Called to Communion - 12/23/20 - with Dr. David Anders

i'm theresa tomio and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation called to 1-833-288-3986 with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters we are here to answer the questions that you may have about the catholic faith uh the other mission of the program is uh if you are a non-catholic and you've got some pretty clear thoughts about why you're a non-catholic well we'd like to know what is it that is keeping you from becoming catholic here is our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's if you're listening 833-288-3986 of the u.s and canada please dial the usa country code which in most areas is one and then 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 may apply and of course you can always shoot us an email ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com well if i can get all this straightened out here uh michael mccall is our producer today and we also have michael birchfield as our phone screener and i believe mr mccall is also handling a social media so he'll uh send anything to us that comes in via youtube or facebook if you want to shoot us a question there i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today i'm great are you ready for christmas i am ready i'm ready thank you is your family ready oh they're ready they're definitely ready right okay here's an interesting question uh from danielle to lead us off she says i am a new christian and a curious non-catholic what is the purpose of the rosary where and when and why did the rosary prayer get started thanks danielle okay thanks danielle i really appreciate the question it's useful to for those who are unfamiliar with the catholic faith and her traditions i think to approach the rosary as one specific example of a type of prayer that we we call uh in our vernacular devotions okay okay so let me define what devotions are because this is this is unfamiliar to a lot of protestant christians sure protestants are used to having what they might call their devotionals right and when i was a protestant i was told well you have to have your devotional time and that generally meant spend some time reading scripture and praying and sharing your needs and and desires and hopes and longings with god and it's good to take time to be with god and we call that devotionals there's something a little bit more specific that catholics mean when they talk about devotions devotions are non-liturgical prayers in other words they're not part of the mass or the sacraments non-liturgical prayers a product of catholic tradition and imagination that are that are composed and handed down as part of of of popular culture if you will popular catholic culture and the when i say composed it can be texts but it can also be images or gestures and so here is an example of a devotional practice that that catholics are very fond of in the middle ages after the passage to the holy land was opened up and people began to make pilgrimages to the holy land people thought well that's that's pretty fun we like going down there and seeing where jesus lived but not everybody can afford to you know to walk to jerusalem you know some of us have to stay back and till the ground and grow the wheat and all that kind of business what if we can kind of get in on the game in a low-cost way hey i've got an idea what if we set up images of the last stations of christ's life on his way to golgotha and and we uh and we sort of visually represent the last moments of his life and stop at each of these little stations and contemplate the last moments of our lord's life and thus the devotion call stations of the cross was born it was in sort of direct imitation of those who were making pilgrimage to jerusalem and now you know people still go to jerusalem don't usually walk they fly yeah but or they take a boat or whatever they drive but catholics continue to practice the devotion called the stations of the cross because they found it useful they find it delightful particularly in uh during lent uh to uh to think about the death of our lord what he did for us all right and it's just something we're you know you don't have to do it that's one of the characteristics of a devotion you don't have to do it it's not part of the church's liturgy but it's delightful and people enjoy it um the rosary is a devotion like this what's its origin well something that catholics do have to do is pray the words of sacred scripture and the the liturgical daily prayer of the church is called the divine office and it's we've been doing it since the days of the apostles pray the 150 psalms of david in a cyclical manner throughout the year and every priest and religious has an obligation to do this the the divine office is the primary work of monks this is kind of their job description if you will is to pray the psalter the biblical prayers of king david every day in a cycle of readings in the middle ages there were many people who said we like that we like the idea of a regular cycle of prayers 150 psalms but some of us don't know how to read and we don't have the time to sit there and do 150 psalms every week could we get a sort of low-cost version and and devotion to the blessed virgin mary has always been part of the catholic tradition basically from the apostolic era and and the hail mary was a well-known prayer at the time and other prayers of the razor as well our father and glory be and uh and the devotional practice of meditating and dwelling upon the life of our lord and our lady were also well established and so out of this heart of popular devotion and a desire to imitate a more official form of prayer the rosary was born as 150 prayers based roughly on the psalter containing the our father the hail mary the glory be and a series of meditations on the life and mysteries of of jesus and mary and as a devotion it's not something that's obligatory for catholics but it's it's a very beloved prayer many people derive great benefit from it i think we're coming up on the 1000th anniversary of the rosary or something that sounds about right yeah yeah it's been around an awfully long time but danielle thank