers at people that give a winking a nod to you know right-wing politicians that also aren't always doing what they're supposed to be doing and that's uh you know we need to be on guard against that temptation all right we appreciate your call thank you so much larry for it it is called the communion here on ewtn our phone number 833 eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six let's go to michael right now listening uh in northern michigan he's passing through the area listing on i heart radio a first time caller michael what's on your mind today good morning dr anders thank you very much i so much appreciate your advice the one thing we're talking about now in our bible study is the conflict in galatians between peter and paul and peter was the rock that the church was built on and so i sort of see him as in in a in a sense sort of superior to the other apostles just because of that and then in galatians we hear that paul is really unhappy with peter gets in his face and says you're doing it wrong and i'm having a real hard time with that relationship between those two saints i'm wondering if you can help me navigate through that yeah sure so remember that peter is the first pope and just like all the popes he had a charge he had a commission uh from christ to strengthen the brethren to feed the sheep to hand on the sacred tradition preserve it from error teach it faithfully and sanctify the faithful that's his job description paul as an apostle also had a commission from christ it wasn't the same commission that peter had but he had a commission from christ now in paul's life many people thought he was doing a bad job of it and if you read his epistles especially first and second corinthians the people to whom he was ministering they had all kinds of complaints with paul and some of them even said we don't even think you're a real apostle and paul's response to that was well i don't need your good opinion you know i answer to god and that doesn't mean i'm doing everything right but it's the lord he'll judge me he's given me a job to do he'll hold me responsible i'm answerable to him i might do it well or might do badly but it's ultimately god's opinion that matters to me not yours and i really do have this commission and i'm going to carry it out you know dog gone it and that was kind of how paul was yeah and uh and and that every every pastor of the church is in that position every pastor every bishop every pope has a has a jurisdiction now the pope's jurisdiction is universal you know my pastor's jurisdiction just over my parish but every minister in the church has some jurisdiction some sphere of influence of that christ has given him with a job to do and and he can do it well or badly you know we say of the pope that he can't be judged by any man that's true being sure be judged by christ oh yeah and and there are popes that have done that job well and ultimately saint peter did a good job that's why he's a saint peter but he you know made a few mistakes along the way and their popes have done that job rather badly we look back through history and we see some popes that said you know now we have achieved the papacy let's enjoy it you know let's uh let's throw a party and you know get out the gambling dice and go ride horses and go conquer some italian city-states we don't look back on those guys and say they did a good job with their papacy they made a mess of it right and they they'll answer to god for that and there's a reason that we had 200 years in the middle ages without a single canonized pope because none of them were holy for about 200 years we had a you know a string of bad guys they had a job to do they didn't do it well now interestingly during that period of papal history there were lay catholics and religious catholics and other other prelates in the church who were saintly holy people and they never thought to question the pope's legitimate jurisdiction they said you're pope all right yeah we we acknowledge that you've got a job to do let's get about doing the job you're not doing it right we're calling you to account famous example catherine of siena st catherine of siena pope was in avignon he wasn't even in rome he was playing cards you know hunting foxes and hanging out with his nieces and nephews and uh and she goes over to avignon says pope you're not doing right you know get on back to where you once belonged that's the beatles nailed it exactly and uh and you know what she persuaded him and he went back so that's just what st paul was doing here he wasn't questioning peter's primacy or jurisdiction or authority he was calling him to account for not doing his job the right way all right and we appreciate your call michael drive carefully there through northern michigan it is called to communion here on ewtn here's our phone number we do have several lines open right now if you have a question for dr david anders 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six uh those of you watching on tv today you can certainly send us an email ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com in a moment we'll be talking with ken in texas listening on the great guadalupe radio and uh hopefully we'll be hearing from you as well our number one more time here eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three 833-288-3986 call to communion in progress here on ewtn stay with us the words of blessed carlo accutis what does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own corrupt passion it does not matter the real battle is with ourselves ewtn is now on twitter get short timely messages from ewtn on your computer or cell phone it's easy to stay up to date on a wide variety of topics pro-life news vatican announcements catechesis apologetics the latest ewtn programming and more you can link to ewtn on twitter from our homepage or go to twitter.com ewtn at work at home at school and on the road stay connected to your world with ewtn's twitter page father john ricardo when the word of god is proclaimed in a special way when the gospel is proclaimed it's an event happening in our midst which is calling forth from you and me very concretely today as whatever it is that's going on in my life i come to mass i hear