Called to Communion - 1/6/21 - with Dr. David Anders

call will determine which party controls the senate for more news with a catholic perspective visit ewtnnews.com 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 1-833-2888 3986 why do i need to confess my sins to a priest what's stopping you this is call to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to the wednesday edition of call to communion here on ewtn it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters those of you who have questions about catholic uh catholic traditions catholic teachings this is the place to get those questions answered here is our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're listening outside of north america please dial the u.s country code 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 send us an email ctc ewtn.com ctc ewtn.com the a team is ready we are in place ready to rock and roll here charles berry our producer also ryan penny our phone screener and jeff burson on social media jeff will forward any questions that you might want to pose via youtube or facebook live if you're watching us there as we're streaming all you have to do is put that question into the comments section jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one 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 glad to hear that we're going to lead off with an email from patrick who says thank you both for all that you do for we catholics in the pew my question is can you provide me a good approach to take when discussing with a mature 14 year old relative who is considering the gay lifestyle thanks patrick okay can i recommend a mature approach to discussing the gay lifestyle with a mature 14 year old who is considering it yeah um yeah i don't i think there may be an oxymoron in this question all right namely that of a mature 14 year old right um and and the you know the notion of of a kind of dispassionate settled consideration of the pros and cons i i don't know that i've ever met a 14 year old where i would i would think that their thoughts and language about about sexuality would be construed in precisely those ways i mean it certainly wouldn't have described my attitudes when i was 14. i mean i might come up with all kinds of rationalizations as a 14 year old as a matter of fact i looked up just the other day in the dictionary box of rocks and there was a picture of me at the age of 14. yeah yeah exactly uh so i mean that was me 100 box of rocks so so you know i'm stumbling a little bit over that that that part of the question as if this was just kind of a detached dispassionate academic discussion about the pros and the cons and the merits right um you know i think uh the the what every 14 year old needs and what no 14 year old wants is uh is the development of habits of virtue and and they and that look that's not the same thing as conversations about habits of virtue because you can talk a blue streak about habits of virtue and not have them right and uh and look the the habit that is most pertinent here most relevant would be the habit of chastity and no 14 year old has any business whatever their ideological predilections they have no business uh even thinking about living a profligate sexualized lifestyle they they need to be focused on you know their homework and and going to mass and uh doing their chores and and the soccer team um you know and they're friends and and they're going to have romantic entanglements when they're 14 but they need to be you know kept within a kind of reasonable limit that's age-appropriate and uh i think if you really have a mature 14 year old that you're dialoguing with um it needs to be about okay let's talk about the whole course of your life and and and the role that chastity and sexuality are going to play you know over the next 10 20 30 years as you become the kind of person that you would like yourself to look up to you know who you are now yeah um and uh i i really wouldn't take this request exactly at face value because i kind of smell a rat here i smell a rationalizing rat a rationalizing rat yeah oh wow okay well there you go patrick hope that's helpful for you here's one now from sean who says on yesterday's show a man asked you how our prayer life differs from jesus's i want to follow up on his question i find myself confused on how to pray in the lord's prayer jesus says not my will but thy will in matthew 7 7 he says ask and it shall be given my grandfather who is 78 is very sick in the hospital i pray for him asking for god's will in this situation but should i be praying for what i want which is his healing thank you sean uh yeah thanks i appreciate the question so it is of course it is of course permissible to to tell god what we would like that's permissible uh in my humble experience or not so humble experiences the case may be um i i very often don't get what i ask for in prayer when i ask for very specific things and and the more those things tend to be towards my own comfort uh or pleasures or self-aggrandizement uh the less successful i am in prayer right you know and the one prayer that god infallibly answers in the affirmative is the humble faithful contrite persevering prayer for the graces necessary for my salvation that's the prayer god will always answer in the affirmative but outside of that we don't have any guarantees you know my pastor of my parish has a wonderful saying he says that god has three answers to prayer yes not yet and i have a better plan and jesus models this for us of course in his own prayer which is not my will but thine be done so it's appropriate to say i'd like my grandfather to live you know i'd like to get a new job or i'd like to you know find a girl to marry or i mean let all your needs be known to god right but but with the understanding that whatever happens to you happens within the permissive will of god happens within god's providence and he intends it for your good even if it's not a good you presently see and the more we can purify our prayer and bring it in line with not my will but thine be done the holier we will become the happier we