Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders 02/15/21

place for more news from a catholic perspective 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 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation to confess my 1-833-288-3986 to a priest what's stopping you this is call to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network and a chilly happy monday to you from all of us here at ewtn's call to communion the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question for dr david andrews we are here to get that question answered here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six and that's uh the best way to get us now if you're listening to us uh outside of north america then you should dial the us country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and of course you can always send us an email ctc ewtn.com is the address well we have charles berry as our producer today of course and uh ryan penny is handling the phones jeff berson's on social media so if you want to ask a question to using youtube or facebook live you can ask that question put that question in the uh in the comments section jeff will shoot that to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anderson tom how are you today great how was that weekend of yours you know it was pretty decent thanks how about yours uh chilly getting getting chilly and getting chillier by the moment well uh yeah you know by alabama standards it's uh inclement and then but but you you did check the weather in south florida and what do we got 84 is what it's all down there sounding good here's a question from bob in portland oregon who says dr anders i've heard you say that in the past the niv drives me nuts because of the way it renders certain greek words or phrases well i personally enjoy that version and find it a good balance between word for word and thought for thought translation philosophy could you please give me a couple of key examples of where the niv got it wrong compared to say the rsv ps have you read the new catholic version at all love to hear your thoughts on any of that uh thanks bob in portland oregon okay thanks bob i really appreciate the question so first of all look i will freely confess that in terms of the english prose for readability for style the niv is a very readable text of the bible i mean it's it's it's rendered felicitously in terms of the you know ease of language okay but that's not what bothers me about it it's not how easy it is to read it's it's it's it's the the actual content accuracy yeah that it conveys and if you go through a list of the editors and contributors to the niv it sort of reads like a who's who in reformed evangelical protestantism and i say that only because the the people who put the translation together very much have a theological acts to grind and look they they believe it's not like they're trying to be deceitful they they they are in they're rendering a translation that they think is consistent with what they believe scripture means but those convictions are formed in a in a you know deeply uh theological milieu of reformed protestantism and those those biases bleed through all the time now uh i don't even pretend to be a greek scholar you know i'm not a greek scholar i mean i'm a historian i'm not a greek scholar i did study greek in seminary but i'm hardly expert in it but i can read experts and i don't think there's any dispute that one of the leading experts in the greek new testament today is nt wright former bishop of durham and new testament scholar in the uk and uh and nt wright has said this is his judgment not mine yes and he his judgment is much harsher than mine his opinion is that it is impossible not not difficult but literally impossible to discern the mind of the apostle paul uh to understand what paul actually meant to convey if you restrict your reading to the to the niv the new international version of the of the new testament he just thinks it's atrocious that's it that's entity rights opinion all right for the same reasons that i give now uh you know if you if i if i had the question in advance i would have gone back and prepared you know kind of a you know bullet point of you know text versus text and to go through and show you delineate you know different instances in which i could form that judgment i'm just not prepared to do that off the cuff right now um but that's my you know that's that's that's my reasoning that's my judgment uh i like the newer vice standard version catholic edition that's the the version of the bible that i like the best but when it comes to actually doing bible study if ever i'm trying to you know really try to get at what the text is conveying i don't ever limit myself to any single english translation of the bible i'm all today with the internet it's so easy even if you don't read greek it's so easy uh to pull up an interlinear translation of the bible where you have uh greek and english side by side with all the grammatical helps built in so you can hyperlink greek words and pull up the the grammatical structure and the parsing and so forth and and and do word studies and cross references it's just tremendously easy today with computer resources that we have to analyze texts in ancient languages yes indeed bob thank you so much for your email here's a quick one from alan in toronto he says i have a friend who is an iglesia ni christo for them christ is not god well if christ is not god are they guilty of a sin if yes what kind of a sin on the other hand if they're right the christ is not god are we guilty of idolatry thanks and god bless alan in toronto okay thanks so obviously i think that people who deny the divinity of christ are incorrect i don't think that's a true position and i think it's a harmful position to talk about whether somebody is individually culpable of sin for their false theological beliefs i think that's a little bit more complicated you know when when we get to heaven uh i don't think when we show up at the gates