you so much for your question i think it's a very good question especially for somebody who is examining the catholic faith and and they're thinking well what is this thing we don't have anything like this in the presbyterian church or the baptist church you know fill in the blank uh but it really is a wonderful practice and uh will often lead you very very close to our lord in a moment here we're going to get to the phones and we will be talking with looks like carl traveling through ohio we're looking forward to that we have a line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders 833-288-3986 the wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn to stay with us the power of prayer simply means that words have an effect for example when a couple says i do it literally changes two people to becoming one in marriage when you say i love you it changes us and it gives us value the power of prayer is in the words and in the sentiment but it's also in the fact that god who is omnipotent all-powerful answers our prayers [Music] tis the season for christmas programming join ewtn radio christmas eve and christmas day for the 48 hours of christmas with raymond royal and the world over christmas special can you fulfill a huge christmas wish of mine now what would that be could we sing i wish you a merry christmas we wish you a merry christmas we wish you a merry christmas we wish you a merry christmas the 48 hours of christmas christmas eve and christmas day on ewtn radio the ewtn home video highlight for december is the ewtn family christmas special the choir of the eternal word television network performs classical christmas carols with a special commentary by father joseph mary wolf order your dvd or cd at ewtnrc.com 24 hours a day seven days a week or call 1-800-854-6316 [Music] a merry christmas from all of us here at ewtn the global catholic radio network you know i have some very good news for you first of all this may not even be news for you that ewtn offers the holy sacrifice of the mass live every day at 8 a.m eastern now here's the good news to you may not be aware of to be sure you don't miss out we can send you a link to your email box every day visit ewtn.com and click on subscribe and you will get that wonderful email link to the holy sacrifice of the mass if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with carl traveling through ohio listening on am 1260 the rock hello carl what's on your mind today well i heard you um pardon me i heard you speaking as to um why people choose not to be catholics if you um aren't a catholic why aren't you a cat yes uh-huh and i'm actually a lapsed catholic i'm currently a member of the religious society of friends meaning that i'm a quaker and what really got me about uh catholicism was two big things there were a few but the two big ones is one i didn't see any particular affection for rome any more than i would turkey any more than i would egypt anymore i would ethiopia or any more i would grease it um most of the research i had done doesn't seem to say that rome did it first necessarily and that for the most part the world was kind of accepting christianity in most of those parts of the world surrounding the middle east and not necessarily in it and secondly i'm have always been perplexed and even my own catholic father is perplexed by the lack of female priests if women can be nuns why can't they be priests if women can do a reading from the bible why can't they be priests because if we are really going to tell women what they should and shouldn't preach well then wouldn't somebody tell me am i going to be quiet i guess that is really my two biggest concerns with the catholic church yeah i really appreciate the question i really also deeply appreciate the call thank you so much for calling in so uh you know if if you and i were sitting down and having a cup of coffee i'd ask you all about yourself and your experience at the society of friends and and uh you know i would not try to convert you back to catholicism i would try to get to know you and be a friend to you i really would but because this is a catholic q a show i what i do is i people raise objections and then i sort of give you what the catholic take on that would be and i wish we had more time and we'd go sit down have a longer conversation but i'm going to handle it this way because this is the format of the show when it comes to the question of affection for rome uh and the historical research sustaining the catholic conviction that rome has the primacy among the ancient patriarchs such that uh questions of uh ecclesiastical jurisdiction theology and so forth can be settled uh by appeal to rome um well the evidence is actually i think quite manifest quite evident and and this is not just from the perspective of roman catholics but there are orthodox eastern christians as well that recognize as an historical fact that rome was the final court of appeal and antiquity and why why would rome be the final court of appeal well it's because of the universal conviction that saint peter had his see there and understood that peter had primacy given to him by christ when he said you're peter i'm not in this rock i'll build my church gates of hell will not prevail against it and it was interesting to me when i was in your position not catholic and doing the same research that it wasn't just the latins that held this and in fact i'm i'm looking as we speak uh at a quote from an arabic syrian theologian named theater abu kharag and not going to quote it because it's rather long who uh who says when christ gave primacy to saint peter and this is a quote he meant nothing more than the holders of the seat of peter that is rome right and uh clearly testifying it wasn't just a unique authority given to peter but actually a petron authority that passed to rome and this fellow was no latin theologian but a but assyrian arabic speaking theologian you know the maronite tradition of eastern churches which come from syria and lebanon also syriac speaking liturgy nothing to do with the latin rite never fell out of communion with the church of rome in fact we had maronite bishops that were present at