Called to Communion - Jan. 05, 2021 - with Dr. David Anders

news.com i'm theresa tomeo and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-2888 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 and a very happy new year to you from all of us here at ewtn and this program call to communion the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters those of you who have questions about the catholic faith what a great resource this program and others like it to get those questions answered here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're listening to us outside of uh north america well you'll want to dial the u.s country code which is in most cases 1 and then 205 205-271-2985 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 for some folks may apply and of course you can always send us an email we're going to lead off with one in just a moment here ctc at ewtn.com is the address ctc ewtn.com all right we're very glad to have our full-time producer charles berry back with us today also uh ryan penny back on the phones jeff burson on social media he can pass on any questions you might want to post via youtube or facebook live because we're streaming there right now i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you very well how are you my friend oh i'm doing decent thank you you were mentioning that some of your kids are home from school this week uh well you know they're they're engaged in an uh a virtual capacity sure with their educational institutions sure so there is a little bit of low level grumbling but nothing nothing terrible right look i've seen grumbling come in all forms and i'd say on on the grumble scale zero to ten we'll put it in about a one oh that's very very easily uh i can i can deal with a one my wife would say eminently doable eminently doable there you go so we've got an email that actually just came in not even two hours ago this just came in and uh this is from rose who says dear dr anders love your program on ewtn my question centers around the ongoing catholic protestant divide regarding the real presence of jesus and the eucharist the issue with which i struggle is the claim by protestants that in john 6 53 jesus was speaking in metaphor or parable as he often did well it's not my personal belief as a catholic i believe he meant it literally and i can make the distinction between most parables however one person has challenged me with the scripture verse in which followers of jesus were told that they have to carry the cross this obviously was not literal but this fellow further pressed why don't catholics believe that statement to be literal how do catholics determine what is literal and what is not i am embarrassed that i had a rather weak response much gratitude rose okay thanks so i a couple things we should say about this one we use metaphor in our language all the time it's it's part of the way language functions and uh you know give you an example let's say i walk into the kitchen and maybe my wife is in a bad mood and kind of lays into me and i come back to the office i don't actually do this i don't think i've ever communicated this this is just for illustrative purposes and i said man she bit my head off all right how do you know apart from the obvious fact that it's still on my shoulders how would you know that that that statement was a metaphor well you would know from context sure you would know from context and and it's also an idiom in the language right but if i invent a new idiom you would discern what i'm saying from context and in the context here is not just the context of the words lodged within the sentence or the discourse uh but within a the context would go to include my whole form of life and what you would know about relationships and marriage and the kitchen and all the rest of it and the same thing is true with biblical metaphor in idiom and i think this is particularly pertinent to the question of the eucharist because what is the context of christ's remark in the gospel of john and i don't just mean uh you know the miracle of the loaves and the fishes and and and john's narrative i mean where does the gospel of john fall in the context of the church in ancient christianity uh i've often mentioned on this show we have to remember that the sacraments came before the scriptures christ never actually gave the apostles instructions to write anything down but he did specifically commissioned them to offer the sacraments to celebrate the sacraments do this in memory of me he said and so those two whom the gospel of john was written had a decades-long habit of celebrating the christian liturgy and when they when they received these words and they received these texts they recognized that they referred to a practice they were already engaged in and uh you know it's like when you have a uh before the show today tom and i were joking and i said uh uh my wife noted that uh that our hewlett packard instant ink subscription had refilled and we got a new cartridge in the mail and uh and she said you know instant ink is watching you all right they know when you need ink and i immediately broke into the song uh by hall of notes you know to the tune of privatizer watching when i change the line to instant inc is watching you you know my kids wouldn't have gotten the reference because they didn't grow up in the 80s and weren't uh weren't privy to hall of notes in their and their musical number right no shoulder pads right but but i didn't have to explain the reference to jill i broke into song and she immediately joined me and were dancing around the kitchen singing instant ink is watching you right it was kind of funny uh well we knew what we were talking about because we share the same cultural context and the same thing would have been true to the recipients of john's gospel when john said my flesh is real food and my blood is real and if you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have life everybody in the in the church to which john wrote went oh yeah we know what he's talking about we've been doing that we've been doing that for a while and how do i know you know this how do i know that they know because we can read the writings of the second century church fathers we can read the third