the word and now i have to respond to it always every time whatever it is my response is called for it's not just listening to someone read who then makes some comments one of the best things that lay people can do on their way to mass is pray that those of us who are going to preach will say something inspiring if for no other reason for your benefit pray for us i know many of you do but those of you who don't pray for us pray that the lord would open up our ears to hear what it is he wants to say to us to communicate to you otherwise you're going to sit through something really tedious which none of us want to do the people you know and trust are on ewtn are you going strong or are you having hard times this year we want to help and hear your success stories tomorrow on take two with jerry and debbie now back to call to communion with dr david anders [Music] glad you could join us for call to communion here on ewtn looks like we have one line open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288-3986 let's go to ken right now ken is in forestdale texas listening on the great guadalupe radio a first-time caller hey there ken what's on your mind today well i gotta say first of all y'all y'all are guiding me towards the catholic faith which i really like because you do have answers for everything this is the one answer i'm really wondering about lately is why does it matter what body jesus came back in because doubting thomas you know he put his finger in the hole apparently jesus didn't feel any pain from that so it might be a different body it might be the same body but who cares as long as jesus lived and died and came back i don't really care what the body is thank you okay thanks appreciate the question so when you ask a question about some specific datum in in in in sacred history and you and you say well what why does it have to be this way you know why did jesus have to be born in this city or that city or of this virgin rather than that virgin in this period of time versus that period of time well none of these things has an answer that is that is demonstrably necessary as if god were somehow compelled to do it this way as opposed to that god is under no compulsion god did not have to create the world god did not have to redeem the world god did not after did not have to redeem the world in the way in which he redeemed the world he could have redeemed us in some other way he's god he's god right exactly he's under no compulsion he acts freely and so we there's you know there's no there's no uh sort of like axiomatic principle from which we can deduce it had to happen this way rather when catholic theologians look at it the data of revelation they don't ask about why did it have to happen this way they say why is it fitting that it should happen this way what is it that god is desiring to do for us or to teach us by choosing to do it this way now the point you make is correct jesus could have come back in in uh you know in any kind of body he could have why did he choose to come back in this kind of body and saint paul actually answers the question for us in first corinthians chapter 15. and what he tells us is that our bodies will participate in the redemption that we experience in christ our eternal life our everlasting life is not just some experience that touches us only in the soul in some immaterial way but it actually affects the material universe that god created our present presently our mortal bodies are subject to corruption and pain and suffering and death and dissolution they will be changed to be made like christ's glorified body which is unlike it is not completely like the body in which he died and now the the account of the transfiguration in in matthew chapter 17 where we see christ appearing luminescent and glorious is kind of a uh kind of uh you know a teaser trailer on on what the life of the resurrection will be like we'll have these transformed glorious and luminous bodies saint paul says he says here's an analogy you know animals all have flesh but they have different kinds of flesh fish flesh is not like lizard flesh and that's not like you know bovine flesh he says in the same way before and after the resurrection from the dead we'll have flesh but after the resurrection it'll be of a qualitatively different order now why did god do it that way well you know he created us as embodied beings it is in our bodies that we dishonored god it's in our bodies that we will honor god it's in our bodies that he will save and redeem us and he'll bring our bodies with us into that everlasting life all right and we do appreciate hearing from you today in forestdale ken thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn here's an email we received from ryan to what extent did the decisions of church councils affect requirements for christian belief did the council of nicaea for example require christians to believe in christ's divinity whereas before the council they didn't have that requirement same thing for calciton and the other councils i see some contending that the apostles were given this singular monolithic deposit of faith and the council decisions were therefore only useful as sort of rubber stamps of the original faith thanks ryan okay thanks so let me give you an analogy let's say i tell my 12 year old jb after dinner i want you to do the dishes all right there you go now go to it off jb goes to do the dishes and and then i look over five minutes later and i go um no you need to you need to put the dishes in the sink and turn the water on and use soap while you're doing the dishes all right no not shampoo dish soap yes you can't dry them with that towel no that one that one we use that one on the dog water right you got clean towel clean towel every parent knows you've had this experience right implicit in the original command do the dishes was you know use the hot water use a clean towel use the dish soap don't mix it with the dog water i mean all that's implicit sometimes the people getting the instructions need a little specificity as you move along right the same thing is true with the deposit of faith right so everything that catholics believe about christ about god about eternal life and salvation is implicit in the