the fourth lateran council in 1215 again testament to the fact and you find in the in the annals of the uh the monastery of saint marin there in syria uh that they always affirmed patron supremacy again a communion that was not latin not western but but expressly and openly professed its belief in petra and authority and eastern and uh theologians that hailed from uh greek origin like irenaeus who though he became bishop of lyon was actually uh you know from the eastern part of the empire who writes in the second century that it is a matter of utmost necessity that all the churches throughout the world agree with the church of rome on account of the preeminence of her founders peter and paul and again that's erin as the third book of his against heresies um and i could go on and on right so there's ample evidence that that church fathers theologians early christians not only in latin speaking dominions but across the ancient world recognize the claim of patron supremacy now what is true is the function the exercise of that primacy has not always been constant and at different periods of time has been exercised or exhibited in different ways and so a polemicist someone who who is eager to argue against the catholic faith can always find an isolated example of someone who say failed to appeal to rome or or appeal to some other criteria or authority to settle a controversy and they say well see that guy didn't appeal to rome that must mean rome wasn't didn't have universal primacy no it just means that god didn't make use of it right who find the same thing today right bishops that settle things in their own backyard without appealing to rome every time they turn around right um now when it comes to in by the way if you want a good book on this steve ray's book upon this rock is a wonderful sort of catalog of witnesses to petron primacy in the early church and when it comes to the question of of no female priests and telling women what they can and cannot preach so those are two entirely different questions they're two entirely different questions the church does not tell women what they can and cannot say or how they can and cannot speak and in fact throughout the church's history there have been many women who have who have chosen to speak the truth uncomfortably to power including the power of the papacy yeah and one that comes to my mind is saint catherine of siena one of my favorites who when the pope had taken up residence in avignon wasn't really doing his job and wouldn't listen to anybody catherine of siena marches over to avenue and gives the pope what for and says you need to get you know get back to where you once belonged that's right you know and he listened to her right um i don't think anybody ever told mother angelica what to say and she sure as heck would speak the truth to power when she felt like founders of this particular network did not did not mince words with anybody for any reason but said exactly what she thought and thought what she said you know uh so i don't think that's a fair accusation now but as to why women can't be priests does that suggest some sort of denigration of them uh well no it doesn't any more than the assertion that women can't be husbands or that women can't be fathers well i can't be a mother are you telling me i can't be a mother are you going to offend my dignity by telling me i can't be a mother or a nun or a nun uh well i'm not going to offend your dignity anders but i am going to tell you can't be a mother you're not you're not built that way it doesn't work the thing doesn't happen right yeah and liturgically the priest functions as a father to the family and as a husband to the bride which is the church because he stands in the liturgical assembly in the place of christ he represents jesus in his relationship to the church which is that of a bridegroom to a bride and so as an icon of christ in the liturgical assembly it does not function doesn't work to have uh to have a female in that role does that mean that women are lesser citizens in the kingdom of heaven far from it the greatest of all christians the the the absolute supreme member of the church is in fact a woman and that's the blessed virgin mary and and all of us are saved by recourse to her intercession and i need not even talk to you about the actual agencies that that run the daily operation of the church right father benedict grishall said one time he didn't think there were any men in the church until he went to seminary i mean i work in catholic education uh i mean it's if you had a weak sense of your masculinity man it's not a good place to go to job you know the women run the show all right and then many other agencies as well and catholic broadcasting as well absolutely hey uh carl delighted that you called today please uh call us back another time that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders on this beautiful wednesday afternoon just before christmas it is 833 288 3986 call to communion here on ewtn a question here interesting now this is from mike what was the name of the church prior to it being called catholic uh i'm going way back for that yeah it was called church it's actually what it was called or it was also called the way um uh when jesus founded the church he he referred to it as church ecclesia which means those who have been called out so it's the word suggests or denotes a society of people who are gathered around a particular idea or person or or rezondetra so christ called it the church the apostles referred to it as the church but when they when they wanted to to describe the christian way of life they would just call it the way in antioch uh when gentiles began to join the church their detractors referred to them derisively as christians oh yes those those christ followers that's what the word christian means somebody who follows christ but it was actually applied by non-christians to describe those jesus freaks running around in antioch you know and uh and it was the third bishop of antioch ignatius of antioch who captured in one word something that had always been intrinsic to the church's identity namely that it was universal right it encompassed