CALLED TO COMMUNION - Dr. David Anders - January 23, 2020

wtn news.com I'm Teresa Tomeo and call to communion with dr. Dave and Anders starts now 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 salvation one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six why do I need to confess my sins to a pre what's stopping you this is called to communion with dr. David Anders over on the EWTN global Catholic radio network I had to laugh I'm sorry I'm sorry welcome again to call to communion here on EWTN I had to laugh because their producer Charles berry I was I was lamenting the fact that we didn't have a pen and as the intro was playing he threw a pen at me this is like a workplace thing I need the need to work on anyway this is a program for our non Catholic brothers and says really funny thing was the way it sailed right past you and smashed into the wall on the other side of the studio that was fun and your dive okay so what is this program this program is not all about pens or Charles or anything else this program is for you if you're a non Catholic listener to our program or to EWTN we know that non Catholics have a lot of questions about Catholicism and that's why we are here to answer those questions so 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 listening to us outside North America please 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 of course you can email us anytime CTC at ewtn.com the aeronautical Charles berry is our producer we also have Ryan Penney handling the phones today and Jeff Burton is on social media so if you want to pose a question via YouTube or Facebook we are streaming there right now I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders hey Tom how are you well I'm great I'm glad that you got out of the way too oh yeah yeah that was a good thing so as we're getting some of these calls screened they are coming in right now eight three three two eight eight EWTN here's an email that we received from Matt I came across an Episcopal Church in the quote anglo-catholic traditional tradition they have masses and they say the rosary now is this a true Catholic Church or just a denomination that uses elements of Catholic tradition thanks Matt thanks Matt it would be the latter it's a denomination that uses elements of the Catholic tradition okay so as you know Anglicanism is what happened when Henry the eighth decided that he would remove the church in his domain from obedience to the Pope and he declared himself to be head of the church and and maybe he didn't really want to throw out all of Catholic doctrine except the part where the Pope was the head he sort of wanted to call the shots in England and because the church that he then terrorized had validly ordained priests and bishops the ones that he inherited from their Catholic antecedents would have had valid sacraments now after after Henry the eighth died his son Edward came on board missed the air and there was a lot more changes to the Church of England after Edward came to the throne and the the Edward dine ordinal which is the ritual for the ordination of bishops was in was a invalid inform and so the the bishops that were ordained using the Edwardian ordinal were not valid bishops they were not valid bishops they didn't have an apostolic succession and and so the Church of England had been in sysm had broken away from Rome but at that point they ceased to have valid orders and valid sacraments invalid priests all right and they just became another Protestant denomination okay but in their own self understanding and their own sort of apologetic they wanted to make out like they were fundamentally different from other Protestant groups and and there was an ideology that emerged especially in the 17th century and that had big sort of resurgence in the 19th trying to claim that Anglicanism really did have valid sacraments and orders and was sort of connected to Christian antiquity and his theory emerged false theory that Anglicanism was you know kind of a branch of apostolic Christianity along with Catholics and Orthodox a lot of problems with that theory the one I already stated which is that they don't have Allen sacraments invalid priests and bishops but also the other two so-called branches neither one of them bought into that theory a weak point and but those who took that part of the Anglican apologetic very very seriously and really wanted to kind of weigh in on the claim to apostolic succession and valid orders and all that tend to be more Catholic in appearance and they definitely make use of Catholic verbage and they talk about the mass and the rosary of the Blessed Virgin and but you know but they but they don't acknowledge obedience to the Pope but because they lack those valid sacraments they are in effect just another Protestant domination even though they don't see themselves that way alright very good here's one now from an anonymous listener who says I am a Protestant our Lord condemned the use of force especially lethal force in self-defense from an aggressor to prove my point just look at Christ's words regarding retaliation in Matthew's Gospel as well as his example in submitting to his executioner's furthermore the early church fathers were all pacifists condemning just war and self-defense so it's hard to see how this could be wrong okay thanks so I don't disagree with you in the slightest that our Lord condemned violence even in the interests of self-defense the question is what do we do with that teaching now or do we undo we too take the our Lord's words as a kind of universal human ethic applicable at every level of civil society and every circumstance or is this kind of the ethic of a disciple you know following the counsels of perfection and that that that's not evident necessarily from the text alone I mean and there are similar things in the gospel we have to kind of take within a context when Jesus says I didn't come to bring peace but a sword and to turn a man against the members of his own household and husband against wife and children and his father well are we supposed to take that as a universal ethic applicable at all times in all circumstances if we're going to be disciples of Jesus we have to