century fathers we know those who were the immediate disciples of the apostles like polycarp and justin martin irenaeus and that's how they understood these texts now you know if you take a line an idiom out of context and just throw it up on a screen no there's no way you can tell it's no principled way to discern whether a statement is to be taken sort of a literal historical narrative or as a metaphor you have to have access to that interpersonal context to know now if you want to know what the bible means who should you ask somebody that is come to edit for the first time 2 000 years later or the guys that wrote and promulgated the text originally i.e the catholic church there you go rose thanks so much for your question in a moment we'll get to the phones call now 833 288 ewtn [Music] really a 833-288-3986 there are a lot of converts on catholic radio a lot of reverts those who have come back to the faith and ever since i came back to a practice of my faith i started praying the rosary going to even daily mass god has led me on an amazing journey and used me in a lot of incredible ways that i never dreamed would have been possible take two with jerry and debbie tonight midnight eastern on ewtn radio [Music] and now the ewtn family prayer with father joseph family a prayer that we pray together is a powerful prayer so please pray together with me our ewtn family prayer today we pray for those who care for the elderly heavenly father we love you who have created us out of love in your scriptures you teach us that kindness to the elderly is not forgotten by you we pray for those who work caring for the elderly and for those who now care for an elderly father or mother give them generous hearts lessen their burdens and reward them with joy and blessings for charity is the one thing we will take with us to eternity amen [Music] here at ewtn we pray the rosary we love the rosary that's why we air the rosary twice every day please join us for the ewtn rosary with mother angelic at 5 30 a.m eastern and at 9 00 pm with father benedict groeschel right here on ewtn radio all right we have a couple of lines open if you want to get in on open on call to communion here with dr david anders eight three three two eight eight ewtn is that number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six all right we have a question here from we're going to call this anonymous this person wants to remain anonymous my nephew a baptized catholic and his wife are raising their four-year-old daughter as a boy friends call him he and they have changed her name and dress her as a boy now i understand there are many scripture references from genesis etc that clearly describes god's creation but i would like to know of a non-scriptural argument such as aristotle or aquinas to discuss the choice of gender by parents i'm sure this is uh this sort of thing is becoming more common thank you anonymous yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so uh the gender the concept of gender is precisely a construct and on that much i agree with the post-modernist types uh prior to the 20th century in the advent of modern feminism uh people didn't talk about gender they talked about sex uh and this is a biological category male and female sexual dimorphic reproduction and we recognize that when we see it in fish uh in mollusks i don't actually do mollusks reproduce that one i don't know you know in mammals in birds and whatnot we know what it is we know what we're talking about and uh you know the capacity to bear children uh you know unless there's some kind of deficiency or deformity of the sex organs is what we mean by femininity female and and precisely the ability to to to impregnate or to generate children is a male and that's true whether you're whether you're cattle or human or uh or whatever you are right that's what that's the way people thought and talked about it now it was actually simonto beauvoir the french feminist an existentialist philosopher who uh who made this famous but kind of insane remark that one is not born but one becomes a woman and what she meant by that was that that her biological sex did not determine all of the elements of her personality or her role in society or her choices and she felt like those were often imposed upon her arbitrarily by culture and so she wanted to draw a distinction between her biological sex and and then what would later become understood as uh as her gender identity although she didn't use that exact language and so get this gets introduced into the discourse now to a certain extent we can agree we can say well sure there are social roles and attitudes and expectations that cultures have of men and women and they differ you know a little bit from culture to culture and we can recognize that there are some socially constructed elements there but but that doesn't mean but that's just describing uh cultural differences that we're calling by you know the word gender identity but to somehow assert that that makes that creates out of thin air some whole new personal category called gender identity that is uh that is sort of absolute but only discernible by the subjective conscience of the individual so when you can't discern it from chromosomal analysis or anatomy a person just asserts this is my gender identity well they can assert all day long all they want to all that really means is well i'd you know i'm biologically male but i wish i were female or i'm biologically female and i wish i were male or i'm biologically intersex and i wish i were something else right well you know i've got no problem philosophically with somebody who says well you know i'm you know i'm a human being but i wish i were a space alien i mean that make me crazy might be nuts to say that but it i mean it's not violating any sort of metaphysical principle to make that statement you can wish anything you want all day long doesn't make it true right right and you know from the point of view of the church and philosophy i would say if someone is deeply disappointed in their biological sex they're very uncomfortable with the with the sexual identity that they have uh as a matter of chromosomal necessity well i mean that's a tragedy and such a person should be approached with