will become and the more our prayers will be answered in the affirmative sean thank you so much for your email we do appreciate that in a moment we're going to get to the phones you can join in as well at 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders 833-288-3986 on the wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion stay with us would you like to become a saint well that's great because only saints go to heaven oh but i'm no saint you say think of it this way a saint is a sinner striving for sanctity who sometimes stumbles and picks himself up by the grace of god and continues the struggle on the royal road of the cross mother church's powerhouse saints and future saints will show us the way on the good fight saturday 2pm eastern on ewtn radio [Music] this is kevin burke a priest for life with pro-life update on january 22nd 1973 the most disastrous decision of the us supreme court was handed down roe v wade that legalized abortion this month in churches and on public streets all across america people of all ethnic backgrounds and all faiths are praying and protesting that decision and recommitting themselves to the pro-life movement let us recall today however that the pro-life movement did not begin with roe v wade it began the first time a human being extended his hand to help another it continued as old testament prophets preached against child sacrifice and as christians in the roman empire rescued infants who had been abandoned it continues today in the lives of so many of you and it will be victorious just as surely as christ has risen this is kevin burke on ewtn global catholic radio network [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn i want to tell you about a wonderful product now available from our very own ewtn religious catalog it is a book and dvd set the wonders of our spiritual father from father donald calloway drawing on the wealth of the church's living tradition father calloway calls on all of us to turn to saint joseph entrust ourselves our church and our world to our spiritual father's loving care and then watch for those wonders when the universal patron of the church opens the floodgates of heaven to pour out graces into our lives today this fabulous book consecration to saint joseph is dedicated to meeting the challenges of the present moment and restoring order to our church and our world it is a wonderful book i've done the consecration myself and we're also going to throw in a dvd with this this contains father donald calloway's ewtn live interview with father mitch back almost a year ago back last february so it's available right now at ewtnrc.com free standard shipping on online orders of 75 or more just use the code free at checkout by catholic shop ewtnrc.com looks great consecration to saint joseph do check that out we're going to get to the phones in just a moment here looks like we have two lines available if you have a question for dr david anders 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 you might also tell us what's keeping you from becoming a catholic maybe you are listening to the program while keeping in the back of your head i don't want to become a catholic i have no interest in becoming a catholic and here's why a b c whatever your story happens to be we'd like to hear about that as well what is keeping you from becoming a catholic that phone number again eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six david we have an interesting email here this is from marjorie who says during your transformation you must have studied the orthodox church could you speak to us on why you chose catholicism rather than orthodoxy since the schism revolved around the papacy and the philly elk way which the orthodox regard as heretical how did you deal with those issues in making your choice and again that's from marjorie okay thanks margie i really appreciate the question so first of all let's distinguish between uh eastern orthodoxy as an ecclesial body and eastern or byzantine spirituality because there is a catholic manifestation of eastern and byzantine spirituality there are there are byzantine catholic churches there are byzantine catholics and uh the the whole church east and west greek and latin and syriac uh assyrian siramala bar ethiopian eritrean you name it the entire church in all of its uh liturgical and cultural traditions is the patrimony of every catholic and so you know in the western calendar on sunday recently had the feasts of saint basil the great and gregory nazianzus and uh i mean they are they're as eastern as it gets they're also as catholic as it gets and so i'm hooting and hollering and going yay about you know a couple of my favorite eastern hierarchs so it's not a choice between east and west that's the first thing i want to say in becoming catholic i'm not making a choice between east and west and in fact i know protestant converts grew up not catholic uh said i want to become catholic but i want to but i want to become an eastern catholic and they actually converted to the byzantine catholic church and they attend byzantine catholic uh parishes and eparchies and so they're fully catholic but they resonate more soundly with the with the eastern ethos and spirituality so that is a that is a live option for all catholics and for you know all protestant converts as well so it's not a choice between latin and oriental now uh as an ecclesial body orthodoxy you have correctly identified is distinguished precisely by its rejection of the doctrine of the universal primacy of the pope so it's it's defined by a negative right the rejection of the doctrine of the universal primacy of the pope well let me just ask you a question based on their own criterion which ecumenical council ever defined that as a criterion of catholicity and orthodoxy none none okay and uh here's another problem you have if you if you want to join the orthodox communion which one are you gonna join because you got you got multiple competitors for that title you got your byzantine orthodox you have your coptic oriental orthodox you know ethiopians greeks uh you've got uh well