take up our swords and you run away from our families I think not I think not and the the larger context of the New Testament makes clear that the Apostles understood that there was a role in civil society for those that bear the sword and and Paul actually book romans admonishes Christians to pay their taxes and pay honor and reverence to those that bear the sword for the sake of the common good and and the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount is is the kind of interior righteousness to which all Christians are called but but cannot necessarily form the basis for the the common civil law of a society where not everybody's Christian that's true well we thank you so much for both of those emails if you'd like to send us an email for a future show the address ctc at ewtn.com looks like we've got two jerry standing by in Pullman Washington and three lines available for you at eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six in the story of the prodigal son the wayward son who came home didn't just kind of blow it he had become a total absolute mess of a human being he wasn't just partying he had taken his dad's hard-earned money his inheritance and he squandered it on prostitutes he really was a complete mess and I don't think he came home because he was deeply sorry he came home primarily because he was really hungry but that was enough for the father to run to him put the finest robe on him a symbol of royalty put a ring on his finger a sign that you have authority in the family and sandals on his feet because a slave was barefoot but his son wore shoes guys when we come home to our Heavenly Father me feel like a total mess sometimes how does he love us like the father loved the prodigal son just go to him because you're hungry for real food that's enough that's where the spiritual life begins in all our messiness send us a message that connected real-life Catholic calm this is Krista fanuc on ewtn radio he was a Pope a saint and a doctor of the church Matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church popes in Gregory the first the great is one of only four popes honored as the great among his many achievements was sending missionaries across northern Europe especially Saint Augustine of Canterbury who brought Christ to the people of England in a Punnett for Gregory called the English people angels he died in 604 for more about the doctors of the church visit doctors of the church dot-com a [Music] nobody brings you more pro-life events and broadcasting than EWTN and to prove that we'll be bringing you this evening the opening mass of the national prayer vigil for life that'll come to you live from the Basilica of the shrine of the neck the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC so check it out today 5:30 p.m. on Eastern on EWTN television and on EWTN radio classics 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on EWTN TV and on also on radio classics which you can get on the EWTN app by the way all right if you're ready now let's go to the phones at eight three three two eight eight EWTN here is Jerry in Pullman Washington listening on Sacred Heart Radio a first-time caller hey Jerry what's on your mind today hello doctors it's a thank you I'm a relatively long time listener and I just not Catholic and kind of raised up with a distrust I'm dislike of Catholics you explained a lot of like I believe immense immense welcoming and give me a great deal of respect for the group well I appreciate that I absolutely I would like to ask about I myself am NOT biblical literalist so I believe that everything that is said in the Bible is literally true and so I'm trying to ask about creation about how long it's been since creation what the Catholic teaches and also what is usually believed within an average Church okay thanks I really appreciate the question so first of all when we talk about the literal sense of the Bible the Catholic Church believes in the literal sense of the Bible but by literal we mean the the intent of the author okay what is it that the author means to convey through the this historical written text paper and and that's the foundation for biblical interpretation now the the significance of the text of the Bible is greater than the literal sense understood in that way because it stands within the context of a Canon it's part of an ongoing stowing story of the people of God and and so its meaning and significance for us is even greater than that there's a there's a spiritual application to that literal sense that can encompass our moral lives that can orient us towards our interpretation of our our expectation of future glory and that points ultimately to Christ and that be the allegorical sense that we find in the Old Testament two elements of Jesus's life and and in ministry and and Messiahship typify Din passages of the Old Testament so all these senses come into play as a Catholic reads the sacred text okay but that first level that literal level what does that mean as applied to the texts of the book of Genesis and Catholic thinkers all the way back into the second century have taken the point of view that the book of Genesis is not there to give us a detailed description of cosmology geology and an early human anthropology write it that with asking the kind of questions that say an anthropology department would ask and and and belief to the contrary has been a stumbling block for people to become Christian long before the discovery of modern geology or or the theory of biological evolution so san agustin for example in the fourth century stayed away from the catholic church for a while because he viewed the book of Genesis as irreconcilable with the the best natural science of his day in the fourth century that's not a new problem right and and what brought him to the Catholic faith ultimately was his encounter with ambrose of milan and his understanding that well you read and bible the wrong way that's not that's not actually what the literal sense conveys right this is a sort of genre and by myth I don't mean something untrue I mean a story that that answers spiritual and cosmological questions but in a kind of metaphorical light about humanity's a relationship