of heaven that you know saint peter is going to hand us a multiple choice exam on the nicey and creed probably not and and i don't think that our admission to heaven is going to be contingent on you know our having passed a doctrinal exam that's not the point of christian doctrine i mean christian doctrine has a point it has a purpose and we should be correct about it if it's within our power to do so if we have access to the catholic faith we can know the truth but dogma functions in our life as a light as a light that's the way the catechism speaks about this dogma is a light it illumines our path and makes it secure um and so it's there to help us form our moral lives and our in our actions and our choices and our reflection and our contemplation to further us in the goal of being united to god in charity and and love of neighbor um but it's not there is like some axiomatic truth that i'm saved in virtue of believing what a delightful turn of phrase dogma is a light isn't that beautiful i just love it i love that stuff yeah fantastic allen thanks for your email we're getting those calls screen but there's three lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn for the monday afternoon edition of call to communion catholic answers live one of the things that we often think about in our spiritual lives is how to do something big for god but really most of the time we should focus on how we can do something small for god it's these small things that help us consecrate our ordinary daily activities and help us do everything for jesus christ catholic answers live tonight 6 eastern on ewtn radio [Music] lent will be here before we know it it's a time to dispose our hearts as we prepare for the joy of jesus's resurrection at easter but often lent passes us by without our taking the time to grow closer to our lord this is why father joseph mary wolf is helping us re-energize our faith with a series of lenten reflections to guide us during this important season go to ewtn.com slash lenten reflections to sign up to receive a free ebook you'll also get reflections delivered to your inbox beginning ash wednesday and throughout the sundays of lent with simple and profound insights into the scriptures father joseph will help you turn to our lord and prepare for the glorious celebration of his resurrection to receive this free ebook with lenten reflections from father joseph mary wolf and receive the weekly emails please visit ewtn.com lenten reflections [Music] it's called communion here on ewtn glad you're joining us here on this monday afternoon i want to let you know about something you may not be aware of and that is church pop it takes a fresh and fun look at the news shaping our world featuring engaging inspiring and informative catholic social media content you can find out all about church pop by going to snapchat we're there instagram we're there and on the web of course at churchpop.com it's a division of ewtn church pop is very cool you can get it right now directly into your inbox visit ewtn.com and click on subscribe find out all about churchpop and if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with sean in cedarville ohio listening on the blowtorch saint gabriel radio a first-time caller hello there sean what's on your mind today hi um yeah i was wondering if you could help me understand um the difference between repentance and penance and then if there's a necessity for pennant to accompany repentance okay thanks if you will permit me i would prefer to reframe the question a little bit in a way that helps me get clear on the vocabulary but i think will still address your concern and what i'd like to do is rather than distinguishing repentance and penance i'd like to talk about the different forms of penance as the word penance is used in catholic tradition because very often penance and repentance are used synonymously so there are distinctions we need to be aware of but don't know if that those terminological distinctions that you've proposed are the best way of getting at it so st thomas aquinas who's my guide on most of these kinds of issues says we have to distinguish three forms of penance three types of penance there is penance as a passion penance as a virtue and penance as a sacrament and let me dig into those a little bit now he defines penance as deploring some past deed that i have done all right and like you know i don't like that wish i didn't do that i don't want to do it again now as a passion uh this is closer i think to the experience people have psychologically what we might call guilt you know you think about something you did in the past and like you you know your stomach kind of goes into a knot and you seize up and you start going oh dave you dummy dave you dummy you know we all have we've had that experience and it really is almost a kind of a bodily sensation an emotion of disgust at myself or you know or some past act and as a bodily action that that form of penance is really kind of morally neutral and could even potentially be harmful if it's neurotic you know i mean like scrupulous people will seize up that way and and feel self-loathing and self-discussed over something that's really not bad well that's obviously unhelpful right so that's we need to just discount that you know as being our major concern right now and there's penance as a virtue the penance has a virtues not a bodily passion but is an act of the will and so it's the sort of the subtle determination of reason to judge some past action or some present state of affairs as as bad or not desirable and i should avoid them and uh and it may not it may be unaccompanied by the by the uh otherwise concomitant passion of of of penance and um and this is very healthy and we should always seek to cultivate the virtue of penance which is the sort of settled intellectual judgment that some action that is objectively wrong is wrong and a willingness to avoid it in the future now consider the difference between these two states of mind one i really think is