CALLED TO COMMUNION - 2/8/18 - Dr. David Anders

the response from us and then Texas your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply that new phone number again for you one eight three three two eight eight EWTN Michael Burchfield is our producer mad cabin ski is handling the phones we also have Jeff person on social media media excuse me so that he can pass on any questions that you may pose for Facebook or YouTube I'm Tom price glad to be with dr. David Anders mom how are you today doing very well did you get your headphone the situation worked out no not entirely well working on it we'll see if we can fix that during a break thank you before we begin here with an email from Annie we're gonna get to that in just a second I wanted to mention one of your favorite people a saint Josephine Paquita Oh celebrates her memorial today the church celebrates her memorial that is maybe you can tell us a little about her and what is a memorial anyway well first of all she rocks she does she's awesome so you know the way I actually learned about Josephine Vicki died no I'd never heard of her before until Pope Benedict the sixteenth wrote his encyclical on the virtue of hope and in I believe that was the one space Alvie in which he mentions Josephine beguine and tells her story alright as as a sort of imminent example a heroic example of the virtue of hope and I was captivated for a number of reasons and began to investigate her a bit more thoroughly so briefly Josephine Paquito was a slave she was from the southern Sudan she was captured by slave Raiders from the north north of Sudan in the nineteenth century that's good not that long ago um at a sufficiently young age that she never even knew her birth name Wow Paquita is not her birth name but he does the name that her her slave masters gave to her in an ironic turn it's meant it means lucky and they gave it to her as a joke because there was nothing lucky about her life Wow okay and of course she never had any religious instruction and was abused in horrific ways every kind of way you could imagine but she tells us in her and her memoirs and reminiscences that she would go outside and see the moon and the stars at night and the Sun in the day and she was moved by the beauty of the celestial bodies and said to herself who made these beautiful things who made these beautiful things and she was filled she tells us with a deep desire to know him him she says and to do him homage now st. Paul that that is not the end of the story but that part of her life fascinates me because you know st. Paul tells us in the book of Romans chapter 1 that the existence of God and his immortal nature are evident from the things that have been made and that men have not only the possibility about the obligation mmm to acknowledge God and give him thanks for the good things that he has made even from the light of nature even those that have not encountered the gospel of Jesus Christ and so Josephine bequite his life is a fascinating testament to me of that fact right and so you know theologians and philosophers talk about the evidence of God from nature is one of those preparations for the gospel one of those things that disposed us to the messages of salvation when we finally hear it Josephine was eventually rescued she was redeemed by an Italian diplomat and brought back to Italy and she became a Catholic when she heard the gospel for the first time it spoke to that great and profound need that the light of nature had awoken and awakened in her heart and she accepted the message of the gospel eagerly but that's not why she's the saint she was the saint because you know one of the things about coming to Catholic faith is it it works not only on your present life and your future life but it works retro actively back on your past life as well and this respect that she came to regard all of the sufferings that she had gone through up to that point in here in her life as somehow or another redeemed in virtue the fact that they put her in the place in time that disposed her to become a Catholic and so she even said this radical statement she said that if she could go back and kiss the hands and feet of those that had enslaved her she would do so because apart from those particular circumstances of her life she never would have come to know God or Jesus Christ in in light of which everything in her life had become glorious and beautiful and she also said that that she was awaited by love that she knew that she was definitively loved and she was awaited by love and therefore an in virtue of that fact her life was good yeah and I I reflect on that often because you know the atheist Christopher Hitchens mm-hmm once said once in a debate he challenged a believer and said what good can a believer do that an unbeliever could not do and he thought that was kind of a you know a winning move in the debate he thought you know you can't do any good thing that you build a hospital I built hospital you you give food to the poor I give food to the poor your faith adds nothing to the picture and I said to myself he's so wrong because the one thing that Christopher Hitchens can never give is transcendent hope Wow and he could never have pronounced the verdict on st. Josephine's life that her life was good but in virtue of the Christian virtue of Hope she could say of her own life that it was good precisely because she had the gift of transcendent hope and that that love that awaited her and that's the gift of Catholic faith and so I find in her life and an imminent example of the virtues of faith hope and charity the willing embrace of suffering belief in divine providence and the Catholic teaching on the light of nature is preparation for the gospel and so I I commend her life many many times in too many people her name is a saint Josephine vaquita bak hita there is a wonderful movie we've shown it on EWTN television at least a couple of times that I know of and I believe it's available also from the EWTN religious catalogue if you want to check that out EWTN RC com it's called Paquita from slave to saint it's a great moving really really great and the actors who portray sur is fantastic