CALLED TO COMMUNION - Dr. David Anders - June 12, 2020

visit ewtnnews.com i'm theresa tomio and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288-e ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation this is 1-833-288-3986 to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network you know for a couple of years now on fridays i've always begun the show by saying hey we made it it's friday it seems like in the year 2020 that seems a little more poignant welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if that is you and we know that there are a lot of non-catholics listening to us uh we invite you to call with your questions about the catholic faith our phone number 833-288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 and as we mentioned always on the friday shows tend to things tend to move real quickly so uh we recommend that you get those calls in early at 833.288.3986 all right if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 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 always shoot us an email ctc ewtn.com and michael mccall is producing the program today we also have jeff burson handling social media and ryan penny as usual on answering the phones and by the way jeff says hey if you want to ask a question via the comments section on youtube or facebook live you can certainly do that jeff will get that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend oh i'm hanging in there thanks big plans for the weekend i'm sure right um you know that we're somewhat restricted in the bigness of the plans that we can plan these days aren't we you know so spend time with the family do some work that's a good thing all right you know we we received an email here actually a youtube message from jordan who watches us on youtube all the time and he says you know what's stopping us from becoming a catholic well i am daily becoming even closer to crossing the tiber but i still have some theological hurdles such as how salvation works thanks jordan okay uh i'll answer that for you i'm gonna give you a really simple answer and then i'll expand it a little bit god uses the catholic church to make you a better person and then rewards you for being the better person that he has made you beautiful all right so saint augustine would say about god's grace he says you know god you crown your own gifts he gives you what you need to make you better and then rewards you for being the better person that he just made you and i said that god uses the catholic church to make you a better person and that's true how well what is the catholic church the catholic church is christ's body it's it's christ's presence on earth today and it is the repository the custodian of christ's teaching and that's critical we we need the teaching of christ christ the teacher to teach us what it means to live a truly human life we also have christ the example who shows us what it means to live a truly human life and then we have christ the the motive force christ who dies and rises again and gives himself to us in that death and resurrection through the sacraments so that we can recapitulate his death and resurrection dying to self and rising again to become new and supernatural people reborn new people born again in christ all these things communicated to us in and through the catholic church and uh and that's the sign and instrument the church itself is the sign and instrument that god intends for the salvation of the world so you come to the catholic faith except the teaching of christ the teaching about christ uh the power and love of christ present to us to the sacraments these things change us interiorly born again in grace and then we cooperate with that grace and grow daily in our participation in that grace becoming more and more like christ renewing within us the likeness and image of god saint irenaeus put it this way he said what we lost in adam we regain in christ that's a simple simple way of putting we lost in adam we're regaining christ namely to be in the likeness image of god and we we we have that experience in and through the ministry of the catholic church and that would also include the power of the prayers of the christian faithful including those that are dead so the communion of saints they're part of the catholic church communist saints comes in and helps us cooperate with this grace become these new men and women in jesus blessed virgin mary is the greatest of all the saints most imminent of the saints imminent in holiness and charity intercessory power very important part of that communion of saints that's why we invoke her daily pray the hell mary pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death when we are men we continue in that we participate in that persevere until the end and then we have the hope of salvation that's how the thing works and even after we die the church's ministrations on our behalf do not end because we continue to benefit from the prayers and offerings of the church even in death even at the holy sacrifice of the mass offered for us so that even if we are in purgatory we can still participate in the life of the cu of the christian faithful and be aided by their prayers on our way to heaven jordan thank you so much for your question thanks for watching us on youtube keep listening to call to communion and the other great programs here on ewtn and please know that we are praying for you speaking of mary we got an email from someone named mary who says my sisters say we are wrong for asking mother mary to pray for us we have tried to explain with no success please help okay you said your sisters say that we're wrong okay well do your sisters think you'd be wrong asking your mother to pray for you probably not all right and so what's the difference what's the difference between asking your mother to pray for you and asking mother mary to pray for you well the only difference i can think of i assume your mother is still around uh is that mary uh is uh still around but in a different way right that mary died potentially maybe she didn't uh she might have just been assumed without without dying i don't