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

to visit ewtnnews.com call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests why do catholics worship mary why do i need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the bible i think the pope has too much authority what's stopping you you are called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you are currently not a practicing catholic maybe you are a catholic uh you know going to mass every every week uh many years ago uh but you haven't done that in a long time or maybe you've never been a catholic and in in any event you've got some questions about the catholic faith and we are here to help you with that here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 you can also call us if you're listening outside of north america here's the phone number for that first of all 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 for those of you watching us today on television you can participate as well our email address ctc ewtn.com ctc ewtn.com charles berry is our producer we also have ryan penny as our phone screener and uh we also have jeff person on social media so if you have a question you want to pose via youtube or facebook jeff will pass that on to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today doing very well how are you my friend oh i'm doing decent thank you very much glad to hear that we're going to lead off here with a question from laura watching us on youtube laura says i'm curious as to why catholics have a devotion to the rosary could you please share the history of the mysteries of the rosary yeah thanks so much i really appreciate the question so uh let me draw a couple distinctions if i will um first of all devotion to saints devotion to saints and to angels is part of the catholic tradition from the very beginning we find it in sacred scripture um passages like revelation chapter five depict for us the life of the saints and angels in heaven offering our prayers to god and church has always sought those prayers and and and tried to uh seek god through the intercession of saints and angels very early in the church's history when when saints were martyred uh their relics would be gathered and the mass would be celebrated over the bones of the martyrs as a way of commemorating them and so they've been involved in the life of the church church in heaven church on earth have always been involved a special devotion to the blessed virgin mary is prophesied by mary herself in the magnificat when she says that all generations will call me blessed angel gabriel announced to her that she alone of all women was blessed full of grace right that's that's her unique privilege to be the mother of god and to be graced with the immaculate conception to be preserved from every stain of original sin in view of the sublime dignity of becoming the mother of god and so from a very early age as well in addition to seeking the intercessions of saints and angels christians have sought the special protection of the mother of god uh prayers we can we can find archaeologically and papyrus and other other evidences from ancient christianity of this devotion the sub-tomb is the name of a very early marian prayer we know was very popular in egypt in the 3rd century a.d we fly to your protection oh mother of god seeking her help in times of persecution in particular so this has always been part of the church's history now let me let me develop that out into reflection father rosary the the official prayer of the church the liturgical prayer of the church the course of mass and the sacraments and also a prayer we call the divine office which is the recitation of the psalms 150 psalms of david which are really the heart and soul of biblical prayer life has always been the center of the church's worship in the middle ages uh praying the psalter the divine office became the sort of the professional task of the monks and the nuns especially the benedictine monasteries would make this work this is the work of god right to pray the psalms every week 150 psalms over and over again many of the lay faithful really uh resonated with that spirituality but they may not have had time or literacy uh or books to do 150 psalms every week and so they began to recite the hail mary 150 times and to combine that with reflections on the life of jesus and the blessed mother and that developed into the formula that we now know as the rosary now the the various mysteries of the rosary um are themselves largely derived from episodes of sacred scripture right or from what we can deduce uh dogmatically from uh our lady's relationship to our lord namely should be queen of heaven this kind of thing and uh and by the time we get to around the 12th century 13th century the rosary takes the form that it has more or less today although uh the magisterium popes and so forth have continued to add to it to this devotional but over time pope john paul ii added a whole new series of reflections on what he called the luminous mysteries events in the life of christ that maybe hadn't been singled out for a particular meditation before but very useful uh to do so the church encourages us to pray the rosary it's not part of the church's liturgy and so it's not it's optional it's optional the mass is not optional the sacraments are not optional the rosary is optional you don't have to pray the rosary but you're encouraged to and it's a beautiful devotion and you know i carry my rosary in my pocket all the time and uh it's a helpful reminder to me that i need to see here it is right here i need to pray at all times right the apostle says pray without ceasing and uh and the rosary is a very helpful useful way of doing that laura thank you so much for checking us out on youtube a question here from sandra who texted us from texas she says why was the importance of reading the bible in our homes not stressed to catholics before vatican ii okay thanks i appreciate the question well i think it kind of depends on what era of the church you lived in because it's been more or less stressed in different times and places for a very long time to own a bible to possess a bible in the home would have been a financial impossibility you know particularly in the days before printing and mass production of paper