Called To Communion - 2/20/18- Pre-tribulation Rapture in Catholicism?

what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic why can't women become priests why do Catholics worship Mary why do I need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the Bible I think the Pope has too much authority you are called to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network hi everybody welcome again to called the communion this is the program for our non Catholic brothers and sisters if you are a non Catholic perhaps you were a Catholic years ago an active Catholic a practicing Catholic if you will and you haven't been back to the church in a long time and you're thinking about it now you're thinking well maybe I need to get back to that but there's something on your mind that you want to get cleared up first of all here is the place to do that very thing here's our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six you can also text the letters EWTN to five five zero zero zero wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply but at least for some folks again that phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN for those of you watching today on television you can email us CTC at ewtn.com michael Burchfield is our producer Matt Kaminski is our phone screener Jeff Burton is handling social media today he'll be glad to pass along any questions that you posed via Facebook or YouTube I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders Tom how are you today couldn't be better how are you oh I'm doing well this morning I was with I went out to visit some campus ministers at a at a state university here in Alabama and really walked into the the new parish building and found myself walking right into a Eucharistic Adoration chapel with a bunch of college kids during our Lord and the Blessed Sacrament how's that a great way is a real cool way to start here's an email that we received from Tim he says hey love your show I have joined a men's Christian group at my workplace in order to express solidarity with my Christian brothers now I'm wondering how I can explain to them that being a Catholic is being Christian okay thanks so I take it from the question that perhaps your coworkers are calling this fact into question yeah okay sounds like it um so you know there's a lot of ways to do this I think the most important one is to talk about your experience of Christ and to remind them that you believe in Christ that you've committed your life to Christ that Christ informs everything that you do and in fact that you're that you your connection to Christ is multifaceted it's not only through your private prayer life and your you know your interior life and devotions but it's through the sacramental life of the church it's expressed in in the apostolic succession and the hierarchical structure of the church once you live you hear the living voice of Christ speaking to you through the church's Magisterium and echoing down through the centuries and and you encounter Christ in a unique and preeminent way in the Blessed Sacrament the sacrament of sacraments which is a sacrament the Holy Eucharist which fulfills the promise of Christ that if we eat his flesh and drink his blood will abide in him and that we won't have any life in us unless we abide in him mmm very it's a sacrament of abiding in Christ so why does Christ represent let me put it this way everything that Christ wants us to do he gives to us in a sacrament he represents to us to us in a sacrament so he wants us to die to ourselves and be wrong reborn in him hence baptism he wants us to lay down our lives for our spouses to bring them to God hence the sacrament of marriage he wants us to know that we're sealed with the Holy Spirit and equipped for ministry hence confirmation but above all he wants us to dwell with him to abide in him to feed upon him in our very souls and draw ever closer to him in a deepening communion hence the Blessed Sacrament the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist okay very good Tim thank you so much for your email we'll get to the phone's at a moment here I want to do one more email before we do that this is from Ray in Texas and he says I heard the other day on your pro discussion regarding music played at megachurches so what kind of music should be played at the foot of the cross god bless your program Ray in Texas okay thanks well I'm not sure what you mean by the qualification at the foot of the cross yeah if you're talking about what kind of music should be played in the Sacred Liturgy alright during the mass there's actually quite a lot of information on that from the Holy See and one of the things about sacred music is it should be set apart in a certain way from secular music and identified as sacred as special in some how that's appropriate to the reverence and the dignity of the liturgy and and to not only to evoke in us an awareness of the transcendent but of the great reverence that we owe to Christ and the Blessed Sacrament now obviously that's something that's going to be a little bit different depending on what culture you live in sure right so you know there are there are cultures in which maybe say for example certain instruments are certain tones are certain you know patterns of music may be more associated with say the barroom brawl then with the liturgical celebration and but it goes that's that's gonna be a highly specific highly contingent kind of consideration and and which is why the church is always allowed a certain amount of variety depending on cultural situation now within within the Latin Church within the Catholic Church of the West pride of place according to the Second Vatican Council should be given to Gregorian chant that doesn't mean that every time you go to Mass you have to chant Gregorian chant in Latin no I mean that far from it all right but that that's a important part of the church's patrimony and ought not to be lost ought not to be lost doesn't mean you have to do it every time you go but that ought to kind of be in the background of your mind that at least some formation in the tradition of liturgical chant is entirely appropriate in one's kind of chemical formation very good hope that's a helpful for you ray and thank you so much for your email when we come back we'll be talking with Stan in Harrisburg Pennsylvania also Sarah in Mansfield Ohio and look at this we've got a line open for you right now eight three three two eight eight EWTN eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six called