CALLED TO COMMUNION - Dr. David Anders - February 14, 2019

what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic why can't women become priests why do Catholics worship Mary why do I need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the Bible I think the Pope has too much authority you are called to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network everybody welcome again to call to communion this is the program for our non Catholic brothers and sisters those of you who have questions about the Catholic faith maybe you don't have any close friends who are Catholics to get those questions answered we're here for you here's our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're checking us out outside North America you'll want to dial the u.s. country code and then two oh five two seven one two nine eight five you can also text the letters EWTN to five five zero zero zero wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and for those of you watching us on TV today you too can participate by sending us an email CTC at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com Michael Burchfield is our producer Ryan Penney is our phone screener Jeff person is on social media he'll be glad to pass along any questions you might want to pose via YouTube or Facebook I'm Tom price along with dr. David Andrews Tom how are you couldn't be better how are you my friend doing decent thank you glad to hear that here is a question now that we received from email Michael wants to know could you please clear up for my friends why exactly we don't eulogize okay thanks I appreciate the question well I've been to a lot I assume we're talking about in the context of the funeral yeah I've been to a lot of Catholic funerals that had but look strikingly a lot like a eulogy yeah so I'm not so sure about that but I will tell you this that that the the rights that are the the the do are the are ITES that are the right righ D of a Catholic when they die include the funeral mass okay now the the homily as a part of the funeral mass Harley as a part of a mass has a very specific form it is a liturgical act that is meant to give an intelligibility to the mass as such as as a sacramental action and as a sacrifice and the purpose of a homily is to explicate the the readings of the liturgy or the texts of the liturgy so it's very much tied to the purpose of the liturgy okay a a very appropriate homily and I'm not a priest I don't give funeral homilies but a very appropriate for you knurl Hana Hana Lee given the understanding of what a homily is in its liturgical context would be an explanation for why we are having this mass what what are we here to do we're offering the Holy Sacrifice of the mass for the repose of the soul of this person who passed on that's the purpose of a homily right do Catholic priests routinely insert little mini eulogies into their funeral homilies everyone I've ever been to does sure yeah but that's not the point of a homily and it's similar present for a moment from the question of funeral masses just go to masses if you come to a Catholic Mass and you are thinking about a homily as an analog to the Protestant sermon you don't understand what it is because the many times in other non Catholic churches the Protestant sermon is essentially a catechetical event where the preacher X posits a text of sacred scripture or perhaps a you know some some doctrine from his tradition and it's a it's a teaching moment it may last for 45 minutes and it's you know kind of like a lecture that's not what Catholic homilies is not what they're supposed to they find their intelligibility and their purpose within the context of the liturgy and they're to orient our hearts and minds towards the action of the liturgy which is to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the mass in reparation for sin and to honor God now they may have they may as a secondary effect be katha catechol or hortatory or encouraging or comforting or challenging or whatever but that's their their their purpose is not primarily disseminating information so that we've had an interesting cata catechol experience it's - it's to form our affections and our attitudes and our intentions towards the Holy Sacrifice of the mass being offered on that occasion okay very good Michael thank you so much for your email here's one now from Marie why is the Book of Enoch not in the Bible and what significance does this book have or not have to our faith and then that's from Marie okay so the list of books that are not in the Bible is practically infinite they're all not in there for the same reason God did not inspire them okay and that is that is the explanation now there is a lot of religious literature that's not divinely inspired some of its good something it's pretty lousy but being good or not good or ancient or modern these are not the criteria for inclusion within the sacred Canon of Scripture the criteria for inclusion is God inspired this book by the Holy Spirit he didn't do that it's not in the Bible okay Marie thanks for your email here's one now from John why do Catholics believe in praying for the dead when there is nothing in the Bible to support this no one can put your name in the Lamb's Book of Life except yourself okay thanks number of misunderstandings here number one it is in the Bible number two even if it weren't that wouldn't be a problem and number three we don't pray people into the Lamb's Book of Life so three misconceptions let's unpack them first of all prayers for the dead they are in the Bible second Maccabees chapter 12 boom gotcha okay also in second Timothy first chapter 1 verses 18 to 19 okay all right - let's assume for a moment that some Christian doctrine were not contained in the Bible would that be a problem not a problem provided God revealed it in some other way like through sacred tradition are there any such doctrines that God has revealed that are not included within the the pages of Sacred Scripture you bet let's pick one list of books belonging to Sacred Scripture that is a doctrine man it is revealed by God that you are to believe that these books