know that's kind of an open question but she's not here anymore not physically on planet earth that seems to be the operative difference so if you can ask mama to pray for you call her up on the phone pick up the cell phone say mom pray for me why can't you do that with mary why can't you ask your mother in heaven to pray for you why not why not scripture says that the saints in heaven pray for us says they do right and they're part of the church and christians have been doing this in the bible and throughout all of time in history because god wants us to come to salvation through the prayers of our fellow christians mary thanks for your email hope that's helpful in a moment we'll be talking with jack in st louis stephen in austin texas and lots more on this special friday edition of call to communion here on ewtn to stay with us coming up later today on cresta in the afternoon june 14th is the anniversary of gk chesterton's death he once wrote that thinking means connecting things and his ideas are not only connected to each other they are also connected to us chesterton connects us to the big picture by helping us see how the many and varied elements within our experience fit together dale alquest joins us cresta in the afternoon 4 pm eastern on ewtn radio this sunday we celebrate the gift our lord gave us when he instituted the eucharist join the franciscan missionaries of the eternal word as christ in the most holy body and blood is honored and venerated ewtn takes you to hanceville alabama for the solemnity of corpus christi mass and procession from the shrine of the most blessed sacrament here on the global catholic network ewtn the wisdom of mother angelica the prayers of the elderly are powerful why because you learn in old age to depend upon god there's no one else because you are still made to the image and likeness of god no matter how old you are you're valuable to god don't let anybody tell you you're not for more information on mother angelica visit religious catalog at ewtnrc.com [Music] love the holy sacrifice of the mass that's why we broadcast it every day here on ewtn at a.m eastern time on radio and television and by the way you can pick up the encore of that same mass every two hours beginning at 10 a.m eastern on our new service ewtn radio essentials we'll tell you more about that later on in the hour first if you're ready let's get to the phones right now at 833 288 ewtn here is jack in st louis listening on covenant radio hey jack happy friday what's on your mind today happy friday to you guys uh dr andrews i i you you answered a question yesterday i can't remember the question in the context but your answer was well that would be tantamount to me holding a gun to someone's head and saying love me and uh it occurred to me and tom obviously agreed that that's a was an absurd thing to do but it occurred to me it's a question i've thought of how is that philosophically or categorically different from what god says to the human race which is love me or i'll send you to hell for all eternity okay thanks i appreciate the question and i and i see the i see the the difficulty this is troubling let me let me suggest two different ways of thinking about god that are relevant to this discussion so in in one of them so we have a conception of the good life and of of what's natural and what's true and what's beautiful and what's desirable and and it's what accords with our nature right and uh you know we all want to be loved we probably want to have some financial means we want to have a certain amount of self-determination and freedom but not too much because we'd like to live in a community where there were some reliable institutions that we could frame our social lives and have some sense of purpose and moving forward this kind of thing and then you bracket all that then over here there's this category called god and god sort of breaks into the normal and demands that we do something arbitrary that may or may not conflict with what sort of naturally be drawn to as the happiness of human life and so god's in breaking and god's demands are felt as a kind of uh invasion a kind of uh uh imposition on our on our freedom our happiness or our goodness and a lot of people conceive of god that way people who are believers and people who are not believers i i contend that that that way of conceiving god's relationship to our being into our happiness is the explanation for a lot of unbelief and a lot of religious neuroticism and it is also not the way catholics conceive of uh conceive of our relationship to god or god's even very identity so if there's a sort of pattern or form or reality behind the stuff of human happiness those things are sort of naturally drawn to desire for self-preservation life and society uh love acceptance these kinds of things um that that pattern is is imprinted in our nature and our being because we live and move and have our being in god who is the ground and source and origin of of that intelligible way of being right and and we find our happiness in a flight from fantasy and absurdity and neurotic imagination back to the real you know in alcoholics and drug addicts that get involved in the 12 steps one of their steps is coming to realize that there's a a power that can restore me to what to sanity to reality because i'm not going to be happy really happy until i can get grounded in the real well god is identifiable with that real and so so we we turn away from god we turn away from the real from love and justice and mercy and acceptance and and and rewarding social relations and purposeful life we turn away from those things to get all balled up inside of our own neuroticism and egotism and fantasy and imagination and superstition and god is saying plea please stop hitting yourself in the head with a baseball bat but please please like really just put the bat down come back come back to the real i've made this beautiful world for you to enjoy i'm inviting you to enjoy it at some level you know it's there to be enjoyed and it really points beyond itself to something even greater something more fundamental even a greater