a communion and progress here on EWTN sharing the fullness of the Catholic faith one eight three three two eight eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six this is call to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network this is a Lenten journey with Timothy cardinal Dolan on ewtn radio I had the beautiful celebration of the 50th anniversary of a wonderful married couple and I asked them the secret to their marriage and they said well we vowed to one another into God on our wedding day that we wouldn't go to sleep at night without saying together the our Father and that's what's kept us together and he said even when I'm on the road and I got to travel a lot I'll I'll always call her and we'll pray the Lord's Prayer together before we both go to bed Jesus teaches us the our Father in this gospel for the Tuesday of the first week of Lent we can't go wrong and saying it comes right from his lips so whenever whenever there's problem whenever we say I don't know what to say to God we can never ever go wrong with that our Father because the master himself gave it to us a Lenten journey with Timothy cardinal Dolan is available on DVD through the EWTN religious catalogue this DVD includes all 47 segments for each day of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday to get your copy log on to our website EWTN religious catalogue comm 24 hours a day seven days a week or call one eight hundred eight five four six three one six [Music] the Holy Fathers prayer intention for the month of February is that all those who are afflicted especially the poor refugees and marginalized may find welcome and comfort in our communities what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Anders eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're ready now let's get to the phones at eight three three two eight eight EWTN we'll begin here with Stan and Harrisburg Pennsylvania listening to us on Holy Family radio hey Stan what's on your mind today the rapture doctrine in many Protestant churches that do teach that and I was just curious as to what the world would be the biblical view in with it would be college gold okay thanks I appreciate that Stan well one thing about this doctrine of the rapture that's very interesting is that you don't find it anywhere in Christian history nowhere at all until the 19th century so not only is it not something the Catholic Church teaches but it's not something the Orthodox Church teaches it's not something that the Coptic Church teaches it's not even something that most Protestants believe Martin Luther who started the Protestant movement John Calvin probably the greatest Protestant theologian of the 16th century clearly at least second and second in line to Luther neither of those guys had ever heard of the rapture doctrine you won't find it represented in the Episcopal tradition the Anglican tradition you're not gonna find it part of the Lutheran Church it's not in the Presbyterian tradition you're not gonna find it among most Methodists so I mean it's just it's a it's a very very novel doctrine and it was invented invented I'm gonna stress that word invented by a man named John Nelson Darby who was in the Plymouth Brethren tradition all right in the nineteenth century and then it got picked up by a lot of fundamentalists in the United States so many of them were Baptist and independent Bible Church types because of the publication of something called a Scofield reference Bible and then and it became associated with a few institutions in the American fundamentalist movement schools like Dallas Theological Seminary Moody Bible Institute and so forth so is a really a very very small subset of the Protestant world that adopted this very novel belief that really has no precedence in scripture or tradition for 2,000 years and and they they picked up this idea for for very specific reasons so the Darby Darby was a strict literalist in his understanding of sacred scripture I mean almost woodenly literalistic and one of the things that motivated him was he noticed when he read the Old Testament that the Old Testament lake's makes a lot of prophecies about Israel and it would say things about you know how how you know that we visions of Ezekiel of Temple sacrifice and and you know language about Israel triumphing over her neighbors and stuff like that and the the traditional way of reading all of those passages and this is both we find this kind of reading both in the New Testament itself and also of course down 2,000 years of Christian history is to read most of those things as allegories or topologies that are fulfilled in the Christian Church all right so so so in a certain sense the church is the new Israel and this is the new covenant in which all these Messianic promises are fulfilled and and we're not looking you know Christ said my kingdom is not of this world book of Hebrews tells us that animal sacrifice that mosaic sacrifices have to be done away with that the fulfilling sacrifices in the death of Christ on the cross so all these things are mere apologies questions a mere but their topologies and allegories of spiritual realities that are that are presented to us in in in the in the Christian Church all right but Darby being the strict little literalists that he was said no no that's not how the Bible works if the Bible says they're gonna be sacrifices then they gotta be sacrifices if the Bible says Israel is going to triumph that Israel is going to triumph and so he imagined that there it's had to be some future time when the nation-state of Israel would be the inheritor of these very specific biblical prophecies but he had a problem and Darby's problem was that the Church got in his way I mean quite literally in history all right he said well well if God's plan of salvation is now being exercised through the Christian Church then then what role could there be for a an historical literal nation-state of Israel so he had to figure out a way to get the Christian Church out of the timestream if you will uh-huh so he invents this idea of the rapture where God comes along and literally zaps the church out of time and space and and some dispensationalists would actually refer to the church as the grand parenthesis you know like you know here's God's plan for Israel from the beginning of time to end and the church is kind of a parenthesis okay okay so they they pull the church out of the time-space continuum let God's plan for Israel play out and then stick the church back in the timestream at the end all right but that's