are inspired that list does not come to us within scripture but from sacred tradition if you don't believe sacred tradition you have no reason to believe that you've got the right list of books in the Canon of Scripture because certainty about the list is something that we have from sacred tradition not from the Bible itself and third the purpose of praying for the dead is not to pray them into the Lamb's Book of Life prayers for the dead are only effective if we pray for those who are in fact already listed in the Lamb's Book of Life we only pray for the saved we only pray for those who die in God's friendship we only pray for those who are on their way to heaven because there is an antechamber called purgatory you don't get to purgatory but by dying in God's friendship if you go to hell you can't jump from Hell to purgatory it's it's there's hell then there's purgatory heaven and we pray people from the antechamber into the dinner party okay sounds good to me so I want to thank Michael Murray and John for their great emails if you'd like to email for a future show the address ctc at ewtn.com coming up in a moment here we'll get a call from Elizabeth in st. Petersburg Florida we have a line open for you at the moment eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six [Music] glad you could join us today here for EWTN radios call to Communion we'll get to the phones in just a moment at eight three three two eight eight EWTN first a question from Dave who is watching us right now on YouTube Dave wants to know are there different levels or stages in purgatory thank you appreciate the question we don't have any revelation on that question so any answer that you give is just speculative obviously in literary imagination Dante who is not a Pope and is just writing poetry imagined such a thing and constructs a possible scenario in which such things would be intelligible but you certainly are not obligated to believe in Dante's picture of purgatory what we do know about purgatory is that one of the purposes of purgatory is that we can do dependence for our sons those we haven't done sufficient penance for on earth and penance is to be proportionate to the to the the sin that was committed so to some extent some kind of proportionality there so that two people are not going to have to do the same penance either in this life or the next and the same thing with purity of heart we go to purgatory also to be purged of our attachment to sin and some people are more attached than others and so again it would seem to be some differentiation between the experience of two souls in purgatory well will that actually be expressed architectural II so to speak you know I mean is there you know the ground floor and then you know the tenth floor yeah no idea never been there okay that's where we got to leave it Dave thanks you so much for your question glad you're checking us out today on youtube if you're ready now let's go to the phones at eight three three two eight eight EWTN we begin with Elizabeth in st. Petersburg Florida listening Ahn's peace be with you radio hello Elizabeth what's on your mind today Oh Tom hello dr. Anders all my mind is finding a new thing there were my a/c broke down my radio is not working right and my friend says to me sounds like a need to do some binding and loosing and I said that's what a Catholic priest does and perhaps he's thinking that spiritual warfare but you know but what do we how can you share about that Thanks I appreciate the question so the power of binding and loosing that Christ gives to st. Peter and then to all the Apostles in Matthew chapter 18 so it's Matthew 16 Matthew 18 we find these terms used Jesus never applies that to household appliances it's always in the context of church discipline so for example in Matthew 18 Jesus says if one of your brother sends one of your brother's sins go to him privately if he won't listen to you you take another if you won't listen to the two of you you take it to the church he doesn't listen to the church then you kick him out you treat him like a tax collector or a sinner and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and if two or three of you or agree in my name but anything I'm there with you so it actually has to do with the church's power of jurisdiction and in particular with reference to the Rite of exorcism Muskies midnight exorcism excommunication all right the discipline of excommunication so this doesn't apply to household appliances it applies to to unrepentant sinners who have to be excommunicated from the church that's one of the context in which that phrase is used and when it's attached to the authority of st. Peter it has even a greater depth Jesus tells Peter that he's the rock on which Christ will build the foundation of his church's unity and he also tells them that he gives to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven now that's a metaphor from from Hebraic monarchical administration it was like the majordomo of the house or the palace manager kind of the chief of staff if you will of the monarch you had the ability to admit or exclude from the King's presence and binding and loosing is also a term that comes to us from the Jewish tradition from the rabbinic tradition and it was the authority of the rabbi to determine whether something was clean or unclean so it's a again it's a it's a judgment about whether something is admissible or inadmissible okay and so there's nothing to do with with confronting alleged spiritual causes to mechanical failure it has to do with making judgments about what admissible or inadmissible or people who are repentant or not repentant as the case may be operating within the sphere of the household of God or the church so completely different context and sacred scripture and I think your friend is miss reading these texts okay Elizabeth thanks so much for your call that opens up a line for you now at eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six it's called a communion here on EWTN Angela listening in Dalton Georgia online ewtn.com Angela what's on your mind today thank you for taking my call mr. price