to God and the origin of freewill and evil and human destiny and these sorts of things those are the questions under consideration and and under the allegorical sense st. Agustin even claims to find in the book of Genesis teaching prophecies about Christ's foundation institution of the church and things of this nature so in other words he wrote a book one time called on the literal meaning of Genesis on the literal meaning of Genesis and if you read on the literal meaning of Genesis it's quite clear that what he means by literal is something very very different than what say a modern fundamentalist Protestant would mean by literal now what does that mean about our view of seventh day creationism or the age of the earth that sort of thing well you're gonna find differences in opinion among Catholics and there's no there's no dogmatic declaration by the church that you have to hold this about the age of the earth there are some principles that we bring to bear one of them is the thesis of the unity of Reason so so that if for example there is good scientific evidence from carbon dating or geology or what-have-you right for for a dating of the Earth's history and and there's nothing in Scripture that properly understood contradicts that then I'm gonna go where the evidence leads and since the preponderance of Natural Science the overwhelming preponderance of Natural Science tends to view a very old earth very much at odds with conclusions of say seventh day creationism I would say the majority of Catholics both theologians lay scientists and otherwise we're going to tend to go with that scientific consensus and and don't see that that poses any particular problems for their Catholic faith and that's clearly my point of view there are Catholics individual Catholics who hold a different point of view who you would hold something more like a fundamentalist Protestant interpretation and that's an allowable within sort of the orbit of opinion that's you know within the Catholic faith and why would the church why would the church allow there to be differences of opinion on something like that right well because in the in the judgment of the Magisterium that question to date has not one way or the other really threatened the core dogmas of the Catholic faith right those are what the existence of God the triune God the Incarnation virgin birth of the Son of God is resurrection eating his Paschal mystery death for our sons and satisfaction foundation of the church and the sacraments the moral life these kinds of things really aren't in they're not at risk wherever you come on that wherever you stand on that so we bring those principles of the unity of reason proper interpretation of Scripture and openness to the deliverances of natural science that's the way we do our thinking very good and we thank you so much for your call Jerry and glad that you're enjoying the program thanks for your kind words that opens up a line for you right now at eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six on this Thursday afternoon edition of call to communion here on EWTN let's go to Nick now in Toronto listening on Sirius XM 130 also a first-time caller hey Nick what's on your mind today hey how you doing today howdy hi okay so kind of what's come up between my wife I so I'm Roman Catholic and I believe in Jesus and I believe in the resurrection and we talked about how when we die I'm looking to life that don't be what going up to heaven and my wife is a Christian as well too but she doesn't believe that when she dies she's going to be going to heaven she was there waiting for I'd see her I'm kind of confused for Jesus to TOCOM oh we're waiting for something else so I guess I have a two-fold question one is as a Roman Catholic what is it kind of state by the book and versus what my wife is saying is that even true being a different branch of Christianity that's gonna be such a separation within following Christ yeah thanks I appreciate the question so first of all let's talk about what the Catholic Church actually teaches about our personal eschatology our in personal i'm destinee and what the church says following Sacred Scripture is that when we die the immortal soul can either enter the beatific vision with God can go to purgatory or hell but that's not the end of the story that's not the end of the story because at the second coming of Christ the dead in Christ will be raised in their bodies and this is why we say in the Creed I believe in the resurrection of the Dead we mean resurrection even as Christ he didn't just rise from the dead spiritually it wasn't like his soul left his body and went up to heaven and he left the body in the tomb in Jerusalem no if you go to the tomb in Jerusalem you can stick your head in he ain't there right because he got up in the flesh and walked out and ascended into heaven in bodily form and he has the firstfruits of the resurrection so the the Christ's bodily resurrection is the pattern and type of our bodily resurrection after him so at the end of time when Jesus comes back the souls of the dead will be reunited with those bodies and receive in their flesh the just desserts of the deeds that they did in the body whether eternal life or eternal punishment so there is an intermediate state a disembodied intermediate state but there's also a bodily resurrection at the end of time and because of this emphasis on sometimes Bible uses the metaphor of sleep to talk about death there's this language about the you know those who sleep in the dust shall rise there are some Christian groups who that's all they focus on and they think well there must be nothing except kind of a you know an unconsciousness maybe sort of sleep between now and the end of time then you get resurrected but there's no you know nothing going on in the meanwhile that's a false view that's a false view psycho panicky at the doctrine of soul sleep seventh-day Adventists hold that position there but others some anabaptists in the 16th century held that and other groups have held that but the church has ruled that incorrect and their passages of scripture that teach that there is a conscious existence of the souls of the just after death think for example