if you're going to have a bible first of all you have to slaughter a bunch of sheep a whole bunch of sheep right and create vellum which is made out of sheepskin and then you've got to find someone who knows how to read and write who can take the time to sit there and write out by hand every word of the bible on sheepskin um and it would not be surprising to find a text like that could cost a you know more than a year's wage you know so you know what is a median salary in the united states today something like forty fifty thousand dollars uh you know it's like a luxury automobile um would you be could you spend that on a bible you know maybe not so bibles be held in the church and lay people encouraged who particularly those who couldn't read to have access to to the sacred scriptures to the sacred liturgy sandra thanks for your question in a moment we'll be talking with cecilia in omaha also michael in dallas there's a line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn on this edition of call to communion with dr david anders stay with us well i just finished interviewing dr scott hahn about his book evangelizing catholics a mission manual for the new evangelization tell us scott what's this book all about well we hear a lot about the new evangelization but a lot of people don't know what that really means so i explained it simply in terms of re-evangelizing the de-christianized like pope saint john paul ii did who coined the expression and with pope benedict and now pope francis you can see the new evangelization is sort of front and center stage so it's really time for us to kind of get with the program it's being used as a textbook in various courses in colleges and seminars that focus on the new evangelization it's also being used in parish-based bible study programs as well i'm excited by the feedback i really am a lot of people say i had no idea what new evangelization means now i do and i know how to do it thank you so much as always dr scott hahn for this wonderful book evangelizing catholics a mission manual for the new evangelization this has been a bookmark brief ewtn teaching the truth i love your show i was raised in a southern baptist environment in and out of church since i was a teenager but since listening to your show the last several months i'm in the process of converting to catholicism ever since i started listening i've been learning a lot and i've been very intrigued by some of the things you guys discussed i want to learn more and i have a thirst for learning ewtn live truth live catholic [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 a quick question here david before we go to the phones this is from kate watching us on youtube she says at catholic mass i see the priest consecrate the main host but how are all those little hosts passed out to the congregants how are those consecrated and become christ the same way the the big one is consecrated through the intention of the priest to consecrate them there is no quantitative limit on the matter of the sacrament to be consecrated because the the matter of the sacrament the physical stuff of the sacrament is for the faithful to be received in holy communion and so it for in order to to be able to have the sacrament for so many people to commune it's necessary to consecrate a sufficient quantity of matter uh that would meet the needs of the congregation and so you know if the pope was saying mass publicly and he had a hundred thousand people there he could he could simultaneously consecrate uh a hundred thousand um uh uh small wave small wafers right exactly and we'd have consecrated species for a hundred thousand people pretty cool all right very good and uh thank you kate for your uh question thanks for tuning in today via youtube if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin with cecilia in omaha listening on the great spirit catholic radio she is a first time caller hey cecilia what's on your mind today oh hi thanks for taking my call i just have a quick question i understand jesus um he died he rose from the dead he opened the gates for us he opened the gates of heaven for us why does he need to return yeah thanks i appreciate the question so need is a funny word right you know i mean like god doesn't need any of this stuff right okay this is this is all for our sake and for our salvation that's what we say in the creed he came down from him for our sake and for our salvation right but god doesn't need it so what what good do we get out of it really is one way of putting it and uh what we get out of it is that first of all we get to participate in the resurrection of the body from the dead okay so if i if you die right now if i die right now in the state of grace my soul uh if i die with enough charity in my heart my soul could enjoy the vision of god directly but my body is rotting in a grave but christ's body is not rotting in a grave christ's body rose again from the dead in a transformed and glorious manner and the promise of salvation is that we will have the same thing our bodies will also be raised from the dead now there is a time stamp on that right we have a date we don't know the date but there is one god knows the date the date is the second coming of christ when the dead in christ will rise and we will be transformed into his likeness our physical bodies will also participate in the redemption and and so that's not going to add anything intensively to our happiness we'll already be happy if our souls are in heaven with god but it will add to it extensively it's like adding an extra string section to the orchestra the music was pretty before but it's adorned and embellished in new ways now laying down a new track right and so we'll have all the sensory experience that comes with with bodily experiences eyesight smells tastes sounds and so forth all that bodily experience glorified in participating in the redemption that we have in jesus the other thing that will happen when christ comes back is that his uh i know this sounds kind of harsh but what scripture says his wrath will be unveiled unleashed on the ungodly who do not know god and do not obey the truth and and they'll be punished with eternal uh fire and in doing that god manifests his judgment and so in particular the saints who were themselves persecuted