we'll get to the phones here in just a moment our phone number one eight three three two eight eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six back in a flash with more call to communion here on EWTN sharing the fullness of the Catholic faith one eighty 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 father Weidman eases the father himself gauges his son capital G as the most perfect one to act in his staff he whom the father himself sent into the world the leading Catholic voices are on EWTN radio the Trump administration rolls back the Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate US bishops calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons Francis offers prayers for the victims of the California wildfire US House of Representatives has passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks and Pope Francis says the death penalty is contrary to the gospel your link to news headlines Catholics count on at the top of the hour we days on EWTN radio podcasting is an easy way to automatically receive your favorite EWTN programmes on your mobile device visit ewtn.com slash podcast and enjoy your favorite EWTN shows on your mobile phone right now Christ is the answer with father John Ricardo first passage comes from Mark 2 beginning in verse 1 so he's gone back to his home town now or the town where he's making his home calf Arnim and it says after he'd returned to Capernaum after some days it was reported that he was at home and many were gathered together so that there was no longer room for them and he was preaching the word to them and the whole town's there and they came to him some people bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men so they removed the roof above him and when they made an opening they let down the palette on which the paralytic lay but Jesus doesn't heal him Jesus says to him I forgive you which we may not be all that shocked by but the crowd is irate over particularly the Pharisees who say to him why does this man speak thus it's blasphemy who can forgive sins but God alone somehow Jesus in saying this is communicating not just to the man but to everybody need to all of us who hear it that he was somehow offended in the person sins and he also has the authority and the power to forgive them what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Anders to eighth EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six it will get to the phones in just a moment here and there is a line open for you right now one eight three three two eight eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six here first of all is a quick question from Michael no that's not from Michael this is from Annie she says why do Catholics say the glory be so much what is its origin and what is its meaning in prayer the glory be yeah thank you so it's a very short prayer glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now ever shall be world without end amen oh man okay now sometimes people get a little confused about the glory be excuse me in its English translation because they said what is this world without end business well that sounds kind of odd and it's a translation of the Latin phrase in secular sakya lorem all right which is difficult to translate literally and you know it's it's an idiom in Latin that basically means forever and forever alright but the word Sekulow m-- can mean age it can mean world can mean a lot of things so the world with that end business is a little bit of a of an infelicitous and wooden translation of the Latin phrase in secular secular but basically means forever and ever is okay what it really means all right now to to glorify God is our highest good why we exist alright so so an emphasis on glorifying thanking God ought to pervade our lives and it is the great gift of the Catholic faith that we understand God's essential nature as the divine Trinity in the persons of Father Son and Holy Spirit so it's it's eminently suitable that we should invoke God under that title the names that he has revealed himself the persons I should say in which he has revealed himself to us in Christ and and forever and forever he's ever glorious in terms of the origin of the prayer it's very ancient to be honest with you I cannot I'm not an expert on Christian liturgy in its early history but I can tell you that the prayer is found very very early in the history of liturgy and you know beyond that the if I were gonna go look it up and you know actually kind of figure out when it got inserted I would probably go to Joseph youngman's two-volume book the mass of the Roman Rite which traces out the history of the Roman the liturgy the Roman Rite you know like relativity but I'm sorry to say I don't have the exact date at my fingertips okay very good hope that's helpful for you at least a little bit Annie this is called a communion here on EWTN our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six now let's see here we got something from Abbey a text that just came in is it known why God created us especially considering that he knew we would fall via Adam and Eve yeah thank you so um God is goodness itself that's his definition if you will and it is of the nature of goodness to be diffusive you know goodness diffuses itself and you know a good analogy is there's just an analogy you know but you think about something like like Beauty you think of a transcendental like Beauty and how you know a beautiful light show or a beautiful painting or something it's not the kind of thing that that that can be consumed by one person to the exclusion of others you know I can I can eat a pizza and there's no pizza left over for you alright but if I produce something beautiful it is of the nature of that beautiful thing that it can be enjoyed by a potentially infinite number of people you know as as far out is the capacity of human visions sure can can irradiated you know and and through technology probably a lot more than that and that's something like the goodness of God you know God God is God is good and it is of the nature of goodness to be diffusive and so God desires to share his goodness with rational creatures who have the