Called To Communion - 3/5/18 - Dr. David Anders - Why isn't Mass like Paul described in Corinthians?

got two ears what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic why can't women become priests one eighty three three two eight eight EWTN I don't understand why I have to earn one eighty three two eight eight three nine eight six why do I need to confess my sins to a priest what's stopping you this is called to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to another week of called to communion this is the program for our non Catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question about the Catholic faith here is a wonderful resource just for you our phone number is eight three three two eight eight EWTN 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 text us your question your excuse me your first name and your brief question I got out of order their message invader rates may apply for some folks again the phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN Michael Burge field is our producer Matt Kaminsky is our phone screener Michael McCaul is a handling social media today so he will pass along any questions that you pose via YouTube or Facebook I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders Tom how are you today couldn't be better how was your triumphal return to the wilds of Iowa well I don't know that I would describe it as a triumph because as the plane was descending into Cedar Rapids yeah I got really sick really yes I'm sorry so weather and kept that with me for most of the weekend so you know it's funny though sometimes I'll work on a talk for maybe even weeks at a time uh-huh and then you show up at the venue and you put the talk on the podium you walk away from the podium and you have a different talk than the one that you're out yeah yeah and that's actually how it went down so it was more kind of a fireside chat but I enjoyed being there I hope the folks in Iowa liked having me it was with the Newman Center at the University of Iowa and a nice little nice little crowd for you know I hadn't been there in 15 years of course my alma mater did my doctoral studies in Iowa and and and I had a I had a kind of a highly sort of metaphorical allegorical moment and I went around and visited some of my old haunts where we used to live and I went back to the library and wanted to see if anybody checked out my dissertation in the last 15 years found out that two people had done and then and then I wandered to the old department where you know where my studies were and where I'd done all my teaching and of course it was a Saturday so where the doors were locked I didn't really expect them to be open that's okay and so then I go across the street to the Newman Center and I I wander in and there's the Blessed Sacrament the people of God gathered for Holy Mass and I thought to myself you know I was very glad grateful never had never had a bad time in Iowa loved being there appreciative to everybody that taught me and that I studied with and the resources the universe were tremendous but I thought you know part of my life the doors are closed in the new and I became Catholic after I left write the new part of my life of life in the Catholic Church the doors are wide open to me isn't that awesome and and and I really feel that way you know the Catholic Church is a very forward-looking institution were grounded in the past in history and tradition but were engaged in this in this living dialogue with the people of God with our horizon pointed towards eternity beautiful so you know what at the on our Friday show we got a boatload of texts that came in sort of just too late for us to answer on the air so we're going to try to get through some of those right now here's one regarding Hank Hannah Graf that name may be familiar to you I know that he did a radio show called the Bible answer man for many years on Protestant radio anyway the question here from Doug says Hank converted from Protestant to Orthodox why not Catholic he mentioned the papacy purgatory Mary etc what are all the differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic sure thank you well I obviously cannot speak to mr. Hannah grafts personal motivations because don't know the mound and he hasn't opened his heart to me so I can't I can't speak about the particular processes that he went through all right in making his transition I will say that from the Catholic point of view mr. Hanna graph has gone from the good to the better okay he's gone from the good to the better yeah and and you know we would encourage him to go ahead and take the next step and move from the better to the best all right it's not hubris or triumphalism on the part of Catholics to make this claim it's the confession of Christ and the church about itself that we you know that Christ founded the church and he gave the church a particular Constitution that included among other things the primacy of st. Peter in the papal office this is this is part of the constitution of the church and so it's not we don't have the liberty of dispensing with part of the church's Christ set it up okay and however outside the Catholic Church there are many elements of truth and sanctification all right and and the closer you are to to to Catholic tradition and Christian antiquity the more of those you've got so you know between the Protestant tradition and the Orthodox Protestants for example typically only have at best two sacraments that are valid baptism and potentially marriage okay well the Orthodox have got all seven okay so they've got valid eucharist they have the have the divine liturgy validly celebrated and they've got real bishops with real ordination lineage and so they have means of sanctification and grace and truth embedded in that tradition that that many Protestant churches are denied and so that's a good move for him okay that's a good move now why would he why he'd not sort of you know swallow the whole hog had come into the Catholic Church well you know I can spy can only speculate because again he hasn't told me but you know many people when they discover the Church of the east or I shouldn't say the Church of the East when they discover Eastern Christianity are taken as they rightly should be with a whole different ethos of Christianity a whole different theological