by the wicked will be vindicated in a public forum in the very eyes of those that put them to death you know and and that's that's the manifestation of god's justice publicly and the church gets to participate in that st paul says we will even have the job of judging angels so imagine that imagine all your life long you you know some some guy's been tailing around behind you trying to tempt you to evil and pull you off the right path and then on the last day you get to turn around your eyes are opened you see clearly the spiritual realm that's either been aiding or oppressing you and you get to turn and look at that guy like christ said to the devil in the desert and say you know get out of here yeah get out of here and he's gone forever wow cecilia thanks so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 it's called a communion here on ewtn let's go to michael now in dallas listening on online actually via the ewtn app how cool is that hey michael what's on your mind today hey guys uh glad to be on the air thanks for having me sir um i have a very good non-catholic friend she has never really felt convinced to investigate uh the catholic faith uh what what her teachings are and practices but she has since met a community of mormons and they have asserted to her that catholics are not christians and that kind of got her curious because she's like wait i've never really been you know no one's ever told that to me or said that catholics aren't christians and so she started investigating the faith and one of the first questions that came to mind was you know i really don't know how a catholic would answer the question you know if they were to be asked how are you saved how are you saved by your divine creator um and so i was hoping that maybe you could just give kind of your best nutshell answer dr david dr david anders on if if a catholic is asked how are you saved how should you answer that question thanks we are saved by cooperating with the grace that god makes available to us in the gospel we're saved by cooperating with the grace that god offers us in the gospel he offers it in a very privileged way through the sacraments of the catholic church it's not the only way he offers his grace but that's a uniquely privileged way in so far as when i lay hold of the sacraments i know with certainty that grace is on offer in those sacraments uh in a way that makes my participation in them very easy very simple jesus said that you know my my my my burden is easy in light right and uh and he gives us his flesh and blood to eat and drink he gives us the water of regeneration and renewal through baptism he gives us the promise of the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of reconciliation so these are privileged ways of engaging the grace of god but the grace of the lord is offered to us in other ways too sometimes ways that that that may escape our understanding but nevertheless when we participate with that grace and this is a grace that moves us uh to faith to charity into hope and to works of mercy towards our neighbor and to love and to forgiveness as we participate with that grace uh then we are transformed into christ's image and likeness and thereby we are saved okay michael thank you so much for your call we appreciate that call to communion here on ewtn our phone number today 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 we have a question here from fran watching us today on youtube fran says what is the scriptural evidence and or tradition for mary be being named queen of heaven um yeah thanks i appreciate so the the evidence scripturally is uh it's elliptical evidence right it's elliptical it's not direct we have we have intimations in the old testament some of the psalms the royal psalms that depict a queen mother standing at the right hand of the king and so forth uh the image of of the queen bathsheba solomon's mother who would be at his side and intercede um and then of course uh the image a glorious figure of this uh this divine woman in revelation chapter 12 who's depicted not only as the mother of uh the messiah but also the mother of all those who believe in jesus and she's arrayed with crowns and stars and the sun and moon under her feet and so forth so biblical of imagery of a throne room in heaven uh with a queen mother who stands behind the king and is an intercessory role and also this wonderful image of her of her uh exaltation of her ascension into heaven that we find in the apocalyptic literature and uh but it's a you you you ask yourself the question well aren't aren't all of us participants in christ's royal priesthood in virtue of our baptism well we of course we are right and and the job of executing god's judgment i just mentioned earlier in the show paul says in first corinthians we will judge angels right and we manifest god's kingdom within right so we all there's a there's a an element of christ's royal identity that is imparted to every christian and virtue of his baptism and that would definitely include that would definitely include the queen of heaven only she gets that to an imminent degree right she gets she gets it like all the way all the cup full 100 full of grace and you remember when uh james and john um uh sons of zebedee rather their mother goes to jesus and says grant that my boys can sit on your right hand and your left what an audacious request you think you know hey when you come to rule the universe can my boys be there on your right and left and jesus has two things to say first one is he says uh first of all that spot's already taken that spot's already taken that's already been set aside for someone right and secondly um guys that's not the way to get up there no if you want to be first you got to be last now mary actually made herself last right she never opened her mouth right she was very quiet about all this kind of thing she wasn't there saying hey can i be at your right hand or your left or you know hand me the remote control she wasn't doing that she said do whatever he tells you there you go appreciate that thank you so much it is called a communion here on ewtn you may want to call now if you've got that question because phone lines tend to fill up rather quickly eight three 288 ewtn is our number 833-288-3986 here's levi now in tulsa listing