a really convoluted way to read the Bible okay so they accommodate this strange theory Darby had to get odder and stranger and stranger and the way he cut up the Bible into seven dispensations all right one of which was the alleged church age and and some very strange things were entailed by his belief one of them was in in certain radical forms of dispensationalism the belief that Jesus had nothing to say to Christians all right I'm serious all right so there's a it's in some forms a dispensationalism they'll actually teach that Christ offered salvation to the Jews they reject it and so then st. Paul offers a completely different gospel to the Gentiles right this bizarre bizarre to action very very uncaf like view of our Lord and of the Bible but all this kind of stuff is implied by darby's really bizarre beautiful Testament interpretation of course the Bible itself doesn't say anything about knows nothing about this alleged rapture or these multiple comings of Christ the Bible only knows the historical coming of Christ in Palestine 2,000 years ago and then is coming again at the end of time okay and so that's the way the Catholic Church together with all Christians everywhere always for 2,000 years has read Sacred Scripture right so we don't know anything about this rapture doctrine we reject this rapture doctrine as the invention of the mind of John Nelson Darby and and we advise strongly against it because we you know the other point is that the idea of removing Christians from suffering or persecution is a very unbiblical idea st. Paul says that we will we will reign with Christ and glory only if we suffer with him and Jesus said if you don't take up your cross and follow me you can't be my disciple st. Paul says with it we should actually James says we should rejoice in our sufferings and Paul says in 2nd Corinthians that as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives so also his comfort overflows he actually says in Colossians 2 that we can make up in our own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body the church Wow Stan we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you now at let's see here eight three three two eight eight EWTN eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six again Stan thank you for your call let's go now to Sarah in Mansfield Ohio listening to us on Annunciation radio hey Sarah what's on your mind today the other day I was having a discussion with one of my Protestant friends and we had on the topic of how Catholics especially well I guess all the time they seemed more reserved than really any other Protestant denomination they're very vocal about their faith and they're there during their services they're very very into it and and I didn't know how to describe to her what what Catholics are because we aren't I mean the closest thing I got was saying that it's more of a personal relationship but then I kind of fell into the sentence of saying where it's it's not about other people with what it's what my relationship is with God and it only seems selfish in a way Sarah I totally understand where you're coming from and I really appreciate the question so let me speak to this if I might first of all um I I don't agree I don't agree that that Catholics are not excited about their faith or that Catholics don't have deep emotion about their faith or anything like that alright and if you've read the lives of the saints you'll know that I mean they they can be so passionate and extreme about their faith that it almost sends goosebumps down your spine you know I mean how can you think about a st. Francis of Assisi who strips himself naked in the town square divests himself of every attachment to the world and you know and and then runs off joyfully to hug beggars and the lepers while physically rebuilding the you know a church and gathering around him a band of disciples that then go out and evangelize all of Europe and they're still going strong eight hundred years later I mean how can you how can you beat that in terms of emotional commitment and powerful impact you know or if you've read the the works of st. Teresa of ávila you want to talk about somebody that had a powerful emotional life and a relationship with God you know or a Catherine of Siena who would who would swoon into unconsciousness because she was so taken with the love of God there were those who thought she was faking there's a story about when she was in Avignon some of the Pope's nieces who were not very nice people thought that st. Catherine of Siena was faking so they they drove a needle through her heel too they thought because she's you know she's she's faking this swing business and she wasn't faking this weed business but where he eventually came out she's like why does my heel feel like it's about to come off okay so I don't think it's true that Catholics can't have or don't have really really powerful religious emotions Bonaventure who's the doctor of the church and was the heir to st. Francis of the leadership of the Franciscan community wrote a biography of Francis's life of Francis in which he spoke of Francis as a man who yearned for what he called I love this phrase ecstatic peace almost seems like an oxymoron doesn't ecstatic peace but it was a peace of total commitment to God that left him in an in an in an ecstasy of adoration and if you've read about Saint Francis's vision of the Serafim and his his receiving of the stigmata I mean it's almost I mean as a Protestant what I encounter these kinds of stories about maybe Padre Pio or somebody I mean I'm like too much emotion back up okay and and and then secondly you know when you're talking about the experience of caf at mass well there may be Catholics that are you know bored out of their skulls at mass I don't know okay but I certainly know an awful lot of Catholics who are who are deeply overcome all right in their experience of Holy Mass but they're not talking about it they're too busy adoring our Lord right there I mean and and if you if you lift your eyes from front up which I don't necessarily recommend and you look around the church you're gonna find some you know some 16 year-olds you know looking at the ceiling but you're also gonna find some incredibly pious people sure they're totally taken up in their love of God okay so I don't I don't know that I reject the I think I may reject the premise of the question to a certain extent but I will admit that that the style of worship liturgical worship is not ordered towards the production of flagrant public displays of