formulations conceptual apparatus forms of worship liturgy aesthetics style and is quite beautiful and it's Gustin there's a real sense of mystery and profundity in the Eastern liturgy that Catholics can enjoy and appreciate just this morning I was actually reading I was reading around in st. Augustine I found that the Schaaf edition of the Church Fathers that translation into English which is you know commonly sold by people like the Christian book distributors or you'll find it online and a new Advent Catholic websites that I could get the whole thing which is like tens of thousands of pages worth of Christian father's for like two bucks in you know in a download on my you know ebook download and and I got that so I've been scooting around in st. Agustin and rereading some texts I hadn't visited in a long while and I honestly don't remember if this was in on the Trinity or in on the morals of the Catholic Church to a documents that I was looking at this morning but st. Agustin was writing and saying about how he was he was trying to kind of put out as much Catholic truth as he could in the Latin language because the riches of the East had not been adequately translated right and he's writing to a Latin audience okay and then he makes an amazing statement he says because really everything you need to know is someplace in Greek okay and this is the way he was portraying it you know and I'm doing my best to render that in Latin for a Latin audience and I have a friend who works with me in the diocese who is a Byzantine Rite Catholic he's ruthenian right and almost copied that sent it off to him and I could just hear all the Eastern Catholics and Orthodox going it's all your own man san agustin says so and so there's a great in August and Noble tradition and is plenty to embrace there now what perhaps Santa graph doesn't know maybe he does I don't know is that you don't you don't have to abandon the papacy to embrace the full riches of what Eastern Christianity has to offer because there are Eastern Catholics my ruthenian friend who is here in Birmingham is one prime example or you know and and our own father Mitch who is a you know Latin Rite Jesuit Catholic is by ritual and has it has faculties to celebrate the mass both in the Latin Rite as well as in the Maronite Rite which is a Syriac Eastern Christian Church we also have st. George's and our diocese which is a Melkite Catholic Church and there about what 23 I think Eastern rites of the Catholic Church they're fully in union with the Holy Father the Pope of Rome I mean yet their spirituality their their liturgical language the theological language and tradition is is completely embedded in that great patrimony of Eastern Christianity so you can you can really have your cake and eat it too if that's where you're if that's the if that's the cloth you're cut from and I know converse I'm personally the conference are known to me who were raised in the Evangelical Protestant world and then when they decided to become Catholic they said I want to be Catholic but I don't want to be a Roman Catholic I want to be a Byzantine Catholic or I want to be a Maronite Catholic or I want to be you know and and they and they converted to a Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church and so that's their that's their tradition now so they they were able to have their cake and eat it too very cool Doug thank you for that text I hope that is enlightening to you we'll probably try to get to some more of these texts during the course of the show a few minutes ago we were talking about Iowa we're gonna lead off here with Jenny in Spirit Lake Iowa you may know where that is David will also be talking with Jerry in Portland and there's a line or two open right now for you and the number is eight three three two eight eight EWTN eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six called a communion on this Monday afternoon here on EWTN sharing the fullness of the Catholic faith 23 three two 8:8 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 [Music] our meditation for today Monday of the third week of Lent is something that is very very powerful this is a reading that the church uses which describes what Jesus did shortly after his baptism by John he goes back to his hometown of Nazareth and in the fourth chapter of Luke in the 16th birth Jesus was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah and he looked for this this quotation the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim release to captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord everybody was looking at him and he said today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and you think I would have been delighted the Spirit of the Lord is upon me well it was a close minded little town we can all be very close mind and what did they say isn't this is this not Joseph's son and they said we know who he is and who's this guy you know who it was preaching to us maybe you go up here he couldn't be the Messiah couldn't be a prophet and so jesus said to them no prophet is without honor except in his own country Jesus was not accepted in Nazareth he did not make work many miracles there I think of the immense number of people who call themselves Christians in the United States Protestants Catholics wathah Doc's you think of the whole crowd of us we'd be an immense majority of people in the United States but do we take the teachings of Jesus seriously do we really believe we have heard and we know the man is truly the savior of the world this is Michael Warsaw chairman and chief executive officer of EWTN hi this is Teresa Tomeo from Catholic connection have a blessed Lent from all of us at the EWTN global Catholic radio network what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Anders to eight EWTN one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six we've got a great show for you straight ahead here on EWTN radio on open line Monday John Martin Tony will be along in about 45 minutes or so talking about apologetics how can we all better defend the Catholic faith to check it out 3:00 p.m. Eastern right here on many of these EWTN radio stations if you're ready now let's go to the phones and talk with Jenny in Spirit Lake Iowa listening to us via podcasting hello Jenny what's on your mind today hi thanks for taking my