and dr. Anders last week I was listening and I don't know what day it was but it was the broadcast that was then later broadcast on television and the caller had a question that that that I have had and I don't remember how he articulated it but your response had to do with at the point of the mass is our is the sacrifice they're Christ's sacrifice and our sacrifice and that mass wasn't necessarily the most important thing wasn't necessarily receiving Christ in communion oh that's terribly important and you said the mast is not just a Eucharist a machine or something like that and then I think she said something about for the first thousand years we didn't even sort of do that at Mass anyway I'm kind of confused I'm calling for clarification sure memory is not that that great but it seems that I remember it's okay I know exactly what you're talking about I know exactly what you're talking about I really am glad you called too because this is a topic that's very important and it's one about which I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and I really thank you sometimes when I speak publicly about the liturgy I will I will pose this rhetorical question to my audience I'll say what do you think is the most important part of mass your own participation at mass what's the most important part and what I expect people to say what I'm kind of waiting for them to say is well going to communion and it's a trick question because I'm trying to I'm sort of trying to bait them into saying that because I think a lot of people believe that but that can't be true for all kinds of reasons one of them is that for a thousand years or so in the Latin Church lay people did not frequently commune maybe but once a year they would go to communion well the church is not going to be engaged in that level of Prudential error she's not gonna have a pastoral failure of that magnitude that she would not encourage frequent reception of Holy Communion for a thousand years I mean she's not gonna do that if that's if that's really the whole point of the mass and but why did the church think it unnecessary to encourage frequent reception of Holy Communion in fact the the fourth Lateran council insisted that people commune minimum once a year I mean what we can't even fathom a world in which the church would say you know bare minimum once a year that that's so remote from our modern liturgical experience it's almost unintelligible to us why did that make sense why did that make sense in the 13th century well it's because the conception of the mass that that everyone had and which is biblical and you find it in all of the liturgies of the church including the liturgy today is this idea that the primary reason we go to Mass is to offer the body blood soul and divinity of Jesus truly and substantially present on the altar to God as a sacrifice and if you attend carefully to the language of the liturgy I would encourage you I mean you go to Mass listen to the words of the Eucharistic prayer listen to them so so for example listen to Eucharistic prayer number three the pre in the in the liver sort of amounts the priests pray praise therefore Lord we celebrate the memorial of the saving passion of your son we offer you in Thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice we offer the Eucharistic prayer for we offer you his body and blood the sacrifice acceptable acceptable to you which brings the salvation of the whole world the Canon of the mass all right uh as you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant able to just the sacrifice of Abram our Father in faith and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek a holy sacrifice a spotless victim be pleased to look on these offerings with the surrounding serene and kindly countenance over and over in a again the language of sacrifice and oblation in the Eucharistic prayer is ubiquitous it's it's through and through now for many of us who attend Mass you're so used to this verbage that it is sort of washes over you and the significance of it is lost on us but but it hasn't always been so lost in the consciousness of the catholic people if you've ever been to Europe for example some of the great medieval cathedrals we don't understand the architecture of these cathedrals anymore we don't understand why they were built the way they were built but he was perfectly intelligible to people at the time going to Notre Dame for example in Paris what do you notice well there's a high altar way way way way down at the end of the other end of the church and and traditionally the altar is behind wasn't called a Rood screen big lattice work that would have separated the altar from the people rather an imitation of the Holies of Holies of Holies and the Old Testament in the temple or in the tent of meeting where the priests would go behind the veil and offer a sacrifice all up and down the side of the church what you find you find little side altars well what's that about what are they there for well you could have imagined going into the church on on a given day in the Middle Ages and see a dozen priests all celebrating the sacrifice of the mass for four different supplicants and for their intentions today you know you can ask a priest to say a mass for your intention well there's such a strong faith in the oblation being efficacious as the most powerful prayer people would kind of line up get in line get you know get behind your mass priest and you know mom's going in the hospital on Thursday I want a mass that for okay you know next and they would do it all day long and and so that's the principle reason we go and this is the language that Jesus uses when he says this is the chalice of the New Covenant in my blood well this is this is sacrificial language it it references goes takes us back to exodus 24 when Moses would slaughter an animal sprinkle the people with the blood and say this is the blood of the Covenant it was a sacrificial Rite and even the phrase do this in memory of me has sacrificial overtones when you read the word autumny sis back in into the Greek translation of the Old Testament it recalls the memorial