Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders 02/17/21

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 1-833-2 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation 1-833-288-3986 this is call to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters those of you who have questions about the catholic faith you're certainly welcome to give us a call here is that phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three eight now if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code which is generally one the number one and then can also text the 205-271-2985 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 at ewtn is the address ctc ewtn.com charles berry is our producer ryan penny is our phone screener and jeff berson is on social media he'll be glad to forward any questions you might want to pose via youtube or facebook live because we're streaming there right now just put that question of yours in the comments section and uh jeff will shoot that to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today i'm okay i'm okay um you know just before the show began uh we we all heard about at least in the radio office we heard about uh the passing of rush limbaugh yeah certainly uh one of those bigger than life characters i i think i've mentioned perhaps not uh on this show that uh i used to work with rush that's right back in the day when he was a top 40 dj and and so was i yeah you know young and stupid at least i was he was not your average rock and roll dj he never wore jeans he would he would wear dress pants to the studio wear a white shirt and a tie and uh he wanted to talk about politics between the records not on the air but between the right you know between the records and then later on that kind of uh reversed so may he rest in peace he rest in peace so we're going to lead off today with an email from marty who says i was an atheist until i met my girlfriend in 2018 but i'm still confused about some things in the roman catholic church i have heard you dr anders mentioned different rites of catholic churches what exactly does that mean also how is the pope elected i actually have no idea how that process of election plays out could you please help me by giving me an overview of exactly how it works thanks marty yeah thanks marty appreciate the question so with with respect to the question of rights uh when the apostles were sent by christ to the four corners of the world they went out and preached the gospel in different areas of course they went to different cultures where there were different languages and of course they gave they taught the positive faith they they they taught the sacraments but embellishments and ritual and law custom grew up around those sacraments and around that teaching of course the sacraments and the teaching are the same but those embellishments and those and those legal prescriptions would would differ from language group to language group and culture to culture in ways that embedded the gospel in that particular cultural idiom and over time those those distinctions and to you know you had kind of your greek experience and the latin experience the syriac sort of the main language families and then divisions within those uh became more more distinct and easily recognizable and even though they all belong to one holy catholic and apostolic church they celebrated understood practice the faith in ways that were more particular to their particular uh culture and language and many of those uh traditions have endured down to the present day and the church recognizes these the technical word is right r-i-t-e has distinct rights within the church now in the west in the united states europe most of the time when people think about the catholic church they're they're thinking about the latin right or the roman rite of the church and that's by far the biggest but it's not the only one and uh and a person is born into a right and and even if you live in the united states if your parents for example are in the ruthenian right and you're born and baptized in that right you're ruthenium and so things like the the laws that would govern the life of a latin rite catholic like you know today's ash wednesday and we have rules of fasting and abstinence for lent well those rules are different if you're a ruthenian or if you're a coptic or if you're you know sarah malabar they they they've different different prescriptions for their members and celebrate the liturgy in slightly different ways and you follow the right of your parents and uh and you can't there is such a thing as changing right and that you can be converted into a right uh but you can't do it willy-nilly you know you can't just jump from right to right throughout your life as the as the fancy strikes you but but there are changes that are permitted um now in terms of the election of the pope the important thing about the pope is that he's the bishop of rome yes and throughout history there have been different ways of acknowledging someone bishop of rome so early on uh he would have been uh put forth by the clergy of the diocese of rome centuries like in the first second century that's the way it would have worked um of course down through the middle ages there were periods of time when when emperors and kings were highly influential in appointing people they wanted to that office and with all of the difficulties that would come with that kind of appointment you would say well i don't know that i would want the president or the emperor or the king putting his guy on the papal throne and we feel the same way we don't like that either necessarily because of the corruption could ensue and so in the late middle ages or high middle ages really the church evolved a new system where the point of the pope himself would appoint what's called the college of cardinals and these uh most of them are their bishops and they would have the job of electing um uh the the successor and generally they will choose someone from their own number um although they don't have to they could pick somebody who wasn't a member of the college and make them pope but generally they're going to pick the pick someone from their own number of the