call and looking forward to your answer um I am wondering how we can understand or if there's an explanation for why God would only choose to make Mary full of grace and free from compute business yeah that's a great question and I appreciate it so actually scripture does speak to this question do you remember the parable when Jesus says that there is more rejoicing in heaven over over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent alright and and so that's true what Jesus says so we know we know that there is in the divine plan a type of goodness that is the goodness of a repentant soul that turns from sin to grace it turns from sin to God and and that there's a there's a there's a peculiar beauty about that that is not evident in the life in which there is no need for repentance now that that doesn't mean that the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not objectively better it is objectively better now all right it's gloriously better okay and yet God has ranged all things in imperfect wait number and measure that's what the book of wisdom says but I think it's chapter 11 verse 20 and Saint Paul talking about the resurrection says there are different heavenly bodies as first Corinthians 15 40 he says there are different heavenly bodies and there are different earthly bodies but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one kind and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another the Sun has one kind of splendor the moon another and the star is another and star differs from star in splendor so will it be with the resurrection of the Dead and again he takes the same theme up in in discussing pastoral ministry in the church and he says to one is given this gift and to one is given another st. Therese of Lisieux in her beautiful autobiography the story of the soul talks about this in the body of Christ and says this is why by the way if you if you know Therese of Lisieux you know her nickname and the church is the little flower because she said that she would imagine the works of God like a flower garden and and the beauty of the individual flower is different from the beauty of the arrangement of all the flowers together and in any flower garden you will have you'll have some plants that stand out for particular notice is kind of bearing the weight of the you know kind of the architecture of the whole plan uh-huh and others whose position is is merely decorative in a subordinate way and and some of us are called to be that little flower and that's how she understood herself to be that way now it turns out she was one of the big plants but I know she considered herself to be one of those little flowers and God's flower garden and just as st. Paul said that in the resurrection the bodies of the of the dead will differ from one another and splendor even as the Stars difference blinnder but in the hole in the hole there's a kind of beauty and majesty that would be absent or not evident in the parts and and and part of that beauty is the the beauty of a converted soul now if you've ever met anyone who has a story of conversion and they've and they've really gone from kind of a dark place to a really beautiful place in their life how can you not give thanks for that now does that mean that you wish on them the evil that they went through of course not of course you don't wish upon them the evil of the suffering that they had and yet and yet there's a way in which we can say I'm so glad I met that person I'm so glad that I can see the witness of a life transformed because it shows me something about the grace and mercy of God that I would not see in a life in which there was no need of transformation hence Christ's saying there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who needs who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance Mary had no need of repentance and she differs in splendor from us as as the Sun from the stars and she's resplendent in glory and yet the repentance of my wicked soul you know and I pray to God that I have repentance has its own intrinsic kind of beauty that can fill a spot in in God's flower garden to take a metaphor from saint torres absolutely Jenny thank you so much for your call this is called a communion here on EWTN let's go now to Jerry in Portland Oregon listening to us on Mater Dei radio hey there Jerry what's on your mind today I really appreciate you guys I was raised Catholic spent about 40 years in charismatic evangelicalism and then got kind of really sidetracked about six months ago by EWTN and radio and I've been doing a lot of research and in different things and basically I think I've got a lot of things covered but I've been looking for this such this idea I've been having here in 1st Corinthians 14 from 26 to 33 it talks about kind of the order of worship that Paul is giving down kind of regulations for about prophecy and hymns and speaking in tongues and that kind of thing and it just looks like something way different from a mass today or what a massive I understand the mass would have looked like in the first century so what do these verses actually refer to okay thanks I really appreciate the question so the the mass of course is is not just any form of Christian worship okay the mass is specifically the memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus present to us in in the celebration of the altar the consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ as the memorial of his of his death and resurrection and and of course the book of 1st Corinthians is one of the preeminent texts about the order of worship it's not the only one all right and and I'm gonna I'm gonna continue to answer your question but I'm also gonna direct you to a source ok and and if you are so inclined for further study I would recommend it it is it is by the Catholic apologist and theologian Adrienne Fortescue and the title is the mass a study in the Roman liturgy and it's a very accessible book about the history of the mass tracing it from its origins in the New Testament documents through the Church Fathers to the present day or late not to the present day but at least up to the Council of Trent ok and and Fortescue does a very good job of showing you the coherence between the earliest liturgical celebration of the mass and the various New Testament texts that