on oklahoma catholic radio hey levi what's on your mind today hi there um thanks taking my call i uh have a friend who is a protestant and i think a calvinist within the protestant um faith anyways uh he was talking about um that god has predestined some to be saved and some to go to hell and that somehow that shows the goodness and um glory of who god is and um basically was saying like that if someone doesn't come to know who jesus is like they are you know punished in hell and i was just kind of wanting to know the nuance of like that compared to our catholic faith yeah thanks i really appreciate the question uh i know a lot about calvinism i used to be a calvinist and did all my graduate studies on john calvin so i know a thing about it and it's worse than that it's worse than what you just described right not only do the calvinists hold that god predestines you know a small minority to heaven and the rest of the world to hell and damnation but but there's no possibility of jumping from one camp into the other right so those who are saved can't possibly not be saved god's going to infallibly make them to be saved that's the calvinist's point of view his grace is irresistible it's one of their dogmas irresistible grace and uh and so he elects he changes their hearts he causes them to believe and make and makes it impossible for them to fall away and they will infallibly be saved and they're a very small minority of the population and uh but the majority he elects for damnation and there's nothing they can do about it that's the calvinist point of view but it gets even worse than that it gets even worse than that because the calvinists also hold that the people who are in the elect camp can know for sure that they are elect and so they divide humanity into two groups of people those who know for sure they're going to heaven and everybody else right and and when you when you translate that into an ecclesial or political context it foments hubris and even persecution so calvin would advise the king of england for example to persecute catholics with the sword like to put them to death and to you know to burn down their churches and to torture their priests and remove their their sacred books and so forth because they were the empires and they were the hard-hearted and stiff-necked and he calvin knew for sure that he was one of the elect and that justified him in his kind of behavior so it's just bad stuff it's bad stuff um and uh and then of course you know entailed in that is that other doctrine that you mentioned that they think that the elect are necessarily those that have conscious historical knowledge of the gospel of jesus christ as articulated by calvin and have come to an explicit belief in that doctrine now a catholic church differs from calvinism on all of these points on all of these points first of all catholic church teaches following sacred scripture that god desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth all right catholic church teaches that god's grace is not irresistible it can be resisted uh it also teaches that you can have the grace of god and lose it all right so you cannot count on uh on this on this doctrine of perseverance that would guarantee that you never fall away right um at least it's not a perseverance not articulated that way in the catholic faith uh catholic church also teaches that you can't know which camp you're in it's not principally impossible for you to know whether you are among the number that will be saved or lost so we can't become arrogant we can't be proud i i can't uh and i don't know that you're not in the group so i can't single out some group of people and go i know you're damned and you don't count i can't do that the line between good and evil runs down every human heart runs down my heart as much as yours and we all have to strive for humility and faith and holiness right and finally the catholic church teaches that while historically christ and the catholic church are the express manifestation of god's will for the world the sign and instrument for the salvation of all people and we call all people to an explicit faith in jesus the church acknowledges that god can he is capable of reaching people with his grace in ways known only to himself because the word who became flesh is the divine light that enlightens every man that's the teaching of john's gospel chapter one all right christ is the light that enlightens every man every woman every human being and so there are intimations of the gospel of immortality uh of of transcendence woven into the human heart that give expression in many religious philosophies and traditions if the fullest expression is in catholicism as it is we rightly call people to catholic faith but we don't write off everybody else as just flat out lost okay hey levi terrific question thank you so much for your call in a moment here we'll get to a barbara in cleveland listening on am 1260 the rock we have a line open for you as well if you have a question for dr david anders line's open right now 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 it's call to communion here on ewtn stay with us [Music] dr ray gurinde be grateful that you came to the faith when you did let the children see what mom is like now compared to how they were raised before mom or dad came to the faith the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio now there's a fast and easy way to get in touch with ewtn the ewtn everything number call 1-800-447-ewtn to get the latest information on programming special events pilgrimages and more our ewtn family viewer services representatives are ready to help you with whatever your needs may be the ewtn everything number 1-800-447-ewtn the reason for our hope with father larry richards do you mean to tell me that god's a fool that to make money to be good in sports to be a good golfer to be good in anything you have to put hours after hours after hours every day work really really hard and then you're going to lose it all anyway even if you get to the top of your game but to go to heaven the greatest of all gifts the eternity of eternities all you got to do is hey just try to be a good person if you go to church every once in a while please don't get mad at me could you could you just try let me give you a hint if