emotion okay and I think in in in being formed that way that we're far more biblical right scripture tells us that everything should be done decently and in order right and in st. Paul addresses this kind of frenetic overly emotional worship in the book of first Corinthians and he warns against it he warns against it he says for instance speaking about speaking in tongues which Catholics do he says I would rather speak three intelligible words than ten thousand words in a tongue now I've been to some Pentecostal churches where they invert that ratio I know you know and you get to ten thousand words in the tongue and not the pre intelligible all right Anna because he says I'd rather edify you then then get you all jazzed up emotionally all right and there's a good reason for that that emotions are something that we share with animals that doesn't make them bad animals are good mmm tasty sometimes with a little high 57 sauce you know but animals are good and animal emotion is good when I walk into my house you know I have have two Havanese puppies and they can stand on their hind feet and jump around in little circles which they do enthusiastically when I walk in the door and I'm like man I I love that my dog loves me this much and that's pretty deep animal emotion is cool stuff but it's but it's something we share with animals it's not transcendent okay and it's a category mistake to think that the intensity my emotional life somehow correlates to the depth of my spirituality I know back before I was Catholic and I was actually attending a Pentecostal church and I'm a wrong time I was kind of hooting and hollering you know with the best of them carrying on like a wild man and a guy in front of me turned around during this very exuberant worship service and he said he looked at me in the eyes and he said he said brother you're filled with the Spirit of God and at that moment that was like win the whole Pentecostal thing broke down for me because I remember thinking no actually I'm I'm filled with pride lust can keep us since he could tell some you know I know my own heart yeah you know and and when he said that I was like no you're just mistaken my hooting and hollering for spirituality I can hoot and holler at an Alabama football game you know I don't need I don't need God to hoot and holler and and whereas the the subject of our spiritual life is not our emotional system not my you know dopaminergic system or my amygdala or whatever else you know help produce emotional response in a human as well as in a as in a lobster or a shrimp or a you know or a monkey okay what-what activates me in the spiritual room is actually my reason mm-hmm and my volition my will all right and and so that's why you know when Christ was confronted with a deep moral and spiritual dilemma he he was sweating blood he wasn't hooting and hollering and he made the ultimate spiritual affirmation be it done to me according to thy word that's the mark of true spirituality when I can say with the Blessed Virgin Mary be it done to me according to my word I have come to do not my will but the will of him who sent me I got my quotes backwards sorry about that okay that's the mark of true spirituality that's what Catholic worship is ordered to producing the surrender of our will to Almighty God which may provoke us to powerful emotion but it may provoke us to a quiet even mournful surrender especially if God calls us to suffering which inevitably he does you don't take up your cross and follow Christ you're not worthy to be my disciples thus says the Lord now the last piece of that puzzle I'll say is there are Catholics you are not evangelized there are catholics who don't know their Lord they haven't encountered they haven't had an encounter with Christ they've merely been presented with the forms of liturgical worship but the reality has not yet struck them and they need to be converted alright um you know st. Francis again to take one of my favorite examples he was baptized as a baby but he didn't get converted until he was a grown man all right and then it struck him and then everything took off for him Catholics have to be converted alright and not ever not all of them are and those that aren't and also those that don't learn how to assimilate the deep riches of the Catholic tradition sometimes will get sucked off into a merely emotional frenetic form of worship that promises a a scintilla of spirituality but not the depths of the Catholic tradition I can remember Oh Sarah thank you so much for your call I can remember and I've shared this on our program in the past my own history becoming a Catholic for the first couple of years it didn't really take for me it just did not click until I met this one priest who took the time to really explain it to me and then the scales began to fall from my eyes and from my wife who who was a cradle Catholic we both got it at the same time was a beautiful thing I know that priest we've had him on this show before that's absolutely right on fire yeah he really is thank you again for your for your call Sarah we do appreciate that when we come back we'll be talking with Jim in Seattle also Carl in Houston Gabriel in Portland Oregon we've got a call from James and Indianapolis gonna get to as many calls as we can today also a couple of texts standing by and if you would like to send us an email for perhaps a future show the address is CTC at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com back in just two minutes with lots more call to Communion here on EWTN to stay with us [Music] when you deal with God get out of the way the incomparable Mother Angelica she broke the mold of Catholic teaching with her one-of-a-kind perspective from her spunky spiritual growth talks to her eye opening scripture study undone like none other I miss Gary how she was the one the only the unforgettable Mother Angelica Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern on EWTN radio and television it's time for family man with dr. Gregory pop Joe anxiety disorders affect 20 percent of Americans and many take anti-anxiety medications in an attempt to find relief but surprisingly a new study from the University of New Zealand examining the effectiveness of different types of anxiety therapies found that compared with using medication alone to treat anxiety or even medication combined with therapy anxious patients who received cognitive behavior therapy alone experienced the most relief of all three groups the study found that anxious patients can tend to lean too heavily on medication