offering and this is the this is the precise language the Eucharistic prayer uses that of memorial offering we celebrate the memorial of his saving passion so that's why we go and in the Second Vatican Council sacrosanct emkin chilean the congregate secured dogmatic declaration on the liturgy says the people are to be taught that's us we're the people right the people are to be taught that not only through the hands of the Ministerial priests but also in their very own lives they to offer the immaculate victim that's Christ to God in reparation for the sins of the world that that's proper liturgical catechesis teach the people that when they go to Mass they are there principally principally to offer the Immaculate victim to offer Christ the prayer of Saint Faustina that we we say in the Divine Mercy chaplet all My Father I offer you or Eternal Father I offer you the body and blood soul and divinity of your dearly beloved son our Lord Jesus Christ we pray this over and over and over again do we know what we're talking about when do we offer God the body and blood soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass go back and read Francis DeSales introduction to the devout life he says how to hear Mass devoutly number one the people should be taught to prepare their hearts to offer the Holy Sacrifice to offer the body and blood of Christ to God the Father and then that connects to our own lives in this way st. Paul in Romans chapter 12 says offer your bodies as living sacrifices this is your spiritual act of worship you know Jesus said the father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth st. Paul says this is the spiritual worship that God desires that we offer our own lives our own bodies and we connect this to the sacrifice of Christ through the Holy Sacrifice of the mass and if you come to Mass with that disposition you you have you have fruitfully heard Mass if you come in an attitude of self donation of offering pray the words of st. Faustina you've fruitfully been to mass now to receive Christ and Holy Communion is something other than a sacrifice it's a sacrament count the Roman catechism the Catechism of the Council of Trent says the Eucharist is two things it's a sacrifice and it's a sacrament it's two it's a sacrifice and it's a sacrament as a sacrament like all the sacraments it is a sign accompanied by a promise of divine assistance that God will cause to happen the thing signified what's signified by the Eucharist well Christ with us of course so he's really with us in the sacrament and it is the sacrament of our abiding in him Jesus says if you if my words abide in you if you abide in me my words abide in you you will bear much fruit whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me this is the sacrament of our abiding in Jesus wonderful thing wonderfully put it in a pig's take it to the sick it's a sacrament it's not a sacrifice unless it be offered in sacrifice to God and the Holy Sacrifice of the mass many people have forgotten this truth but it is it is the most efficacious means of attaining sanctity that's what Pius the 12th taught in his encyclical Madiha today if you want to come to holiness as a Catholic the most effective way of doing that is to properly understand and enter into the Holy Sacrifice of the mass there you go there it is Angela we hope that's helpful for you we took a little extra time because it's a very very important topic only the source and summit of our faith yeah there it is Angela thanks so much for your call it's called a communion here on EWTN we have a line open for you now eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six Teresa is listening in Kalispell Montana on divine mercy radio hey Teresa what's on your mind today hi thank you so much for taking my call sure I've been involved in discussions going on for a couple years now one side regarding those in purgatory that those in purgatory are there for their purification so that they can get to heaven the other side is those in purgatory can also offer their sufferings for those of us on earth my question is are these contrasting views are they complimentary is there another way to look at it and is there any material that you can recommend um yes yes yes and maybe no let me in fact that so purgatory exists so that we can do sufficient penance for our sins if we haven't done penance in this life also to detach us from any attachment to some purify our hearts so that we can be fit for the vision of God Jesus says blessed are the pure in heart they will see God just why purgatory exists we do know that time is short but not in purgatory but on this radio show the music comes and we have to go to a break so let's hold that comeback in the other side of the break I'll finish the question sit tight Teresa we'll finish that in just a moment here we'll also be talking with Chris in Des Moines listening on Iowa Catholic radio looks like a line is open for you right now if you have a question for dr. David Anders 8 3 3 2 8 8 EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six four call to Communion [Music] welcome back we're glad you're with us here on EWTN radios called a communion couple lines open at the moment eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six before the break we were talking with Theresa in Kalispell Montana regarding purgatory sure Thanks so the question was how to think about two complementary truths about purgatory one the purpose of purgatory primary purpose being purification and penance for those who are in fact in purgatory and secondly their ability or lack thereof to pray on behalf of the church on earth and how to put those things together so indeed the primary purpose of purgatory is penance and purification for those who happen to land there and there's something else we ought to add to this the church teaches that the ability to merit to do good works for which God will reward us ends with physical death so the souls in purgatory cannot merit they cannot merit and that's significant because you think James tells us in his epistle chapter 5 that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much