people from every nation language and tongue around the world in one common fellowship and before christianity there was nothing like that in the ancient world there wasn't a society gathered from all the nations of the earth into a common enterprise in quite the way the christian church was and to capture that idea ignatius used the word catholicos meaning universal to describe it and that caught on and so that's where the word catholic comes from but the but the idea catholic the idea of universality is a new testament idea saint paul in ephesians chapter 2 says this is precisely why christ came was that those disparate parties jew gentile slavery you know greek and jew and so forth might be reconciled in one new body all that universal humanity brought together under one roof so to speak all right appreciate that mike thank you so much for your question call to communion here on ewtn two lines open right now at eight three three two nine um hello eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six dustin is watching us on youtube right now dustin says could you please explain mary being the queen of heaven as a protestant i find this to be very confusing yeah thanks so you know that in the old testament god told the israelites that they would be a kingdom of priests all right they would have both a royal and a priestly identity and that remains to be the case in the new testament saint peter also says that we're a priestly people and that we participate in christ's kingship and his priesthood and his prophetic ministry prophet priest and king describes jesus but also describes our participation in him and jesus jesus condescends to share these ministries not just in a titular sort of way but in an active participatory way with his church saint paul tells us in the book first corinthians that we will have the function of judges or kings and the last judgment we will judge angels he says do you not know that you will judge angels in luke 22 jesus tells the apostles you will judge the 12 tribes of israel when the kingdom of god arrives i mean this is pretty lofty stuff going on so the idea that there is a royal dignity that is extended to the christian people is a deeply biblical idea and so to designate mary as queen of heaven without any other description without any other qualifications well sure of course like because there is a there's a royal dignity that's conferred on every christian but is there anything unique about her queenship right anything unique about her royal dignity well yeah there is of course the book of revelation describes her as the mother of all those who believe in jesus and you know somebody asked me the other day why did jesus uh have to be born of a virgin and why did the virgin have to remain perpetually virgin couldn't it have happened in the normal way and i said yeah it could have god could have done it that way but it was fitting that she have this unique parturition precisely because of her iconic status as the mother of the church because as eve was our first mother according to the flesh born in the natural way of eve the church comes forth from mary in a spiritual way man cannot enter a second time in his mother's womb that's what jesus said in answer to nicodemus in john chapter 3 but he can be born again of water in the spirit and it's precisely in this way that mary is our is our mother she's not our mother naturally i'm not naturally born of mary but i'm reborn i'm reborn in water in the spirit through her supernatural parturition and you can't say that of any other woman no other woman on the planet is is was cooperative in the same way in bringing about the regeneration of the human race i mean it's an astonishing thing when you imagine when the angel gabriel came to her and said you're going to bear a child he's going to be the son of god and save the universe and sh what does she say well no thanks i'm doing my hair on friday no she says be it done to me according to that word she participates wasn't against her will it was only with her will that the incarnation happened through her agency the entire world is renewed i didn't do that you can't say that about anybody else so it's her we're all kings and queens to an extent in the christian church but she has a unique queenship as the mother of all those who believe in jesus blessed art thou among women amen all right and thank you so much for that in a moment here well we have sold out phones we're going to get to ambrose in miami also john and saint louis lots more on this edition of call to communion here on ewtn the global catholic network do stay with us [Music] father larry richards god is the god of life god is the god of love so when we conform our life to his life and his will it's always life-giving always the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio hello this is father joseph mary chaplain here at ewtn did you know that the word christmas comes from two words christ and mass so just as mass offered on the feast of saint michael was called the michael mass so mass offered on the nativity was called the christ mass in fact at every mass we encounter anew the sacred humanity and divinity of jesus so merry christmas 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen peace be to you what is prayer well the best definition of prayer is that it is a lifting of the mind and the heart to god to make it more simple prayer is a dialogue man breaks silence in two ways a dialogue with his fellow man and a dialogue with god my dialogue with a fellow man is a proof that he is a person and so am i the same is implied in the dialogue with god and both of these dialogues are fulfilled in the two commandments love god and love neighbor the people you know and trust are on ewtn hi this is psychelette later today on catholic answers live we've got it the christmas edition of our game show catholic ants was live 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio now back to call to communion with dr david anders [Music] glad you could join us on this wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn wasting no time at all going right to ambrose in miami listening on siriusxm channel 