no they're they're byzantines they're all right okay you got you got armenians uh you got you've got chaldeans the assyrian church of the east so and all these are contending for the title of orthodoxy and if you ask them well how do you know you guys are the the right version of orthodoxy how do y'all the authentic one well you might get various answers but one of them is probably going to be well we're the guys that hold to the ecumenical councils that's how we know we're with the real orthodox okay so which are the real ecumenical councils well the ones accepted by the orthodox church see how it's a bit circular you know that's a bit circular and it's it's similar to the problem that protestants have with establishing the bible as the soul rule of faith they all say well we hold to the bible okay well what's the proper interpretation the bible well when our denomination articulates well how do you know that's the right one because it's the one we articulate you know i mean you can't get out of that problem yeah and then there's the historical angle well if you go back to the second century third century fourth century is the catholic church distinguished by its rejection of the doctrine of papal primacy no no it's not distinguished in such a way and in fact we find we do find people actually from the west interestingly in the second century that reject the universal jurisdiction of the pope uh tertullian the north african christian writer tertullian does and and on what basis i mean it was in the it was in the controversy over the second repentance and the pope said you know what the church needs to reconcile sinners through the sacrament of reconciliation if you've committed adultery or murder or apostasy and you repent we accept you we we forgive you and we accept you back into the church because christ came to save sinners and totally and said uh-uh no way pope we're not gonna do that we're gonna kick him out we're gonna be hardline we're gonna be puritans we're gonna be you know the high and mighty and i know what you're going to say mr pope this is tertullian talking he says you're going to say that you have the keys of peter and that you sit in the chair of peter what you bind on earth is bound in heaven well let me tell you something mr pope it ain't that way right so we here we find a really clear evidence of the doctrine of of papal primacy and jurisdiction in the mouth of one of her detractors right someone who actually ended up leaving the church uh because he didn't want to accept sinful people back into fellowship right so the the historical evidence is in favor of the doctrine of papal primacy in the earliest centuries and and when this question was raised at an ecumenical council at the council of constantinople in 381 there were some byzantine theologians that said well what if we what if we transfer the primacy from rome to constantinople and the universal church went nope we don't think so so it's really a novel argument you know i mean that this this it emerges uh the filioque in my judgment is a justification uh that was proposed to uh to justify the photian system and focus of course was reconciled and then a few centuries later um you know with with cellularis uh uh they go kicking around again for another reason to leave the west and and eventually papal primacy kind of becomes the uh the uh the justification but this is not a catholic position this is a this is a political one that evolved in a political context marjorie thank you so much for your question before we head to the phones here david i want to give a shout out to uh someone who is uh cyrillio watching us on facebook and uh cerrelio says good morning call to communion from fiji we are enjoying every second of your show isn't that cool you know this is a this is a weird thing so last night i usually wake up about two o'clock in the morning every night i just i it's my biology okay all right and i'll read the news and i've been reading about the coronavirus recently in the news when i wake up at two and last night i found an article on uh on chronovirus in pacific island nations and uh and i actually kind of geeked out on it and spent about an hour reading about pacific island nations in particular fiji really so i kind of have fiji on the brain that's kind of cool well there you go so thank you i'm glad to know they're listening to us in fiji cerelio thanks for checking in if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with mark in columbus listening on saint gabriel radio hey there mark what's on your mind today hello how's it going great good i got a question i'm getting married soon i am catholic my fiance is lutheran we're getting married in her church what do i need to do to make sure my sacramental my of marriage is valid okay here's what you need to do there's two ways to approach this uh maybe three one you can ask your bishop to grant you a dispensation from canonical form all right canonical form for catholics is that you have to be married in the presence of a catholic minister could be a priest or a deacon if you're going to be married if the ceremony is going to be performed by a lutheran minister in order for your marriage to be valid you would need a dispensation from canonical form and so you need to go ahead and get in touch with your pastor and and and uh and bishop about that uh i think there's probably a decent chance that you're not going to be granted that dispensation from canonical form you might be but you'd probably have to have pretty good reason to ask for it um another possibility is you could request that a catholic minister and the lutheran uh both be present uh at the celebration of the sacrament which of course catholics christians confer on one another right so it's it's in virtue of your exchange of vowels that the marriage is affected it's not caused by the minister he's a witness um and uh and so you can you can potentially uh affect this sacrament and have a catholic minister there as a witness to the ceremony and you can comply with canonical form and you can look into that as a possibility the other one is that