capacity to know and recognize experience and enjoy that because he's good because he's good that's why he created now why did he create in view of his knowledge that human beings would fall into sin well it's it's worse than you think like the problem that you raised and that is a problem it's a philosophical problem problems worse than you think because God's not compelled to have created a world in which he knew people would fall God could have created a world absolutely fully created a world in which free rational agents had the capacity to know and love God and gratitude and that's the ultimate end for which were created and yet lacked the capacity to son without any diminishment of their freedom that's a logical possibility God could have done it because course God could do anything sure okay so so it's not just why did he create a world in which we could assume why did he create a world in which we had the possibility of sending when he could have done otherwise and still achieve the same end of having rational creatures that freely knew and loved and gratify and we're gratified you know give thanks to him so the the the the closest I think that I come in scripture to an intelligible answer to that question is the words of Jesus himself who says there's more rejoicing in heaven over one righteous person who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent Wow and so there's there is something intrinsic itself to the fact of repentance and faith to a converted life that that justifies God if you will in the decision to allow the possibility of human son and that's the that's the traditional answer in Catholic theology that God allows the possibility of human sin even anticipating that people will sin because he intends to bring something better out of that and in fact he does so IDO so and there's rejoicing in heaven over even one sin or events very good appreciate that text thank you for sending it this is called a communion here on EWTN eight three three two eight eight EWTN is our phone number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six let's go now to Michael driving through Oklahoma listening to us via st. Michael radio hey there Michael what's on your mind today Michael in Oklahoma oh yes I was just wondering when is it that the Protestant started questioning the perpetual virginity of the Immaculate Conception the exception of the Virgin Mary was it immediately at the time of reformation or was it later okay thank you I appreciate that so actually there was a pretty widespread agreement with the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity in the 16th century and even into the early 17th century there's a as a text and you can look it up on the internet it's easy to google and find this the successor to John Calvin and Geneva was a man named Theodore beta and beta was Baeza was succeeded by a man named Francis turret n' and turret n' is about his viet minh lee anti-catholic a guys you'd ever want to meet and he's he's were I mean he's not a household name unless you are like a hard hard hard Calvinist if you are like at the far right end of Calvinism then that's when you know who Francis Turrentine has so not a friend the Catholics and Turton in his systematic theology text has a passage where he defends the perpetual virginity of Mary on the grounds not only of its suitability but of its absolute ubiquity that is to say it was absolutely everywhere in sacred tradition going back for 1500 years and turreted wisely said you know what I'm just not comfortable throwing out a doctrine that absolutely everybody everywhere always believed yeah and I mean he had arguments for it as well so that's you know this even very very very committed dogmatic Protestants continued to confess perpetual virginity of Mary into the 17th century I I can't I cannot tell you the first Protestant who questioned it I mean I don't I I had got my hand on that okay I mean I know it was raised as a as a theological question in the 16th century and arguments were offered you know for and against but when it became the kind of default position among Protestants I think it's something that evolved over time um and and but there's always been from the beginning of Protestantism a deep antipathy and us and a suspicion of all forms of Catholic devotional ism all kinds of devotional ism towards Mary in the Saints so let me give you an example it's related the the dogma that Mary is the mother of God the Theotokos it was a technical word alright that's something that that Protestant theologians continue to confess when they they understand the rationale for the doctrine they continue to believe that all right but Calvin himself who believed the doctrine he believed that Mary was was Theotokos he believed that she was a mother of God did not like to use the word and he counseled people against it and the reason he did so is he said he basically thought that it tended towards Catholic devotional ism and that in popular pop popular usage referring to Mary under that title would encourage devotion to Mary and we was dead right about that right yeah well right about that and so he he wanted to shy away from him and so I think that there's you know I this is kind of extreme but you know I grew up in kind of an evangelical fundamentalist Protestant sect in Alabama and and the general attitude was you know we better not talk about Mary really too much at all and if we do we'd better really really emphasize you know all of the but the anti-catholic you know Protestant positions yeah lest anybody fall into that horrible error of actually being devoted the Blessed Virgin Mary okay so they went they kind of went way the other way to deliberately try to diminish and he distinctly Marian doctrines and and and but in that sort of the tendency was there from the beginning okay Michael thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you now eight three three two eight eight e WT M eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six in a moment we'll get to Bill in Seattle first I want to tackle a text here from Mellie in New York she says why did God in the Old Testament call for so many killings