testify to that ok so I would point you there for for further study and then but actually when you look at st. Paul's instructions not just in chapter 14 but if you look at it really the whole first half of the book culminating up and for in 1st Corinthians 10 and 11 you'll see that there's a profound continuity between the celebration of the liturgy as Paul understands it and what he received from our Lord and in fact he introduces his discussion of the liturgy precisely by drawing on that Dominical tradition Dominical mean coming from the Lord he says the tradition that I receive from the Lord paratus is the Greek word some some translations will we'll use a different word other than other than tradition but it means traditions that which is handed on the tradition that I received from the Lord I hand on to you namely that on the night that he was that he was trade and then you can hear Saint Paul immediately launches into a into a ritualized repetitive language that he is obviously received as a formula okay he's not speaking in a natural voice now he's now taken on a ritualized language on the night that he was betrayed he took bread and broke it and gave it and said and so forth and do this in memory of me and cetera et cetera et cetera and then Paul begins to talk about the meaning of that right and how it ought to be lived in the life of the Corinthian community and he says as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes and we who partake of the one bread are one body because we are all one loaf and if you approach and eat or drink of this bread and this cup in an unworthy manner you are guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord and you actually eat and drink your own condemnation and then he goes on to explain that one cannot participate in the sacrament of the altar and the sacrifice of demons and he thereby analogizing the Holy Sacrifice of the mass to the ritual sacrifices of the pagans showing you the clear sacrificial intent of the right founded in the words of Jesus all right he then goes on to talk about the elements that you're discussing which are the which are the the spontaneous prophecy and the speaking of tongues and things like that and and to be sure to be sure Christian worship and gathering had in some instances a different character than it then it would in your in your local Catholic parish because the the stylized repetition and elaboration of the Holy Sacrifice of the mass has has has gathered distinctions and embellishments over the years all right they're a part of Catholic tradition and the solemnity with which we have with which we hold it makes that entirely appropriate and solves for us certain problems that Paul was confronting in Corinth all right remember that one of the reasons that Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians is that the congregation there was engaged in deep immorality and celebrating it publicly so for instance there was a prominent member of the of the Church there who was sleeping with his stepmother and the other Corinthians were celebrating the liberty that they all had in Christ to do such things and they were also engaged in and syncretism by you know the participating in activities that could confuse the faithful regarding the sacrifices of pagans and and they were engaged in very disorderly conduct and so and they were getting drunk on on the precious blood yeah he rebukes them for that activity and and it was kind of chaos so they would you know people were jumping up and speaking in tongues and carrying around and hooting and hollering like anybody's business and Paul writes just say this is wrong the way you're doing this okay wait the way you're behaving is incorrect all right everything has to be done decently in an order and then he also in Chapter 11 he invokes another principle he says if anyone wants to be contentious namely about the order of worship know that we have no other practice nor do the Churches of God and so he invokes the catholicity of liturgical practice as a binding liturgical norm and so my and my point in all of this is that the the reading of Scripture the offering of prayers and Thanksgivings the celebration of the of the holy sacrifice the confession of Christ's body and blood the prohibition on immorality that all things be done decently in order all right the prohibition on religious syncretism all of that is embedded in the New Testament documents the institution according to Christ and st. Paul's elaboration in Corinthians those elements that were running rampant and out-of-control like spontaneous prophecy and speaking in tongues uh-huh are still allowable in in Catholic theology and practice and in fact there is there's something called the Catholic Charismatic movement where if you are inclined to that kind of worship you can you can scratch that itch you're going to do but we need to follow Paul's instructions make sure we do it decently in order thank you so much for your call Jerry when we come back we'll be talking with Marie in Brooklyn also Matthew in Green Bay and lots more right here on EWTN it's called a communion also going to get to a very interesting text that I think will really fascinating dr. Andrews keep it right here on EWTN EWTN news nightly but Lauren Ashburn if you're a Catholic and you're watching cable news or network news you're getting your news on the Internet how often do you read Catholic based stories not that often here at news nightly you can get the national news with a Catholic perspective and it is so valuable for Catholics to be able to see the world through that perspective EWTN news nightly with Lauren Ashburn weekdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on EWTN radio I'm Doug Keck and this is an e wtn bookmark brief I just finished talking with Terry beat Lea about her book what if we've been wrong keeping my promise to America's abortion King available through our religious catalogue Terry tell us what's this book about and why is it unique well this book is unique because I had the rare opportunity to meet and interview dr. Bernard Nathanson dr. Nathanson was once known as America's abortion king he's the founder of nehru pro-choice America and he's the doctor who persuaded Planned Parenthood to get into the industry of abortion and he trained their doctors and then