you want to be a man then be a man about god if you want to be a man then you got to sit there and say that it's going to take me time and that got to become the most important thing because money ain't going to keep you alive forever sports ain't going to keep you alive forever being healthy ain't going to keep your life forever let me give you a hint nothing will keep you alive forever except for god [Music] there's a saying that god is never late let's talk about this on the next take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now more of call to communion with dr david anders [Music] it's called communion here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight ewtn that's 833-288-3986 back to it right now here is barbara uh in cleveland listening on am 1260 the rock hey there barbara what's on your mind today hi dr andrews i had a couple questions regarding the second coming of christ like the first one is what happens to those in purgatory and the second question is is that the end of humanity on earth yeah thanks i appreciate the question so in in st paul's letter first letter to the thessalonians he says that we who are alive will not precede those who are dead all right and uh and the implication seems to be that the whole show is over at the second coming of christ and how that works out temporally with purgatory you know like let's say you you know you die you know 12 hours before the second coming i mean does that mean like well you know i get a 12-hour purgatory and the guy you know a hundred years ago gets a hundred year purgatory i don't have the math on that right i don't i'm not act i have no access to the divine accounting but know that justice will be done right and it'll all shake out in the end but that seems to be the end of the show now your question is at the end of humanity on earth period um no because the earth itself is to be renewed at the second coming of christ the physical matter of the created order will participate in the redemption that christ brings and that's why saint paul says that all of creation groans longing for the sons of god to be revealed he's talking about the saints because when they come back even the created order will participate in the redemption of christ and then we will will enter into eternity in an embodied uh spaceyo-temporal way okay we do appreciate your call barbara thank you so much for it it's called a communion here on ewtn that phone number eight three three two a day ewtn let's go to uh k now right now who is listening uh in the uk uh watching us today on youtube kay says i have a friend who makes statements like this christ came to save our spirit but not our flesh i feel that is a false statement what do you think thanks well since sacred scripture and sacred tradition teach that christ came to save our flesh i'm going to hold with christ i'm going to keep the christian faith which teaches our belief in the resurrection from the dead now depends on what your friend means however because there are there are some christians who run around today that imagine that the the grace of redeeming our bodies is something that we can participate in fully already and so they imagine that they can escape sickness or illness or poverty in this life and you know this the faith healing tradition is sort of born out of this and that that's got the temporal order of the thing out of whack right because we our bodies will be saved in christ but we don't enjoy the full fruits of that until the second coming and so people who who sell you on the idea that well because of christ's death you ought not to be sick or you shouldn't be suffering are really selling you a false gospel that's going to bring far more suffering than it alleviates because and i've seen people in this this really really pitiable situation where they have physical illness they believe that god would only heal them if they had enough faith and because they're still sick they figure they don't have enough faith and so now they add guilt a guilty conscience on top of their physical suffering how sad is that how sad is that whereas the catholic faith teaches yeah you will eventually have your body raised from the dead and be healed and glorified like christ but now we participate in the sufferings of jesus and and undergoing hardship and carrying a cross can be a way for us to more deeply purify ourselves and identify more with christ and with the poor and can actually become for us a means of redemption and salvation can be an occasion of rejoicing rather than sorrow so so the catholic faith is really far more encouraging with respect to suffering because it gives us the hope of healing down the road but something to do with our suffering in the meantime okay thanks for watching us today in the uk we appreciate that hope that helps you with your question it's called a communion here on ewtn right back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here is mike in haymarket virginia listening on the great guadalupe radio hey there mike what's on your mind today i appreciate uh taking my call dr anders uh throughout the the scriptures it has serpents as something evil uh however when moses laid down his staff it became a serpent that uh ate the the other uh two uh why in this one instance are we seeing it uh forced for good yeah thanks i appreciate the question so you know i think the the figure of the serpent in scripture is uh well i think you've just pointed out something about it's kind of ambiguous right and appears under different descriptions now in the book of revelation chapter 12 the sacred writer in revelation identifies the the serpent specifically with the devil right um and we have that as the primary identifier in sacred tradition in commentary but in in that's a very reasonable way to to appropriate the text but in the ancient world uh the serpent was an ambiguous figure because it shed its skin it also was a symbol of of new life and renewal right and and it adds a layer of nuance to the story in genesis right because a character that in antiquity is is precisely associated with immortality becomes the the instrument to bring about death and so you know the temptation that adam and eve are faced with is actually similar to what comes to the people in genesis chapter 11 surrounding