happiness a greater depth a greater reality plea please come in please come in but i'm not gonna make you i'm not gonna make you and and if you keep on saying no no i'm just gonna stay with my own neurotic obsessions thank you very much who needs to be sent to hell you're already in hell like you're in hell right and and and hell is just finally getting what you want when what you want is you're in self-destruction uh jack is that helpful for you yes it is thank you very much you are most welcome that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 the friday edition of call to communion here on ewtn uh inviting you to call now because we do have a couple lines open probably won't be that way for much longer 833 288 ewtn here is steven now in austin texas listening on sirius xm 130 a first-time caller hey steven what's on your mind today hey um thanks for the time uh so i am catholic and i am in a book study with a group of christian men and right right now we're reading a book by timothy keller jesus the king just real short that takes the the gospel of mark and he provides commentary and explanation so i've read ahead and gotten to the part uh where jesus is talking about i am the bread of life uh you know and and uh and none of these men are catholic that i'm in the group with but they know i'm catholic so what would be a good way to in a loving way be able to explain to them our view of the eucharist being the actual body of christ and not just a symbol as cindy fikeler has explained it in the in the book yeah thanks i appreciate the question so so uh first of all it is conspicuous that in the gospel of john the sacred writer does not explicitly mention any of the sacraments explicitly doesn't explicitly mention them as sacraments um he doesn't talk about baptism not explicitly he doesn't talk about he doesn't give us the institution narratives that the synoptics give us at the in the upper room um we don't see the the totality of the form of the sacrament of penance in the gospel of john we don't find these things there why why are they seemingly absent given that they're they're all over the rest of the new testament every one of the synoptic gospels has an explicit account of the institution narratives for the eucharist christ's uh institution of baptism power of the keys um st paul and his epistle chapter 11 first first corinthians when he is actually describing the tradition that he received from christ gives us explicitly the formula the form of the sacrament of the eucharist and yet john is silent seemingly why why well that what what came first the gospel of john or the eucharist well once you ask the question you realize eucharist came first gospel of john maybe written 90 a.d we don't really know maybe 60. disputed among scholars when it was written but at least it's at least 30 years after the ascension probably more maybe 60 years after the ascension this gospel is written paul in first corinthians which is a much earlier epistle references the oral tradition on the eucharist as being something that's common knowledge across the christian world and there's a common form of practice to which he can refer as an authority so again in first corinthians 11 he talks about rubrics he says somebody wants to have a different rubric you want to change the rubrics on the mass know that we have no other practice nor did the churches of god see he points to the catholicity the universality of the practice of the tradition as a norm for interpreting and living and experiencing the eucharist all that stuff comes long before the gospel of john so here comes john here comes out much later and he lays down this gospel thump and he doesn't explicitly mention the sacraments why not well first of all really are they really not in there if you were a christian living 30 40 50 60 years after the ascension of christ you think you'd been celebrating the eucharist absolutely you've been doing it for several decades sure right paul already talks about this oral tradition being universal across the christian world you already had the eucharist you already had baptism you were doing those things and then you get john's gospel thump in your hand and you open it up and read it he said you read well my flesh is real food my blood is real drink a man must be born again in water in the spirit what do you think you thought we know what he's talking about sure we know what the guy's talking about we've been doing this for 30 40 50 years we know what he's talking about why write in this oblique way well in the new testament and early christianity there's something called the discipline of the secret the disciplina arkani where the earliest christians concealed the central truths of the faith from outsiders and only unveiled them to initiates this very well established part of church history and we find hints of it in the new testament both in hebrews and and st paul's epistles they talk about well you know i gave you milk and not the solid food you weren't ready for it and you know christ himself says you know everybody else i speak to in parables but to you guys in the inner circle they unveil the secrets of the kingdom this idea of there being kind of like two tears those people in the outer courts and the initiates that we let in the inside we give them the goods keep everybody else kind of in the dark that's very very well established in new testament so as a protestant biblical scholar named joachim jeremias who argues i think it's a very strong case that the reason john speaks obliquely this way is that he is he is practicing the discipline of the secret he's writing the gospel in a way that's fully intelligible to people who already practice the faith but would be obscure to people who don't have the liturgical practice of the church in their mind when they come to it and that's why if you look at the history of the interpretation of this gospel down 2000 years it's uniform everyone has always understood this as being about the eucharist all right because it's so closely parallel parallels the institution narratives that we find in the synoptics as well as paralleling