pastoral sensitivity and love and compassion but not fiction not not science fiction not the claim well well you're just fundamentally not male because it's not it's not a subjective question it's not something that can only be discerned by the mystic vapors of of of of introspection but it's a biological fact now we can recognize that some people have difficulty accepting reality that's been imposed upon them and we don't get to pick reality we only get to pick our responses to it and we should respond with compassion and love but not with uh but not with uh not with fiction now i also think that this the fact that your friends are doing this to their daughter at the age of four shows that they're not responding to any kind of either psychological or biological necessity they are possessed by an ideology yeah and they risk doing incalculable harm to this child because the scientific data on gender confusion uh gender dysmorphia however you want to talk about it is that children who express this kind of self-understanding typically grow out of it in the vast majority of cases it's a very small minority of people that have confusion over their sex or gender who grow into adulthood and and don't resolve the issue some do and again they should be approached with pastoral sensitivity and love and compassion but to jump on this ideological bandwagon because uh you know it seems that the hip thing to do you you risk really causing incomplete harm to your child it just makes me sad it really does it just makes me sad yeah me too oh man anyway all right we're going to get to the phones right now if you're ready at 8 833 288 ewtn we hope that's helpful for you anonymous thank you so much for your question all right back to the phones here we go 833 288 ewtn let's begin with sean in port perry ontario listening on alexa hey there's sean what's on your mind today hello tom hello dr david i have tried to come to a understanding of how the protestant and catholic doctrines of the atonement differ and i'm still not clear i know you've been asked this question from a number of viewpoints several times i guess we live in a very proudest product protestantized society in in our english culture in north america so a lot of catholics probably believe in the substitutionary uh sacrifice of christ without realizing that that's not what the catholic church teaches and the part that really confuses me and what i'm calling you about today is that the first grace that god offers which i think is called prevenient grace um you have said well we cooperate with that and that's how we are saved but what is it that makes it possible for us to cooperate with it because we can't do that without christ's sacrifice and we're subject to the result of the fall of adam and eve okay let me unpack it let me unpack it for you and i really appreciate the question you're asking questions about some of the thorniest matters in theology that have been for uh centuries the most contested in the western or latin church so these these are hot topics they stay hot topics and sometimes they're hard to get your head wrapped around and good people sometimes disagree on the details but i really appreciate the question because very important stuff and this is these are the kinds of questions that ultimately made me catholic and so i'm i'm very appreciative of them first of all let me clarify our language about the atonement uh you made the statement that that i have said on the air that catholics don't believe in substitutionary atonement that's that's not precisely true catholics absolutely believe in the substitutionary nature of christ's atonement what we don't believe in is the doctrine of penal substitution substitutionary punishment let me let me clarify so in the protestant theory especially the theory of john calvin and the reformed tradition christ dies on the cross to bear a punishment that is due to us and god the father actively punishes christ for sins that christ did not commit and the reason god does this according to the protestant theory is that the sins of believers are imputed to christ so god looks at jesus as if he were sinful even though he's not and punishes him for sins he did not commit and in turn the righteousness of christ is imputed to the believer and god regards the believer as righteous even though he remains objectively wicked luther talked about two kinds of righteousness and symbol uses at picator simultaneously just in a center intrinsically sinful but regarded by god as if he were righteous for christ's sake that's the protestant view of the atonement and justification now it's wrong on many counts most importantly it's wrong because scripture and revelation do not actually teach that view it's a it's a theological invention of calvin's to give metaphysical oomph to luther's doctrine of justification what the scriptures actually teach about the atonement and the grace of salvation is that christ does does make a substitutionary offering but it's not a penal substitution it's a it's a sacrifice of satisfaction or reparation or atonement that is when the worshiper gives up something of value in uh in rep for reparation of sin or in uh or in a token of thanksgiving or memorial or what have you and so the model here is the old testament worshiper who brings an animal to the temple slaughters it and offers it to god uh the the god is not wrathful at the animal god is not pouring out his punishment on this animal so that the worshiper goes scot-free that's not the way the model works what's happening is the the guy has done something wrong and he wants to offer something to make up for it and so he takes what is the best that he has the best of his flocks the best of his herds it doesn't even have to be an animal could be could be a vegetable produce or sacrifices in the old testament of grain and and vegetables and whatnot uh but the idea is it's the element of the gift and he says well god i screwed up i did wrong but i want to make it up to you so i'm going to bring you the best that i have and give that to you in reparation for my sense not a substitutionary punishment but it is a kind of substitution and in in consequence in recompense god recognized god accepts the sacrifice as worthy as