the story of the tower of babel in the story of the tower of babel the people say let us make bricks bake them thoroughly and build ourselves a tower to heaven so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered across the face of the earth god has other ideas and they end up getting exactly the opposite of what they want the confusion of languages is the means whereby they are in fact scattered across the face of the earth and they fail to make a name for themselves now the the the the answer to that dilemma comes in genesis chapter 12 with the call of abraham and abraham you know is a herdsman and he he's a nomad and he lives out in the fields and he doesn't he doesn't have a great tower built to heaven god says follow me and i will make your name great i will give you progeny and a name and you'll be a blessing to all nations we all face this temptation every single day right we are offered say through look there's nothing wrong with technology per se but that's what's that's what the people in babel meant to rely upon right they wanted to rely upon their own cleverness and their own tools and their own technology to build uh immortality and transcendence we're all offered this every single day in our experience you know you buy the most recent gadget you watch the best television show maybe you you plug into the most recent neuroscience and everybody promises insta enlightenment right you know i've got the formula using human technology ingenuity or goodness and you just plug in and i'll give you everything your heart desires and of course it all fails to satisfy it it falls apart on us you know for adam and eve they were they thought they would gain knowledge uh people of babel thought they would gain uh fame and and solidity and purpose and there is an answer there is an answer to those to those desires there's a psalmist one of the psalmists writes that the the commandments of the lord will become for us a tree of life right the promise of abraham follow me and i will make your name great and then of course ultimately the way of the cross he who loses his life will find it so god makes a way for us he makes available to us uh these things that these these tokens of immortality would promise and yet fail to deliver mike thanks for checking in today uh here on ewtn's call to communion we do appreciate that our phone number here 833 288 ewtn kevin is checking us out on facebook today he says dr andrews you made the statement earlier in the show we will judge angels could you please expound on that well you know it's a kind of enigmatic passage in first corinthians chapter 6 verse 3 where saint paul says don't you know that we'll judge angels and he doesn't really expound upon yeah okay uh but i think we can put our heads together and figure out probably what he's talking about that we know that we're going to participate in the judgment in the last judgment when christ comes again in glory that the saints will will reign with him and that's a constant promise of sacred scripture and and one place christ says to the apostles that they'll judge the 12 tribes of israel so those who who who love god and are righteous and have the habit of justice infused into their souls by sanctifying grace uh are competent to give judgment and i mean that competence will be perfected and glorified after the resurrection and it will be implemented it will be used and the the saints uh who are glorified in christ will participate in meeting out judgment on the angelic and human worlds there you go kevin appreciate uh you're checking in with us today via facebook it's called communion here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six i think we can get in a few more calls if you want to call now eight 833 288 ewtn here is uh matt now in columbus listening on the blowtorch saint gabriel radio hey there matt what's on your mind today dr anders um my wife and i are planning on uh following a classical homeschool curriculum for our our son and children that follow him here hopefully in the very near future um would you be able to provide me with a few resources on uh like a specifically catholic approach to classical education i've seen a few that seem to imply some sort of christian leaning but i haven't come across anything that includes like specifically incorporating catholic teaching into uh you know yeah absolutely absolutely okay so i got i got several things for you one is i'm going to recommend a book called the case for catholic education why parents teachers politicians should reclaim the principles of catholic pedagogy the case for catholic education by ryan topping t-o-p-p-i-n-g forward by sister john marie fleming who's associated with the national uh uh uh catholic educational association also a dominican sister all right uh both those great folks um so those are good resources for you now um the another one would be the cardinal newman society cardinal newman society uh and it's primarily oriented towards higher education but they've developed in the last four years a program to assist in k-12 education and they have a resource well they've got a number of resources that take principles of catholic education and reduce them kind of down into pamphlets to think about curriculum and instruction and education and this kind of thing and uh and a helpful curriculum guide uh which is i'm trying to think of the name of it my mind's just gone blank it's um uh there's a newman guide oh i'll think of it and just my mind just went out just went out of my head well they're doing guides for it for college that's not what i'm talking about it's a curriculum it's a it's a it's a principles of catholic pedagogy applied to catholic curriculum and i can't think of the name of it i've got it on my desk at the office and i just just can't i'll think of it in a minute uh but basically takes you sort of grade by grade subject by subject and gives you very helpful uh uh jumping off points for how to bring uh the wisdom of catholic intellectual tradition to bear on something as specific as how do you teach up say second grade history okay um uh that's a great resource if you look up the cardinal newman society um now you know ultimately uh of course the sort of classic text on catholic pedagogy is uh cardinal newman's um uh on the idea of