revelation that christ gave us in scripture and sacred tradition and things like christ's divinity are in there so before the council of nicea did christians confess the divinity of christ of course they did absolutely they did now if you asked you know some guy in alexandria in the second century to give you a philosophical definition of christ's divinity uh you know he might have scratched his head and you might have had different people phrase it differently but they would have all have confessed christ's divinity now along comes a fellow by the name of arius who's a presbyter in alexandria he says uh he says you know what aries you believe christ is divine yeah yeah yeah yeah well what do you think that means i think it means he's not divine okay i think it means he's you know god with a small g divine with a small d he's like god he's similar to god not not really god not really god and everybody goes uh wait a minute that that's not what we mean by god aria says okay well what do you mean give us a minute we'll write it down and that's the council of nicea okay the house of his specifies what has always been implicit in catholic belief namely the real divinity of jesus christ he really is god with a capital g full stop now sometimes people come in and they they call into question elements of that deposit of faith or they seek to qualify it in ways that are not consistent with the with the sense of the faithful then the church has to come in and go no no the other dish towel ah got it all right uh ryan thanks so much for your email by the way if you'd like to send us an email for a future show here's the address ctc at ewtn.com back to the phones right now at 833 288 ewtn here is lori lori's in madison wisconsin listening on siriusxm channel 130 a first time caller hey lori what's on your mind today hi i was just wondering um we as catholics believe that our people our friends or relatives that have gone before us can pray for us in purgatory or in heaven but can they pray for us if they are in hell no they can't sorry they cannot if they're in hell they hate god they hate you and they hate themselves and they're not praying for anybody that's what hell means yeah hell means you've been cut off entirely from love and that doesn't mean you're sitting there longing for love like you don't love you hate god you hate yourself and hate everybody all right you're not praying for people if you're in that condition lori appreciate your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go to freddie now in houston listing on guadalupe radio a.m um trying to remember a.m 14 30. got it am 14 30 in houston freddie what's on your mind today hello i'm uh i got about the same question well actually the same question that the german called a few minutes ago about communion uh if you are pro-abortion it cannot be said with clarity whether if it's wrong or not you know can it be done yes or no i appreciate the question so the what the church says about the the right to receive holy communion is that under normal circumstances the church does not refuse holy communion uh uh to anyone who is a baptized catholic who's presumed to be in good standing with the church and in the state of grace who's been to sacramental confession and if someone presents themselves for communion and and the priest doesn't have any public information that they're living in a sort of scandalous way in in contradiction to the teaching of the faith he's obligated to give them holy communion now when a priest can refuse holy communion is if somebody is known to be to be scandalously flagrantly and obstinately in opposition to the church and doing something gravely immoral in a way that is scandalizing the faithful then withholding holy communion can be can be therapeutic and curative and it can also help prevent the scandal in the rest of the community now the determination of that is is up to the pastor into the bishop not to your radio host okay freddie thank you so much for your call glad that you're listening to us in houston it's called a communion here on ewtn we do have a line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 call now so that we can get your question on the air and speaking of now here's something you should check out right now and that is the wonderful catholic register the national catholic register that is ewtn's national catholic register america's most trusted catholic news source with a comprehensive view of the world from a distinctly catholic perspective and here is a wonderful deal going on right now when you give a gift or subscription or subscribe for yourself you can save up to 42 percent on ewtn's national catholic register by visiting ncregister.com today that's nc register dot com the register is fantastic you won't be sorry that you subscribed it is a wonderful resource especially in uh the era that we find ourselves in right here in 2021. called the communion here on ewtn let's go to catherine now in peoria listening on catholic radio network a first-time caller catherine what's on your mind today hi thanks for taking my call my question is around the second judgment and you know you mentioned that we'll get a new body um and i was curious if there's any references either in the bible or other scripture or text or revelations from saints around what that life might be like i mean we'll be marrying and having kids similar to you know maybe what the vision was for garden of eden or is there anything i guess that kind of expounds on that uh topic yes thank you very much appreciate it quite a lot actually um so uh first john chapter 3 says that we will be like him when he appears and the same thing is taught by saint paul and revelation in first corinthians 13 15 15. sorry when he talks about the nature of the resurrection body in chapter 13 when he talks about the experience of the beatific vision revelation chapter 20 describes for us the last judgment and god meeting out reward and punishment for good or bad deeds matthew 25 says the same thing romans chapter and 1 and jesus himself says at the resurrection this is in matthew 22 that people will neither marry nor be given in marriage so we won't marry or be given in marriage or have children in the resurrection