130. ambrose merry christmas to you what's on your mind today merry christmas to you all god bless ewtn and both of you i love the program i listen to it on my way to work um my question is and and i don't mean to i don't want to criticize our our protestant brothers or anything like that but you know mainly i've seen it with with uh evangelicals or and even sometimes in our in our church and i want dr anders to clarify this for me where they you know i i see a lot of paul paul paul paul and and so maybe i am mistaken i would like to maybe see more quoting jesus in in the gospels and why is it that i i i see all that much about paul yes it is obviously you know it's according to the spirit but uh please i i would like to to hear more about that and thank you so much merry christmas yes thank you so much i really do appreciate the question so let me say first of all that within the catholic tradition the words of christ are paramount they're absolutely paramount in our self-understanding and it's why when you go to the mass we have readings from the epistles of course might be paul might be peter might be jude of the book of hebrews but but the high point of the liturgy of the word before we get to the eucharist in fact it's the point in the liturgy of the word when we stand out of reverence and in fact we do we do you know the the catholic liturgical version of the football chair when the team comes onto the field it's called the alleluia yeah and it's a glorious part of the mass before what the reading of the gospels and the priest comes you know he's got the gospel usually in a in a gold in embossed uh volume that's physically beautiful and reverent and many times he'll even bring out the sensor and incense uh the the text before he reads and we make the sign of the cross and miss the reverence and the ritual around the reading of the gospels in the mass is evident makes manifest all scripture is is god breathed and divinely inspired but there's something uniquely important about the words of our lord so the gospels are tremendously important in the lives of the saints the lives of the saints reverence the words of our lord in a particular way how many saints have been inspired to their unique mood of life by a word a phrase an image from the life of jesus you think about saint anthony of the desert anthony the great who abandoned his inheritance and the town living and went off to become a hermit when he heard the story of the rich young ruler who comes to jesus and says what must i do to be saved and christ tells him to sell everything give to the poor he takes it literally off he goes to the cave saint francis of assisi was the very same story it affected him in the same way saint dominic uh saint dominic who founded the dominican order carried with him his whole life of a copy a volume of the book of matthew just that one gospel book he carried with him all the time had the thing memorized back to front you know um i i was good friends with an elderly dominican for many years he's dead now unfortunately god bless him who told me that that in the late 19th early very early part of the 20th century in the formation of dominican novices that they would be required to memorize portions of the new testament and the words of our lord and the apostle paul in in the latin vulgate as well so reverencing the words of our lord definitely part of the catholic tradition imitating his mode of like charles foucault uh the the who lived a life of ascetic denial that few can imitate who the frenchman who went to north africa as a missionary did so in specific imitation of the hidden years of our lord's life all the spiritualities that have emerged of the orders out of some particular reflection on an aspect of our words lords or his life or his teaching or his person so have to emphasize jesus jesus jesus in the catholic church and always we have done so now what you say about our protestant brethren is correct and i say this as one who used to be protestant so i know what i'm talking about and the origin of this comes in martin luther's unique theology the theology that he invented out of whole cloth in the 16th century and if you read luther's preface to the new testament he wrote a bunch of prefaces to aspects of the bible one to the gospels one to the new testament one to the epistles of paul and he really tells you what he thinks about these biblical texts and how they're to be read and interpreted if you read luther's preface to the new testament he will tell you that there is a kind of division in the heart of the new testament between jesus and paul he puts that in there now we catholics don't see that but luther thought he saw it and he said the big mistake with jesus this is luther's view not not the catholic faith the big mistake with jesus is to treat him as if he were a second moses moses was a lawgiver jesus was not and this is luther's view and luther said you know you really have to be wary of taking the commands and the imperatives and the and the exhortations of jesus at face value as if they were laws to be obeyed right instead they're evocative statements this was luther's view they're evocative statements that are meant to sort of frighten you into an awareness of your own weakness and incapacity so that you might turn to god for grace and then he alleges luther does that you find this gracious god in particular in the writings of saint paul so he sets up a dichotomy in the way christians approach the new testament between these these sort of frightening evocative statements of jesus that are not to be taken at face value and then apparently these these sort of comforting promises that one gets in saint paul now as a catholic i look at that and say that's an entirely wrong-headed way of construing the relationship between jesus and paul first of all is quite evident that the new testament does in fact present jesus as a law giver the sermon on the mount is nothing but the recapitulation of the revelation of the law on mount sinai jesus is clearly superseding moses in his law giving role the only distinction is that the new law is written on the heart not on tablets of stone so jesus is a law giver