college of cardinals and then and they vote on it and this all happens in secret and they you know will go through sometimes a number of ballots before they come they finally come to consensus on who they want the next guy to be there you go marty appreciate your email if you'd like to send us an email for a future show the address ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com as david mentioned today is ash wednesday this is the kickoff day for the holy season of lent we'll be talking about lent this hour we'll be talking about ash wednesday what does that mean maybe you've heard that ashes will be distributed a little bit differently this year well this is true and we can get into that we can get into all kinds of things on this edition of call to communion here on ewtn and right after the break we'll be talking with deborah in denver we'll also uh be answering a very interesting question here from francis who is a major in the u.s army i won't give out any more than that but he also has an ash wednesday question here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 for the ash wednesday edition of call to communion i firmly believe that prayer is communication with god and if we know that god is a loving father why wouldn't we want to talk to god the reality is we've got to talk to our family we've got to talk to our friends and if god is real and god is definitely real he wants to hear about our day he also wants to know how we're doing and what our needs are prayer is communication with god on the next catholic connection with theresa tamio we do our very best at catholic connection to keep you connected to the church with interviews on issues that matter issues that impact our everyday lives as catholics in the world but not of the world whether it's featuring the latest from the front lines of the pro-life movement or the culture war that continues to range around us we will give you the tools to help you stay faithful as well as make a difference catholic connection weekday mornings at 9 00 a.m eastern on ewtn radio [Music] now we have a quote for you from mother angelica's perpetual calendar i need the gift of counsel to live in the light of discernment so i may face the truth unafraid by always keeping my hands in his mother angelica's perpetual calendar features an inspirational message for each day of the year it's available from the ewtn religious catalog at ewtnrc.com that's e-w-t-n [Music] hey a couple of great resources just for you from ewtn publishing first of all is uh called making a holy lent 40 meditations to prepare for the church's holiest season father william casey turns our attention to jesus in brief reflections on topics like the real presence of jesus and the eucharist and the role the blessed virgin mary plays in every healthy prayer life a great book making a holy lent also how about this one from our friend father wade menises the four last things father wade focuses on the differences between the particular judgment and the last judgment the church's teaching on heaven the chief characteristics of the risen glorified and transfigured human body the existence of hell and growing closer to god a couple of great books there for you making a holy lent and the four last things they're both available right now at ewtnrc.com by catholic shop ewtnrc.com it's called a communion here on ewtn if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with debra in denver listening on the great catholic radio network hello deborah what's on your mind today hi happy ash wednesday thank you um my my question is a little off topic i i was wondering about astrology so my understanding is that um you know even the the date of easter is determined by certain things in the sky um and that you know a lot is determined by the the poles of the moon and you know with the tides and all these things obviously it's a very basic understanding so i'm wondering it it one at what point did the church go against astrology or did it ever approve of astrology yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so when whenever the church has officially considered the question uh should should catholics practice astrology the answer the authoritative answer has always been no the answer that question is no and and the reason why is that astrology is understood to be superstitious uh yeah it's it's not verifiable or uh it means there's no way to con construct a consistent application that will always kick out reliable results the way you can with with scientific hypotheses and uh uh it would seem to also to to uh denigrate human freedom and divine freedom god's ultimately in control of the universe it's his providence not the motion of the stars and humans also do have agency they're they have free will moral agency and they have the master of their own actions to a certain extent and the accidents of your birth don't don't undo that so church is always opposed astrology one of the earliest discussions really extensive is in the writings of saint augustine of hippo in the fourth century in his confessions he talks about the superstition of astrology and how he'd grown up in north africa and sort of been attracted to this uh the sort of pseudo-scientific explanation for phenomena appealed to him but as he dug into it and researched it he realized it was a bunch of hui and he gave it up and preference for the catholic faith so we've always been against astrology now to say we're against astrology doesn't mean that we we don't know that there are stars and they move in regular patterns of course they are right and the dating of easter is not an astrological it's not based on astrological conviction uh but astronomical right it is it is connected to the spring equinox but not for not for reasons of belief in astrology now that being said uh just because the church teaches something doesn't mean that all catholics get on board and line up behind the church so you know throughout the centuries have always been people the church has said don't do this and people run off and do it anyway you know so you can find medieval catholic and renaissance people who who believed in practice astrology even though the church told them not