life the the the sort of the essential ingredient in in everlasting life is the vision the experience of god uh you know the prophet says that we will all know him from the least of us to the greatest uh knowledge of god will be imprinted into our very souls in a profoundly intimate way right now we know god as through a glass darkly that's what paul says then we will know him face to face and so the addition of a body to that experience will not change the experience in intensity uh it will change it in extension right because what will it before the resurrection be the experience of a disembodied soul will after the resurrection be the experience of a of an embodied organism but the essential bliss of heaven will be the enjoyment of god in our souls all right and we appreciate your call catherine thank you so much for uh checking in from peoria here now andrea in cedar rapids iowa listening on iowa catholic radio andrea what's on your mind today well hi um my question is about the balance of good and evil the battle of good and evil because alma for almost a year now people have been denied the sacraments all over the world and i'm wondering if that ad tips the battle toward the devil because we just don't have the food for the journey that we need really i appreciate the question i really appreciate the question thank you so much so uh no no the the the the the fate of the world is not hanging in the balance and and christ is king and is king as much today as he always has been and the victory is god's and john chapter 12 jesus says the time for judging this world has come when satan the rule of the world would be cast out right and uh uh when jesus was confronted by the pharisees and they said well you're casting out demons by beelzebub the prince of demons he says ah no way in fact if i cast out demons by the finger of god then you know the kingdom of god has come among you so uh we who have been made participants in christ through faith in the sacraments are on the winning team right and and and it's kind of like when the allies uh liberated france and if you were you know you know behind behind uh uh the uh allies line you're still you know under the axis powers you they were defeated and it was just a mopping up action at that point and you knew that you were going to be liberated in short orders that's more like our situation so no the balance of good and evil is not tilting to the devil's side now i would like to add that catholics have not been denied the sacraments now you said i know you're going to tell me to have right i'd like to draw your attention to something are you baptized of course you're battling yes i am absolutely you're about to nobody can take that away from you okay now have you been denied your participation in the holy sacrifice of the mass no even if you haven't attended mass regularly can you pray the morning offering i offer you my prayers worst joy sufferings and sorrows along with the holy sacrifice of the mass offered everywhere throughout the world are the priests not offering the mass for your salvation in mind can i not spiritually participate in that by uniting my sacrifices to the mass of course i can all right are you denied holy communion daily maybe maybe have you not received communion once in a year i find that doubtful all right the church's canonical requirement is that we commune once a year that's a great blessing to commune every day all right but it's you know communion is not the sort of thing where you know there's a direct straight line quantitative proportion you know you know you have to receive this many days to get you know 365 days worth of grace it's if there's a proportion it has to do with charity in our soul relative to the sacrament not to not to you know quantitative repetition all right and you can go through each of the sacraments in this way now i'm not saying that there haven't been hardships that are that are burdensome to people i mean just this very day in the last 24 hours my own wife was talking to me about her own sense of struggle and alienation and the infrequency with which we've been able to receive the sacraments compared to before the pandemic this is a challenge it's a difficulty but are we denied grace no we're not denied grace okay so something good to focus on there andrea thank you so much uh for your call it's called a communion here on ewtn uh jen is watching us on youtube today jen says i'd like to know more about mary where do catholics get the idea that she stayed a virgin forever and what about the statement in the rosary about her body and soul being taken with only a flower remaining i've never heard about a flower i don't know about any flowers don't know about these flowers any any thoughts there about about mary yeah absolutely so first of all we we get our ideas about the perpetual virginity that was the question right perpetual virginity yes uh from from divine revelation god has revealed to us that that mary was ever virgin in the sacred tradition of the church so that's where we get the idea it says this is the constant faith of catholics back to the age of the apostles and in fact even the early protestant reformers and i'm thinking here in particular francis turriton who was a third generation calvinist a professor head of the genevan academy and vehemently anti-catholic theologian in the early 17th century francis turreton in his institutes of olympic theology admits the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the blessed virgin mary on the strength of of the universality of the sacred tradition there's a critical important protestant theologian who who didn't even acknowledge sacred tradition most of the time but he said look you just can't find any ancient christians that denied this yeah i mean like long before there was even a bible you're like what do you believe as a catholic well we'll see god exists uh jesus is the son of god mary is perpetually a virgin i mean it's just it's been part of the deposit of faith from the beginning that's what we call sacred tradition which is divine revelation now scripture we feel confirms this fleshes it out gives it a context when the enunciation happens angel gabriel says to mary you're going to have