psychologically healthy and the other one i think is neurotic and the kind of thing that people go to counseling for the person who is able to look at their past deeds and recognize when one was erroneous or faulty or sinful and say you know that was bad i shouldn't do that again and i need to put habits in place that'll prevent me from doing that in the future that's a very healthy attitude now think about the guy who just can't get rid of his self-disgust and walks around all day hating himself and feeling like i'm such a loser and i'm such a failure and i'm such a bad guy ends up getting really depressed well that that guy's actually not doing anything to help himself in fact he's making his life a lot worse and probably a misery for the people around him so we need to avoid the former avoid that that passion of of penance as sort of self-discussed and cultivate the rational habit or virtue of penance which is a judgment of the will to seek to do good and avoid evil and that's an ongoing part of our life now we're going to talk about the the sacrament of penance which is the act of making confession of our sins to a minister of the church to a priest who has the power from christ to absolve us to receive the absolution of the church and to have a an act of penance which is really an act of satisfaction given to us by the church that we perform to make satisfaction for the for the the evil deed that we did right and uh and that of course has a has a time stamp on it you know if i went to confession this weekend father said he was in a hail mary mood he said say 10 hail marys i was like this hail mary inflation going on here you know um and uh and i know that because he gave my wife the same penance we were like okay this is this is the penance of the day here it's a 10 hail mary kind of day you get it done and it's done like the sacrament of penance has a time stamp on it you perform your act of satisfaction and you're done wow well there you go so that is done and sean thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six let's go to judy now in plain view nebraska listening on spirit catholic radio hi judy what's on your mind today hi guys thanks for taking my call i started to watch a tv a series on tv and it was about a family and it was really neat then a couple of characters came on in two different nights of the series and used the name of jesus in vain and it upset me but i liked the show um i went on and it has not been used since then i'm now probably on the seventh of the series i'm wondering if that's a sin and i'm wondering what kind um i'd i've heard blasphemy before this was not said severely but it still was the name of jesus in vain that's my question what should i do well thanks i appreciate the question so uh you know i'm i'm i really don't feel like it's my place to try to tell people in a minute sort of way you know you should watch this show you shouldn't watch that show and that's really something for you to discern in your conscience and maybe with the help of your spiritual director or confessor um i appreciate your concern your desire to spend your your your entertainment time your diversion doing things that are honoring to god and edifying to you and i think that's a very admirable goal i know in my own life there seems to be a an almost sort of inverted direct proportion between the amount of time i spend watching television of any kind and and and the quality of my contemplative life i remember hearing father thomas dube one time he's a great teacher of contemplation in the catholic prayer tradition father thomas said that he had never known a person of deep prayer who made a lot of time for television and that that really struck me and you know the holy father pope francis i know when he was first elevated to the papacy in 2013 i was reading about his life and uh and i found out that he had some 20 years earlier taken taken a personal vow that he would not watch television or film wow and he didn't he didn't impose that on the universal church he didn't say that's what everybody has to do but he just said for me i've decided this is not going to be part of my life and at that time he may have changed his practice since then but at that time i read that his practice was you know he would read the paper because he kind of got keep up with current events a little bit to know what's going on in the world and he set aside a brief period of time for reading the paper and then after that he put it aside and he spent his time thinking about other things and i thought well that's that's pretty neat stuff yeah it is you know and and uh in my own life i've like i don't exercise a complete and total media fast but i will i'll take periodic moments of abstinence and and fasting i might take a lint and penance for example of no access to electronic media something after tomorrow buddy you know you're right it is all right and uh uh and so you know i i commend you i think these these are the kind of questions and some of this is going to be like what you you know your own conscience and you know what's going to lead you into sin and what's going to make you careless in your language or the way you relate to people and and you know these are true prudential judgments and i think you're going about it the right way appreciate your call judy it's called a communion here on ewtn sold out phones at the moment uh when the line does become available you're welcome to call us at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here's terry now in anderson south carolina listing on sirius xm channel 130 hey terry what's on your mind today terry is uh there's a a tone there a tone for your sins david all right let's move on to uh alvin in brooklyn new york listening on ewtn television today alvin what's on your mind today uh yeah um you answered a uh question from mustafa earlier about uh his mark saint mark's uh bible line in which she doubted the divinity of jesus christ correct sure we were not sure and clear about your answer to that can you say