what we know from the sacred tradition of the church in other words you really can't interpret the gospel of john you cannot do it reliably unless you advert to the sacred tradition of the church it's not intelligible unless you read it within the context of the church's liturgical tradition now tim keller may have a lot of virtues a strong attachment to catholic tradition is not one of them right he's a graduate westminster theological seminary which is a strongly reformed presbyterian school that rejects uh catholic tradition and he has a completely different model a different hermeneutic for the way he approaches the the gospel and one that's not sufficient for the job and if i were talking to these guys i mean i would start to try to bring some of these things out i would say look is is the gospel self-interpreting do we really have what we need built built into it in the words themselves to render it fully intelligible and why like why would you assume that and set it in the context of the early church history of saint paul's letter to the corinthians chapter 11 the synoptic gospels what we know from extra biblical sources about the way the eucharist was understood and practiced and then and then offered the enigmatic form of the gospel of john as a case in point in the in the discipline of the secret all right and we thank you so much for your call stephen it's called a communion here on ewtn it's the friday show things are moving right along so do give us a call if you have a question for dr david anders 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here's larry in denver listening on catholic radio network larry what's on your mind today okay thank you for taking my call i'm very interested in the catholic and this call to communion is for me to come in if i you know to i feel welcome but my question is i i'm starting to take rcia classes i started in the middle of it so um i'm i'm not there yet but i am doing catholic things in other words i believe uh and i respect the authority of the church and things like that um i free to rosary i go to mass every once in a while but i wanted to know if my actions are actually am i getting married for this or am i yeah sure i understand so your call was kind of fading in and out a little bit so i don't know if everybody listening on the radio heard and what larry wants to know is he's not catholic yet but he's he's participating in catholic rites and ceremonies in catholic teaching catholic worship catholic prayers he wants to know if his if his marriage if his works and prayers are meritorious even though he hasn't yet received all the sacraments of initiation and the answer to the question is these works and prayers are meritorious if larry is in the state of grace and that's not something that i can judge it's not something that larry can judge all right what what what we all know is we we we can have a kind of a kind of conjectural certainty that we're in the state of grace if if we are not conscious of mortal sin if we've repented for our sin if we've asked god's forgiveness and for an infusion of his grace to make us holy and we desire to live with him and we're not conscious of anything drawing us away then we can have a kind of conjectural certainty that we're in the state of grace and you can be in the state of grace and not be formally catholic and as long as you're in the state of grace you can in fact merit but as larry or anybody comes more and more fully within orbit of the catholic church and and participates more explicitly in the in the sacraments of the catholic church our confidence that we are in fact in the state of grace can grow proportionately because the sacraments are for us objective signs of the offer of god's grace and of course they really are they are channels for that grace and christ promises to deliver his grace through them and look one of the best ones if somebody's coming into the church baptism if you're not baptized but penance if you are baptized that is the word of absolution from a priest based on your contrition and request for forgiveness i absolve you in the name of the father and son of the holy spirit it's an objective promise that you are in fact restored to fellowship with god and then you can have great great certainty not complete certainty but a very strong hope that look i'm on the right track here and i'm and i'm gonna merit salvation for every good thing i do larry thanks so much for your call keep listening to call to communion we've got more straight ahead here on ewtn our phone number 833-288-3986 father john ricardo when you and i wake up every day do we strive to know jesus or not quick question to you and me right now is that what you and i are doing every single day the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio ewtn helping people grow in their love and understanding of god i just wanted to thank you for your show uh it's made such a huge difference in my faith life because if you don't know why you're doing things and you're just going through the motions that's totally pointless but if you know why it's infinitely meaningful so you really help me make a 180. ewtn live truth live catholic it's time for family man with dr gregory popja one of the signs of strong commitment between a husband and a wife is that they have a strong identity as a couple having a strong couple identity means there's a me a you and an us like the trinity all three identities matter and all are honored in how we go through life together unfortunately new research by sociologist dr paula motto argues that couples are fast becoming married singles millennial couples are substantially less likely than couples in 1980 to eat together visit friends together go out for leisure activities together or work on projects around the house together they were less likely to participate in clubs or groups together as well home alone becomes alone together catholic couples can stand against this tide make time for your marriage when you plan your week remember that the most important activity is family life i'm dr greg popchek but you can call me family man to discover