and why did he allow Solomon and David to have so many wives and concubines okay thanks let me answer those questions separately so first of all God God doesn't intend did not intend any more killings in the Old Testament than he does in the new or in the present proof everybody dies true proof I could stop it if you wanted to yeah right okay so every one of us is mortal all of us will die and all of our deaths will fall within the scope of God's providence that is as true today as it was in the Old Testament um so you know if I walk down the street in a dark alley and I get mugged okay God and His Providence allows that but cut and Mort and he doesn't just allow it he in in in a you know in a remote way not in a direct way he doesn't intend human sin he doesn't intend isn't desire for us to sin but in a remote way he intends to permit the circumstances that he knows will inevitably lead to my murder you know if I get killed enough Wow it's not like God sits back on his throne and kind of chews his fingernails and says gee I wonder if Anders is gonna get killed in the dark alley he knows he knows exactly knows the day in the precise conditions of my death right now and he has orchestrated every single solitary thing that happens such that not a sparrow falls this is what Jesus says not a sparrow falls apart from the will of God our Father Wow okay so so so it's not like you know we see God revealing circumstances under which people are gonna die in the Old Testament and that's somehow different today is not different at all today okay I want that's point number one all right okay point number two is keeping along with that so God God does a lot of things in the Old Testament that happened by way of concession all right he intends them but kind of in a secondary and remote way not in a direct way let me illustrate with a with a parallel case the side you see excuse me the Pharisees went to Jesus and says can a man divorce his wife for any reason she says no he can't and they said well then why does Moses Allah why does Moses permit a man to divorce his wife and that's in the Mosaic law which God reeled and Jesus says well it wasn't like that from the beginning but Moses permitted this because of your hardness of heart hmm so see Christ Himself said okay there were things baked into the Old Testament that were essentially concessions to human weakness and to into the cultural situation of the time but they don't the perfect will of God they were kind of they were sort of secondary entailments of God's permissive will as he was moving the people of God towards the coming of the Messiah but they don't they don't represent the perfection of holiness and that's that's that's point number two okay point number three is that a lot of people get killed in the Old Testament because quite frankly they deserve it all right they deserve it you know way back in the book of Genesis and chapter 6 chapter 7 after the flood after Noah God God says um you know if any man sheds blood by man shall his blood be shed alright and the the principle that that men and women are created in the image of God and whoever sends against the dignity of the human person through murder and other egregious acts intrinsically deserves the penalty of death is is something that's embedded in the scriptures from from the book of Genesis all the way through the end of the New Testament and nothing about that has changed either in Catholic teaching or in orience they could traditional or in synchroscope sure so you know st. Paul speaks specifically about those in positions of authority that bear the sword that bear the sword that is wield the power of life and death and the death penalty and so forth at God's command for the sake of the public good and coming in and and political order and he says in Romans 13 I think is it verse 7 render to everyone what does this do you know honor to whom on our custom to whom custom taxes to whom taxes and that can also mean judicial punishment all right now in terms of the application of that in modern society of course there are lots of debates within within Catholic teaching but in terms of the intrinsic morality or principle of the dignity of human life and the necessity sometimes of of even deadly force that there's there's one mind on that in Sacred Scripture and tradition from Genesis all the way to the end all right and so a lot of these instances where cases of when when the Israelites drove out the Canaanites were asked for example the huh um we're talking about a civilization that practiced child sacrifice and there's archaeological evidence of that people that threw babies into the burning fires in law calls and watch them burn to death um God wanted to get rid of that lord have mercy thank you so much for your text Mele when we come back we'll be talking with our friend Father Aloysius in Cameroon also Debra in Boston Bill in Seattle and there's a line open for you 8 3 3 2 8 8 EWTN to stay with us this is all about a school ride Harley's let's get quiet and go into contemporary prayer real Christians are Cowboys if you're sold out for Jesus there's nothing more masculine you can do bear wozmak leads a rolling retreat across the United States join these real Catholic men as they ride from the Atlantic coast of Florida to the Pacific coast of California all the while going deeper into their relationship with the Lord long ride home Saturday at 6 p.m. Eastern on EWTN TV Jesus told a parable about workers in a field some started at sunrise some started at the end of the day and when they line up for their pay before heading home everyone got paid the same amount of course the guys who showed up at sunrise complained why don't we get the same pay to the guys who showed up at the end and the boss said in reply if I'm gonna be generous why are you complaining about that we love justice we love our pay we love to demand our pound of flesh if someone's wronged us we love getting what's coming to us and you know what that's fine there's something about natural law that makes us want what seems the most fair but there's something better than fair it's mercy it's giving to people who don't deserve