of Matthew chapter 17 where Moses and Elijah appear consciously with Christ to the Mount of Transfiguration aren't sleeping in the dust you know there they were st. Paul's like Corinthians 5 talks about being absent from the body but present with the Lord second Maccabees chapter 15 we see Jeremiah the Prophet who's hanging out in in heaven he's praying for the church on earth and so the souls of the just in Revelation chapter 5 who long to be clothed right there anticipating the bodily resurrection but yet they still have conscious existence as they wait for for that second coming now your question was you know also not only about the doctrine of personal eschatology but what does that mean for for different Christian groups and and and their coherence well you know outside the Catholic faith there is no principled way for Christian groups to settle doctrinal disputes they can't just appeal to the Bible because they come up with divergent interpretations it's not an objective standard that can actually sub but they're mostly disputes about the Bible so you can't point to the Bible to settle a dispute about the meaning of the Bible that's why Christ didn't leave us with the Bible alone but he gave us an objective teaching authority to have to have one voice that could settle those disputes and give us certainty in our act of faith and divine revelation but if someone holds a different point of view from Catholic teaching it doesn't mean that they're cut off from grace or from Redemption it just means they hold an erroneous view it may or may not be an obstacle to them depending on how remote it is from the hierarchy of truths and we work for reconciliation and union and good faith and goodwill and friendship but we don't despair of anybody's salvation we have hope for all people because God desires all to be safe and come to a knowledge of the truth Nick thank you so much for your call it's called a communion here on EWTN glad you're with us on this a Thursday afternoon got a call from mr. Medina in New York City on the EWTN app who wants to know what is the meaning of Jesus as saying turn the other cheek what is Jesus talking about there right well literally what he says if someone hits you on the you know left cheek you turn the other to him also meaning don't strike back don't retaliate and if someone asks you to go within one mile forces you to go one you go - right and remember the the in the Beatitudes Christ says blessed all the meek blessed are the meek right well meekness is the refusal to use violence to achieve your ends you're not you're not going to try to force or compel other people but you love them in charity and that is the Christian ideal Christ Himself exemplified that when he went to his own death by martyrdom Jesus didn't have to die the cross he could have walked away he could have flowed up in heaven he could have called down legions of angels he could've done any number of things but he willingly surrendered himself to the hands of ungodly men for the sake of the redemption of the world and that's the perfection of charity and we see that exemplified all the time in the lives of the saints think about st. Maximilian Kolbe who when he was in the Nazi prison camp in the in the concentration camp voluntarily stepped forward and said I'll take the penalty yes I'll let myself be killed so this other guy can go off scot-free that was that was heroic biblical meekness right unbelievable and and they're instances of that kind of meekness Ignatius of Antioch in the second century he's on his way to the arena to be eaten by lions and he's like lay on the mustard buddy bring it on let's go let's go now does that mean that you know say somebody breaks into your house and threatens your wife and your children does that mean you can't you know say you're packing some heat you can't pull that out and say buddy get out of my house or you're gonna be in for it no you can defend yourself you can defend yourself and but when it comes to you know living maybe your but let's say after you saved your wife and kids you get in a conflict in your home all right well meekness says I'm not gonna bring that to bear you know in love I'm gonna you know sometimes I'm gonna let myself be wronged hmm you know not not if somebody else's welfare is at stake not if the civil order is at stake yes I'll bear the sword for the sake of the common good but when it comes to my own advantage right I'll be willing to be wronged rather than to violate charity okay mr. Medina we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for calling and listening to us on the e/wd an app if you don't have that on your smartphone I would certainly recommend it it's on mine I consult it every day it is a free download no charge at all I just go to EWTN apps comm to find out more about that EWTN apps comm in a moment we'll be talking with Kevin in Ottawa Ontario listening on Sirius XM 130 also Mary in Kansas City listening on the great Catholic radio network and Tim in Alberta Canada also listening on Sirius 130 we've got two lines open for you right now if you have a question for dr. David Anders I'd recommend grabbing that phone line right away because they do fill up very quickly as you probably know by now eight three three two eight eight EWTN is our phone number if you have a question for dr. Dan David Andrews all about the Catholic faith eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six it is called to communion on this Thursday afternoon here on EWTN the global Catholic Network do stay with us [Music] Teresa Tomeo it's our goal to help each and every listener take this beautiful faith of ours out into the public square with great ideas on making a difference through engaging the culture the leading Catholic voices are on EWTN radio the 20/20 calendar from the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament is here this special edition captures the essence of the daily life of the Poor Clare nuns of Perpetual Adoration inside you will find beautiful imagery of the shrine and the many celebrations that take place season after season you can also pray the novenas the sisters pray and follow the liturgical year the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament 2020 calendar order yours today at ewtn our c-calm [Music] this is Mike and Alicia Hernan with a messy family minute my mother raised ten children and now she has over 45 grandchildren all over the country that's a lot of marriages children and relationships to be worried about but she's adopted a wise saying that we will give to you worrying is against my religion kids are absolutely unpredictable and the media tends to fill our minds with the latest crisis concerns for our kids is good because we want to protect them but we have to recognize that there are things we cannot control those things belong to God when we take responsibility from God for things that we can't control and that causes worry in Matthew 6 our Lord says to us very clearly that he knows all of our needs and he does not want us to worry about tomorrow he doesn't promise us an easy life of rainbows and sunshine but he does say he will always be with us no matter what difficulties we may encounter for more encouragement and insight visit us at messy family minute org I'm Jerry a sure and I'm Debbie Georgie honey join us for take two with Jerry and Debbie at noon eastern with an encore at midnight Eastern now back to more of call to Communion [Music] glad you with us here on call to communion here on EWTN our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six here now is Kevin in Ottawa Ontario listening on Sirius XM 130 hey Kevin what's on your mind today hey thank you for taking my call up really quickly before I get to my point the other caller and I just flashed in my mind when you said we'll be resurrected in the body and then you also said Jesus was in Lazarus the first to be resurrected and then also what kind of are we going to have like Pope John Paul the second is you're gonna be history your body is for your body are we going to be huh if we live to be 90 are we going to go around all the tourney with an older body or and what about little babies are they going to then develop the body but 20 year old and then quickly to my own why I called in is I donate you say if the Bible is true or your religion is true where in the modern miracles I mean there's host ISM and a you know and only one I could think the most modern one that's provable was the spinning of the suns and Fatima but even that was a hundred years ago and how do you answer that because if there was a miracle but everybody saw it would be on CNN he'll be on Fox News what's that what's going on but we haven't had any supernatural events that that even a theist would look up and say what was that about because Fatima today would have probably been recorded with somebody's cell phone or um and I'll just take your comments off there okay yeah think so yes to the question about the resurrection so lots of people were revivified in the old and new testament prior to the resurrection of Jesus meaning they you know they they died and their their body was was brought back to consciousness again regained human life that's fundamentally different from what happened to Christ on on Easter Sunday he didn't just he didn't just come back to consciousness but he he came back in a glorified body that was it was physical right it was tangible you could touch it he could eat he could drink you know you could you could put your hands on him he took up space had you know physical extension and yet it was not it was not bound by the laws of physics in the way that our bodies our now he could pass through walls he could be seen or not seen he could ascend into heaven and in first Corinthians 15 that's the passage of the New Testament where Paul talks about the relationship of Christ's resurrected body to our resurrected bodies and he he uses this analogy he says we'll have flesh we'll have flesh but flesh is of different kinds and you know fish have one kind of flesh and mammals have another kind of flesh and reptiles have another kind of flesh he says in the same way there will be a difference in kind between our bodies at present and the resurrected body which will be bodies after the likeness of Christ resurrected body will have these supernatural abilities it'll never die it will never age we don't necessarily need to eat you know we'll have we'll have perfect control of our faculties our passions we'll be under the control of our reason I mean there's all kinds of sort of ancillary benefits that come along with the resurrected body Lazarus did not enjoy those benefits he didn't have that kind of a body in the body that he was raised with died again otherwise he'd still be walking around we'd be talking to Lazarus he'd be on this show he died all right the bodies will inherit the resurrection we'll never die when it comes to the claim of contemporary miracles so so you know if I were if if I were having conversation with an atheist and I'm making an apology for the truth of the Catholic faith I'm probably not gonna start with the question of contemporary miracles but the question of the existence of God as the first calls and and and the reality of the moral life and and the nobility of God the moral truths and the witness of the Catholic faith down through history and the miracles that are very publicly evident to the whole world like the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy these kinds of things the motives of credibility now as part of that apologetic I will point to both contemporary and historical miracles most important one of course is the the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as an historical witnessed event I will look at the miracles of the Saints but I'll also look to contemporary miracles as well know that you say are there any contemporary miracles is jobs of contemporary American dreams of contemporary miracles every canonization of a saint in the world today requires the confirmation of miracles and they're almost always medical miracles somebody's been healed of an affliction that it has no medical explanation whatsoever at all yeah we've got we got miracles coming out of our eyes ears nose you know I mean they're everywhere now you know are they sufficient to compel the intellect to believe no no not actually the act of faith can be