more ways faith can enrich your life visit catholiccounselors.com hi this is psychedelic later today on catholic answers live one of our favorites steve ray with an open forum for non-couples catholic answers live 6 pm eastern on ewtn radio now back to call to communion with dr david anderson [Music] hey glad you're with us for the friday edition of call to communion here on ewtn two lines open that's it eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six here is marlon now in youngstown ohio listening on living bread radio long time prayer affiliate of ewtn's and uh glad to have them as a partner hey marlon what's on your mind today hi uh thank you for taking my call now my question to dr invio is i've been married now with my husband he's not catholic we've been married for 17 years uh when i married him i was divorced you know he was a christian so we married civil we've been like that for 17 years so my i got to a point where i couldn't live like that anymore so i got an annulment and it went through everything went through and now my husband and i are deciding to marry through the catholic church and we have talked to priests but my husband is not willing to he doesn't believe in anything there is catholic he doesn't believe in the eucharist confession sacraments and he's telling me that he will do all this just so i won't leave him now the father the priest on my church said it's okay with him but i i still feel like uneasy about it so i would like some worse yeah okay sure maybe sure absolutely thank you so uh a catholic is allowed to marry a non-catholic it's allowable right and uh and it is it can still be a valid marriage and now the church has jurisdiction over the lives of her members and she asks her her members and you're one of them um to follow the canonical form for marriage when they marry so you're obligated by canon law to be married in the church in front of a catholic priest but you're not obligated to marry a catholic and so when a non-catholic marries a catholic the non-catholic does not have to believe the catholic faith the non-catholic just has to it has to respect the fact that the catholic does yeah and agree to participate in what the catholic church calls marriage now you say your husband is a christian man and i assume that means that he's been baptized in the name of the father son and holy spirit and so that means that you guys will also have a sacramental marriage which is a great benefit now you know uh grace works in mysterious ways so when a christian who's not a catholic marries a catholic in a sacramental wedding and says i've got no intention of ever becoming catholic famous last words that's right those have often been i have known lots of husbands and wives in that situation to concede to the thing out of respect for the catholic spouse and then you know 10 years later the catholic spouse is looking who is this person i married they're more catholic than i am now you know it's been known to happen it's been known to happen uh so so yeah you're fine you're fine okay uh marlon thank you so much for your call we appreciate hearing from you let's go to mexico city now and talk with paco listening to us on the ewtn app hey there paco what's on your mind today hi dr anders and uh tom how are you doing very well thank you thank you very much for taking my call i i just wanted to ask uh regarding uh the apostolic blessing i understand maybe i'm wrong but i understand that absolute blessing is only given by a pope and my question actually is that um i i also understand that sometimes in some occasions uh pope benedict the 16th well the former pope sometimes he used to give that blessing so how how can that be if if that is just a an attribution attribution for the pope the current poll is that is that correct yeah thanks i appreciate the question so so the apostolic pardon is granted by the authority of the apostolic see but it can be given by any priest to someone who is in danger of death and in fact whenever whenever a priest administers last rites to a dying person and so they they hear their confession and they anoint them and give them viaticum which is the perhaps the last time they'll ever receive holy communion and then they also give the apostolic pardon and and it actually begins with the phrase by the authority which the apostolic see has given me right so why is it require the authority apostolic see well because the apostolic see is in charge of the penitential discipline of the church and that includes the granting of of indulgences and this is a it's a kind of indulgence a plenary indulgence is what it is but the apostolic seed just grants that authority to every priest who's ministering to someone in danger of death okay hey thanks for listening to us in mexico city paco we do appreciate hearing from you call to communion here on ewtn two lines open at the time at this time 833 288 ewtn is that phone number here is virginia now in hastings nebraska listing on spirit catholic radio hey there virginia what's on your mind today hello and thank you for taking my call i was one i would like your take on the harry potter books are they good or bad sure thanks i appreciate the question uh that depends on the person that's reading them and the reason and context for their reading them right uh you know i am a mature catholic man who has read a lot of books through from a lot of different traditions across a lot of periods of history and and when i pick one up and read some piece of fiction or non-fiction that may or may not line up with the catholic faith in all particulars i am not strongly tempted thereby to leave my catholic faith or to practice some form of syncretism so i i'd say i'd be safe right i'd probably be safe and and i have read fantasy and fiction books that are not particularly catholic in their worldview now i have also heard of people i know people who have read books that portray a worldview that's radically at odds with the catholic faith who have read such books and uh and been led astray by their imagination through such reading into into other rites and religions or syncretism or