he became pro-life and then ultimately in 1996 he became Catholic and he's a modern-day saw Paul story and he's left what he called the keys to unlock this abortion monster that holds America captive the book is available through the EWTN religious catalogue EWTN RC dot-com look for the whole interview coming soon here on bookmark and that was teri beat Lee and I'm Doug Keck thanks for stopping by for our EWTN bookmark brief the wisdom of Mother Angelica I went to Las Vegas years years ago for one of these cable shows and and I was shocked to see all these old ladies in their 70s and 80s getting off that plane running first lap machine you don't have a chance to win they're all fixed I know my uncle your dad slot machines EWTN live truth live Catholic I'm Brian Patrick tomorrow Gloria Purvis back in the studio father Edward Looney is our godly counsel we talk about st. Faustina with Susan to Sony morning Gloria on EWTN radio now back to call to communion with dr. David Anders what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with a dr. David Anders to eight EWTN one eight three three to eight eight three nine eight six and here's that text that we received from Rico and I've never heard this before and maybe you can shed some light for us here dr. David is it true that the church employed Protestants to help formulate the new mass if so why never heard that one before okay so the the the history of the composition of the Nova sort of mass is is complex all right it's complex there were a lot of hands in the process it was under the office of Cardinal Bernini when he was in the Vatican I know one of the consultants he was brought in on this was Louie boy yay who was a Catholic liturgist an historian he was a convert from Protestantism okay and it's it's a topic in which I am in expert okay so I cannot tell you with certainty that no Protestant was consulted I will tell you that there's a huge difference between consulting with somebody who is an expert in a particular field of historical study because you want to have access to their historical expertise and consulting somebody who was an ideologue because you want to infuse their ideology into your end product all right yeah and and I mean I am a Catholic I don't think anybody would have make any bones about that okay but you will note and Tom you'll testify to the truth of this I'd say about half the time when people ask me for book recommendations especially if they're in the field of technical biblical study I recommend Protestant authors on that all the time now I I do so with qualification yeah alright but you know the Catholic attitude is always that truth is truth wherever its found okay now when I recommend those Protestant authors I usually say but be wary of the following presuppositions don't align with the Catholic Church okay very good while we're doing it here before we get to Matthew and Marie who are standing by let's do one more text from James what literature would you suggest for someone who may be struggling with the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist what literature could you recommend yeah thanks so I think one of my favorite books on the Eucharist is by Abbot Vanier it's one that I give out all the time it's called the key to the doctrine of the Eucharist okay that's an outstanding book on the Eucharist now the here's here's what you need to here's how you have to orient yourself intellectually about coming to terms of the doctrine of the Eucharist there is no way you can resolve the mystery there's no way you're gonna resolve the mystery all you can do is eliminate misunderstanding sure you can come to understand better the intelligibility the reasons the fitting nosov the Eucharist and you can rule out misconceptions in that that'll go a long way I think towards towards enabling you to make a rational act of faith but at the end of the day it's still gonna be an act of faith it's not gonna be a conclusion of scientific reason yep back to the phones we go now at eight three three two eight eight EWTN matthew is listening in Green Bay and checking us out there hey Matthew what's on your mind today I want to thank you guys for doing what you do and bringing so much clarity may God bless you a thousand times I am a Catholic reentering the church and for the last five years I've been very devout daily adoration and serving at the altar and things like that but I spent about thirty years away and in that thirty years nobody's sinned I mean I I'm sure I can make Augustin blush with what I've done so I don't need to tell us about it yeah we don't want to no no no what I'm trying to say is that in the beginning of the mass when we're a claiming sin to be our fault you know through my fault through my fault through my most grievous fault as children we come into this world pure without sin and we inherit from our families from the culture from generation all this stuff that is not our own so how can we be blamed for being educated in ignorance and being educated in sin as a way of life and then claim it to be our own when we came in pure with none of this these are wonderful questions I deeply appreciate them so a couple things first of all the church does not claim that we come in it your statement that children come into the world pure needs to be qualified all right we all come into the world with the stain of original sin now original sin is not actual sin it's not it's not sin in which we have for which we bear personal responsibility or culpability all right but it is but it is our condition now what that means is two things it means that we come into the world without the grace of God we're not we're not born naturally children of God all right we have to be reborn in baptism and receive that sanctifying grace that unites us to him supernaturally it also means that we come into the world wounded all right we come into the world wounded and so in addition to the the cultural so I guess in a sense the situation is even worse than you paint it because not only do we have our culture that can that can teach us wrong ideas about God in the moral life but but embedded into our whole sort of motivational system all right are our detriments that will deflect us from our true good now that classically the church identifies four wounds of sin number one is ignorance