sufficient satisfaction and to do so faithfully and contritely is meritorious this is it's a good thing that it's a noble thing to do we recognize us in human relationships i offend my wife god forbid i come around the next day with chocolate in a box of flowers and she says yeah all right you're off the hook you know not substitutionary punishment but satisfaction that's the catholic and the biblical understanding of the death of christ now it's applied to us subjectively through faith in the sacraments the goods of that sacrifice are applied to us through faith in the sacraments now we're really getting into the meat of your question what about preventing grace and how this is applied to me well on the protestant model the way it's applied to me is by faith alone and the goods that i receive are simply the imputation of christ's merits that's the protestant model so if i believe christ died for my sins then god counts me or is righteous even though i'm not he imputes jesus's righteousness to me and i'm justified by faith alone that's the protestant idea here's the catholic view the catholic view is that through faith in the sacraments i become a real participant in christ's merits and in christ's person ii peter 1 4 says we become participants in the divine nature and i'm born again i'm i'm made into a new creature my nature is renewed what i lost in adam i regain in christ namely to be in the likeness and image of god and and now i actually made capable of keeping the law the love of god and the love of neighbor romans 13 8 says those sum up the law and the commandments those who have been circumcised in heart st paul says in romans 2 25 to 29 in them the righteous requirements of the law are fully met right because i'm changed i'm given a new heart given a new spirit walk in love joy peace patience and kindness and so i satisfy the demands of the law through an interior principle given to me by grace that's the catholic understanding now how does that relate to the concept of prevenient grace prevenient grace is precisely the grace given by god that enables me to cooperate in this activity right so so i'm i'm dead in my trespasses and sins i'm not interested in god i'm not interested in repentance and then one day i wake up and go i'm in deep stuff here i need to get out of my situation lord help me all right that cry for help is itself the work of prevenient grace in my life that's preventing it means it comes before it comes before that work of repentance enabling me precisely to cooperate giving me the power to freely will to cooperate with god's activity in my life and then god of course pours out sanctifying grace into my life forgives my sins renews me makes me a new creature in him and capable of keeping the law so it's uh it's a work of grace from beginning to end it's god's activity of me through preventing grace it makes us possible it's god's activity in me that renews my spirit makes me capable of obeying the divine commandments and meriting salvation but it does so precisely by enabling my free cooperation so it's uh it's synergistic it's it's god's activity from from beginning to end but it's god's activity operating through the instrumental cause of my free will okay sean is that helpful for you very um is there an article or a book that explains what you just said lots okay so some of the resources you might want to go to gary goo lagrange original gary girl lagrange the book predestination by reginald gary lagrange we'll lay a lot of that out for you oxenham's catholic doctrine of the atonement is also very good the catechism of the council of trent of course is another great reference um all of the pelagian anti-pelagian works of saint augustine are where these actions are first sort of worked out in detail um and then the summa of saint thomas of course is another place to go for uh uh you have to kind of pick around you get the treatise on greece you have to also go to the treatise on christ you know but the sum of st thomas is another obviously authoritative source all right sean thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 if you prefer you can text the letters ewtn to 5500 or shoot us an email ctc at ewtn.com those are the probably the very best ways to get hold of us unless you're watching us on youtube or facebook you can put in a question that way as well we have two lines open right now and that number again 833 288 ewtn when we come back we'll talk with ken in philadelphia carmen in new york dustin and fort wayne emera in orange county california lots more on this tuesday edition of call to communion here on ewtn to stay with us [Music] the words of blessed carlo ogutis do not be afraid because with the incarnation of jesus death becomes life and there's no need to escape in eternal life something extraordinary awaits us father benedict rochelle some great people have shown respect for god can i read you a little quotation from albert einstein who many times showed a great respect for religion and was one of the great admirers of pope pius xii for his stand against the holocaust during the second world war einstein wrote the fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious it's the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science and knowledge of the existence of something we can't penetrate of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty which are only accessible to our minds in the most elementary form it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious now comes another thought from mother angelica's perpetual calendar the penance of this age is to be faithful to your duties in your state of life mother angelica's perpetual calendar features an inspirational message for each day of the year it's available from the ewtn religious catalogue at ewtnrc.com that's ewtnrc.com or call 1-800-854-6316 we're asking college students or their parents to share what your experience has been recently that's tomorrow on take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now back to call to communion with dr david anders it's called communion on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight e wtn let's go to ken in philadelphia now listing on siriusxm channel 130. ken happy new year to you