something in ways that are harmful for them so i would say that that has got to be a prudential judgment that a soul makes with good direction or maybe a parent makes you know for a child with good direction based on that individual's level of maturity uh and uh um and what's appropriate for them at that time you know obviously when you know steve gray danis who's great catholic deacon writes uh reviews on films film critics decentfilms.com he goes out and watches a lot of bad films right and then turns around and writes a review and says do not see this film yeah right somebody's got to do that got to warn people off from the bad stuff and he's a strong catholic he's not going to leave the faith because of that but the reason he's telling people don't you guys go watch this is probably not some tender souls might be led astray and that's the prudential call you've got to make sure appreciate your call virginia it is called a communion here on ewtn uh bryden is watching us right now on youtube he says our people who participate in other religions wrong and do they go to heaven okay thanks appreciate the question well wrong in what respects right okay um so let me take an extreme example in the religion practiced by the aztecs right before christianity came to mexico the aztecs believed that they were superior to their neighbors and that they had a moral right to conquer them to kill them to enslave them to to cut them open and sacrifice them to their gods and then to eat them like cattle and then to cut them up and use the body parts to make clothing and decorations were the aztecs wrong they were very very wrong they were extremely wrong and aztec people were not going to go to heaven in virtue of the fact that they were conquering their neighbors enslaving them and eating them and offering them sacrifice to their gods those rites and ceremonies were not going to get the aztecs to heaven no no no okay now let's take another religion i won't name an actual historical religion let me just make one up out of my head all right let's let's imagine a world religion in which one of the central teachings is that god is the creator he's good um and i need to be in fellowship with him and to get there i need to have some sort of renovation in my moral life and that i need a mediator to do that because i hadn't got the wherewithal to do it on my own and uh and uh and i need to i need to surrender something in my life by way of sacrifice in order to invoke the love and mercy of that creator god to make to render that change within me and so that i can obey the moral law written into my very nature namely that i would love god of all things my neighbor is myself and treat others fairly and so forth and not kill not steal not commit adultery not lie bear false witness these kinds of things if someone were to follow such a religion as that without historical knowledge of the christian faith could such a thing be a vehicle for the grace of god to bring salvation you betcha you betcha and that's exactly what the christian church teaches now you know usually we don't find the cases as black and white as that usually there there's some there's some middle ground and we may find uh uh you know a historical religion in which elements of that picture of natural law and grace and repentance and forgiveness and and injustice and so forth are present but they're usually present with a significant admixture of error as well and so catholic theologians look at that and we go well this was good this part over here maybe not so good and we'll we fortunately are not in the business of judging individual souls we recognize in the abstract yes god could work through such elements to bring somebody to salvation but we don't presume that he has done so in any particular case and so we still have the burden to evangelize to give them the full truth about god and the moral life and the path of salvation holding open the possibility all along however that that god may reach some people through these truths that can be known from the natural law in ways that exceed our capacity to maybe identify on a historical map all right brian thank you for checking us out today on youtube it is called a communion here on ewtn uh david you may have heard of the uh and maybe it maybe it really was and maybe it's just a just a funny line you've heard of the the chinese curse right may you live in interesting times would you agree david that these are indeed interesting times saying i'm cursed not at all not at all i'm saying these are these are interesting times we've never had a year like 2020 at all ewtn has recognized that fact we have kind of blown up or set aside put on the shelf whatever you want to call it our great channel ewtn radio classics in favor of a new channel that is now ewtn radio essentials we were talking about essentials earlier in the hour i was just looking at the schedule there's some fantastic programming on there the holy sacrifice of the mass celebrated every two hours 8 a.m eastern 10 a.m eastern noon eastern all the way up to midnight plus rosaries chaplets stations of the cross and other devotionals every hour you can hear ewtn radio 20 essentials ewtn radio essentials 24 hours a day by going to your smart speaker remember the one that's there in your kitchen also the ewtn app and by going to ewtnradio.net lots of ways to listen to the wonderful ewtn radio essentials back to the phones now here on ewtn's call to communion here's william in columbus listening on the blowtorch saint gabriel radio uh william's a first time caller hey william what's on your mind today okay now my mind is i've been in the church for over 40 years and then when they started to change this where you see coming in by hand and standing i refused to do so and one priest told me i had that right to kneel down and receive communion but this new priest came in and says he when i went to kneel down and receive communion he slapped it in on my tongue like he almost jumped it down my throat then he got after after he gave communion when he poured the church in he made a little announcement he said people that knows