it again can you say you tell us your answer okay sure in short i'll attempt to so first of all let me back up and say that the question of the divinity of christ is not something that i think we could answer definitively only from the text of mark's gospel the only thing i had to go on was the text of mark's gospel i'd say that the answer would be somewhat ambiguous and and that's important to recognize because the gospel of mark was not written i believe to give me a comprehensive account of christian doctrine that was not saint mark's purpose in writing the text and so if i attempt to squeeze out of the text answers to questions that he didn't raise explicitly then i may i may be frustrated at the answers to give a really comprehensive account of christian doctrine i need to need to have access to all of the data of revelation and to the rule of faith that christ himself gave so i have to avail myself of the riches of catholic tradition and the church's teaching authority as well as the texts of the gospels and and the rest of the new testament that's the way i form a judgment about what to believe or not to believe not just based on one single text of the bible but you know the point that i made in in the gospel of mark was that well first of all the gospel itself opens with a quote from the prophet isaiah prophesying the one who would prepare the coming of the lord and of course when isaiah speaks of the lord he's he's talking about the god of the old testament he's talking about god over all and then he says that that is fulfilled in the preaching of john the baptist about the arrival of jesus hmm okay and and when you when we get that that fall that's an oblique way of getting at the question it's not like mark comes out and says oh by the way i want you to know that the council of nicea is correct and jesus is god from god you know true god from true god light from light begotten not made i mean mark obviously doesn't speak in the terms of the confession nevertheless he he he approaches the person of jesus with a profound reverence as the fulfillment of old testament prophecy and expectation about the coming day of the lord and and the rest of the gospel is is a the picture of christ's fulfillment of those prophecies his forgiveness of sins and performing miracles and feeding the five thousand and and uh and claiming the right to interpret and seemingly abrogate elements of the mosaic law and and you know when confronted by the young ruler in mark chapter 10 but whether it's adequate to obey the mosaic code and christ says well on the contrary you have to follow me right and and and you know it's and assimilating to himself like the prerogatives of divinity i mean these are highly suggestive and then of course the full picture of christ's if any gets gets spelled out in the other gospels especially john's gospel and then also of course in the teaching of the church okay is that helpful for you alvin yeah yeah yeah so i have another question but uh i think okay all right thank you thank you sure yeah we do well we we do have to move on to the next call but we thank you so much for your call it is called to communion here on ewtn a quick question here and this is uh i think from velma velma is in sun city arizona velmo what's on your mind today i would like to know what bible the catholics use this is the king james version thank you i appreciate the question uh the catholic church has not authorized one specific translation of the bible as the standard that all catholics must use right there's there there's no magisterial teaching no no teaching from the church saying a catholic has to read this version of the bible the closest the church ever came to doing that was at the council of trent in the 16th century the church authorized the latin vulgate translation of the bible produced by by saint jerome under the direction of pope damasus in the 4th century the latin vulgate is authorized translation of the bible okay so if you want if you want to know like you know it at the highest levels of magisterial authority what translation of the bible has the church said this one is absolutely safe well that would be the vulgate the latin vulgate most people today don't read latin that's true you know um the the the bishops of the united states use the new american bible as the official translation for their liturgy um that that doesn't they're not that's that doesn't it's not the same thing as an endorsement you know at the level of scholarship saying that this is somehow the best or flawless translation they haven't done that so really you know your catholics can look at different translations of the bible i myself like the new revised standard version catholic edition um but i will always consult a number of them sounds so good uh velma thank you so much for your call we do appreciate that call to communion here on ewtn remember earlier when i said if a line becomes available well guess what a line became available call now if you have a question for dr david anders 833 288 ewtn jimmy aiken marcus crodie father john ricardo the leading catholic voices are on the largest catholic media network in the world you're listening to the ewtn global catholic radio network living the beatitudes with father bjorn blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy we get what we look for saint therese of lisu has an interesting insight on this once in a discussion over the possibility of avoiding purgatory the future saint told another member of her community sister maria fabronia that god was more father than judge and in this discussion debate she finally took the liberty of saying to the other sister if you look for the justice of god you will get it the soul will receive from god exactly what she desires are we full of wounds and anger and hurt and do we want to inflict that on other people are we allowing god to heal us if we receive his mercy we have to show it to others the beatitudes are the heart of jesus's message let's be transformed by them blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy for more about the beatitudes visit ewtnrc.com unplanned the true story of abby johnson i would be the youngest director in planned parenthood history she believed in a woman's right to choose i've had an abortion myself so i don't have any problem with another woman making the same decision until the day she saw something that changed everything tiny perfect little baby and then it was just gone now she's pulling back the curtain on the abortion industry unplanned available at ewtnrc.com and the ewtn app hi this is psy kellett later today on catholic answers live steve wray open forum for non-catholics and trent horn why are you pro-choice catholic ants was live 6 pm eastern on ewtn radio now back to call the communion dr david anders [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn if you have a question for dr david andrews we're ready for you at 833 288 ewtn that's now tony 833-288-3986 protestants say that catholics changed the second commandment not to worship idols and replaced it with not to use the lord's name in vain is this accurate and if so why did the church make this change okay so uh if you open any catholic bible and you read say exodus 20 which is one of the two places where we have the ten commandments listed you will not find any difference in in the the text in a protestant bible or in the catholic bible you'll find any difference okay one of the one of the differences that you won't find is you will you will not find that they number the commandments differently because neither version numbers the commandments so if you if you go read exodus chapter 20 and god spoke these words i am the lord your god who brought you out of egypt you shall have no other gods before me you shall not make for yourself an image etc etc there are no numbers there are no numbers there are no numbers and so the the tradition of numbering them is something that is added into the text it's an interpretive tradition that's imposed upon the text not something that falls within the text of holy scripture itself now correct me if i'm wrong but memory serves me correct protestants don't believe that any human tradition outside the text of scripture is ultimately authoritative that's the protestant view so if a protestant comes by and says you're numbering the commandments the wrong way it says who your tradition versus mine will you tell me mr protestant person that your own tradition does not possess divine authority that's what you say about your own tradition it's not has no divine authority right right now you also think that my tradition doesn't have divine authority that's where we differ i think catholic tradition does have divine authority so we're at least agreed that protestant tradition is without divine authority [Laughter] and the only thing you're objecting to is that our divergent traditions numbers the number of the commandments differently and scripture itself is silent on how they should be numbered or if they should be numbered at all even the fact of numbering them is a function of tradition not the text itself so do you insist that the commandments are to be numbered well you've just imported something from catholic tradition oops there we go appreciate that tony thank you so much for checking us out today on youtube back to the phones right now at 833 288 ewtn here is sally in omaha listening on the great spirit catholic radio a first-time caller sally what's on your mind today i'm going to ask a question about vocations a friend of mine were discussing this and i said well i know there's a religious location which would be priest nuns brothers and there's marriage obviously and then i would think the third one would be single is that is single and she didn't think single would be a vocation is that what's the church's thinking on that okay thanks i really appreciate the question so so essential to the concept of vocation is that it is a settled form of life like that's objectively recognized by society or the church for the sake of the common good yeah right one does not have a vocation uh you know to race ferraris right i mean just because i i myself am attracted to a form of activity is not sufficient to constitute that activity as a vocation the way we use the term right vocation really has to do with a form of life within a community for the sake of the common good right the the the conscious choice of that form of life for the for the purpose of serving the the church and the society everyone is single the moment they are conceived right so if singleness is conceived as just the state of not being married that in itself is not sufficient to constitute it as a vocation because it's very easy to be single but not as a chosen form of life for the sake of the common good that's right st paul in first corinthians chap what is it chapter 7 verse 8 says that uh you know each person should have their spouse um if if that's you know the way they can get by the best but he says it's better to be like i am i saint paul i'm unmarried right so that i can serve the church so when when the celibate life is deliberately chosen for the sake of the common good right then yes it could it could take on the character of a vocation but just well i haven't found my spouse yet or i'm not done racing ferraris at that point it would not have risen to the level of a vocation gotcha tony thank you so much for checking us out today on youtube no actually that was sally i beg your pardon sally thank you for calling in from omaha call to communion today and let's go to uh terry in anderson south carolina listening on siriusxm channel 130. hello terry what's on your mind today hello how are you today very well what's going on terry well i have a question about bodily fluids when we talk about what's clean and unclean in the old testament and new testament i wonder if you give me a definition of that that i might understand yeah sure well i'll do my best i'll do my best okay but we're dealing in concepts here that are