a catholic university right now that's a bit heady stuff yeah but that that lays it all out now um the the couple principles that really go into understanding the the kind of the genius of catholic pedagogy and catholic education um flow ultimately from our belief that that rationality is a gift of god and that when we make use of our use of our intellect in a very robust sense with a kind of deep openness to the transcendentals of truth goodness and beauty that uh that we are really participating um in a remote way in a remote way in the truth goodness and beauty of god and so uh teaching in such a way that we open people up to experiences of truth goodness and beauty that's that's the big thing that's ultimately the aim not that necessarily we impose any particular straight jacket method but that you sometimes hear about the trivium and the quadrivium being very important and that that's all very useful but more important than any of that is that openness to the transcendent and selecting uh you know a body of literature or curriculum that really is oriented towards those perennial truths and so uh there are helpful curriculum guides that you can you can sort of pick out classic texts uh from across culture and across the ages that are really oriented in that in that way and then as parents we should always be reading deeply i believe in the great classics of the catholic tradition and um you know like if you haven't read saint augustine's confessions in the last 24 hours you should read augustine's confessions right like every 24 hours and that's like that's he is he is the master catholic pedagogue in pretty much anything you ever want to read by him and uh you know always be feeding your own mind with catholic truth and listen to good catholic lectures from great pedagogues from places like the institute for catholic culture or from the the mystic institute uh there are many many lectures on catholic intellectual life and avail yourselves of great stuff like father spitzer's universe on ewtn anything kind of stimulate the intellect to engage questions of truth goodness and beauty across culture um the works of luigi josani um uh you know father robert baron excuse me bishop robert baron um i mean you know i i keep this up all day but you get the idea yeah and and isn't it great that we live in this particular era where all this is available so simply uh whether it's electronic or elsewhere and of course you know there are there are a number of catholic uh classical home school curricula and programs out there uh both you know online and in print yeah you know that uh that that can help you if you wanna if you wanna outsource some of this sure and that that body of work is only going to get bigger i mean when we were homeschooling what 20 25 years ago there wasn't that much out there but today there is that's right awful lot of it hey matt thank you so much for your call it is called to communion here on ewtn you know we we add to the ewtn family all the time whether it's radio television internet uh publishing uh everything one of the newest additions to that family is the wonderful website church pop if you've never checked it out it is an awful lot of fun it's new online christian content that is fun it's also informative and it's always going to be inspirational you can check it out via snapchat it's on instagram and it's on the web at churchpop.com churchpop.com to check it out all right back to the phones here on ewtn's call to communion tom in texas listening today on facebook hey there tom what's on your mind today okay dr anders i want to thank you you're a wonderful teacher um my question today is i've heard from knowledgeable catholics more than once that the church has to die before the second coming of christ they don't substantiate it with anything is there any validity to that point uh so i'm afraid i'm not i'm gonna have to disagree that you've heard this from knowledgeable catholics this is not the church's teaching and there is nothing to substantiate it christ said the exact opposite right he said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church and saint paul i mentioned earlier in the show specifically mentions members of the church who will be alive at the time of christ's second coming and they will not precede those who have already died so christ established the church on the rock of saint peter and gave to the church a promise of his divine assistance that the gates of hell would not prevail against it until the end of the world now that being said he promised that the church would endure he did not promise that the church would endure in say birmingham alabama where i live you know and so so in my particular local community i cannot take the existence of the church for granted but i have to manifest it right i have to support it with my with my tithes and offerings with my service with my charity with my love and justice and my works of ministry and so forth and i have to may have to fight uh with the weapons of spiritual warfare the enemies of the church that would destroy it and we have seen cultures throughout the history of the 2000 years where where christianity has been all but but extinguished through persecution in some particular place right not worldwide but in some particular place and uh and there are folks out there today that are doing their dead level best to destroy the faith in this place or that yeah and uh and so church as a whole is not going away but we may have to really contend for it here there at yonder i want to take that for granted all right thank you so much for your call tom it is called communion here on ewtn question here from derek watching us on youtube derek says regarding the saints jesus said the only way to the father is through him not through the saints in addition i also understand that the roman catholic church has transformed pagan gods into saints how can you explain this away or defend this okay first of all i don't know anything about any pagan gods being transformed into saints so i i don't know anything about that and we don't do that and if we did i would throw it away okay um secondly do you think that you should pray for your friends right do you think you should pray for your friends well well um scripture actually commands us to pray