to help them feel calm and because of that can struggle to develop the skills therapy could otherwise afford them by contrast patients who receive counseling alone work harder to learn skills that help them create a more peaceful life if you're suffering from anxiety but not currently receiving counseling contact a faithful therapist who can make sure you're getting the best care possible dr. Greg pop shot but you can call me family to discover more ways faith can enrich your life visit Catholic counselors calm we need EWTN radio for the reason that Mother Angelica founded this entire enterprise she always saw this as a spiritual growth network it was to be an enterprise in media that reached people in all aspects of their life she saw this as a holistic approach to reaching the whole person in the middle of the world and bringing them truth and life Raymond Arroyo thinks Catholic radio is important so should you I'm Brian Patrick and I'm Gloria Purvis tomorrow father Thomas Petrie and we discussed bullying with Jody Blanco morning glory on e W radio now back to call to communion what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Andrews to eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six welcome back back to the phones right now at eight three three two eight eight EWTN let's continue here with Carl in Houston listening to us via the Internet EWTN comm hey Carl what's on your mind today Yes Doctor thank you so much so I'm a kind of a studio credible Catholic but grew up in both Protestant and Catholic traditions with whenever I was with my mom I was raised Protestant whenever I was with my dad my parents were split and raised Catholic but I'm raising my family and I'm married in the church and everything but on Ash Wednesday the reading the New Testament reading um was from second Corinthians chapter five and I've heard heard you talk numerous about there's a penal substitution but whenever specifically 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21 when it talks about Christ became sin who knew no sin or he no sin became sin how does that relate to to the atonement of Christ mana cost and and refuting penal substitution yeah thanks I appreciate the question so you'll note in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 well first of all let me just give you the the short answer the short answer is that God made Christ into a sin-offering okay so the word he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us is often translated in fact in some in some translations to be a sin offering and it's just a shorthand for sin offering which is a type of Old Testament sacrifice and so the Catholic Church absolutely believes that that Christ was for us a sacrifice of atonement or a sin offering to make reparation to God so that we might become the righteousness of God now Protestant interpreters will often read into this text far more than the text actually says so for instance they will read this and hear well if if God made Christ to be sin well that must mean that he imputes our sin to Christ that Jesus might be punished vicariously on our behalf but the text doesn't say that they're just reading that theory into the text yeah similarly when they read that we might become the righteousness of God they read into that the the inference oh that must mean that Christ that God is imputed the righteousness of Christ to us so that we might be accounted righteous even though we remain objectively sinful you know as in Luther's doctrine of salvation by faith alone but the text doesn't say that all right they're reading that into the text now what one Protestant interpreter the Anglican theologian NT Wright reads as follows has a completely different context in mind if you look the the the content of the whole chapter is actually about the nature of the ministry of apostles that that's what it's about okay and he's just got finished saying that that God is making his appeal through the Apostles as Christ's co-laborers all right so that through the apostolic ministry he might make the Gentiles into the righteousness of God now in T right reading that phrase righteousness of God in light of the book of Romans and Galatians sees this as a fulfillment of the promises of God's covenant faithfulness to Israel for the inclusion of Gentiles all right so the righteousness of God is God's fidelity to his covenant promises that he would include the Gentiles by faith into the Covenant people of God which includes Israel all right nothing to do with imputation of righteousness it's actually God's fidelity it was covenant in view and so by through the Ministry of the Apostles God is fulfilling his promise mm-hmm his covenant righteousness to make them heirs together with Israel of the promise of Christ it's a completely different context now that's that's the way NT Wright reads that particular passage he's a extremely highly regarded Protestant interpreter it's got nothing to do with what with what Luther Calvin said there are other ways of reading the text and the one the one I articulated initially is another very simple one just to say that look God makes Christ into a sacrifice into a set offering so that we might be made righteous which again that's a very Catholic way of reading it is perfectly intelligible and has nothing to do with the doctrine of penal substitution okay Carl thank you so much for your question let's move right now to a Gabriel in Portland Oregon checking us out today on YouTube hey there Gabriel what's on your mind today hi yeah I'm calling because I'm looking over Matthew 16:18 again I had already understood that Peter is the rock on which the church was built however just for research purposes I was also reading the online JW study edition and like most Protestants they or at least like some Protestants will go into this the whole Petros means piece of rock or stone Petra is a bedrock cliff or mass or rock and they used to comment their theories on that based on first P or 2:8 in which Jesus is the foundational cornerstone and also first Corinthians Mauro as the Petra okay okay sure so we're you faded out a little bit there but I understood the question basically is how can I defend the Catholic interpretation of Mark of Matthew 16 given that given that Christ is also identified as the rock in a number of other passages of Sacred Scripture right and in fact God is identified as a rock and the metaphor of rock or rockiness appears in multiple places in Sacred Scripture so first of all it is just there's absolutely no logical necessity