it's lending to people who could never pay us back it's forgiving even when someone couldn't possibly earn it that's how God is toward us it's how we cause us to be toward each other this is Christa fanuc from real-life Catholic comm on ewtn radio EWTN communicating the faint you know you get paid in heaven or the ministry that you do on here I love your show my has completely changed through God's power and through his revelation I've changed my stuff in my life all my firstfruits go to God and I remain in God I pray all the time your shows in my prayer EWTN live truth live Catholic what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Andrews wtn one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six tonight on Catholic Answers live it's an open forum Q&A with our friend Jimmy akin do check that out tonight 6:00 p.m. Eastern right here and only here on EWTN radio we are proud to be your exclusive radio home for Catholic Answers live as we have been for the past 20 years looking forward to the next 20 years let's get back to the phones here talk with our great friend Father Aloysius in Cameroon listening to us via the Internet EWTN comm how are you today father father Aloysius it's so good to hear from you father Aloysius is a good friend of eatery TN and the network from bambooee and Cameroon are you still there father very good well we're having a kind of a poor connection could you speak right into the phone for us thank you Father we wish you happy new year as well and we're aware that Cameroon is suffering right now and and we let our listeners know also Cameroon has is suffering significant spiritual political strife I should say political strife that's turned violent and people are in danger and losing their lives and Cameroon is is near and dear to my heart because we've had wonderful priests in our diocese from from that country and I can speak from my own experience that they're men of incredible discretion and wisdom education intact who have a tremendous pastoral ministry in their own country as well as abroad in the United States a father alouicious is a professor of Canon Law at st. Thomas Aquinas seminary in bambooee Cameron and I know him personally and he's an excellent man so everyone please join together and pray on behalf of Father Aloysius in the seminary and the diocese in bamboo as well as the people of Cameron who are suffering and need our prayers right now absolutely father the killings are mainly happening in the south part of Cameroon is that right thank you so much well they're so wonderful to hear your voice we will certainly keep you all really the whole country in our in our poor prayers eight three three two eight eight EWTN eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six thank you again for calling father let's go now to Debra in Boston listening to us on the station of the cross hey there Debra what's on your mind today hi I'm dr. Anders had just answered a question a couple calls ago as to why God would create us with the ability to sin and said something like you know that that all of heaven rejoices when a sinner repents and you know you talked about how God makes good things come of that sin but it and we learned that God wants us to come to him that that is his desire that no one should be lost but what about all the souls that are lost this is this was one of Christopher Hitchins arguments against God why would a God create us sick so sick and sinful and then expect us to be able to overcome that in order to not be lost to him if he really loved us sure thanks I understand the question I really appreciate it so first of all the way Hitchens poses the question I think is false at least to the Catholic faith it might be true of other religious traditions and other other Protestant denominations but is false to the Catholic way of understanding it so first of all the Catholic faith does not teach that God has created us so sinful that we can't avoid sin and that we are then responsible for pulling ourselves out of that morass that's a that's a false way of depicting the the question um it is true that Catholics believe that without God's grace we're not going to be able to avoid sin that's true okay but it's also true that God is a dogma the Catholic faith that God has given sufficient grace for salvation and made it available to every single human being okay and so no one is lost who has not received in some form or fashion the offer of grace now I began the show talking about the life of st. Josephine Paquita which i think is illustrative and it's one that I often like to bring in contrast to Christopher Hitchens and because her own life demonstrates that even apart from the preaching of the gospel of Christ that the truth about God and his immortal nature in our duty to grow of gratitude and the need to cry out to him in prayer for salvation is something that is evident even to those that have never heard the name of Christ with a Catholic faith or even the name of God all right and we see it evidenced in her life and others and so we we have no ability to measure in a kind of quantitative way the extent of God's mercy or the reach of His grace now well God's grace is most manifest and evident in the full revelation of the Catholic Church and in her sacraments we know that that grace is evident and and God's immortal nature is present to everyone to a greater or lesser extent and we have no ability to gauge or measure in a quantitative way the capacity of an individual soul to respond to that grace okay but we do know we do know that in hell there are so to speak only volunteers all right and that the the the the drama of personal decision for or against God is one that occurs in every human heart in every human heart if someone lacked that capacity then they would also lack all moral responsibility as well alright so anyone who's morally responsible anyone who would actually fall under the judgment of God and go to hell is someone who has had the opportunity in their life to grasp enough about the truth of God and the moral law and has been offered grace and refused it knowingly it's level at some level has knowingly done that so everyone