for our friends pray for one another saint james says and you know you open every letter of saint paul you open up i'm praying for you guys right we're supposed to pray for one another does that diminish from the unique mediation of jesus far from it it expresses it because we think that our prayers uh and and merits are efficacious that that god gives us the dignity of participating with him in the working out of his plans he makes use of human prayer to bring about the purposes that he's already designed to do right that's that's the dignity of the church saint paul says we are we are christ's co-laborers as if god were making his appeal through us why because we're members of christ the church is the body of christ if saint paul was putting christians to death jesus appeared to him on the road to damascus and said saul why are you persecuting me right why are you persecuting me the church is the household of god the temple of god and the body of christ it's all through jesus but jesus expresses that mediation through the members of his body which is the church and so it doesn't detract at all from christ it's the way god manifests the grace of christ in the world derek thanks so much for checking us out today on youtube here's a question now from joanne watching on facebook joanne says a non-catholic came into our catholic online prayer group recently she observed my petition asking mary mother of god to pray for us and then replied she objected to my prayer she said mary was not the mother of god and that mary is dead she insisted my prayer would go unanswered so what's the best way to reply to someone with her objections um yeah thanks i appreciate the question so first of all we got we got a bunch of stuff here we got to deal with right first we got to deal with the this with the statement that mary is not the mother of god okay well who did she give birth to that's a really important question who did she give birth to or to whom did she give birth if my mother is watching this show who always corrects my grammar all right she gave birth to jesus right sure now is jesus the god man is he the god man is he divine all right uh if he is then then mary gave birth to the god man god is part of that picture sure all right now what some people what some christians have wanted to do over time is to say this they'll say well look i'll admit to you that mary gave birth to the physical flesh of jesus but not not to the not to god not to the divinity and there's two ways i could take a statement like that on the one hand look catholics acknowledge god eternal omnipotent unchanging utterly simple creator god did not come into existence when christ was born of the blessed virgin mary divinity as such was not was not given birth to or in a creative kind of way by mary as if somehow she pre-existed the godhead no that would be absurd okay so if that's what you mean well i agree with you but but if you there's another way you can take it that's bad that's totally wrong if you say mary didn't give birth to god and what you mean by that is that somehow divinity gets gets like adjuncted to the physical uh flesh of christ you know postpartum right or or that the two are somehow separable and that you can point to jesus's flesh and you don't really have a divine person well that's not true at all right that would mean that jesus was one thing and god was something else no no no no the catholic faith the christian faith the biblical faith is that christ is fully god fully man so if you give birth to jesus you are giving birth to the god man and that's what that affirmation means in catholic faith it's a confession of the full divinity of jesus christ namely that the second person of the trinity the eternal unchanging god assumed human nature in the incarnation and was born of the blessed virgin mary that's the truth about mary now what about this business about mary is dead and not alive well remember what the fear when the sadducees came to christ all right jesus retorted to them he says didn't god in when he appeared to moses and burning bush say that i am the god of abraham isaac and jacob and christ says but he is not the god of the dead but of the living for all are alive in him right the the those who die in christ are not dead they are alive in god and scripture shows us this in you read passages of the bible like revelation chapter 5 where the dead in christ are in heaven interceding and praying for us and offering our prayers up to god right and then finally there's this question of well can we seek their prayers and intercessions well yes precisely because they are praying for us and offering our prayers before the throne of god yeah okay well joanne thank you so much for your question i think we have time for one super quick question here this is from john who says dr anders recently caught one of your radio programs asking about saint augustine i believe you stated that all of saint augustine is good but i believe you recommended the confessions of saint augustine by john k ryan or was i mistaken don't remember anything about any john k ryan but you'd go grab hold of any translation of augustine you want and read it that's that i don't care who translated it just as long as you're reading the confessions i like i like the penguin classics edition personally that's the addition i like the best but i don't care which one you read sounds good dr david andrews thank you so much thank you we do our program monday through friday here on ewtn at 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 p.m eastern also on ewtn radio and we bring you a best of show every sunday at 2 p.m eastern on the radio side you can also check out the podcast anytime you wish by going to ewtnradio.net on behalf of our super team here we have charles and ryan and jeff i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks so much for joining us this time on ewtn's call to communion see you next time god bless this is father larry richards do you want to know how to bring people to jesus christ well find out next on open line thursday

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,376

Rating: 4.9384613 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: PuKc59K2p2U

Length: 54min 15sec (3255 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020