you could in fact you could in fact pronounce your vows in front of the catholic priest or deacon in a catholic church and follow canonical form to the letter and have a valid marriage and then and then you could maybe go have another ceremony for the sake of her family right but if you just go to the lutheran church and pronounce your vows in front of a lutheran minister without seeking a dispensation or some other accommodation to the canon law will not be a valid marriage all right mark thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3 the wednesday edition of call to communion in progress here on ewtn let's go now to marcia in oceanside new york listening on the ewtn app a free download hey there marcia happy new year to you what's on your mind today happy new year to you both uh my question is in regards to a recommendation i'm interested in reading about angels and guardian angels and how they work in our lives can you recommend a good catholic book regarding that yeah yes and tom you're going to help me out here okay we have a priest who writes for ewtn publishing and you know who i'm talking about i think he's in vancouver right and he just published a book on angels with ewtn publishing oh yes you know who i'm talking about i do that would be is that father horgan that sounds like the one yeah and i think we were promoting this book about six months a year ago right i believe it's father john horgan john horgan do you remember the title it had angels in the uh title i can i can be digging that up while you're speaking uh his angels at our side that's it that's the one there we got one for you yay okay appreciate your call uh marcia it is called to communion here on ewtn let's go to christine in las vegas listening on youtube this afternoon christine what's on your mind today hi uh dr anders um i heard that during mass people say that uh jesus and the angels and the saints are there while we are celebrating mass um a step so i understand how jesus can be everywhere at one time because he's um omnipresent but what about the angels and the saints how are they present at mass if let's say two different catholic churches have mass at the same time yeah thanks i appreciate the question it's a very good question so with respect to christ christ of course is present in a unique way at the mass through the the consecration of the elements through transubstantiation he's truly present really present body blood soul and divinity on the altar in the blessed sacrament and that is a that is a mysterious and unique presence and not no other uh being uh uh divine or human right is is present in precisely that way as jesus is present at holy mass and what a blessing that is to us now uh when it comes to the angels and the saints angels don't have bodies they are spirits and so they don't have the properties of bodies like mass or extension so an angel is not three feet long he's not three inches long he's not long he has no length all right and has no width has no height and has no weight and so when we talk about angels being present this is anagogical language analogical language right it's uh uh it's uh it's it's using terminology that is derived from from temporal experience and material experience to try to describe realities that are not that are not material um and the best way to conceptualize the angel's presence then is not as a local physical presence but as the presence by way of intention the the angel can can direct his attention uh to a specific location or to an event and in that way uh the angels are concurring with the prayer that is the sacrifice of the mass and but it's by their intention not by their local presence they don't have to move in space uh to be present to human beings now the saints are in the present circumstance are also like this they won't have bodies until the resurrection of the dead so they are also disembodied at the moment they are spirits and they don't have it's improper to think of them as having a spatial location mass or extension or local movement so they're also present at mass by their intention okay very good and uh christine we thank you so much for your call we hope that's helpful for you in a moment here on ewtn radio's call to communion we're going to get to some more calls of yours we'll be talking with a jamie jamie is in palm bay florida also mark in vanceburg kentucky looks like we have one line open right now you can snag it by calling 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 it's the wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn glad that you're with us please stay with us [Music] the words of blessed carlos ocoutis the more eucharist we receive the more we will become like jesus so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven father john ricardo when you and i come to mass we're accustomed to thinking of the beginning of the mass what we call the liturgy of the word as a time when someone or someone's they kind of get up they read from this book which most of us have limited understanding of about a people who we really don't grasp with names that are very hard to pronounce which we feel embarrassed about saying out loud because you just know people are going who she'll teal for crying out loud you know when the word of god is proclaimed at mass it's happening now it's an event the wondrous deeds that god has done in human history are being proclaimed in our midst now and to that you and i have to respond and we do respond we either respond with so what i don't care this is irrelevant in my life or we respond by saying yes lord i believe this and i want you to take over more and more of my life the people you know and trust are on ewtn [Music] check out ewtn's official youtube channel just follow the link on our homepage at ewtn.com or go to youtube.com ewtn watch ewtn's live shows or today's homily from the daily mass click the upload button to see our most recent clips you can also find all of ewtn youtube content by clicking the playlist button it's all on the official ewtn youtube channel at youtube.com ewtn visit today self improvements are always