confirmed by by motives of credibility by miracles by reasons my argument all right but but ultimately is a supernatural act and it requires the gift of faith along with confirming evidence and Jesus suffered the same problem he was running on cast out demons healing the sick did the Pharisees believe no they said you do this by Beelzebub the Prince the demons you know so you know you you can't compel the will to believe in spite of the evidence and those analogies to this in human experience as well so you know you take a trustworthy person who's trustworthiness is demonstrated by evidence and the reasonable thing is to trust them but some people don't want to trust them because they may have a they have a they have an agenda right and it would cost them to trust a trustworthy person so they refuse to acknowledge the evidence same thing can happen today all right and we thank you so much for your call Kevin hope that's a helpful for you it's called a communion here on EWTN let's go now to Mary in Kansas City where everything is up-to-date listening on the catholic radio network mary what's on your mind today well my daughter in her fiance started a pre-cana class because they're getting married he's not Catholic and he questioned had a good question asking why is the god of the Old Testament different from the god of the New Testament why did God change his mind and become merciful when the god of the Old Testament seemed so van and you know full of fury and I wanted to get your answer yeah thanks so I'm having a real hard time agreeing with the premise of the question the premise is why is the god of the Old Testament different from the god of the new I I don't see this difference of which we are speaking I don't see it and it's it's not just because I find a merciful God in the Old Testament that's not just I do I do find a merciful God in the Old Testament is also because I find a God of judgment and holiness in the New Testament Matthew 11 21 Jesus says woe to you Korra's een woe to you bethsaida for if the miracles that have been performed in you had been performed and tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in in sackcloth and ashes and it is going to go worse for you than for them ouch now I don't I'm I'm trying I mean Jesus explicitly goes to the example this is like the paradigm example of literal fire and brimstone yeah God rains down on Sodom and Jesus says you ain't seen nothing yet boys and Matthew 24 Jesus the disciples say how about this temple in Jerusalem that's the stuff right Jesus nope it's all gonna be torn down not one stone left on another they say when's that will happen he says you gonna see Jerusalem surrounded by armies and when it does you better run for the hills because it'll be suffering unparalleled from the beginning of the world and that's what and that in fact happened in 70 AD when the Romans sacked Jerusalem yep and and you know st. Paul and Thessalonians pondus talks about the second coming of the Lord when with the shout in the Archangel you know Lord will be revealed in blazing fire and will pay out to the wicked what they deserve so I'm I'm having a hard time saying that there's this big difference now the god of the Old Testament is the one who said in the last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and I will give you a new covenant not written on stone but on human hearts and I'll put my law in your mind and write it on her heart so that all will love me from the least of them to the greatest right and the of course the Psalms are filled with with affirmation after affirmation after me affirmation of the love and goodness and mercy and and and and for in the pardoning of God Psalm 51 it's kind of the paradigm case of this where David who's just done terrible things says take not your Holy Spirit from me renew within me a right spirit wash me of my sins and then I'll offer sacrifices on your altar and that's exactly what God does he extends his forgiving mercy to David who is both the type of Christ but also a type of every penitent believer the the foundation of the whole biblical narrative is God's merciful judgment on Adam and Eve when they sin they suffer the consequences but immediately God makes provision for them and a promise of salvation okay we thank you so much for your call Mary hope that's helpful for you it is called a communion here on EWTN let's go to another Canadian call got a lot of calls from Canada today this is Tim in Clan Donald Alberta Canada listening on sirius XM channel 130 hey Tim what's on your mind today okay I'd like to be able to respond to a friend of mine he says that when he just came to the earth he voluntarily suspended his divinity and he had to discover that he was God's Son he wasn't able to know the future etc okay yeah thanks I appreciate the question that of course radically contradicts Catholic dogma Jesus knew always from eternity who he was his divine identity and it would not have been possible for Christ to be ignorant of himself in that way because Christ had two natures perfectly United in his person the divine in the human and of course Christ's divine nature is absolutely omniscient and it's not like it's not like some people have imagined as a ancient heretic named Nestorian who had this idea that you know Christ was like two Lego bricks you have the divine lego brick and the human Lego brick and they're stuck together but you know you could you could theoretically separate them and and you put a piece of cellophane between them and still stick them together and so there's really two different things that are sort of accidentally united that's not the way it is that's not the that's not the dogma of the Catholic faith there is a single person single person who happens to have two natures right not two people stuck together but one person with two nature's and and so so we can we can predicate all of the attributes of divinity of his person we can also predicate all the attributes of humanity of his person they're both perfectly applicable in Christ always knew who he was now if you want some scriptural confirmation of this think about all of the I know I know I know statements especially in the Gospel of John right I