who is in hell is with it to a certain extent a volunteer okay for all the years we've been doing this show and we've been doing it for some time now that is one of the most powerful statements I think I've ever heard you say is that basically hell is full of volunteers the the Anglican writer CS Lewis who I love dearly okay yeah he just had one fault and that so I do he didn't make it all the way into the game right um sure had more faults but I mean that's the only one I hold it for angle your eider CS Lewis used to say that and in the end there will be two kinds of people in the world those who say to God thy will be done and those to whom God says thy will be done mm-hm and and so the capacity to say no to God is part of the drama of redemption that that grants nobility to our free choices and and significance in wait okay now I freely admit that we're dealing here in mysteries we're dealing here in mysteries and dogmas are not meant doc the dogmas of the faith and of course the existence of Hell is a Dogma just like transubstantiation or the Trinity or the two nature's of Christ our dogmas dogmas are not there to explain rationalistic aliy everything that we experience that's not the way the Catholic Church understands the dogma the the dogmas are there to illumine our experience so you know you begin a dogma this way you begin approaching a dogma this way you say okay given the truth that God is triune all right then what does that tell me about how I live my life what does that tell me about the meaning of my actions what does that tell me about what I should value and let me let me turn that around and focus on heaven for a minute as the sort of sort of the counterpoint to help I think it's think it's meaningful there there there is a religious tradition in the world today is not Christianity that teaches that the life of heaven is being awarded a harem full of prepubescent sex slaves all right and that if you if you fall God's will when you get to heaven you'll be rewarded with a bunch of I'm not making this up white girls with black eyes who who are not yet mature God okay got it so it's it it it it the the view of the afterlife would seem to convey you know okay like what do you value what's important to you well that's that's kind of what you're aiming for in that tradition yeah okay and that's very different from how Christians understand the life of heaven in Christ tells us explicitly there's no marriage now but there's no marrying or being giving in marriage that that that human sexual relations are in order to bear progeny in this life to replenish society but the life of heaven is one of spiritual friendship with God in the beatific vision alright which is what do it but that friendship consists in is the direct intuitive knowledge of God in His essence all right if you think about how delightful it is to know and love say a spouse and to know something about their essence something about their inner life and and how deeply satisfying it is to share that with them alright you have the weakest kind of intimation of what the beatific vision will be like except that in God we have his inner life is the source of everything that is good everything that is true and everything that is beautiful so every temporal thing that you enjoy or value for its own sake alright gather all that goodness up if you will in your mind and multiply it to infinity and that's our experience of spiritual friendship with God in the beatific vision alright it's an utterly transformative kind of idea of heaven is absolutely beautiful now just like with my wife my there's a wonderful line in a Shakespearean sonnet where the putt where the bard says how can I hold thee but by thy granting how can I hold thee but by thy granting you know that there's a there are things that I can compel another human being to do but the one thing I could never compel is love if I compel your love it isn't love that's right it's slavery yeah okay and and you think about how delightful it is to fall in love with one's spouse and that sense of just a reciprocal sharing when I know that I dwell in my wife's heart freely as she dwells in mine and we give ourselves to one another in spiritual friendship and what a sublime and noble idea that is alright and how and how vitiated it it would be if that relationship were reduced to one of slavery mm-hmm all right and you imagine something analogous with respect to heaven it gives you some sense of why the possibility of saying no to God is necessary and I'm kind of putting necessary in air quotes right now okay to make the gift of having truly intelligible you say all right does that resolve the whole mystery that you raised no it doesn't just like it doesn't resolve the mystery of the Trinity itself or you know all the other dogmas of the faith but as I said these dogmas they're lights that illuminate experience they're not they're not meant to be approached rationalistic Lee as if they could answer every possible problem or objection all right no more so is my marriage of rationalistic dogma that can answer every question and objection every day when I enter into my married life do I have sort of a rational deductive certainty that my wife will love me back no but I'm sure of it but not in that way it's the kind of certainty that comes from trust in faith and relationship and love all right and something analogous happens in our relationship with God and finally the last analogy I would give you and when we approach mysteries we can only do so by analogy that's the closest we can get you know I think about the drama of parenthood in my own children every parent has to wrestle with this question dare I bring a child into the world there I bring a child into the world what if the child is lost what if the child is injured what if the child is is damaged in some profound way what if the child suffers which he's sure to do can I justify my decision to be a parent now there are some people as a South African philosopher named David Bennett are for instance who is dogmatically anti-natal list that's his position called antinatalism really who argues that it is intrinsically immoral to bear