good for us what are yours for this new year let's talk about that tomorrow on take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now more of call to communion with dr david anders what's stopping you from becoming a catholic we would love to know at ewtn's call to communion our phone number 833-288-3986 in fact let's get back to the phones right now and talk with jamie in palm bay florida listening on divine mercy catholic radio one of our longtime uh partners in uh catholic radio hey jamie what's on your mind today hi thank you for taking my call i'll give you a little information and i have two quick questions i was in a discussion with my dad and we began to talk about whether gay people would make it to heaven now he believes that same sex attraction is only caused by an evil spirit and that when the person is saved that spirit will be removed and they will no longer have any desire for that lifestyle he believes that even if they turn to god and live a life of abstinence if they have any desire or temptation about their old lifestyle then they won't make it to heaven even if they continue to resist any urge that may pop up you know during their life so my two questions are are there any evil spirits that can reside in us and cause us to sin that could then be removed by being saved and are we only forgiven and saved when we're completely removed of all desire and temptation of a sin we've struggled with or is it the act of resisting and continually turning away it counts for us oh i am so glad you asked this question what a wonderful question thank you so very much so uh this is a really important point and it's important not just for people in their sexuality but for an understanding of the nature of sin and virtue as such and it's a it's a major difference between the catholic faith and other forms of christian faith like protestantism so let me contrast two positions the the the desire for sinful activity or the urge to engage in sinful activity particularly pleasures of the flesh is what we call concupiscence and martin luther who was the founder of the protestant movement believed that concupiscence itself was imputable as sin now that seems to be the position that i think you said it was your father or father-in-law i can't remember but that was the position that this fellow was taking that that if i have any immoderate urge that that urge itself is imputable as sin now the catholic church completely and utterly rejects that position absolutely rejects that position and i am so grateful to be catholic because i was raised in a tradition that taught that concupiscence was imputable as sin and the consequence was that i felt myself to be an executable horrible wretched human being at 24 hours a day 365 days a year because of course we don't get rid of concupiscence when we come to the lord there's not a catholic on the planet there's not a christian on the planet there's not a buddhist on the planet there's not a hindu on the planet there's not a muslim on the planet there's not a protestant on the planet who is not plagued with concupiscence immoderate desires immoderate desires and uh and i mean you cannot tell me that that there is a you know i don't care what people's moderate desires tend in different directions one might be a moderate in the direction of some sort of sexual indulgence uh i often use the illustration on this show that i have a strongly and immoderate urge to eat a second piece of pecan pie or a third or a third right exactly you know that is the lot of of humankind right that is the law of human kind and we can learn to a certain extent to tame and to maybe reorient our habits and our desires and we can kind of you know we need we rebuild our neurology a bit after time and and uh but but to be utterly free of concupiscence in this life is not a possibility for us and it's not imputable as sin it's a it's a function of our wounded human nature and it's not imputable as sin so sin only pertains moral responsibility only pertains where there is free rational deliberative choice and and over those things of over things which i have no control i have no moral responsibility um i you know i can't control the fact that i happen to like pecan pie i mean it's in my blood i'm a southerner what am i going to do about it right and but i can control whether or not i eat the pie sure and to a certain extent you know like i can in the act of contrition we pray as catholics we we make a a pledge to avoid what leads us to sin so like i i stay away from from pecan shops you know i'm not going to walk into the pecan pie factory i just put myself in the occasion of sin that would be imprudent of me to you know not trust myself i know where my weaknesses lie so i'm going to stay away from we have this great local pecan business called priester's pecans you know and i'm not like i'm not going in there don't go there all right you know it's just like the alcoholic's not gonna walk into the bar unless he's gonna get himself in trouble sure uh i can control what i do i can control how respond to my concupiscence but it's not imputable as sin now to your question uh is concupiscence only caused by the evil spirit no no that's not true uh and in fact the what scripture teaches what the catholic faith teaches is the way that the evil spirit influences us to temptation is that he understands our neurology and our biology and so he's gonna only he's gonna basically push your buttons where he knows they work you know so he's not gonna get me with lemon meringue pie he can throw a lemon meringue pie in my face all day long he's not gonna do it he's to push the pecan pie button of course okay appreciate your call uh jamie what a great great question it is called a communion here on ewtn let's go to uh mark in vanceburg kentucky listing on st gabriel radio hello mark what's on your mind today hello hey i'm 64 years of age been an active protestant for 45 years in the local church i live in a very non-catholic community like only 20 catholics in the whole county and city god has over the years reward you know kind of revealed his search to