know who I am my father knows me I know the father I have come down from heaven to do the Father's will before Abraham was born I am I mean Jesus the self understanding expressed over and over and over again in the Gospel of John is of one for every United and divinity with a father alright and Tim we thank you so much for your call hope that's helpful for you as well call to Communion in progress here on EWTN we've got wonderful wonderful pro-life coverage coming up for you as we mentioned earlier in the hour we'll be carrying the opening mass of the national prayer vigil for life from Washington DC today on EWTN radio classics tomorrow of course the very big event our live coverage of the national March for Life live from Washington DC in fact Teresa Tomeo is there right now she is in DC getting getting things ready for our live broadcast it'll be at Teresa Tomeo and Damon Owens anchoring things for us beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern on EWTN television and radio and what a great theme they have cooked up this year David Lyfe in power pro-life is pro-woman great thing it really really is so be sure to tune in tomorrow morning live 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on EWTN TV and radio back to the phones right now for penny in Crawfordsville Indiana listening on Catholic radio in DC's a first-time caller hey penny what's on your mind today hi well I kind of haven't I may be an odd question maybe not so dr. Dee was talking earlier about Jesus said to turn the other cheek because he would rather be wounded than you know to go against charity and so we have we have five children and our second two the oldest is 23 and Catholic education all the way homeschool them Catholic University knows that and deliver it done it all but he now is just in that phase and he's where he would use that and he has used that same beatitude that would say you know if you really cared about me then you would keep doing X Y & Z I mean he's a bomb he just wants us to continue to carry him he doesn't want to have to make a decision and go out there and adult and so and he keeps using the Bible we keep trying to explain but do you have any suggestions because he knows it as well as we do quite frankly okay thanks I appreciate it first of all the phenomenon you have described is epidemic it is it is epidemic today and it would not have been possible in in earlier periods of American history because the the economy wouldn't have supported it but it's there's just a lot more wealth in food and housing floating around today than it you know many other periods of human history and it's possible for people to just stay stuck in adolescence and never grow up and that's fundamentally bad for them right it's very bad for your son it's very bad for our children who are stuck in this way because we don't achieve our flourishing by freeloading like it's not actually in my best interest or your best interest or his to free look right because we're made for work of a certain kind were made for activity were made to do things and and and we we grow as human beings by by engaging in practices that call us out of ourselves and force us to develop virtues and to surrender to traditions with standards of excellence and past masters and kind of repertoire of mastery and give yourself over there's something great something Noble and in otherwise we're just spinning our wheels may why are we here if we're not here to to co-create with God and to enjoy the good the true the beautiful which are always achieved with arduous work now you know that there is a kind of holy idleness that might be practiced by say the Catholic religious who vows a life of Perpetual poverty and continence for the sake of contemplation I'm getting that's not where he is right now you know and in that but even even the contemplative so the full-time contemplative is doing work of a sort his doing work of a sort right because he's he's imploring God on behalf of the church and you know I was in I was in Sioux Falls South Dakota earlier well later last year I got to visit a perpetual adoration Chapel attached to their Cathedral and and I'm sitting there watching one of the Sisters of Perpetual Perpetual Adoration on her knees and just just watching her for five minutes I started to hurt you know I'm like enough kind of nudge the guys next to me it was like you know she's not moving right but for like an hour that's tough work the real deal they're praying yes so that church at that community in that Bishop and you know she may be in took a vow of poverty to do it so if you want to if you want to freeload there's all there's a kind of holy freeloading and it's it's that kind of vocation but not sitting around and playing Nintendo you know and Gameboy nobody plays Gameboy anymore whatever they do you know um so what do you do about it what do you do about it well how about Saint Paul he who does not work will not eat yeah take that all right and penny thank you so much for your call here's Nancy who's checking in with us on Facebook today Nancy says since the Catholic Church doesn't believe that the bible is the only and ultimate authority should we just throw the Bible away or disregard it completely oh thanks I appreciate it so that's a good question they here here's an analogy you know I've got I've got cookbooks in my house yes and and I have a user's manual on how to how to use my car mm-hmm now if I'm trying to figure out how you use the radio in my car I'm not gonna get much traction if I look up the lemon meringue pie recipe and my Betty Crocker probably not does that mean I throw up Betty Crocker because it can't tell me how to use my car radio no it's very good at lemon meringue pie and I'm not gonna throw out the car radio manual because it doesn't tell me how to make a meringue pie so God gave us the Bible for a reason the st. Paul tells us what it is it's useful it's useful for edification for rebuke for training and righteousness right the Bible is an inspired record of the lives of the patriarchs the prophets the Apostles and especially of our Lord Jesus Christ the satifying is satifying right and it's supernaturally edifying it's filled with poetry with with