their more efficacious their more effective does that mean that an unrighteous person cannot pray effectively no it doesn't mean that in fact if if the prayers of the unrighteous were of no avail then no one would ever be converted though right because if I'm if I'm not in a state of grace and I say lord have mercy on me a sinner well I'm never getting it out of that situation if I have to have grace for God to hear my prayers God will answer can answer any prayer out of his mercy but the prayers of the righteous and the righteous of people who live in God's grace are more effective right so we know that merit which is the kind of the mechanism whereby the prayers of the righteous are more effective merit ceases with physical death so the souls in purgatory are not going to be able to do meritorious deeds which they then offer on behalf of the church they're suffering and Purgatory's not meritorious are suffering in this life can be meritorious if I offer up my suffering if I willingly embrace divine providence though it come with suffering I can offer that up on behalf of another soul souls in purgatory can't do that they don't they can't offer their suffering for somebody else cuz not meritorious in their case it's just justice that's all it is is just justice can they pray for us well they are united to God and charity because they have grace they are in the state of grace they're on their way to heaven to be United to God I mean is to have a life of prayer Alphonsus Liguori once said he who prays will be saved who does not pray won't be saved right so we know they're praying they're communing with God their longing to be united to him if they're united to God and charity they want what God wants otherwise they wouldn't be united to God God wants the salvation of the church that means the souls in purgatory also want the salvation of the church so they're praying God thy will be done that includes the salvation of the church ergo they're praying for the church and and effectively but not as effectively as they would if they could merit so there's not a dogma the church has not formally revealed as a Dogma declared as a Dogma yes the souls in purgatory pray for us but based on the kind of theological considerations that I just articulated it's the common opinion if the illusions that they do although this is not the primary purpose of purgatory okay Teresa thank you so much for your call it's called a communion here on EWTN chris is in Des Moines right now listening on Iowa Catholic radio hello Chris what's on your mind today and my question is it's regarding Protestantism and the historical aspects of Protestantism being a heresy and yet today we we call them our brothers and sisters in Christ and what and if at what time in history did the Church's position on this change or are they still can you know we just don't hear we don't we don't say to our brothers and sisters in Christ a year so is there some can you kind of enlighten me a little bit on that doctor sure absolutely so in the code of canon law canon 751 defines heresy as the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine Catholic faith so obstinacy is of the essence of the canonical crime of heresy it is it's very easy to make the case that Protestants are not they may deny a Catholic dogma but they wouldn't rise to the level of obstinacy because they don't recognize that they don't understand they don't believe they they haven't received they don't have faith that God has in fact revealed things definitively through the teaching office of the church or through sacred tradition and and so they they hadn't got the the right conceptual lenses so to speak in order to properly understand the faith so do they deny dogmas of the Catholic faith yes do they do so obstinately it's hard to see how they could do that so really it takes a Catholic to be a heretic if you look at how I'm actually through the annals of history most heretics most heresy arcs Big Chief heretics that led lots of people in their paths have been priests so you have to know theology to deny it right now there is there is something that you we distinguish heresy can be material or formal a material heretic is someone who believes something that is contrary to Catholic dogma but doesn't know that they do it's innocent on their part okay that's you know that that's bad because it's gonna lead them down the wrong path they may take some missteps in their spiritual life as a result we should seek to bring them in line for their own good but it's not they're not morally blameworthy for their material heresy because they don't know better they don't know better a formal heretic or someone who knows better and and does it anyway understands what the Church teaches and thumbs their nose at it so to speak because I don't like it that's a formal heresy and that's really the canonical rhyme wouldn't be appropriate to describe Protestants formally as heretics in that way for the reasons that I just stated you know you could you could describe their their error is on occasion as material heresy but not a lot of point in doing so it's easy I think I like the way the Second Vatican Council I think it's more past release incitive certainly more effective and purposes of evangelism to describe them as possessing only elements elements of truth and sanctification with some admixture of error and and that that seems to fit with I mean what 500 years of history have shown us that there are Protestants that are people of goodwill who get a lot of knowledge out of the elements of truth and sanctification that they have I mean I like to my own grandfather who was a Baptist I like to say he got more grace out of his two sacraments than I get out of my seven you know he was a great guy he's no fault of his own that he didn't know the truth of the Catholic faith and he certainly was an obstinate in his denial of truths that he knew had been revealed by divine authority he was ignorant of the Catholic faith so elements of truth and sanctification but not the whole shooting match and that's the job of evangelism is to lovingly share the whole