very foreign uh well maybe not as foreign maybe not but i'll do my best uh it's important to understand that clean and unclean and old testament ceremonial law are not moral categories they're not moral categories at all they're ritual categories and uh and so if you go to the text of the old testament and you try to figure out the rationale well why would this be clean and that would be unclean i don't see how that even you're going at it the wrong way all right uh within the old testament um the the reason for specifying anything is clean and unclean is because at the center at the heart of old testament ritual and worship is the idea of the holiness of god holiness here not just being a moral quality but the state of being other the state of being ritually set apart and so the ceremonial exists for the purpose of elevating that distinction in the minds of the worshippers god is holy other and so we're going to set up various boundaries and and rules that visibly indicate these states of life of of of distinction and otherness some of them were put in place in fact uh to to differentiate jews from non-jews just to make it difficult for there to be interchanged between jews and non-jews i think a lot of the dietary laws make it quite hard to have dinner with the jew and i mean i've had orthodox jewish friends in the past and i'm like you guys want to come over to dinner and they're like can we play tennis instead hard to eat with you gentile types you know and keep our law and that's actually by design that's by design okay so we can't we do wrong to look at them as as a moral category so not uniquely moral categories and of course that's one of the aspects of the law that jesus dispenses with when he says it's not what goes into the body that makes it clean unclean or clean is what comes out evil thoughts and fornication and adultery and so forth jesus redirects our attention precisely to those moral qualities was mosaic law does not do so um well not uniquely not uniquely now when i said we don't really have any equivalents in modern society we do kind of and i'm thinking of a few of a few illustrations so one would be um you know like when you're a kid on the playground and uh you know the other kids decide that some kid has got cooties you know cootie is not a moral quality it's some indefinable thing that marks you out as being outside the norm somehow right and then the other kids don't want to touch you for fear of getting cooties well it's a little bit like that you know certain forms of political correctness right seem to me seem like that was almost purely arbitrary distinctions of like oh you're not allowed to use that word why not well it's not politically correct what does it mean well this other word isn't that what i said you know i mean it's almost arbitrary it's just a way kind of virtue signaling a way of showing that i'm in the right group and a lot of that was really kind of embedded in the whole nature of mosaic ritual you know the whole virtue signaling thing i mean at least now there's a term for it but it's been going on for forever hasn't it uh oh yeah and dr seuss wrote a book about it sure did that'd be uh the sneetches that's the one yeah all right very good terry thanks so much for your call here on ewtn's call to communion we have a line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here's tina now in charleston south carolina a first-time caller hello tina what's on your mind today hello dr anders could you speak to what the church says about having memories in heaven yeah thanks uh so we'll have memories in heaven to be sure and uh and when you say speak to what the church says about this i'm this i'm inferring okay what i'm giving you is an inference my reasoning based on what the church says so i don't you know the church hasn't like said here's an official dogma we have memories in heaven right so i'm extrapolating and this is my own judgment first of all when we encounter the dead in sacred scripture they are clearly conscious and aware when we encounter them in sacred scripture think about when jeremiah shows up to to judas maccabeeus in second maccabees chapter 15. he says i'm praying for you guys well he couldn't do that if he didn't know who he was praying for that's right um uh you know think about revelation chapter 5 verse 8 where the saints in heaven are depicted as offering the prayers of the church on earth to god well how could they do that if they are unaware that there are prayers on earth to god right um and uh and of course the beatific vision itself promises us that we will know god even as we're fully known i mean this doesn't involve any sort of diminution in our knowledge not it's not heaven is not some form of cognitive impairment on the contrary it's a cognitive enhancement we know a lot more rather than less now god knows all things in himself well if we know the essence of god then we would know all things in god right yeah and it would also seem to be against justice right if in so far as you know if heaven is the reward of the just well part of the glory of the redeemed is that they understand themselves to be vindicated for their righteous deeds and and for the persecutions they underwent and it would seem highly counter-intuitive to say i'm going to reward you for something after i have removed from you the memory of what you did yeah makes sense all the sense in the world appreciate your call thank you so much tina for checking in in charleston call to communion here on ewtn reminding you to please join us tomorrow morning for the ewtn rosary you'll check it out tomorrow morning 5 30 a.m eastern with mother angelica and tomorrow evening at 9 30 pm eastern with father benedict groschel in fact we air that for you every day every day glad to do not just monday through friday seven days a week the rosary at 5 30 a.m eastern and the rosary at 9 30 pm eastern with father benedict groeschel fantastic back to the phones now here on call to communion our phone number 833-288 ewtn that's here 833-288-3986 