a child now she knew the birds and the bees she knew where babies came from she says don't know how that's going to be possible why would she not know she's engaged if she was expecting a normal marriage she would have anticipated this is where the baby's going to come from her her puzzlement on this catholics have seen is a confirmation of what sacred tradition has always told us that she knew that she had taken a vow of perpetual virginity now let's go a little bit deeper right christ himself compares mary to eve in john chapter 2 and in john chapter 19 uh when he refers to her as woman and not his mom but this is this archetypal term and in revelation chapter 12 we get a bit more detail on that when mary is is uh compared to the woman who wrestled with the serpent and only this time she wins she defeats the serpent and becomes the mother of all those who believe in christ now in genesis chapter 3 eve is the mother of the living mary becomes the mother of all those reborn in christ her parturition is a spiritual generation not a natural one and so her perpetual virginity becomes for us a sign of the spiritual rebirth that is the that is the birthright the patrimony of all those the you know the genetic origin if you will of those reborn in jesus so it has profound typological significance for the catholic who meditates on this glorious doctrine all right and uh jen thanks for watching us today on youtube back to the phones right now here's dan in las vegas new mexico listening on youtube a first time caller dan what's on your mind today yes i'd like to ask david if he would uh please explain to me the word agape a g a yeah sure and as far as i as far as i understand it's love and understanding yeah absolutely i appreciate the question so agape the biblical concept of agape is the kind of self-giving love that love of self-donation that so characterized jesus's life when he he so loved the world that that that he gave up his own life to save us that's that's agapic love now we can contrast that with greek word fillet which is the love of friendship and that's really the love of you know two folks that that have some good in common and they they enjoy this reciprocal uh relationship of equality you know i've got lots of friends you've got lots of friends and maybe your friendship is about you know you like to play bridge together and that's a good thing playing bridge and you get together you play bridge you have that thing in common you share it but doesn't necessarily it might but doesn't necessarily translate into you know i'm gonna give my life for my bridge partner and uh and then there's uh there's eros which is that that that love that desires to to have and to hold and to possess you know the good within myself and it might might express itself in you know the word english word erotic love which my husband and wife might experience that but it could also be you know that that sort of uh uh that sort of thirst and hunger for aesthetic goods like you know good music and art i can love these things but you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna donate myself to them the way a parent would for a child right that but that's what a gothic love is is that it's that love of self-donation that christ exemplifies for us there you go dan thanks so much for your call and here is reina in ann arbor michigan listening on catholic radio network reyna what's on your mind today hi thank you for taking my call my question is is being embalmed isn't that tampering with god's creation i always wondered if that was something that was necessary uh well it's neither necessary nor forbidden all right so so uh i'm you know it's not tampering with god's creation any more than um you know before they put me on the television they say anders you got to put some makeup on that shiny head of yours you know lest the peop the audience go blind all right i'm not tampering with god's creation i'm i'm saving your eyes okay um and uh and in the same way if you embalm a corpse you're not tampering with god's creation in some way that's immoral you know you're just trying to beautify a loved one so that those who can see him or her in the casket maybe before the burial can reflect on all the things they loved about this person and made of death can be kind of difficult to look at and embalming can make that a little bit easier to take okay renee thank you so much for your call we're going to close out with this one here and this is from randy watching on youtube what does it mean in practice for a person to believe in god what does that mean in practice um okay that's a that's a really interesting way of framing that question it it uh uh i at the at the base i think the practice of believing in god is a habit of recognizing that life uh that the universe is intrinsically meaningful and that it is dependent you know so the the atheist thinks that the universe uh just is without explanation it just exists inexplicably right and the one who believes in god recognizes the contingency of material things that they they don't contain within themselves the explanation of their own existence but they just they depend upon some transcendent cause and so i really think it's the habit of rationality right it's rationality is based on recognizing cause and effect i'm staring at an effect right now it must have a cause and belief in god is the habit of applying that rationality to the all of reality you know if i found a tennis ball in the woods i wouldn't imagine it just happened no you know the atheist says well if you make the tennis ball large enough it doesn't need an explanation that doesn't seem very rational to me not really all right and uh randy thanks so much for your question great way to close out the show hey dr david anders thank you sir thanks tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday right here on ewtn 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern on behalf of our great team here i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you next time god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,886

Rating: 4.869565 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: 2qK9OQC2N94

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021