me own a uh the retail grocery in the community uh very excited about uh god revealing uh things that i used to be anti-catholic and it just kept moving in on me so i went through the rcia classes done a lot of debating which i probably shouldn't have done with a lot of the local pastors and uh friends that are protestant and i didn't really realize how much anti-catholicism is still out there whether in written form or just in the hearts of people so i know it's going to cost me something but i'm wondering what my game is i think i'm saying you know i'm going to heaven either way uh if i make any sense there so i'm going to lose a lot of the relationships are not the same once you kind of begin to recognize the authority of the catholic church i don't think local pastors appreciate that and friend it's like you betrayed your heritage or something yeah i'm totally with you i mark i'm completely with you i know exactly what you're talking about so let me let me commit this from a couple different points of view first of all you're wondering okay given what i'm what i'm suffering here is it is it really worth the trouble of being catholic uh since as you put it like i can get to heaven being catholic i can get to heaven not being catholic do i really need to be catholic if i'm going to incur all this animosity from the people around me well here's one way that you cannot get to heaven you cannot get to heaven by violating your own conscience all right yep and so here's the here's the catch that you've got when you were invincibly ignorant of the catholic church you had no knowledge of the catholic faith and everything you'd learned about it was wrong and you had every reason in the world to reject it and it seemed reasonable to you to reject it and the people around you that you loved and trust you trusted told you to reject it you were not at that point in your life responsible to god for your rejection of catholicism because you did not know better but at a certain point in time you knew better you learned differently you learned that the lies you had heard about the catholic church were lies they were not true and you saw the goodness truth and beauty of the catholic faith and uh and you embraced it and you accepted it as you should because you followed your conscience and you followed truth and goodness and beauty well that puts you in a different moral situation because now if you were to walk away from the catholic church because it's inconvenient you'd be in the situation of rejecting the the the uh the better for the merely good and in order to please men and not god and that's not something we can do right we it's to martin luther founder of protestantism once said to disobey conscience is neither right nor safe well he was very catholic at that point right to disobey conscience is neither right nor safe um and uh secondly i'd like to say suggest you that uh obviously we want to go to heaven all right becoming catholic is not a get into heaven for free card uh being protestant is not getting is not getting a get into heaven for free card that we do not in this life have a a hundred percent certainty of what our eternal state will be what what the lord has revealed to us is the necessary steps to be taken the path to betrayed but with the condition that he who perseveres to the end will be saved so you don't actually know you're saved until you've persevered to the end now how do you persevere to the end christ says whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life you need to be in communion with christ in his church and persevere to the end in order to be saved not conscious of any unconfessed grave sin all right that that requires the commitment of a lifetime and again if you were to walk away from the catholic faith at this point in your life you would be you would not be persevering to the end and you would not have assurance of salvation and nor could you plead invincible ignorance catholicism offers us a radically different way of understanding our relationship to god and ourselves and our neighbor than than does protestantism and it tells us basically that we have to develop cultivate and live a life of virtue and you're not you don't you're not saved by proselytizing your protestant neighbors you're not saved by antagonizing your protestant neighbors and you're not saved by ignoring your protestant neighbors you're saved by loving your protestant neighbors and so you know my my uh my counsel to you would be first of all well thank god you're catholic and i applaud you for your courage and your fidelity to truth into your own conscience and doing that uh i don't fault you for for going out and arguing with your protestant friends because look i mean you got the zeal of a new convert we we all understand that we've all we've all been there right but what is it you're arguing for when you argue about catholicism you're ultimately arguing for the message that it is humility and charity that unite us to god and it's not the argument that will save you it's the humility and charity so you've you've got your arguing out of your system that's fine you know now let's get to work on the humility and charity relying on the grace of the sacraments self-examination a life of prayer and confession persevere to the end and you'll be saved and if you know if you lose a customer or two along the way blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake there you go mark thank you so much for your call really good to hear from you in vanceberg kentucky called the communion here on ewtn you know a moment ago you were talking about humility david and one of the most humble people i know is a dominican father brian mullady and he is the uh latest the newest host to join our ewtn open line family he'll be joining us tomorrow at 3 p.m eastern for open line thursday sharing his theological expertise and his catholic wisdom listeners have all kinds of opportunities to call father a milady and ask about questions relating to theology of the body the eucharist grace prayer modern philosophy theology so many things that father brian mullady