what's on your mind today sir how you guys doing shalom doctor david and uh tom how you guys doing today very good very good good good my question is for you guys uh it's a back i'll give you a background to my story i grew up catholic my entire life i did alter server i almost became a priest uh i ended up starting to do research you know when i was going to a secular college and fell away from the faith and i started just doing more research and uh during this pandemic i just been looking at youtube you know because all the churches are closed and i start listening to a gentleman uh in uh georgia and it's called beth beth yeshua international the background of the story and he was speaking about the the the the church and in general he grew up jewish his whole life now he believes in jesus christ and i started doing a background to the story to tell you guys now that the question is now i started looking into the church and in the first century before 205 or 3 a.d there was you know the church started changing uh to christianity as we know today but he said in 95 a.d they cut communication off with the jewish people the the ones that weren't jewish you know these are jewish believers believing in the messiah and they were called the nazarenes he said you know before they were called christians these were gentiles and you know and non-jews that were following the torah and i i was looking at the paleo hebrew and the paleo hebrew is the first hebrew ever it's pictographic and they say the father's name is yahuwah and the sons of yahushua and i know you're just talking to a woman about the church history my question is have you looked into that dr david about uh you know 95 a.d uh into you know before the church changed things to sunday originally in the book of exodus it says don't add or take away and every day every seventh day is my sabbath which is saturday if you can contact me i'm on instagram uh nazarene follower messiah you know and that's my instagram if my phone disconnects dr david but i really appreciate your your wealth and knowledge okay thanks yeah i really appreciate that question so several things to to to keep in mind the as you know i'm sure you're aware uh early christianity in the first century in the new testament era up to uh the apostolic fathers was convulsed by a number of sects and factions and the earliest theological division in christianity was precisely over judaistic interpretations of christianity and those that were more inclusive of the gentiles and a first council of the church was held we read about in acts chapter 15 precisely over this question of specifically whether or not gentile converts were required to follow the mosaic law in order to be included within the covenant people of god and there was a large faction that believed and primarily of the party of the pharisees who were believers in jesus as the messiah who held that gentiles should be subjected to mosaic code as a condition of entry into the church now to to pull the context to that first century judaism had a lively culture of proselytism and there were gentile converts to judaism attached to synagogues around the ancient world and there were those who who entered into full inclusion in the synagogue community through circumcision but then there were others who said maybe not maybe not but they believed in the god of israel and they read the torah and they read the tanakh and uh but they they stopped short of circumcision and so they were known as god fearers uh because they were gentiles who recognized the god of israel but they didn't want to be fully incorporated through circumcision and all the mosaic but they did attend synagogue services and hear the reading of the scripture and it was the practice of saint paul when uh he went out evangelizing he would go first to the synagogues and he would preach to the jews and by and large they didn't accept what he had to say and then he would turn and address this second category of people the god fears gentiles who did already believe in the god of israel but were not yet fully incorporated into the synagogue and his message to them was hey god accepts you as you are you do not have to circumcise yourselves in order to be counted among god's covenant people and heirs to the promise of abraham and they went hot dog that is good news and they joined in in droves of course they joined in in mass numbers but paul's activity was very controversial and uh and there were those who rejected him as an apostle and if you read his epistles you know that he had to contend for the legitimacy of his apostolate not only because of his message about the gentiles but also because he hadn't been one of the twelve and there were those that said no you're an interloper you're not the real thing and he had to uh he actually had to go get approval from saint peter we read about this in galatians one and two and the other apostles and received from them as he put at the right hand to fellowship lest he run his race in vain he needed the public approbation of the jerusalem community in order to continue his apostolic ministry nevertheless the the controversy do gentiles have to follow mosaic law was the the big kahuna in first century christianity council of jerusalem said no no they don't on what grounds right the grounds that the torah was instituted 400 years after the promise to abraham uh it was never a condition of being an heir to the promise it was simply the form that that covenant life took uh up until the coming of the messiah and after israel's initial rejection of god at sinai by building the golden calf but built into the mosaic code from deuteronomy 30 we learned there is a kind of obsolescence built in god says i'm going to lay this law on you i know you ain't going to keep it i got to send you into exile bring you back circumcise your hearts and that expectation that in the coming messianic age things would be done in a fundamentally different way a law written not on tablets of stone but on human hearts given with the coming of the messiah of the messiah the outpouring of the spirit that was the prophetic expectation that's what christ declared when he said the kingdom of god is here that's the basis for the ruling of the council of