truth about Christ in the church and give people reasons as st. Peter says 1st Peter chapter 3 give people reasons for the hope that's in you and then you know aided by God's grace then come along and and and take the whole package appreciate your call Chris and this is called a communion here on EWTN kay is checking us out today in Edwardsville Illinois listing on covenant network and Kay wants to know can we baptize children whose parents will not baptize them so perhaps Kay is a grandmother or an aunt or something thanks depends depends the church will not baptize a child if there's a no certainty that that child will be raised in the Catholic faith and that there's someone who's designated with that responsibility so you know you it's you cannot baptize a child against the wishes of the parents and or and you can't baptize a child without the knowledge of the parents unless it's the case of urgency like if the child's in danger of death that everything goes out the window with danger of death but normally speaking if you have non Catholic parents that are not willing to take on the responsibility of catechizing their children in the Catholic faith but are not adverse to someone else doing it you can there you can make arrangements if a grandparent takes over that responsibility and there's a strong certitude that the the grandparent can actually do that Church may baptize that child but you don't baptize somebody if they're not gonna be brought up in the rights and duties obligations and privileges of the Catholic faith it would be improper very good kay thanks so much for your question here now is Benny and Dallas listening online ewtn.com hello Benny what's on your mind today hello good doctor earlier with a caller you were explaining about the Eucharist and you made that statement that the church minimal requirement was once a year and then you got off on a tangent he didn't come back and answer why did it was the church's minimal requirement once a year thank you I appreciate the question went off on a tangent oh wait me can you imagine you do anything like that never so so there well the church hat specifies a bare minimum it is necessary that we receive Holy Communion sometime Christ said whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me this is the sacrament of our abiding in Christ so important is it that we sit receive Holy Communion as the sacrament of our immortality the the canons of the Council of Nicaea specify if someone has been denied Holy Communion because of obstinate public son they should be readmitted to Holy Communion if they're in danger of death viatical should be given so it's important that receive Communion how often Christ doesn't say how often he just says this is the sacrament you receive it abide in me doesn't specify how often and for a very long time in western church history infrequent communion was the rule precisely because people understood the primary purpose of the mass being to offer the Holy Sacrifice not the reception of Holy Communion so much so that the church said you know we we need to lay down a bare minimum here the fourth Lateran council settled on once a year which and i think at the time was indicated how infrequently some people receive communion because they thought once a year was a reasonable standard and the law of the church has not changed it stays once a year and in fact it was once a year for a very very long time if you want to read for example the sermons of Saint John Vianney 18th century French cleric he's uh he's the patron of all priests in the Catholic Church read his Easter sermons because they're oriented towards preparing people for their annual reception of Holy Communion and folks got upset with Saint John Vianney because he was like well you actually have to quit sinning or I'm not going to admit you to communion and he he was a great guy John Vianney buddy had he had maybe a little bit of the puritanical going on with them because he would tell people had to give up the gambling and the dancing and the drinking and stuff like that the card playing you know and and he talks about guys that would kind of run down the hill to the next to the neighboring parish and try to get a priest that would let him in and he specifically don't do that you know don't do this just for your grandmother who wants you to go for your annual communion really get straight with God then all I met you back to Holy Communion yes okay Benny thanks so much for your call it's called a communion here on EWTN if you want to keep up to date on what's going on here at the global Catholic Network let me personally recommend wings it is our little e-newsletter that comes out generally every Thursday it'll pop up right there in your inbox we'll talk about books art CDs DVDs the latest programs on radio on television plus information about religious catalogue blogs bookmark so much more so do check it out you can subscribe to wings it's absolutely free go to ewtn.com and look for the little box that says wings click on that put in your email address you are ready to go so do do check that out it's a wonderful thing I've been getting it myself for years and I love it a lot this is called a communion here on EWTN question now from Delores and Crossville Tennessee listening on Sirius XM 130 Delores what's on your mind today I have really two questions one is I was in a Clarksville Tennessee and I was looking for a church to attend I'm not Catholic but I'm studying to become one I'm looking into it and I found the old Catholic Church you ever heard of that I have heard of it and you know why there I read up on it a Senate so break off from the Roman Catholic but that do you know anything about I sure do they're neither old nor Catholic so in the 19th century the Catholic Church held an ecumenical council the first Vatican Council that among other things defined the dogma of papal infallibility which is a Catholic doctrine that has been believed for 2,000 years by Catholics everywhere but there are a lot of things in the Catholic Church that Catholics believe that have not been formally defined as a dogma you know for 300 