sharon now in seattle listening on sacred heart radio hey sharon what's on your mind today um yes i'd like to tell you and dr anders tom that you're both the catholic pajamas and it's a colloquialism from farm girl country in pennsylvania the cat's pajamas wow i'm calling you is because i have been praying for my father he's been dead probably 45 years and when i was a child he used to beat us until blood ran down our legs but listen i have been healed by all of that and my question is i pray three hours a day and my question to you is uh today after my prayer i had i don't know what i don't know how to explain it to you i had sort of like something inside of myself that felt like an assurance that my father finally made it from purgatory into heaven i i just had that and i wanted to ask you about that and to tell it's not magic i went through a lot of pain and forgiveness and pain and forgiveness and grappling with god the father because of that so for like i've been a roman catholic for almost 50 years i was a russian orthodox and so because of this and i feel blessed and honored beyond belief to be a roman catholic but i just wanted to has anyone ever reported to you that they had i don't know to call it an assurance of freedom a likeness that someone they knew was released from purgatory yeah thanks i really appreciate the question and of course first of all i have to say i'm really sorry for what you've suffered i'm really amazed at your fidelity and the healing and forgiveness that you've achieved this is really something meritorious and admirable and i admire you very much um but in answer to your specific question do people represent these kinds of things of course they do all the time of course they do all the time and and the church teaches that some of these experiences may very well be veritical they may be true they may they may actually be revelations from god and uh you know i can't form that judgment it's not possible for me to say to you well this came from god or this came from your imagination i'm not i'm not equipped to do that both are possible but it seems to me that that the the information that you've conveyed is encouraging it's hopeful it doesn't it doesn't lead you to be more resentful or less forgiving uh at least not the way you've represented it to me um but in fact seems to to cohere well with your own desire to forgive your father and pray for his salvation and so i would say personal opinion and of course check this out with your spiritual director but i would say that you know sort of provisionally you're safe holding this as a kind of probable opinion hmm right it's not a it's not a doctrine of the church and you could be wrong and nothing really would be lost to you for it but you could say you know this is this is an opinion that i hold and i'm open to revision but for the present purposes it encourages me it gives me hope in my father's salvation and my own forgiveness and therefore i'm going to go forward with this as a probable opinion you know and we do these kinds of things all the time in catholic life and they can be quite helpful i mean i'll give you a really good example in my own life i haven't had visions but i have what i regard as a very probable opinion that several people that i know are in heaven i've formed this judgment based on the quality of their lives and my personal interaction with them they haven't been canonized by the church but this is my private opinion and therefore i pray to them for their intercession and that encourages me and gives me hope and you know if the church comes out one day and says so and so is was a bad guy we don't like him well maybe i'd reform my that opinion but for now i'm that's that's how i roll all right sharon thank you for a a great call we will really really appreciate hearing from you today and glad that you're listening on sacred heart radio which is now celebrating their 20th anniversary very glad to have them as part of the ewtn radio family call to communion here on ewtn a question here from bridget who says my niece who was raised a catholic but is now an atheist is asking me how it was justified that king david's child died to punish david and how it was justified that the lord threatened to take all of his wives to samuel 12 11. i have told her she can't take things out of context i also told her she needs to do a bible study she sends me a random text questions like these occasionally i have suggested reading materials to her like you know anything from father spitzer because she was a physics major i think she is a searcher can you suggest an answer to her question and perhaps some helpful reading materials thanks i learned so much from your radio show bridgette thank you i appreciate the question uh so i i recently learned of the death of someone that i know and i'm going to be cryptic okay um and uh you know the individuals around this person experienced their death as traumatic the person who died i don't think did wow right i mean like this is going to be an ironic statement but if you wake up dead as it were yeah like it's no skin off your back you know if you if you like you go to sleep wake up in heaven where's the problem no problem there at all none of us is owed everlasting life or even longevity you know and uh and so if i if i were to die and god were pleased to take me to heaven i mean i think i'd be pretty happy about it i would think so right and and in the case of david's child there's no injustice against the child necessarily that the child should die a child could be in heaven yeah it's a good thing for the child think about it you don't have to go through adolescence you know you don't have to get turned down on your first date i mean like they got all the all the things you get to avoid no pimples you know no pimples not particularly no it's not a tragedy from pointing to the child it was experienced as tragic by david you know and and everyone we're all going to die of our last disease every one of us that implies no injustice in