jerusalem and the teaching of saint paul gentiles are fully incorporated into the abrahamic promise in virtue of their faith in christ not through the mosaic law which is a mere pedagogue to lead us unto christ but now let no man judge you he says with regard to a sabbath a new moon or any of these ceremonies of the mosaic code these things are a mere shadow of what is to come and that was the that was the the new testament apostolic position it did not eliminate judaistic opposition so just because the council ruled that way because paul taught that way didn't mean that the judaizing uh early christians uh just just accepted it immediately and vanished they stuck around and we are aware of their existence so yes were there were there judaistic sex in first and early second century that rejected the teaching of the apostles and the consensus of the church about the relationship of jude gentile and the mosaic code obviously that's why paul had to write two epistles about it the book of hebrews was written about this the council of jerusalem was was uh was was held on this basis and the church fathers continued to politicize against judaistic misinterpretations of the christian faith so yes we're deeply familiar with these controversies but christ established the church with the doctrine of apostolic succession as the rule of faith so it's not esoteric primitivistic interpretations of jewish ritual that that govern and condition our interpretation of the faith it is the church founded by christ led by the apostles and their successors the bishops that are the rule of faith so if you want to know what it is that christians have to believe you don't have to go poking around in esoteric sources either in youtube or ancient christianity all you have to do is listen to the church saint gregory if nessa said he who beholds the church beholds christ yes indeed ken thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go to carmen now in new york listening on siriusxm 130. carmen what's on your mind today hi on an earlier question dr dave when you were speaking about the communion and whether or not it was the body of christ i had told your um this cleaner that i've heard that being questioned i've never questioned it i believe it that once has concentrated it is the body of christ and the same goes for the wine but i didn't quite hear that coming from you i might have missed it because i am driving but if you can clarify that i would appreciate it sure absolutely so the question that i answered in the previous call was not precisely how do we know that that the eucharist is the body is the real presence and real body of christ which of course i affirm i'm catholic that's the teaching of the catholic church the question was how do we know which biblical passages should be taken as mere metaphor and how do we know when they have a more realistic referent that was the question was a question about biblical hermeneutics how do we know when something is mere metaphor or how do we know when it's literally true and my answer to that of course is relevant to the question of the real presence but it's relevant to many other passages of scripture as well and that is that you can never know what an isolated phrase in any language means never i mean because any any any idiom any phraseology could always be taken in multiple senses the only way you can know is from a rich contextual knowledge and of course that's precisely what the modern interpreter lacks if he ignores the context of early christianity now we know from the context of early christianity and from the 2000 year old tradition of the church that the church has always understood john chapter 6 as referring literally to the body of christ present force in the eucharist but you yank that text out of context and there's no way to know what it means you can only understand the scriptures in light of the catholic church that produce them and in which they have been read for two thousand years hope that's helpful for you carmen appreciate your call call to communion here on ewtn don't forget to join us tomorrow morning for more to life with dr greg and lisa popchak are you dealing with some family conflict or perhaps some stress after the holidays dr greg and lisa will help you find peace tomorrow morning 10 a.m eastern right here on ewtn radio now let's go to dustin right now here on call to commune dustin's in fort wayne listening on the great redeemer radio hey dustin what's on your mind today i i've got two questions really you don't have to answer both of them if you don't feel like it but why if christ is god do we see him pray in the new testament and um how is the way that christ prays different from the way that we pray yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so the catholic doctrine is that christ is a single person that has two natures a divine and a human nature and having a human nature means necessarily that you have a human soul so christ as a human being has a human soul uh and uh christ's human soul being the being the form of the biological organism called a body and a human person um has a developmental relationship to that body you know my soul is the principle of my own life and animation and it's there with me from the moment of my conception to the moment of my physical death my human soul i'm talking about here and is the it's the it's the formal principle uh behind my development my my intellectual growth my my uh my gaining knowledge and wisdom and memory and experience and christ had a human soul and had a human cognition had human thoughts had human development that's why the scriptures could say that he grew in wisdom and knowledge and stature as he followed his parents and obeyed them and did what he was supposed to do so christ in his divine nature of course is omniscient eternal and unchangeable christ in his human nature and his human nature was passable could change could grow could develop and that would include cognitively as well right in the because his brain was developing from a zygote all the way to an adult human person sure and uh and so christ was capable of having discursive thoughts what are discursive thoughts thoughts that i can express in language of course the divine nature