and saint paul does not set up a contrast to the imperatives or the exhortations of jesus so much as he gives an explication a description of how it is that we can realize these commands how can we live up to the arduous ethical demands that jesus lays on us and that we do by relying upon the grace of god it's not by our strength but it's the grace of god working within us that enables us to love god and love neighbor and so really paul and jesus are in perfect harmony they don't contrast in this way at all now one protestant who understands that and does a good job of explaining that is one of my favorite biblical scholars in t wright and i would encourage you to read his little book what saint paul really said and he kind of unwinds the lutheran misunderstanding of paul's relationship to jesus very good ambrose thank you so much for your call and thanks for your kind words about the show call to communion here on ewtn moving on to john in st louis listening on the ewtn app a first-time caller hello john merry christmas to you what's on your mind today hi merry christmas can you hear me okay sure can go right ahead yeah um i'm 65 catholic my whole life and uh dr anders it's just you're you're a blessing every time i listen to you just learn so much thank you so much this one just just as a review when i was growing up my parents generation big i mean catholicism was so strong churches everywhere a lot of kids and the my just on the catholic church back then was when i talked to my father my mother he said you do it because you're supposed to do it there was no dr enders explaining these things it's just like we told you so that's how we were that's what you're doing and i'm like well okay so i i was the last of the learning uh latin to be a server that changed right away and in my whole life the catholic church is just went from one change to another change and it it upset my father because of all the changes and i'm watching i'm trying to hang on make sense out of it all and being uh going to school the whole time catholic church back then did a pretty weak job of explaining things and how everything was put together and why we do what we do and all that and so i really feel like that's how so many people fall away and the bottom line the the common denominator i find is people turn to religion when they hit a rock bottom and and something saves them but until that happens a lot of times you can slide through life and buy cars and do whatever and um i'm just trying to say i know you said you're involved in education and things and i was just wondering your angle on it as well as do you see a change being made because we're just seeing parishes closing you know how many people are ex-catholics how many people don't believe in communion i mean it's just getting weaker and weaker around me and and i feel like i'm getting stronger about it but i know the one thing you can't do is get into some sort of a contest start preaching to them tell them what they should do they don't want to hear that nobody wants to hear that you lead by example and that's what i try to do and uh i just wondered just what your take is on how the catholic education is going yeah thanks what you see is the future i really appreciate the question uh and thank you for the kind words your your construal of catholicism in the united states in say the 40s and 50s i think is accurate and you're not the first person to note this there is a famous catholic liturgist by the name of joseph jungmon who is a german jesuit he's famous for having written a two-volume history of the roman rite of the mass that i highly recommend and jungman many years ago even at that time recognized that catholics had by and large had a pretty good understanding of the disparate parts of their tradition they could say the creed they could say their prayers you know they knew who saint joseph was they knew you know who jesus was what they lacked was a sense of the coherence of the whole they didn't they didn't really understand how these things fit together and what difference they made to their lives and what jungman suggested was lacking really was the what he would call the charismatic dimension now the kerygma is a greek word means the announcement the proclamation of the good news about jesus how is it that that christ becomes incarnate and in fact saves us what connection does that have to me why does it matter to me that jesus christ became a man died on the cross and rose again from the dead now uh at a time in catholic history in the united states when catholics were working very hard to assimilate to the wider protestant and secular culture because they had been sort of ghettoized in their polish italian lithuanian our irish communities and and were second-class citizens and i really mean that like here in alabama they were segregated in the way african-americans were had to bury their dead in different cemeteries sometimes weren't allowed to put their kids in school they were subject to persecutions and sometimes even assassinations for which their perpetrators were not held illegally responsible and were in fact acquitted in in public court for those kinds of things so it was bad for catholics down here and uh and you know after the war when they got the gi bill and started to move ahead in the world they were all kinds of excited to finally become professionals and be accepted and kind of merge in the popular culture and they weren't really looking for ways anymore to mark off their catholic distinctions from the wider culture and that that was a double-edged sword yes they got ahead in the world but without that strong catechetical formation that taught them the reasons for what they believed right yeah and a motive to to to diminish the catholic distinctions well what happened they kind of lost catholic distinctions at the same time protestants were moving out into the suburbs and building bible colleges and sunday schools and all kinds of evangelistic agencies designed quite particularly to prey on weak catholics and they just sucked them in in droves because they were poorly prepared for that sort of proselytizing onslaught and i grew up in a