billing down or makes a commute or receiving communion by tongue is just one and be noticed i don't do that i do it to respect god okay uh how can i help you well uh not some church you go into catholic church you're going to they refuse to give you communion on the tongue they refuse to do so yes and so how can i help you with that how can i help you with that william um i'm i'm saying am i doing them right by kneeling down on you are you doing right are you doing right sure sure sure okay so i think you yourself have already indicated your motive right this this for you has been your habitual practice throughout your life and it is an act of reverence and and you're not doing it as a form of exhibitionism to draw attention to yourself uh and that's the proper motive that's the proper motive when when a person has a strong concern for the mode of reception of holy communion and their concern is motivated by reverence for god that's the proper motive and so that's why the church gives you the right to do that that's why the church gives you the right to do that and and that is in church law the priest is supposed to to give you holy communion uh whether you're standing whether you receive on the hand or whether you're kneeling and receive on the tongue that's that's what the church is supposed to do now you know i think there it is possible and i'm you're not in this in this case you're not in this boat it is possible for people with a kind of ideological chip on their shoulder to try to make the question of holy communion into a kind of political challenge and to and to essentially engage in a kind of uh political exhibitionism and that's of course a great shame that anybody would make the question of holy communion into some sort of uh political shibboleth in uh in an ideological culture war within the church what a terrible way to receive our lord because then you're not really receiving our lord you're really just floating your own ego or something right and so i that's a person can do that right but but also at the same time be very careful about judging that that's not what another person is doing yeah right so if the priest says well i know your heart and you're insincere you're just trying to draw attention to yourself how does he know that how would he even know that maybe but how would he know that that's why the church doesn't make that judgment call says you can receive either way that's what the church says all right thank you so much for your call william uh let's see tony is in toronto canada listening on youtube today tony says what two or three key points can you share from your expertise to help influence a protestant that i know to convert to catholicism two or three key points okay so number one number one on the list is the question of the rule of faith given to us by christ what's the rule of faith well rule of faith is a standard uh that we advert to to know what the christian faith is how we ought to live what we ought to think what we ought to believe all right what is that rule of faith given to us by jesus now your protestant friend just assumes just asserts that christ gave us the bible 66 books in the protestant bible that's what jesus wants us to go to to determine the content of the christian faith you have to call that into question you have to call that into question first question you ask is simply this mr protestant friend did jesus give us a rule of faith what do you mean by that well did he give us a standard a guide to define for us the contours of christian faith and practice did he in fact indicate some such source well if he did where did he do it you can scan the historical record biblical and otherwise about jesus and you will find nowhere does jesus indicate that the protestant bible is our rule of faith he never does it never says if you have a question about the christian faith go to these 66 books doesn't do it never so where do protestants get that idea from well they get it from martin luther not from jesus 1500 years after the fact late to the party uh saxon monk comes up with this idea it's not biblical it's not historical it's not what jesus said he gave us a different rule of faith what's the rule of faith that christ gave us whoever hears you hears me go therefore unto all nations make disciples teach them everything i commanded you which was all oral and i'll be with you to the end of the age whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven what have you loose on earth loose and haven't gifted you the keys of the kingdom of heaven whoever sins you forgive are forgiven whoever sends you retain or retained whoever believes and is baptized will be saved that's the rule of faith that christ gave us the teaching church his promise of divine assistance binding and loosing to the end of the age that's the catholic faith that's what that's the rule of faith that christ gave us um that's one question you got to deal with with your protestant friend that's the humdinger right and there are variations on that theme like how do you know the difference between a dogma and an opinion what do you mean well you know what are those things that all christians have to believe those are dogmas some things they can disagree about those are opinions how do you know the difference you can't just point to the bible because all right so let's say you find something that you think is true in the bible well how do you know that it rises to the level of a dogmatic truth one that you have to hold and other opinions aren't allowable how do you know there's no principled way to answer that question based on scripture alone only a teaching authority that can get outside the text and adjudicate the differences can actually define that for you so those kind of variations so here's another question you need to get to do you have to follow the teaching of christ to go to heaven do you have to follow the teaching of christ to go to heaven it's a pretty fundamental question yes or no yes or no now the catholic church says yes protestant church by and large says no by and large they say no and i know maybe some protestants listening