that we don't cut we come to the world not knowing better all right another one is concupiscence that we're in moderately attached to sensible pleasure all right another one is malice all right that that we were egotist and we desire our own good immoderately in preference to the good of others and so it's it's very difficult for us to obey the command to love our neighbor as ourselves and then finally is weakness even if we know the right thing to do all right we lack the hood spa so to speak to get up off the couch and go do yeah alright and and so that because of that because of the wounds of original sin the lack of grace it is it is it is all but inevitable that those innocent and pure children of what you speak are gonna stop being so innocent and pure pretty darn quick usually by the age of reason and they're gonna become morally culpable and and even though we may have wrong ideas about God the moral life that our culture it transmits to us everyone well well the Blessed Virgin Mary accepted everyone has the experience of violating their conscience everyone has the experience of knowing better and doing otherwise yeah we all do we all do okay and and so we all know we're morally responsible and st. Paul speaks about that in the book of Romans chapter one and he says that what's evident from God is what's what's what's true about God is evident even from the things that have been made and so therefore man is with that excuse and then he goes on to list the litany of sins and faults that people engage in in spite of their you know their implicit knowledge of God and and his and his moral truth and and we experience the world as a realm of moral struggle okay and and a lot of the culture that you're speaking about is is in fact an attempt often I think an attempt to rationalize away what we know to be true from nature okay I had a conversation one time with a woman who who refused to admit that my beautiful daughter who was standing next to me at the time was a female Wow and my daughter may taste something this there's no mistaking the finality of my daughter okay she's beautiful gorgeous woman alright Anna Anna and I realized in a flash that my my interlocutors refusal to admit the femininity of my daughter was not because she didn't have eyes in her head but because she was driven by an ideological agenda that was served by that denial yeah and we see that all the time and hey I'm you know I'm just as subject to blindness when it would not when I run up against a moral demand that I don't want to confront you know and that and that willful blindness is also one of those things for which we're culpable okay now let me qualify that with this statement that the the personal occult for which God will hold us accountable can be mitigated by ignorance as well if the ignorance is not willed okay and I often like to use this illustration so murder is always wrong it's just wrong to murder period into paragraph no getting around that okay but if I grow up in an indigenous and in pre-modern you know iron age type primitive culture where there's no central government no legal system no written laws no judiciary and the only form of justice known to my society is the vendetta and I'm taught from a very young age that I have a moral obligation to practice vendetta alright even though murderer is still objectively wrong my capacity to recognize the gravity of that is going to be deeply wounded in comparison to you know to somebody that lives in a modern Democratic culture with a well-established legal system does that mean murders not wrong no it's still wrong and it's objectively bad it's objectively bad for the person getting murdered it's objectively bad for the murderer yes and it's objectively bad for the society and so the church has a vested interest in getting in there and teaching moral theology and reforming that culture in those individuals all right but I would be I think it would be unjust it would be unrealistic for me to hold for me to say that you know between the subjective situation of those two people is exactly the same now I think one person is objectively more culpable than another this is why st. James says not many of you should aspire to be teachers you know the best way to learn any subject is to teach it is not many of you should aspire to be teachers because teachers will be held to higher account so we know that the standard of judgment that God uses is not the same in every case but he takes into account the the knowledge and the position of the person being judged Matthew thank you so much for your call this is called a communion here on EWTN you know I've been here at the network blessed to be here for the last 20 years starting my 21st year now and when I first got here all that time ago back in 1997 I remember getting my first tour of the network and here were all these printing presses and all these little bitty books well those were mother Angelica's many books now we have taken those the content from those wonderful wonderful mini books and we're repackaging some of those into a wonderful series available from us once again from EWTN publishing and the newest one is called mother Angelica's guide to practical holiness this is essential reading for every Catholic who is seeking holiness in our difficult times this collection contains eight of those many books that I saw back in the day by Mother Angelica including one called holiness in a nutshell that's excellent to wills his and mine and how about this holiness in action it's available right now in a beautiful bound set from ewtn our see.com just look for mother Angelica's guide to practical holiness you won't be sorry it is a gem back to the phones right now for Murray and Brooklyn listening to us via Sirius XM 130 hey Murray what's on your mind today yeah thank you for taking my call a lot of Protestants believe that Mary had other children and I don't believe it because there are scriptures one at the end it says when John took her into his home and also what they're going by they're going by the Gospel of Mark chapter 6 verses 3 & 4 and also firstborn they go that her firstborn son and also there was another that says they before they came together I mean this is in the Catholic Bible that says this - are there any other scriptures that would show that Mary did not have other