does not reason discursively because god knows everything in a single permanent instant without distinction or qualification necessarily the human nature of christ however could engage in discursive reasoning and language and as a perfect person as a morally perfect person it would be entirely fitting and appropriate in fact necessary for the human uh nature of christ for the person who was both divine and human to express uh his love and perfect union with god the father through the medium of human prayer human language that's the appropriate way for a human person to do it right and uh so when we talk about christ's needing to well he didn't have some sort of necessity of deficiency right it wasn't anything lacking to him in terms of his perfection but precisely because he was perfect because he did live a morally exemplary life and did exactly what a human person ought to do down to the finest jot in tittle it would be entirely appropriate and right and just for any human being to express their love their affection their pains their sorrows to god and that's precisely what scripture tells us to do you know at all times pray and always make a request known to god and so christ the perfect man of course lived perfectly in his spirituality and became for us a model that we should follow if the son of god perfect in every way hypostatically united to the father i mean to the divine nature would pray then how much more do we need to pray so that was question number one what was question number two i forgot question number two dustin um how is the way that christ prays different from the way that we pray uh yeah thank you so uh well first of all christ would have prayed uh perfectly all right so he is a perfect model of christian prayer and one thing i note about i mean this is kind of maybe a little bit trivial but a lot of my prayers over my life have taken the following form god i really want x give me x you know i can remember when i was in seventh grade there was this girl in the ballroom dancing class that i took at the steeple arts dance academy and i just thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread i was utterly smitten and i remember asking my father dad would you pray that such and such a particular girl would fall head over heels in love with me you know it's like can i have a magic potion please can i have a love elixir that's really what i think i need god didn't answer that prayer i didn't that's that's not how it panned out you know she did she you know pretty much thought i was a slimy toad i think that didn't work out very well for me all right jesus was not praying for girls in the dancing class right what did jesus pray not my will but thine be done beautiful and that's ultimately the way we have to pray dustin thanks so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go to emra in orange county listening on youtube a first time caller hello amara what's on your mind today hi guys hi dr anders love the show thank you so much i'm actually 50 years old i was actually brought up muslim and just found my on my way to the catholic faith just actually several months ago long story short i've never been able to get my mind around the fall of lucifer and what i mean by that sir is um was um was the rebellion short was the rebellion in heaven prior to the creation of adam and eve and the garden of eden was the rebellion and and then all you know once satan and his cohorts fell or lucifer fell and became stated that he obviously attacked adam and eve he had the temptations etc was it because our good lord said you will serve uh these creatures called humans how exactly did that time frame work out in other words when and how did did lucifer fall was it prior to the creation of man was it after the creation man was it because he did not want to submit to humankind or was it after and he attacked humankind to get vengeful back at god okay yeah thank you so much i really appreciate the question so uh the teaching of the catholic church is that god created the spiritual and corporeal worlds in uh in a single incident so the the hosts of angels the heavenly hosts were created along with the material universe um that doesn't necessarily mean well a human person wasn't created at that time right i mean even even a literal approach which i don't hold but even a literal reading of the first two chapters of genesis lets us know that human person was you know several days into the creation story right and everything we can determine cosmologically is that humans were predated by uh by a pretty lengthy uh cosmological and biological evolution so they weren't created at the same time with humans but were created with uh with material nature as such now uh in terms of the temptation and sin and fall of the angels it would have been nigh unto instantaneous right because they were put to the test we don't actually know what the test was uh presumably it was just the the willingness to submit to submit their will to the primacy of god and uh uh and angels are spiritual creatures who would have had much clearer sight about the reality of the choice that was being put in front of them you know when i when i am uh faced with the moral choice uh sometimes it's very clear but it oftentimes it's sort of um uh it's maybe the the morality is clear but the the the function of my decision-making faculty is sort of confused and weighed down by all my passions and rationalizations you know uh i know i really ought to do this but let me think i think i can't come up with a bunch of counter arguments you know because yeah i've got this motive and i've got that motive and i'm frightened and i'm angry and i'm lustful and i'm whatever none of that would have held with with the angels right because they're just pure spiritual creatures and they would have seen clearly the nature of the choice and that goes a little bit to explain the how how definitive their choice was it was an absolute choice to a to a kind or a mode of life either one lived in subjection to to god or one lived on the principle of egotism and it was the pride of lucifer and the fallen angels that prompted them to the latter decision and they were instantly judged even as the good angels instantly just in the moment