whatsoever at all in holding that a metaphor in the Bible must always be used you Niva CLE right with with respect to the exact same agents every single time of the exact same subject or object I mean there's no necessity for that at all I mean in in in the English language we use metaphors all the time and apply them to different objects yeah I mean so why can't the same metaphor be applied in different contexts with different sets that's just that's just a feature of human language so that doesn't follow in the slightest in the slightest even if it were true all right it's just not even I don't you see the sense of that all right now let's actually examine Matthew 16 and then a few other passages as well so in Matthew 16 what do we have all right you are you are Petros all right and on this Petra I will build my church of course Petrus is masculine form well Peter was a guy yeah so you're gonna masculine eyes the name all right Petra means rock you were rockin on this rock I'm gonna build my church okay now you can compare other ancient translations of the same passage in for example the Syriac peshitta which is ancient Syriac translation it's the language closest to Aramaic in which we have biblical texts would have been the one closest to the language in which Jesus actually spoke which is Aramaic and and you find your cave fun on this cave I mean I build my church okay so this direct one-to-one correspondence and and then okay so that's we got the rock business even Protestant interpreters and I'll name one off the top my head da Carson who's a anti-catholic Baptist evangelical biblical scholar highly regarded in his own community wrote an article on st. Peter that was published in a book by Moody Press which is another deeply anti-catholic publisher and they're not stumping for the Pope at moody press okay and and Carson says look just on a grammatical basis I mean come on guys Peter's the rock I mean what are you gonna do I mean it's obvious it is what it is but he doesn't want to he doesn't want to swallow the whole hog he's like yeah but I'm not a papist you know and he gives you all the reasons he's not Catholic but I mean just from a linguistic grammatical point of view it's evident in the text of Peter is the rock only a polemical reading would come to any other conclusion I mean your rock on rock if you don't believe that then you can't you have place any faith in language at all to convey meaning all right but keep in mind he doesn't just identify Peter with one metaphor he get he gives him three alright first you're the rock second I gave you keys well what is that about we'll go look at Isaiah 22 and you read about the keys of the kingdom being given to the majordomo or prime minister of the house of David all right which is exactly the opposite Peter a key he's like the executive assistant to Jesus all right and the one who has the keys has the power of shutting the door or opening the door admitting or excluding from the Kings presence and if that weren't good enough he gives him a third metaphor binding and loosing which is drawn from the rabbinical tradition and if you don't believe and go read the Jewish encyclopedia I mean don't take it from my mouth take it from the Hebrews themselves all right and it's a power to admit or exclude to declare clean or unclean so by three distinct metaphors Jesus sets aside st. Peter as as unique in his authority but we got more to go on than Matthew 16 so why don't we look at Luke 22 it's a Peter Peter your job feed the Brethren feed the Brethren feed the Brethren how about John 21 your job feed the Sheep feed the Sheep feed the Sheep okay who does Paul go to meet with after he receives his apostolic charge Peter spends two weeks with the man okay why he tells us so that I could receive the right hand to fellowship without which I would have run my race in vain mm-hmm okay there it is Gabriel thank you so much for your call we do appreciate it this is called a communion here on EWTN phones are on fire today hopefully we can get to the phone calls and the texts will do the very best that we can right now I want to talk for just a moment about pilgrimage that that need for all of us to sometimes get away to a quiet place now if you're looking for a unique setting for spiritual renewal perhaps a retreat something like that you may want to consider the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville Alabama you can visit the final resting place of our dear founders here at EWTN our own Mother Angelica you can also tour the EWTN campus we're only about an hour away from Hanceville start your Catholic pilgrimage today by calling 205 two seven one two nine six six that's 205 two seven one two nine six six or you can go to ewtn.com slash pilgrimage back to the phones right now here on call to communion and Jim in Seattle listening to us via our longtime affiliate there Sacred Heart Radio hey Jim what's on your mind today gentlemen thanks take my call and an RCA now and I owe that in part to your ministry I really appreciate you guys so I'm used to thinking about the the host as divinized flesh and the chalices containing divinized blood but when the priest holds up those he says you know behold the lamb of God it says if that is actually Jesus but if that's actually Jesus then I'm feeling on about actually consuming Jesus and I'm just getting lost and how to actually really think about this totally understanding that it's a mystery so I'd appreciate your insight sure thanks thank you very much actually so Christ is the one that tells us that the Eucharist is his body and blood and when you have his body and blood you get his soul and divinity along for the ride the technical word for that is concomitant but it's properly the sacrament of Christ's body and blood he is the one that says this is my body which will be given up for you this is the chalice of the New Covenant in my blood it will be poured out for you my flesh is real food my blood is a real drink whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood you don't have life if you do you have life in you okay so it's Christ who gives us this and we would never believe it in 10,000 years if Christ hadn't revealed it and Jesus is God and he meant what he said and he said what he meant so there you go okay now there's a lot of things we can say that it isn't we can we can we can define Christ's presence in the Eucharist not in a way to resolve the mystery but in a way that will alleviate some of your problems and concerns okay first of all it's quite obvious