children oh yes thank you I appreciate it so not only mark 6 but also Matthew 13 gives their names gives the names of the siblings of our Lord okay and if you will look at the parallel passages in Matthew 27 in John chapter 19 those passages identify those very same children as the children of Mary the wife of Clopas not who is this the who is the sister of the Blessed Virgin Mary so if you if you read all those passages in conjunction it's obvious that they're Jesus's cousins right all right they're not they're not his they're not his biological siblings well the name Mary then and now is a very common name yes there is and there's there's actually a funny YouTube satire on that question really yes it's you know the some of these skeptics that imagine that the Apostles made the whole thing up uh-huh and there's a funny satire on you know video where the guy imagines well that were really the case and we'll make up some good names for these New Testament characters I got an idea let's name all the women Mary so great yeah but I mean I think actually the source of the confusion is not how many Mary's there are in circulation I think the source of the confusion is that those characters are just simply identified as the the Brothers of our Lord and some people naively read that text and imagine that that has to mean biological siblings now another point to consider is that early Protestants who who rejected nearly all the Marian dogmas did not reject the dogma on her perpetual virginity now they knew these texts as well as anybody else I mean Protestants pride themselves on being knowledgeable of Scripture and it never struck their mind that passages like Mark 6 and Matthew 13 necessitated abandoning at auction that had such universal application throughout the Catholic world and even somebody like Francis Narottam who's about as dogmatic and anti-catholic thinker as you can get he was the successor or the you know two steps down from john calvin and geneva freely confessed that the dogma on Mary's perpetual virginity was was was was Catholic and universal and and should not be lightly dismissed okay very good Marie thank you so much for your call this is called a communion here on EWTN here's a text that came in from James back on Friday he says since the Catholic Church maintains that dogmas of the church have not changed how does that correlate with teachings or dogmas that have been clarified or expound upon over the centuries and by various councils thanks and God bless James yeah thanks I appreciate it so you know one way of analogizing this is the principles of geometry don't change the axioms of geometry don't change correct there they are they're the axioms yeah okay but but a geometry ssin can can deduce any number of proofs they're from okay and the conceptual elaboration possible is Nayan to infinite okay and and so the the way Catholic doctrine develops I mean you take a dogma like the Trinity okay well that that began in in the biblical affirmation that there's one God that Jesus is the Son of the Father and that he is also God all right mm-hmm well all those are biblical affirmations they're all true how do you fit them together in a logically coherent way okay and and so there were a number of theologians in the second century that tried to put them together in ways that eliminated the mystery and and to you know to the to the and they went too far off in one direction or the other either towards the they they affirm the unity and denied the try unity or they affirmed the the the try the the try aspect and denied the unity or they subordinated the son to the Father I mean they're any number of ways they could get off-track into heresy and so because of that and of course the big one was arias who simply denied the full divinity of the son and so the Council of Nicaea had to be called further could fully insist on those distinctions and then to draw some conceptual elaboration to show why the doctrine of the Trinity was was not contradictory even though it was still remained mysterious and that's the way dogma develops there's a there's a core affirmation of the Catholic faith it gets called into question in some way or perhaps it gets qualified in a way that's not Catholic and then the teaching office of the church steps in and goes nope nope nope you got that one wrong this is the right way to understand it and you know the the number of ways to not be Catholic or infinite oh yeah you know and what it means to not be Catholic is different in every age and every culture and so in every culture in which the church finds itself it has to contend with a different set of cultural questions which opens up the possibility of further and further and further elaboration yeah absolutely thank you so much for that here's the text now from Howard who says I'm a convert of several years now and I'd really like to hear more about your previous conversation about the problems with the consecration to Mary I too finds st. Louis de Montfort Mary and the 30-day consecration very difficult I'm still quite dedicated to our mother and I seek much of what is promised thank you okay so we talked about that last week I I don't want to go overboard because this is a this is an allowable devotion okay it's one that many Catholics find extraordinarily helpful and I don't want to take anything away from that all right I have personally in my own private theology as a private theologian reasons why I don't find it the most congenial form of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary okay and in a private conversation I would elaborate those aggressively to you all right I don't think this is the forum to do that because I don't want to there I don't have any problem with people who do that devotion and derive great fruit from it and I wouldn't want to disturb their consciences with my own private theological speculations I think the the point of mentioning that on the air is just to say that simply because some devotion is popular in the Catholic Church and it might be very popular in the Catholic Church and you might find that every Catholic you know practices that devotion you don't have to practice that devotions right okay and for that matter just because some particular theological schema is used to articulate the dogmas of the faith and this is we're