can share with you his expertise on open line thursday do check it out and welcome him to our lineup that'll be tomorrow at 3 p.m eastern right here on ewtn radio back to the phones right now here on call to communion let's go to kerry kerry's in waco texas listening on red sea radio hey there carrie what's on your mind today good afternoon uh first of all i appreciate everything that you all do it does make a difference and keep up the great work the one thing that that happened to me was december 4th got diagnosed with covid uh thought i was not gonna have to go to the hospital things like that then about mid-december it got uh bad to where i had to get on the respirator all that kind of you know things oh my and uh uh and i went to the i was at a catholic hospital and i asked just as soon as i got there to see a priest so that i could you know have anointing of the sick and have a confession because unsure what was going on was gonna happen uh but during that period i never was able to see one so i mean i just did the best i could making a confession saying the rosary listening to you guys i mean what type of state are you in when you can't get those things if i were to pass yeah thank you i really appreciate the question so much so uh confession is not a condition of salvation it is a gift that the lord gives to us so that we can have certainty about the means of grace and you know before the coming of christ all of the holy men and women of the old covenant who went to heaven did so without the benefit of confession king david is the model for us here in psalm 51 where he says against you and you only o lord have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight you know therefore wash me with hyssop and i will be clean take not your holy spirit from me but renew within me a right spirit and then i'll offer sacrifices on your altar so david gives us the model of what an act of perfect contrition looks like with his assurance that god will in fact forgive him and he will be saved and be given a new heart and we can always do that we can always turn to god in prayer and repentance and ask for grace and salvation and and uh and uh and the hope of eternal life so what does that what does the sacrament add to the picture well here's what the sacrament adds the sacrament it's like you do all that and then and then the you know the bull horn from heaven comes online and says it's all good i forgive you right that's what confession does you bring your contrition and then god responds in the person of the priest and gives you assurance you are in fact forgiven and it's not just in a kind of symbolic way that well you know god will forgive you if you're penitent no no the priest actually has authority from god to forgive you like he it's it's like you know god's ambassador who has authority from the government to contract a treaty you know that the priest really does have an actual jurisdiction over the state of your soul and can pronounce the words of absolution and you are in fact absolved and you because you can hear it and see it you are certain about it and you have profound peace of mind the sacrament is precisely a sign now it's not only a sign but it's certainly not less than a sign and the sign value of the sacrament is is how it differs from making an act of contrition without the priest present right so can you be saved on your hospital bed if the priest does not get to you in time yes you can but if he gets to you you have objective certainty that you have received that grace and that is a profound comfort so you did the right thing uh but you don't need to be fearful and terrified for the state of your soul okay appreciate your call carrie and the hope that you're feeling better if if not now then very very soon call to communion here on ewtn let's go to larry now in kenosha wisconsin listing on wsfi 88.5 fm hello larry what's on your mind today good afternoon i have a question unless i miss to actually two questions and one is maybe not a question unless i misunderstood dr anders you said that angels don't have bodies uh in the bible it says jacob wrestled with an angel and angels appear to the shepherds so do they have bodies or not nope they don't have bodies so who who appeared to the aid who appeared to the shepherds then right okay so the catholic position on this is that while angels do not have bodies god does grant for them the possibility at times of intervening in a temporal spatial way with a kind of pseudo body right that they're able to influence material and temporal events through the providence of god for specific reasons and at specific times but by nature the angel is not an embodied corporeal creature okay well there you go call to communion here on ewtn radio let's go to uh this email uh here from looks like jeanette dr andrews i've been attending rcia classes the past four months i've read all the rcia material and have expanded my reading to include bible basics for catholics and many other catholic books i believe the roman catholic church has the answer and holds the truth i'm all in i can't wait to come into full communion having said all that here's my question why do i need to wait until the easter vigil before i can come into the catholic church i accept and believe all the teachings of the church but by waiting until easter i feel like i'm hanging out in the breeze spiritually speaking and that my soul is in legitimate danger if i were to die between now and when i finally can join the church especially in regards to my first reconciliation as i have a lot to confess i understand that god knows my heart knows my desire to receive the sacraments and i know that he is all merciful and just but i would feel much better if i had something more objective and concrete to hang my salvatory hat on vis-a-vis confession and the eucharist thanks so much from jeanette in des moines yeah thanks janet i really appreciate the question so uh it is not for no reason that the church has uh reestablished the catechumenate and the period of preparation prior to reception into the church at easter and as you know from from