children because life is overwhelmingly likely to involve suffering and suffering cannot be justified and therefore you shouldn't have kids and that's a that's an increasingly popular position in the world today right and I'm not going to waste time right now well maybe it's not wasted but I'm not gonna go into refuting antinatalism a moment okay but I raised that to say that this the dilemma that you raised is is kind of intrinsic to human life itself that that if you say well the possibility of loss or pain or sorrow would seem to exclude the the goodness of created being mm-hmm all right that that problem perjurers even without consideration of the doctrine of hell and yet we know in a way deeper than reason deeper than deductive reason that the decision to bear children is imminently justifiable and if you've been a parent alright and you've loved your child and your child has loved you back you know that of which I speak oh yeah absolutely Debra thank you so much for your call this is called communion here on EWTN one take just a moment here to talk about something that I think is very very cool you know there's a lot of there's a lot of funky stuff out there on the internet but there's also some very wonderful things obviously the register EWTN Catholic Answers live I might also mention a church pop if you're not familiar with Church pop it is very cool featuring new online Christian content that's a lot of fun and inspiring every day for example right now on the homepage of Church pop here's here's an article from Bishop Robert Barron who says Star Wars has been hijacked by aggressive feminist ideology I think I want to read that here's another one here the Lord's Prayer spoken in Jesus's original language of Aramaic what would that sound like how about this one Jim Caviezel promises that The Passion of the Christ sequel will be the biggest film in history well you may want to check this out yourself Church pop is available right now on snapchat on Instagram and right here on the web at Church pop com Church pop dot-com by the way I saw a sneak preview just the other night of the new Jim Caviezel movie which is going be out yeah I believe it's like just before Easter and we saw a sneak preview it's all about the life of Paul after you know well after he falls and everything happens fantastic moving let's go back to the phones right now and talk to bill in Seattle listening to us on Sacred Heart Radio hey Bill what's on your mind today well thanks for the update on the Jim Caviezel man that rocks it is it is very know that was coming out I gotta tell you it's a rock calling in and we're getting towards the end of the program how'd you guys I'm a recent convert from the Calvinism last Easter uh-huh and I just watched a interview with John MacArthur called the possum protester changed the world and I used to be a big John MacArthur fan but man that interview just raised my blood pressure was him and Bill Johnson and I wrote my own 95 thesis refuting everything that he wrote and waste I'm calling dr. Anderson tom is obviously you know I'm not going to try to convert John MacArthur but how come Gene's white seems to be the only Calvinist willing to debate Catholic apologist thinks I don't think that's true I mean I've I've been invited to debate people on a number of occasions I don't on a national basis yeah hear about Jane well I think one of the things about dr. white is that he's really made his entire career around attacking Catholicism and he's not the only one of other people who've done the same thing but I mean he's I guess you know from a certain point of view he's good at what he does that's all he cares about you know he's he he really has made himself all about attacking the Catholic Church and you know there's I guess if that's your if that's your specialty attacking Catholicism you know somebody is going to rise to the top of every field he's not the only anti Catholic apologist out there but I think he's the one probably has the the maybe the the widest reach and the best reputation and that in those circles you know I think James White is the doctrines that he preaches of course are very across Protestantism and widely shared but his disposition his demeanor and his pastoral priorities if you want to call him pastoral priorities I think are not as important to the mainstream of even conservative Protestant thought as they once were for a lot of reasons when I was in the protestant seminary in 1995 there was certainly a lot of anti catholicism and dogmatically we were taught and instructed and how to refute catholic claims all right and the worst thing that could happen would be for somebody to convert to Catholicism that was unthinkable all right but when it came to our approach to evangelism and pastoral ministry and especially engagement with the Civic order there was a tendency maybe not so much in my seminary but I think throughout evangelicalism to realize a even though they thought Catholics were dead wrong on a lot of issues um evangelicals could make a lot of common calls with Catholics particularly in social and moral issues all right the life issue his life issues in particular you know so that I think is one factor another one was was sort of internal to Protestant theology and intellectual life and that is that like like a lot of other domains of inquiry theology benefited in the post-war era in the United States from the booming economy and professionalism of the of the US population more people going to college and so forth and in a very intentional institution building kind of move within evangelical Protestantism to create seminaries and institutions of higher learning and as they did so Protestant scholars did some pretty good work especially in biblical studies but also in historical studies and philosophy and other fields and as they began to look for resources to make their own apologetic okay sand to articulate their theology inevitably they would come into contact with the Catholic tradition because the Catholic intellectual tradition is if I may say so where it's at okay in terms of engaging the culture and and so as they did that and they began to compare