really like getting a little more detailed here all right you're not bound to unless it's been defined dogmatically or or the Magisterium is taught definitively we must hold it it theology is an attempt to make the mysteries of the Catholic faith intelligible all right and and Dogma doesn't change but theological formulations of dogma can change and there are there are numerous theological schools within the Catholic Church all of which are considered to be Orthodox and all of which are considered to be allowable and and you know I I may tend more to one of those theological schools in another because it's it seems more intelligible to me more consistent with the tradition and another Catholic theologian may take another point of view and guess what we'll argue about it and I'll tell him why he's wrong and he'll tell me why I'm wrong okay and guess what we do in in that process we grow absolutely intellectually spiritually and otherwise this is this is one of the things that makes the Catholic intellectual tradition so fruitful it encourages argument and debate on those things that are up for argument and debate that's true at the level of theology it's true at the level of liturgy it's true at the level of devotional life they're those things on which we have to agree then there is those things that we are allowed to disagree and and and I I encourage people find the the devotions that work for you that speak to your life you know st. Therese of Lisieux who's one of the greatest Saints in the church and a doctor of the church didn't like the rosary she tells us you didn't like it she didn't get into it and and John Paul who loved the Pope John Paul st. John Paul who adamantly loved the Rosary it encouraged everybody to pray it adamantly refused to declare it part of the church's liturgy because it isn't it's not part of the church's liturgy it's a private devotion it's a augustine noble and beautiful one that I pray every day I do like the Rosary okay but we won a thousand years in the Catholic Church without the Rosary Agustin had never heard of the Rosary I think if he would've liked it if he'd heard of it okay but he loved is a fruitful teaching holy life in the Catholic Church as a doctor of the church and a bishop and a saint without ever praying the rosary now do I want you to pray the rosary sure I do okay but you see my point absolutely Howard thank you so much for your text here's another text from Chris in Los Angeles was there ever a time this is fascinating I think was there ever a time in church history we're Protestants could receive Communion at the mass uh yeah like right now but not o at the mass at the mathematics okay okay sorry sorry sorry so send me back up me back up the the Catholic Church permits Protestants to receive Communion under a very narrowly circumscribed set of circumstances okay if you are in danger of death all right mm-hmm you're properly disposed and you have Catholic faith in the sacraments okay very specific very specific and I have a I have a close relative who is now Catholic but who was not Catholic and met all three of those conditions was in danger of death was properly disposed and had Catholic faith in the sacraments who was permitted to receive Communion under those circumstances okay now whether or not those could ever be whether those rights could be exercised in the context of the public liturgy is a question that I don't know that there's a there's a different character to the public celebration because there's there's a risk of misunderstanding and scandal on the part of the faithful so like you know if you have somebody who maybe he's got he's got terminal cancer you know for whatever reason I don't know why he's he's not able to come into the church but he's got faith and he's properly disposed and he wanders up and everybody in their town recognize him as recognizes him as a Protestant doesn't know about his subjective condition there's a possibility that the congregation may think hey fathers just opened up communion to all in sunder and that might you know cause some scandal sure so I actually actually don't know about about that part of the picture I'm kind of skeptical about that but I'm not a candidate so I wouldn't be but in terms of those conditions yeah that's allowable very good Alan sent us a question via YouTube and Alan your your question is just a little bit too complicated since we only have a minute left so please check us out tomorrow I can do that okay here Church does the Catholic Church teach cessationism no it doesn't oh that was easy doesn't teach replacement theology right depends on what you mean by it okay and and in a nutshell the the church teaches that the the Jewish people have an ongoing role to play in the history of redemption okay but the the church is legitimately the heir to Old Testament prophecy about the coming of the kingdom of God hmm okay but no we are not cessationist cessationism was actually invented by the Protestant reformers as a way of trying to refute the charge that they didn't have any miracles to back up their claim that the church should be radically reformed the Catholics said well if you if you think everything should be like thrown overboard started over again shouldn't you have some divine authority on your side and demonstrate that with miracles and since they couldn't produce any miracles they tried to make the argument that that was the illegitimate demand and that's where the doctrines of cessationism were born I give you another a Protestant dissertation on my god named John Ruthven are you th Ven the book is called on the cessation of the kharisma taw and he's actually a kind of costal he's not a Catholic scholar but he's written a decent book on the history of cessationism very good dr. David Anders thank you so much thanks Tom don't forget we do the program each and every Monday through Friday 2:00 p.m. Eastern with an encore at 11:00 p.m. Eastern and then we also snagged the best show of the week in Michael birch fields opinion we'll play that for you on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern I'm Tom price have a wonderful day see you tomorrow right here on EWTN is called a communion god bless

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: NtaMPuFjVUg

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 05 2018