you'll be offended that i that i say that but but the question is do you have to live a moral life according to the teaching of jesus and will failure to do so disqualif disqualify you from heaven well the fundamental premise of protestantism is salvation by faith alone not not any kind of conformity to the moral law well okay what about the teaching of christ that on the last day many will come to him and say lord lord and he'll say i never knew you faith alone did not cut it but you have to feed the hungry clothe the naked give drink to the thirsty et cetera et cetera why is it then that every judgment passage of the new testament teaches that we'll be judged by our works everyone no exceptions all right so that's another problem it's another problem that you've got there uh here's another one you ought to think about um most protestants today hold to some form of denominationalism the idea that the form of christian life doesn't matter that everybody's equally a christian and that uh you know lutheran episcopalian baptist methodist so many flavors of ice cream it doesn't really matter these are incidental differences well is that what scripture says does it actually say that where'd that idea come from comes from george whitfield in the 18th century even luther and calvin didn't think that they condemned denominationalism and scripture doesn't teach that saint paul says in first corinthians 1 you have to agree on everything jesus says you have to be one john 17 in a visible way that a non-believer could recognize not some sort of spiritual oneness in your heart because you all have the same kind of warm sentiments about christ no you have to be visibly one in a kind of unified governmental capacity that's the what's what christ prays for in john 17 so the world can know the world doesn't believe in christ the the visible evident unity of the christian faithful is the sign of christ's divine authority does denominationalism meet that standard not even close not even close so all these fundamental premises of protestant religion faith alone scripture alone invisible church denominationalism all of them are human inventions some of them centuries and centuries and centuries after the teaching of christ none of them emerge from the text of the new testament or the teaching about jesus those are all helpful things to consider i mean these these are the kind of considerations that brought me into the catholic church hope that's helpful for you as well uh and tony thank you so much for checking in from canada let's go now to jamie in allentown pennsylvania jamie what's on your mind today hi thanks tom um hi dr anders um by the way i read your book uh catholic church saved my marriage loved it i got it for our christmas gift it impacted my life i really enjoyed the part where you kind of said there's something about um that they you realize that our purpose in life was something like to grow in virtue but it really it impacted me so thank you appreciate that thank you you're welcome um anyway my question was what language would have been spoken in the home of the holy family do we know that aramaic ah aramaic okay well that was easy sure very if you want if you want to attend a catholic liturgy where the language of the liturgy is probably the closest to what would have been spoken in the holy land at the time of the holy family the maronite right still celebrates uh the anaphra they pray the anaphor which is the words of institution in syriac and syriac is related to aramaic and that's the that's the tradition that's sort of closest to what the holy family would have spoken but facebook aramaic pretty cool jamie thank you so much for your call here's michael now in indianapolis listening on youtube michael we've got about a minute left what's on your mind today um so kind of with the protestant thing what's like the major differences with the uh with the church of jesus christ in latter-day saints sure sure sure sure biggest difference between the lds and the catholic church has to do with their doctrine of god because catholics believe that god is the single unchangeable eternal uh omnipotent ground and source and being of all things the creator of the entire universe that everything else that exists depends for its existence on the unchanging immaterial omniscient omnipresent deity who is the first principle of everything saint paul says of him in him we live and move and have our being the lds believes that god is a created being therefore essentially finite and uh and in competition with if you will or at least in confluence with a host of other deities so they are fundamentally polytheistic they think that the god of this world is a created being who rose to divinity like some sort of greek god through apotheosis they also believe that as soon as the apostles died that the church that christ founded to whom he promised his divine assistance fell into complete apostasy and error uh and so the entire 2000 year history of christianity was a mistake that's what the lds believes and was only recovered by joseph smith in the 19th century a man who claimed to have found golden plates buried in a hillside that told him the truth who also claimed that the moon was populated by people dressed like quakers all right so that's what the mormons believe catholics believe that the one eternal god became present to us incarnate in jesus christ who founded a church that did not fail and did not apostasize and will continue to the end of the age and reliably teaches the way of salvation there you go michael thanks so much for your call dr david anders what a great week this has been thank you and have a wonderful weekend thanks tom we do the program right here on ewtn monday through friday 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern and a bus dev show on sundays at 2 pm eastern i'm tom price have a wonderful weekend and god bless see you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,071

Rating: 4.8139534 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: IrkjpAcnaLc

Length: 54min 3sec (3243 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020