god okay well there you are and we thank you so much bridget for your email let's go to the phones right now here on call to communion here is wes in houston listing on guadalupe radio a first time caller hey les what's on your mind today let's go right ahead on uh who christ jesus is versus who mary is yeah thank you i can do that appreciate that were you able to get the whole question i got who's jesus in comparison to mary that's the essence of the question our screener says what is the catholic stand on who jesus is versus mary why pray to mary okay so jesus is almighty god the creator and redeemer of the universe uh who assumed flesh in the in the womb of the blessed virgin and became a man um uh lived taught fulfilled prophecy healed the sick cast out demons the kingdom of god came in him died an atoning death on the cross to make satisfaction for the sins of the world rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven where he seated the right hand of god the father and will come again to in glory to judge the living and the dead and our uh and all in him and his promises we have all we need for life and godliness and he comes to us continually through the ministry of the catholic church through the holy spirit and especially in the blessed sacrament where he's present to his body blood soul and divinity that is uniquely true of jesus and is true of no one else on the planet all right including the blessed virgin mary the blessed virgin mary is a creature in need of redemption in fact redeemed by jesus from the moment of her conception um but who was given the singular privilege of being his mother so when christ assumed a human nature and was born of a virgin it was of the virgin mary he was conceived in her womb and born of her flesh but she is still a creature but one who enjoyed singular privileges namely the privilege of being the mother of god now in view of that conception in view of those privileges mary was giving given some other extreme privileges one of them was that she would experience the gift of sanctifying grace which we can all have through the sacraments she experienced that from the moment of her conception so we call the immaculate conception that was the way in which christ redeemed her he redeemed her through the immaculate conception such that she was preserved from not only original but actual sin throughout her lifetime and she is an extraordinary christian i mean she's like the greatest christian i mean mother teresa was pretty good pretty good christian mother teresa all right but compared to the blessed virgin mary you know mother teresa was in was in kindergarten saint school compared to mary who was he was phd level saint there you go all right so she's the greatest of the saints now all of the saints including mother teresa um have the job of praying for the church all of the saints so wes if if you are a saint when you get to heaven i hope you'll pray for me all right if you get there before i do all of the saints have the job of praying for the church and their prayers are are efficacious are powerful as they are personally holy the prayer of a righteous man avails much that's what james says in his epistle so the holier and more righteous you are the more effective your prayers are because your prayers align more perfectly with the will of god which will necessarily happen mary is the most righteous the most holy of the saints and therefore her prayers on our behalf are the most efficacious but she is a mere creature redeemed by jesus like the rest of us so when we say that we are praying to mary we're we're asking mary for something that is exactly what we're doing we're asking for her intercession on our behalf not that we are worshiping her no in the same way that i would ask wes to pray for us and we're not worshiping wes and we're not asking him to worship us we're saying let's pray for each other there you go thanks wes for your call i think we have just enough time for josepha in san jose josefa what's your question real quick yeah my question is why in english and decree said t-rex again from yeah yes okay so in the english language to rise again is an idiom you know an idiom is just a form of speech that means he was dead and he got up that's all it means it's just an it's just idiomatic english it doesn't mean that he rose and then rose and then rose and then rose like he rose a bunch of times it doesn't mean that that's just how the phrase is given in the english language other languages would convey that same truth with different terms there you go josefa thank you so much for your call i'm glad we could get you in at the very last minute uh there were a couple of uh other other people that we could not get on and hopefully we can get to them on a future program hey dr david anders thank you sir i'm i'm still kind of grooving about being the cat's pajamas oh you know what a compliment yeah i apparently first came out in well it was a song it was a jazz age song you ought to know about that i think tom back off boogaloo my cats don't wear pajamas oh it's right up there with the bee's knees there you go all right well thank you sir and don't forget we do the program monday through friday at 2 p.m eastern right here on ewtn with an encore at 11 pm eastern and a best of show on sundays at 2 p.m eastern on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david andrews see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless hello this is father john trujillo find out how you can better defend your faith open line monday is next on most of these ewtn stations ewtn is now on twitter get short timely messages from ewtn on your computer or cell phone it's easy to stay up to date on a wide variety of topics pro-life news vatican announcements catechesis apologetics the

Channel: EWTN

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Rating: 4.8762889 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: 2quZobM4NK4

Length: 54min 35sec (3275 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021