years Catholic believe Catholics believed in the divinity of Christ but then in the year 2025 they actually defined it as a dogma just to say yep we really do believe this thing same thing happened with papal infallibility Catholics I've always believed hope is infallible the council just defined what Catholics had always believed but there were some people in the church at the time who were not happy with that definition so they decided to go off and start their own church and they took the in felicitous name old Catholic and I say in felicitous cuz they're neither old nor Catholic they're actually fairly modern and having broken away from the Catholic Church they're not Catholic okay is that helpful for you Dolores okay so when they say that you can come and take communion at units you're not Catholic you're baptized you can still take communion well you it I wouldn't do it if I were you because this is not the Catholic Church and it's not the church that Christ founded and they're not in union with the Catholic Church and so I mean I would I would never advise somebody to go to the old Catholic Church whether to receive Communion or any other sacraments or rites I would not advise anybody to go anywhere but the church where Christ told us to go which is the church that he founded that's endeared for 2,000 years which is the Catholic Church so I would I would certainly not recommend that you do that Dolores thanks so much for your call here now is Joe right here in Birmingham checking us out today on YouTube hello Joe what's on your mind today hello Tom hello David maybe you recognize my voice the call screener surely did oh yes I want to grow when I grow up I want to be like you when I grow up I want to be like you Joe can if we're pitching in on the mutual admiration society I know Joe and I think finest people I've ever met my indeed he is indeed like to say if some people and Joe is one of them I talk about the Catholic faith but Joe lives it he does 24 so see how it's done just look at Joe what's shaking Joe here's my question the other night I was comparing scriptures with my family of the douay-rheims version and the Revised Standard Version and there's it's quite different things in there that I wanted to ask about for instance the 23rd psalm it says that has been known to my head with all in my chalice which inebriated me and in the Revised Standard of course it says as we usually know that I'll notice my head with all my cup overflows now to me my chalice inebriates me and my cup overflows are two completely different ideas and it just made me wonder are there things in the older version like to do a Reims that we're missing in this in the new newer versions of translation sure sure I appreciate it so it's not just a problem of translation it's not just a difference of translation it's actually a difference of underlying manuscripts so we don't actually have no one possesses the the papyrus on which David wrote the psalm we don't have the papyrus on which Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians for example the technical term for those are the original autographs we don't actually possess the original autographs but Paul would write a letter he would pass it out to the churches then the churches would take that letter they'd copy it down they'd make copies they'd send it to the next church and on the thing would go and it would spread you know by hand copying from church to church to church now over the centuries obviously many of those manuscripts would disintegrate and fall away and and then you know what we had copies of copies of copies and they would keep you know spreading throughout the ancient world now when it comes to the Old Testament texts one of the reasons that people got so excited so jazzed about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was because here in jars of clay buried annek lake cave in the desert there were texts of the Old Testament that were the oldest texts that anybody had ever seen so prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls I don't think we had an actual physical piece of papyrus or paper or vellum was older than say about the 11th century AD and so we you know the text had been passed down generation after generation but you make a copy the old one disintegrates she make a new copy the old one disintegrates and scholars were very keen to find out well hey how good are these 11th century texts if we can compare them to something that's a thousand years older and what they found was they were pretty good they were pretty good there were some differences and and you know you you know the old game where you whisper in one guy's ear and he turns to the guy next to him when it gets back around the table the message gets a little bit garble oh yeah the same thing can happen with text so a scribe is writing and then he makes a spelling error and then somebody else includes that spelling error and somebody else tries to correct the spelling error before long you know you might have a different word in this manuscript versus that one and the scholars who study the transmission of manuscripts as opposed to the verbage within them they're called textual scholars and they've identified different families because you know very small variants would enter into a tradition of transmission and it looked one way in the east and looked at slightly different way maybe in the Syriac or Aramaic speaking countries little bit different in the West and so some of the differences that you find between modern translations of the Bible depend on what are the underlying manuscript traditions on which those texts are based and the the Douay Rheims is unapologetically a translation of the latin vulgate version of the bible the latin vulgate is comes down through the the latin manuscript textual tradition the RSV is a revision of the authorized version of the King James which is based on the Byzantine family of manuscripts there are other modern Bible translations that are based on what are called critical texts which are scholars comparing across manuscript traditions and trying to reason their way back