protestant church that was filled with ex-catholics who would say we didn't really know what we were supposed to believe as catholics and didn't really have a meaningful spirituality at the time so if i can if i can jump in for one little thing uh back in the 1950s uh a a protestant group a church a protestant church or or any anybody could get an fm license for an fm radio station for like basically nothing the cost of the postage to send off you know to the fcc to ask for a license uh so the protestants were way ahead of the catholics uh on getting going in the media whereas catholics with a few exceptions like fulton sheen uh were kind of asleep at the switch until mother angelica they were asleep with the switch to mother angelica came along now now fortunately uh this is pope john paul ii saw these things he recognized these dynamics and what when he talked about the new evangelization what he meant by that was the need of the catholic church to evangelize catholics yeah yeah it wasn't it wasn't you know going off to foreign lands anymore how do we re-evangelize people in historically catholic regions and and reintroduce them to the faith that's really what he meant by the new evangelization and the popes have understood that since the days of well it really paul vi well heck i mean this is what john 23 wanted to accomplish with the second vatican council how can we speak again the truths of the gospel to the modern world and show the relevance of the church to their situation now you know we knew it it took a while to work the kinks out of that catechinical movement called the second vatican council and that's really what the pontificate of john paul ii was all about now when pope francis came out with his first absolute exhortation evangelion the joy of the gospel it's significant that he specifically used the word kerygma a hulk throwback to what jungman had noticed back in the 1940s and called on catholics to a renewed engagement with the kerygma the central message of the life death and resurrection of jesus and a reinvigoration of her spiritual traditions of of contemplation of spiritual disciplines so that the church would become really spiritually relevant to people in uh in the modern world so it is the dynamics that you've identified does the church know these things are happening is the church concerned about them is the pope is the magisterium acting on this absolutely absolutely ewtn the eight this this agency called ewtn is the fruit of this awareness sure this was mother angelica's wisdom to see the need to break out of the old mode of catechesis and reach people in all kinds of new ways and look ewtn is just one outreach of the new evangelization but has been extraordinarily effective unbelievably effective i hold in my hands a copy of the catechism of the catholic church catechism of the catholic church promulgated by john paul ii 1994-ish is another fruit of the new evangelization and the spirit of renewal that that came with the second vatican council to evangelize all peoples and show them the relevance of the church to their to their life uh and it you know these things are penetrating into the catechetical consciousness of the christian people and they're bearing fruit you know in the job the job that i hold today for the diocese of birmingham once upon a time say 20-30 years ago uh i'd have been a nun not me specifically but it would have been a nun in my job sure you know or a priest okay and the idea that you would entrust the catechetical ministry of the church to lay people it just didn't occur you know now when i look around i see lay people all over the place engaged very vigorously enthusiastically and fruitfully in a in a charismatically informed theologically literate apostolate of education and mission and outreach that i find just stunningly beautiful and inspiring now does that mean that we don't have problems we have huge problems and yes we do see people that leave the church in droves it's not just credited to bad catechesis i really don't think so i think we're up against we're up against a a an expression of pluralism that is unique in human history uh against the the technological revolution the communication revolution that presents uh options to people in the religious marketplace um that is uh it's the it's the spiritual equivalent of of uh you know junk food and pornography uh not not just literal pornography but like a kind of spiritual pornography where people are offered all the glitz and glitter and the promise of transcendence at absolutely no cost with no interior transformation at all you know i mean this is why uh superhero movies are so unbelievably popular today because it gives us a way to project and kind of outsource our longing for transcendence uh onto uh onto you know captain america or superman rather than interiorizing those principles through a real kind of enlightenment in into spiritual principles those things are rampant in the society and look they're a lot more fun than mass i mean just be honest they're fun they're fun and it's a very low bar you know to to to scratch that itch for the transcendent these are the kinds of dynamics the church is up against in our own you know you know interior problems as well so it's a it's an uphill battle but you know it always has been yeah it's always you go back and read the fathers of the church in the fourth century they're saying the same things oh it's all going hell in a hand basket everybody's falling apart nobody's practicing the faith and and yet here we are two thousand years later and still the church is making saints john before we let you go our call screener says you're actually in the hospital right now with covet is that correct yeah i uh i'm uh recovering i'm doing okay good but yeah it's it used to be bridges real quick growing up i was always like believing god and when you get a real problem that's when you call him he's like emergency brake class and i've changed my attitude completely i'm going to mass every day seeing rosaries good man and the one the one difference is whenever i have it he's with me all the time big problems little problems he's prayed me through this and