that the mode of Christ's presence in the Eucharist is not normal it's not normal because when I look at the sacred species I don't see a hand or a foot or an eye or a liver or a heart or whatever or blood or blood okay I don't see I don't see anything that looks like flesh so whatever else we know about it it's a mysterious mode of presence now the church has defined to the mode it has to be his body and blood and then soul and divinity along for the ride because that's what he said okay but he obviously cannot be present in the normal quantitative mode of extension all right now Tom Price is present to me quantitatively and by extension meaning I could take a machete and chop him in half and not have half a tom price over here and half a Tom Price over there okay Christ is not present that way in those a sacred host because if the priest breaks the host in half alright and then give half to one communicate and half to another each communicate is still receiving the body blood soul and divinity of Jesus in its entirety all right so he's present substantially but not in a quantitative mode now that means that the body of Christ present to me in the Eucharist is not subject to decay or dissolution the way that the sacred species is but the body of Christ is not substance is not subject to decay or dissolution in the way a body present in the normal quantitative mode would be okay so so and in fact as soon as the sacred species ceases to have the accidents of bread and wine or the appearance of bread and wine at that point the real presence of Christ ceases to be there with us any longer okay and he's present substantially only as long as the appearance of bread and wine remain after that gone all right what that means in terms of of your participation of the Eucharist means is that as you're chewing the Blessed Sacrament or digesting the Blessed Sacrament in your body you're not actually doing any harm to the physical body of Jesus all right in fact it's the resurrected glorified Christ he's present to you there right he's not feeling a thing okay that's not disrespectful it's also it's it's entirely different than say you know sometimes Catholics are accused of cannibalism but this is very different because first of all we're not we're not we're not killing or emulating Christ in the mass we're not destroying his body okay and and we're partaking in in a mode that is mysterious although it is substantial all right that that escapes human kin now the other thing is that we're commanded to do this by Christ he's the one that said he take and eat okay we got to do it because he said so now let's penetrate a bit the intelligibility of this mystery why would Christ give us the sacrament in this way okay well Christ represents to us in a sacrament now what does a sacrament sacrament is a sign or a symbol that affects what it symbolizes it's not it is not it's not only a symbol but it's not less than a symbol either he represents to us in a sacred sign or symbol those things that he really wants us to do so he wants us to die and be reborn with him hence baptism all right he wants us he wants the priesthood like to make his body and blood and his other sacraments available to us hence ordination he wants us above all to abide in him to take him into our heart into our lives that we might be made into little Christ's uh turley transformed into his into his likeness in nature right can you imagine a a clearer representation of that spiritual truth than to represent that reality to us in a sacrament of abiding in Christ in which we literally ingest him can you get sometimes people accuse Kay you guys don't have a personal relationship with Jesus what you talking about I eat Jesus how much more personal can you get than that purse that's about as personal as it gets I'm taking you into my very body okay and as a token and sign of my shared immortality in his resurrected life so that's why Ignatius of Antioch used to refer to the Eucharist is the medicine of immortality okay so it's a symbol that's more than as simple as a symbol it actually affects the thing symbolized because there's this node there's no deeper symbol that you could give me of my abiding in Christ then then the ingestion of his very body and blood soul and divinity into my body affected by the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit Jim we hope that's reassuring for you and we're delighted that you're going through RCIA right now thank you so much for your call let's go to John now not too far from us in Gadsden Alabama listening on Guadalupe radio and John what's on your mind today well I avenged alized in different modes for the cat for the parish at st. James I've been privileged to have dr. Anders come down and talk at our tent revival that we had and that was a unique experience a Catholic tent revival I remember preaching that one boy howdy yeah John you doing all right it's good to hear from you I am I'm just returning from mobile where I was evangelizing with the Legion of Mary good man the the issue that I want to talk with you about is I'm a very simplistic person in and I evangelize from the Catholic catechism from the Bible and as far as how the Catholic Church works and it's important I always quote from the end of Matthew and look at the scene where Jesus gave all authority and heaven and earth to the church for it to distribute the sacraments and thereby distribute the grace that is necessary for salvation John we're running a little bit short on time can you get to your question please yes is that what you believe dr. Anders do I believe that Christ gave the sacraments to the Catholic Church to distribute the grace that is necessary for salvation to those who believe the answer to that question absolutely yes absolutely so you're doing the right thing John appreciate your call this is called communion here on EWTN let's go now to Erin in Houston listening to us also on Guadalupe Radio I believe it's a.m. 1430 Erin what's on your mind today yes thank you for taking my call I had a question this is something I dealt with struggled with a little bit when I converted to the Catholic faith and I'm just trying to find out the Catholic position of how to best explain this to those of a Protestant tradition and that is you may be able to explain to someone you know the history or the theology of the Catholic Church and people may even be moved to believe that the church is true but perhaps they struggle with the idea the concept of in the past they had a spiritual experience a conversion if