the Catholic intellectual tradition to again my own personal judgment call the the poverty of their own actual tradition by comparison by comparison yeah evangelical and Protestant scholars became more and more willing to assimilate bits and pieces and then whole huge chunks of the great tradition and you'll see this in in documents like Mark Knowles book mark Knowles that have Angelica Lister and it currently teaches at Notre Dame of all places his book the scandal of the evangelical mind all right or the Blackwell Dictionary of evangelical theology which i think is co edited by Oscar McGrath and Gerald McDermott and a couple other people on there and they're well-known evangelical scholars and and I could multiply examples and dr. Noll wrote an article for the journal first things and I'm thinking it was the early 2000s if memory serves me correct where he talked about the state of acute ISM between Protestants and Catholics and he made this point explicitly that that in seeking to articulate their own position with more coherence and depth and sophistication the general tendency at the academic level was for Protestants colors to draw more and more and more on the Catholic intellectual tradition well it's hard to do that well you know your pastors are spending all their time just beating the snot out of Catholics in public debate I know so so even though they dogmatically think Catholics are wrong I think there's a lot more appreciation you know all across a Protestant spectrum for everything that the Catholic tradition has to offer bill thank you so much for your call let's get to aid Ida edid a I think is how that is Bureau Florida is where she's listening on Divine Mercy radio hey there what's on your mind today hi I am I have some friends that are non Catholic but they believe you know that the physical healing is can can be manifested if they have really good faith you know they have really high faith or storm face-first strong faith and so um I mean I know that you know we have saints that are really close to the Lord and they never got heal when they asked for healing and I know back when Jesus and the apostles were you know when they were performing the miracles and all that you know people would go to them and ask for healing and they got healed but I have a friend that says that mark 16 verse 15 and 18 says that you know the same Holy Spirit is still with you know Christians and we should be able to heal and I I told him you know it all depends what God wills but he thinks that you know our faith is just not strong enough that's why people what doesn't get healed okay thanks I appreciate the question well several things first of all we got we got healings going on left and right all over the place you have a tradition yeah I'm happening all the time all right and you know open to my wife sure absolutely um you know I just read in the news recently about another miracle ascribed to the intercession of Blessed Paul the sixth and so every time there's a canonization of a saint there have been documented medical miracles of healing that have taken place prior to that and that actually were required as evidence in the in the procedure in the in the in the process of canonization so we've got documented miracles happening you know right and left all the time in the Catholic Church there's a interesting book on the topic written by a non Catholic and an atheist actually um I believe she's an atheist Jacqueline Duffin was a hematologist I believe who was called in to give expert testimony of a blood sample and she thought it was probably in some sort of murder investigation because the the reason for the investigation was hidden from her and she gave her testimony and talked about the condition of the person whose blood she was examining and then came to find out later that it was actually that the client was actually the Catholic Church and they were investigating a claim of a medical miracle and it intrigued her so much that she went out and wrote a book called medical miracles doctors Saints and healing in the modern world all about the evidence for medical miracles that have taken place in response to the intercession of saints and the Catholic Church Wow I mean this is somebody who's not a believer by the way okay and you know I we have a sacrament in the Catholic Church sacrament of anointing or healing of the sick and I asked a priest not too long ago who was pretty recently ordained he's only been ordained you know a couple of years mm-hm and I said to him I said father you know you've been running around anointing people I said have you witnessed any miracles any miraculous healings and he said oh yeah oh yeah he says I can't tell you that I've experienced miracles that would necessarily meet the rigorous standards that are brought to bear for the process of canonization because I'm absolutely certain that I witnessed people respond and healing to to the sacrament of the sacrament of healing that I agree feeling and I know many other priests will give similar testimonies so I I dispute the premise that there's no healing um is it an everyday affair in everybody's individual life no but neither was it an everyday affair in Jesus's own ministry even though he healed lots of individuals he left many more sick hmm yeah and was asked about it and he and his response was it was the same way in the days of Elijah you think everybody got healed no only the widow's son and Zarafa Wow you know so he healed in specific times for specific reasons all right but he left a lot more sick people in Judea than he healed the same things true today thank you so much for your call dr. David Andrews thank you my friend thanks Tom you know I'm just picking up on what you were just saying I read a quote just this morning that said the Catholic life is an exciting life and I just I just love that to death that it is indeed hey thanks for joining us we'll see you next time right here on EWTN it's called a communion I'm Tom price have a great one god bless

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: TQBw1G-B1AU

Length: 52min 59sec (3179 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2018