he got me through to make his phone call and you make me feel much better about my six grandkids growing up oh beautiful thank you john we will certainly keep you on our prayers as we do with all of our listeners thanks so much for your call all right it's called a communion here on ewtn i want to let you know that all of our hosts and our producers have been working very hard to put together the 48 hours of christmas which actually start tonight at midnight midnight eastern will begin all day christmas eve and all day christmas day you're going to hear live masses from rome from washington d.c right here in alabama you'll hear some joyous music some great music from around the world some special editions of many of your favorite shows and so much more again it starts tonight midnight eastern the 48 hours of christmas only on ewtn let's go to robin in pensacola right now hey robin what's on your mind today uh good afternoon thank you for taking my call this is my my favorite show on all catholic radio the reason i'm no longer a cafeteria catholic but um thank you you actually yeah uh you guys are amazing um but the your the subject of the previous caller touched a lot um on what i was going to say it's mostly that my my mother who's 74 years old she had left the catholic faith was you know raised my grandparents were devout catholics raised all their children catholic she's one of five siblings she's the only one who even is christian anymore and my one aunt was a nun for 20 years left the convent and even never speaks of god um so i just feel like there's there's this lost generation and then all the you know my parents divorced my mother left the church but she still believed in god but i felt like she wasn't properly catechized i had gone through first communion and reconciliation but she took us out of the church we did methodists for a while and then non-denominational and it confused me a lot but i i learned to read scripture and my heart was always still with the church and now that i'm older and raised my family coming back to the catholic church and not just being you know a cafeteria catholic and really learning god just revealed to me just put it on my heart i found catholic radio one day and i was i was able to understand the mass better and went back to confession we are almost out of time robin uh do you have a question for us i just didn't know if if dr andrews has a way like how do i talk to my mother she she's she believes in jesus and she loves jesus but she doesn't understand the church yeah okay so so first of all i'm totally with you i mean i have i have relatives and family members with whom it is very difficult to talk about the catholic church and and look i mean you know what i do for a living i talk about the catholic church they know what i do for a living doesn't make a difference they don't want to hear it from me right might hear it from somebody else they don't want to hear it from me so my first advice to you is that you love your mom and you want what's good for her and god does too and he knows that and go a little bit easy on yourself and don't beat yourself up to a pulp feeling like you know you've got this moral obligation to change her you have a moral obligation to love her god is in the changing business you're in the loving business and you know your love will be transformative to her but but uh it's very hard to speak to relatives they they just don't want to hear what you have to say because they already think they know everything that you've got to say yeah so live your faith generously and joyfully with your mom let it be a source of inspiration and hope and encouragement and strength to you as you exhibit your faith to your mom more than than feeling like you have to corral her into your faith god will do the interior work you do you your own interior work and let him do his interior work so that'd be kind of my advice on that all right god bless you robin thank you so much for your call patty is in fayetteville tennessee listening online ewtn.com hey patty just about a minute left what's on your mind today okay i'm a catholic and my daughter married a protestant two years ago i'm really hopeful because this year he put on his christmas wish list that he wants a faith formation book which includes biblical and historical context i thought maybe you could recommend something yup thomas joseph white the light of christ thomas joseph white the light of christ an introduction to catholicism okay sounds good thank you patty for your call and marilyn with about 30 seconds left what's your question today marilyn oh dear merry christmas yes i have uh friends who are fallen away catholics and they said they don't want to come back two of them because of the quotes like therefore i bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen or in john i know those whom i have chosen and all those quotes chosen they said it's to predestination and where does our responsibility come in okay yeah thanks so we have a responsibility to cooperate with god's predestinating grace i mean that's the that's the answer to the question so does does god know in advance those who will be saved and does he determine to give them the grace to bring them to salvation the answer is yes but god's provident providential concern of his creation includes his concern of our for our free human choices so our our agency is part of the unfolding of god's providential plan and we are genuine agents and cooperators in the work of our own salvation nothing could be clearer from scripture than that and the mystery of how we bring god's providential concern together with our free agency is a philosophical one that i can't answer in the next two seconds there you go maryland thanks for your call dr david anders merry christmas to you and merry christmas to all of our listeners from ewtn's call to communion we'll see you again next week i'm tom price till then god bless hey y'all this is father mitch pack

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,477

Rating: 4.8536587 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: kCLrxXU_s_E

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020