you will and they feel that if they were to deny that they they might be denying the Holy Spirit to some extent or how do they what is the church teaching on how they can reconcile that or say if they struggle with why I had this experience at one point even though I feel pulled or feel called to come to the Catholic Church yeah thanks I really appreciate it so I don't think there's one answer I think there are several that we need to bring to bear first of all the Catholic Church teaches that there are elements of truth and sanctification outside the formal boundaries of the Catholic Church so you know for example the Bible is a Catholic book the Catholic Church put it together promulgated it to the world told everybody to read it and come to know God through it not the only way to come to know God but it's a privilege and an important way to come to I'll do the sacred scripture all right so there are a lot of non Catholic Christians that may not have access to all seven sacraments but they've got the Word of God or at least they've got 66 out of 73 books and the Catholic Church teaches that the the Bible that they have can be for them a means of sanctification and potentially redemption it's it's not the whole truth about God nor is it all of the means of grace but it's not nothing it's not nothing right and even a Catholic who has all the means of grace all the truth about God all the unity in the church that Christ desires who fails to cooperate with grace is not guaranteed to be saved right the same pope pius xi said that many Catholics don't don't cooperate with grace and therefore the grace of the sacraments is for them like a treasure buried in the field all right well you know a man who through no fault of his own is not aware of the claims of the Catholic Church does not understand their truth and necessity who makes the best of the means of grace available to him even if they're insufficient I mean if they even if they're not the whole shooting match yeah right yeah can't in fact have a saving experience of God through those means of grace okay and and I think clearly we've all met some of our Protestant brothers and sisters who have come to holiness all right even though they may not have all the truth about God or all the means of grace no that's that's one angle to the question no the other angles of the question is that I think that we need to be constantly self-critical both as Catholics and non-catholics about how we evaluate our spiritual experiences okay so it's not uncommon to have a powerful emotional experience they may have elements of truth or goodness in it okay but to mistake the intensity of my emotional experience for the depth of my spiritual experience okay and the there's there's really only one valid criterion to judge the depth of my spiritual experience that scripture gives me and that is the extent of my charity okay so I I'm speaking of myself David Anders here as a former non Catholic who has become a Catholic had a lot of emotional experiences in worship or study or whatnot as a Protestant that looking back on Eve they were powerful at the time and even formative in the sense that they motivated me to further engagement with the faith when I actually examined the content of those experiences I realized that there was a an awfully large admixture of Pride and error within them okay hmm and and so for example I when I first began to study theology one of the and it was a powerful experience and motivated me all right one of the things that motivated me in my study of theology was professional ambition to make a name for myself within my Protestant community so that men would look up to me in respect to me well Christ tells me that that's a damnable motivation that's a damnable motivation all right and yeah it was a real instrumental cause of bringing me to the Catholic Church like had I not been this this is an example of how God can bring good out of evil sure as part of my motivation was evil and yet God used that evil motivation to help bring me further towards the truth and ultimately into the truth of the Catholic faith I would not have recognized that about myself at the time and it took you know years of spiritual and sacramental living within the Catholic Church for me to reevaluate the nature of my ancient experience and and so yes people outside the Catholic Church can have powerful experiences that draw them deeper into relationship with Christ and holiness all right but they also should not be naive in evaluating those experiences and assume that just because it was emotionally moving or powerful that it's therefore unassailable rationally sure Gayle Aaron thank you so much for your call we're gonna close here with Caleb and for Duane watching us today on YouTube Caleb we just have a few seconds what's your question today please okay well my question is the soul in particular my question is what happened or what's going on in cases where a single egg might develop into two babies and I'm particularly interested in what would happen and so far as a soul is concerned if those two weeks free merged to become a chimerism type of individual okay thanks I appreciate it so the Kath understanding of the soul is not that the soul is not a substance okay you know substance is a thing that has a coherent individual subsisting existence alright that's not what a soul is the the substance that they have the church is concerned with this the subject of salvation if you will is a human being alright the soul is I'm getting technical philosophy here is the form of a human person it's it's the principle of intelligibility that makes a human to be the kind of person that he is all right so whenever I have a unique individual by definition I've got a soul so you know like the splitting of of an embryo into two individuals you're not somehow dividing some indivisible substance called a soul into two that's a that's a false understanding of the human soul okay right so this is not a problem for Catholic philosophy or theology um however what is a problem is getting heavily into the nature of mind and soul when the music is running and we've got ten seconds left on there on the radio show take a listen to dr. James Madden's lecture on the soul and neuroscience in Catholic theology available on the to Mystic Institute website there you go dr. David Andrews thank you my friend thanks Tom see you next time here on call to communion god bless

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Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2018