rcia there there are benchmarks along the way like the right of election uh that that uh you know that mark out your new special identity in the church as a candidate or a catechumen and uh this is a this is to be for you a period of preparation and even if you already understand and confess the faith uh there are still things that you can do in your interior life and spirituality that are preparatory for the reception of the your first holy communion uh and that will condition that and the the degree of charity uh in your soul at the time and so forth and uh this is a pedagogical educative period in your formation and your longing for the eucharist and your impatience and so forth all of those play into the identity that is being built within you right that you'll have this as a part of your memory of your entrance into the catholic church this period of preparation and waiting and expectation and hope and longing and so forth and uh and it will really deepen your experience of your first holy communion and and your sense of of inclusion into the corporate and mystical body of christ at easter vigil uh you know the the ceremony of easter vigil is so beautiful with the lit candles and the evening prayer and the litany of the saints and all this uh and it's i mean the the the the ritual of the liturgies there for a reason i mean it's there to teach us through all of our senses and our imagination and our affections and uh this profound awareness that you'll have of being joined to ritually and sacramentally to to the body of christ both sacramentally and ecclesially will just be profound and so there are good reasons that the church institutes this in this way now with respect to the question of your first reconciliation i don't know any reason why you can't do that sooner rather than later i mean you if you've already been baptized that's i mean i assume you have been if you've already been baptized you will have to go to reconciliation before your first holy communion so before your full reception into the church and uh and you know you could if you signal to the priest that you would like to do that sooner rather than later perhaps they'll make that available to you hopefully so there you go and uh jeanette thank you so much for your email here is tina now in tigard oregon listening on modern day radio did i pronounce your name your your a city properly there tina thank you it's tiger tigered tigered oregon very good what's on your mind today a couple things thank you so much about recently my mom passed away in a nursing home and i got had the grace to be able to face time with her for about four hours a day for almost two weeks and i prayed the chaplet of divine mercy with her and i i read over all the beatitudes and over and over four hours a day was a lot and that's what was offered to me so i could not turn it down even though it was really hard because i could see you know the body her her life was just slowly ending and during that time i realized wow i've been listening to ewtn catholic radio every day it's the only way i can really feel connected after that intense virtual experience and i've realized as a baptizing catholic who received her first communion i am going back to the catholic church full force it's where my heart is and i recently had a confession with the local priest which was my very first confession and i have a couple questions i forgot to confess this then because i forgot that it even happened prior to my confession a couple weeks ago about 10 years ago when my my legal husband we were not married in a church we were just legally married we were asked by ushers around christmas time just as the doors were closing if we would bring the gifts up to the priest and i was naive i was a cradle catholic i thought that meant to bring a basket of toys up to the altar for the christmas giving tree so we said yes and then we went and sat down and they said they would call us when it was time to bring them so my husband my legal husband didn't go and so i had to go by myself tina we have less than a minute left uh what is your question for us please we ended up going down the altar together but we weren't married and the priest didn't know us and i'm wondering do i need to confess this sin because we've presented the bread and the wine i understand the question so it sounds to me from your description that you you intended no ill you had no ill will and you intended no no uh disobedience to the church or to god and you acted in ignorance and uh really you know when when there's no uh when there's no free and deliberate choice there's no moral responsibility so i really don't think you should beat yourself up about this uh and it's very unlikely that you've caused scandal because it sounds like the people around you didn't even know what your mental situation was now you know i mean we want to be validly married and follow the teaching of the church and we want you know that to be a public thing that people recognize but in this situation sounds like you probably didn't cause any scandal and you certainly meant none uh and uh and look god knows your heart and he loves you uh much more than you love yourself right so you know give yourself a little break and know that it's good that you're coming back into the church thanks for your call tina couldn't get to tim in windsor ontario riley in illinois tim in seattle couldn't get to you good folks please call us back tomorrow we'll put you at the head of the line hey dr david anders thank you sir thanks tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn live at 2 p.m eastern every weekday on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david andrews see you tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion hey y'all this is father mitch pacquiao open line wednesday is next on ewtn radio the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio every single day

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,706

Rating: 4.9534883 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: GGYtB-h_R1E

Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2021