moral exhortation with with practical wisdom with mystical knowledge and all these things are edifying so it's an ideal source for meditation prayer theological reflection and liturgical worship that's what it's for that's what it's for it's just not a comprehensive manual on everything that is to be believed or done in the Christian life that's not its function but to use it for the purposes that God gave it is a right and just thing to do Nancy thank you for your question and for checking us out today on Facebook called a communion here on EWTN a question now from Chrissy in Omaha listening on spirit Catholic radio she wants to know how to Catholics interpret the Bible differently from Protestant Christians yeah thanks so very hard to generalize about the way interpret the Bible because there are many many different Protestant groups that have very very different views on how the Bible is to be interpreted so rather than say here's Catholic versus Protestant let me just tell you about the Catholic view all right Catholics view the Bible as the inspired Word of God it is a it is a supernatural product it was produced under the guidance of the Holy Spirit but by humans by men and women in the context of the Covenant people of God and it emerged over centuries in different cultures and in different languages and because it's it's a human product prepared under divine guidance and supernatural superintendants it it shows all the evidence of human thought and language and culture and so you know the portions that were written in an Iron Age Canaan are going to be different from those that were produced in you know post-exilic Hellenistic ancient world those are gonna be different from you know yet again from the writing of the Apostles in style and content Sharyl context we take all of that into consideration as we discern the literal sense of the text that is the the intent that the author had at the moment when he put pen to paper so for example it's pretty evident that the Psalms are hymns of praise written in a particular cultic context of of ancient Judea we take that into consideration and we can use all the tools of higher criticism to do that to try to learn more and more and more about that cultural context but it's also a work of the Holy Spirit it was God super intended this process of creation of inspiration and so the text transcends its own literal meaning and those texts fall within a canonical context right they fall within the context of the of the whole which the individual authors may not have been conscious of and and takes a larger meaning from that so texts in the Old Testament that might for example immediately apply to some reference and say eighth-century Judah you are simultaneously typology z' foreshadowing fulfillment in the coming messianic age in that awareness of how texts in one context can presage or indicate fulfillment in another especially as they're fulfilled in Christ that's what we call the allegorical sense of the text that the texts also can present to us moral teaching that's the moral sense and they can orient us towards our expectation of future life right the anagogical sense and and those three senses that build on the literal are what we call the spiritual sense of the text that's the sense that has the greatest import in the life of the Christian it doesn't matter too much to me personally whether David had fifty two thousand or fifty three thousand soldiers on that day he fought Philistines like I really it's not that important to me but the spiritual sense the take away right in my own life that's that's what really matters and then we read that spiritual sense in light of the traditions of the Catholic Church because we're part of that ongoing covenant community it started with Abraham and continues until the end of time we're part of that conversation we're part of that family part of that storyline and we bring that in the guidance of the Holy Spirit today in the life of the church and in the church fathers and his history of commentary and interpretation bring all that to bear in our own lives now the most privileged use of the Bible for a Catholic is what we call lectio Divina and that is the devotional reading of the Bible to allow God's Word to speak into my life and to transform me okay Thank You Chrissy for your call and a real quick text here ironically this is from Mason who says is it necessary to quit Masonic organizations before joining the Catholic Church and can you explain why yes it is and yes I can okay you do need to quit your Masonic Lodge if you're going to become Catholic because the Catholic Church asks that you do so it's in it's part of the code of canon law that Catholics cannot belong to societies that are set up in opposition an opposition conscious opposition to the Catholic Church and her principles in in the 1917 code of Canon Law the Masonic organization was specifically named in the 83 code of canon law the specific reference to masonry has been removed but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which is the church's chief doctrinal agency says that does not change the prohibition issue caneva change of language but the substances the same still there the reason why is that masonry historically has been consciously deliberately in opposition to the influence of the Catholic Church and it's teaching in the civil order and and has actively opposed that and so we shouldn't belong to agencies that have been set up in opposition to the Catholic Church if we're gonna be Catholic that's kind of a performative contradiction there yes indeed Mason thanks so much for your text dr. David Anders a fast moving hour thank you sir next on we do the program Monday through Friday 2:00 p.m. Eastern here on EWTN radio with an encore at 11:00 p.m. Eastern and a best of show Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on behalf of Charles Barry Ryan penny and Jeff Burson I'm Tom price along with dr. David Andrews you have a wonderful day see you next time here on EWTN it's called a communion god bless [Music] this is father Larry

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 54min 12sec (3252 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020