to what the original autograph likely said and all of this kind of information is usually given in the preffer tori material missus not inspired information but if you pick up your typical Bible open it up there's a page or two at the beginning of apparatus and and preparatory remarks by the editors that explain translation philosophies which manuscripts were used and why these kinds of considerations so a lot of these kinds of differences that you're picking up are actually have to do with what are the underlying manuscripts from which the translation is made rather than simply differences of translation philosophy right I hope that's helpful for you Joe thank you so much for your call here's a little note here for our earlier caller Dolores checking in from Tennessee who was kind of looking around for a Catholic Church near her one of the good assets you may want to check out is something called mass times dot o-r-g mass times a dot org you can go there either type in your zip code or put in your look you know turn on your location services and it'll tell you where there is a Catholic Church close to you and here's a question now from Jay checking us out on youtube our Catholics still allowed to believe in a young earth I am reading st. Augusta at st. Augustine's City of God and he argues for a young earth and to submissives the long ages as false what do you think um thanks thank you I appreciate the question so you and I are not reading the same st. Agustin all right now I think San Agustin is quite instructive because Agustin offers several different interpretations of the first eleven chapters of Genesis throughout his long career but in all of them he proposes that these are allegories for spiritual truths and so for instance in book 13 of the confession san agustin actually suggests that the creation narrative is an allegory for God's establishment of the church which not evident to me at all from the sacred text and I'm not gonna argue the point yea or nay I'm just pulling that out as an illustration to show you how how creatively Agustin deals with these texts he also Agustin is a theologian who who first articulates this idea of seminal creation where God may have created an individual species but he sort of seen them throughout the created order to kind of pop up progressively over time he found no necessity the idea that every species on the planet be created exactly at the same moment come into existence at the same moment he was had a far more progressive view unfolding view of the nature of of God's creation and and in fact one of the things that kept saying agustin out of the church for a long time was his misunderstanding about the relationship of faith to reason and of genesis to the deliverance of natural science and Agustin thought that he couldn't reconcile Genesis with natural science and for that reason he stayed out of the church and was only when Saint Anselm not Anselm Ambrose sorry when st. Ambrose introduced him to the allegorical method that Agustin found another way to think about the relation of the text to to scientific data and then the reconciliation of faith and reason are you allowed to believe in a young earth well if you think that the the best scientific and theological data suggests that the earth is ten thousand years old and that's that's your judgment based on evidence you're you're permitted to hold that means no dogma of the church that would prevent you from doing that it's not a dogma that the earth is old I don't know any Catholic theologian of renown today that holds that opinion all right I mean there are not there are isolated Catholics that do believe that but the vast majority of Catholics in institutions of higher learning or even that are held forth as exemplars by Catholic authorities like the USCCB and such an individual as pope john paul ii for instance did not hold that and you know i think you're in pretty good company holding with the Pope he's pretty decent authority on matters of Catholic theology now I did not believe in a young earth like that so you certainly don't you certainly shouldn't reason simply from a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible to the doctrine of a young earth and then and then assume that that's what God's revealed because it's a do so would be to radically misconstrue the way in which Catholics understand biblical Authority and it would radically misconstrue the way Catholics understand the relationship of Scripture to natural science all truth is God's truth and if there's good empirical evidence that the earth is very old the way of Catholic theology is to seek a way to reconcile that empirical evidence with the data of theology not to simply discount the empirical evidence because of a fundamentalist view of the Bible okay very good I wish we had time for one more email question but we're kind of in that sweet spot where there's just not enough time and here comes the music so we're gonna have to leave that one there we got on all of our phone calls which is fantastic sometimes we have to leave one or two on the on the table I hate to do that but today was a fantastic day dr. David Andrews thank you my friend thanks Tom we do the show each and every Monday through Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern here on EWTN radio and we also encore that program for you at 11:00 p.m. Eastern so if you missed part of the show or all the show you can always check out the encore you can also go online EWTN radio dotnet and listen to any of our podcasts of previous shows and of course we also bring you a best of call to communion each and every sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on behalf of our fantastic team behind the glass Michael Burchfield Ryan Penney and Jeff Burton i'm tom price along with dr. david andrews thanks for joining us this time around we'll see you next time here on EWTN s called to Communion god bless [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 1,719

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: Xejsx0mBReM

Length: 54min 8sec (3248 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 14 2019