of their creations submitted to the divine will and were confirmed in grace and admitted to the beatific vision uh the fallen angels resisted that uh disobeyed god and were lost the gift of grace and were excluded from ever participating in the beatific vision now uh is there this is pure speculation on our part as theologians um did god grant to the angels some sort of foreknowledge concerning the creation of the human person and or the incarnation and i mean you sometimes hear that speculated it's possible it's possible that could have been the case i don't think it's necessary to account for the full i think all that we really need to know is that they had a choice to submit to uh divine rule or not okay and some chose yes and some chose no all right very good and uh amra thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go to george now in lincoln nebraska listening on spirit catholic radio george happy new year to you what's on your mind today happy new year gentlemen god bless you and your ministry my question for dr anders and dr anders i know you have more of a calvinist background but you're well read so i think you'll do fine with this question um i had a friend who's lutheran church in missouri synod and over the holiday break posed the question to me that the person was frustrated that that that that she couldn't receive communion in the catholic church because we both believed the same thing in communion and i provided my answer that i didn't think it was satisfactory enough so i was hoping to ask you so the basic question is um why aren't the or why isn't the catholic definition of the eucharist and the lutheran church missouri center but what you know about it why are they not compatible definitions and why couldn't one from the lcms receive in the catholic church um and all that so thank you okay thanks i really appreciate the question so first of all it's important to emphasize even if the lutherans agreed with us on the eucharist which they don't by the way even if the lutherans agreed with us on the eucharist it would not be sufficient to permit them to participate in holy communion and this is a common misunderstanding many people including catholics think that we exclude protestants from communion simply because they don't believe in the doctrine of the real presence but that's not that's not the whole story i mean that's true they don't believe mostly in the doctrine of the real presence but that's not the full explanation for their exclusion and they would continue to be excluded even if they did believe in the doctrine of the real presence why because communion in addition to being our communion in the sacramental real presence of christ body of christ is also the sign and instrument and expression that affects our communion in the body of christ which is the church and so participation in holy communion is an ecclesial act by which we signal our unity with with the catholic faithful saint paul teaches in first corinthians that when we partake of the eucharist we are we are all made one body in him now part of what it means to be uh included in that corporate body that is the church is that we submit to the church's authority and teaching and jurisdiction and so uh lawful lawfully receiving the eucharist is a sign that we are in visible communion with christ's faithful and the hierarchy one of the reasons that we have to go to confession before communion if we are conscious of grave sin uh and why an act of perfect contrition is not sufficient to lawfully commune is that we need the public approbation of the church in in the well i publish by the wrong word but we need the objective approbation of the church in the person of her ministers validating that we can lawfully go to communion and even a catholic who believes in the real presence should not go to communion if he's not reconciled to the church in charity in love and has had recourse to the sacrament of reconciliation so there is a there is kind of a thick reason a robust reason reasons why protestants should be uh cannot safely go to him it's not good for their souls for them to go to communion unless they're fully reconciled to the church now when it comes to the actual doctrine of the lord's supper lutherans believe that the true body and blood of christ are present in the sacred host what they deny and this is the catholic doctrine they deny that the bread and the wine become the body of christ they think that uh that the bread and the wine remain and that jesus you know kind of gets like squirted in there with a syringe or something that he's in with and under the bread and wine but that the bread and wine are still there a completely unbiblical doctrine no basis in revelation at all for that teaching jesus didn't say this contains my body he said this is my body right the other thing that that lutherans reject about catholic doctrine this is much more even arguably even more critically uh distinct is they reject the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice and that they do so adamantly and that of course is the principle reason why they lost uh uh holy orders yeah all right why they no longer have valid uh ordination and no valid priests because they rejected the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice there you go george appreciate your call and uh this is probably the one of the busiest phone days we've had in a long time couldn't get to jeff in pittsburgh kansas christopher in orlando gene in eugene oregon rose in cleveland and uh actually a few others so for those of you that we had to leave at the altar as it were please call us back tomorrow or on some other day of your choice just mention that fact that we couldn't get to your call we'll put you at the head of the line hey david anders thank you so much thank you tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn radio live at 2 p.m eastern monday through friday glad to have our a-team back on the j-o-b today i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless hello this is father wade menezes of the fathers of mercy open line tuesday is next on most of the

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 54min 8sec (3248 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021