to in the same way the church says all kinds of things you shouldn't do today and unfortunately there are catholics that run around and do them oh there you go deborah thank you so much for your call and that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion on this ash wednesday here on ewtn here is that letter from francis a major in the u.s army who says dr anders i just started work at a boarding school with an assigned chaplain who is a protestant minister my catholic parish here in town provides ministerial services to our catholic students sunday mass confession etc well i just learned that every year my parish priest holds an ash wednesday service during lunch where he allows and encourages the school's chaplain to distribute ashes with one of the regular blessings i assume so when i asked why he does this he told me it's permissible because it's not a holy day of obligation it's not a sacrament he views it as a valuable opportunity for accumula ecumenism so is this a good idea is this really necessary in a small town of about forty thousand where we do have five priests four deacons many faithful adult catholics in good standing love your show one of the best in catholic media god bless francis yeah thanks so er from from the point of view of canon law yeah uh i don't know enough on this i'd have to research the specific topic you know about is there any strictures against protestants going to this kind of a service conducted by oh catholics go into some kind of service conducted by a protestant minister and i'm not aware of anything i mean a catholic can't receive the putative sacraments from a protestant minister but but the ashes are not sacraments and they are at best sacramentals now in my judgment this is my private opinion and i'll be willing to discuss this with people in my in my judgment i'd advise against it and and the reason why is even though ashes on the forehead are not sacraments they are sacramentals and the the sacramental is connected ultimately to the blessing of a priest who who who has jurisdiction from the church to do that the priestly blessing is the principle sacramental and they are they are signs that ultimately point us back and tie us back into the sacramental life of the church and so you know i i understand ecumenism this is not the way i think it needs to operate right i mean trying to blur the distinction in the minds of young people between the catholic church and and and those that don't have the fullness of the faith i don't really think serves the interests of of ecumenism seems to me the way to do ecumenism is to focus on those things that we genuinely have in common and can agree on uh and uh and it's not just a matter of empty symbols right it's a matter of substantively what do we believe uh what do we have in common and uh and in trying to come to matters of clarity not to obscure differences using ambiguous rights i mean that's that's my view right i mean so a good example in the in the theological domain is catholics and protestants talk a lot about justification we use the same word and uh and both both catholics and protestants would say for example well we're justified by faith well we catholics believe that but we mean something radically different by that phrase than protestants mean all right and uh and to in the into to call it ecumenism to say well we use the same terminology therefore we're the same well that's just untrue yeah that's not really advancing unity it's advancing it's it's obscurantist right and i'd say something is kind of similar with with you know the appearance of similarity and liturgical rights to say well you know protestants and catholics do things that look similar therefore they're the same that's the implication well they're not the same we mean different things by the rights and uh and so i i think i'm in favor of ecumenism but an ecumenism of open genuine rational dialogue that points out points of commonality commonality and difference and gets those differences clear in the minds of young people not not in a triumphalistic way you know make them think well you know catholics are perfect and everybody else is terrible no no but to understand clearly this is what catholics believe and why this is what protestants believe in why here where here's where the same here's where we're different and here's why it matters all right major francis thank you so much for your question and thank you so much for your service it's called a communion here on ewtn couple of lights open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 on this ash wednesday edition of our program here's marianne now in windsor ontario listening on ewtn television a first-time caller marianne what's on your mind today uh yes in the creed it says that jesus went down into hell and after three days he rose again to heaven why would jesus go into hell yes thank you i really appreciate the question so the word hell here in the creed does not mean the hell of the damned and that's where a lot of people get hung up they think that it means that christ descended to the hell of the damned or he experienced reprobation or something like that that's not what it means what the catholic church means by this is that christ descended to the abode of the dead not the hell of the damned in order to uh preach to and release the righteous debt of the old covenant moses and elijah and elisha and father abraham and these guys who then after the ascension could could ascend to heaven and experience the beatific vision okay and there you go marianne thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn a couple of lines open for you 833 288 ewtn that's 833 todd is right here in birmingham listening on the great guadalupe radio a first-time caller hello todd what's on your mind today hi uh good afternoon i'm sponsoring a family member in rcia and they asked me a question that that i really had difficulty answer regarding a confession to a priest and they they mentioned the scripture you know where the the veil was torn and and now we have direct access to jesus and and um you know i know this sounds silly for a catholic but there they were concerned that it was disrespectful to jesus to go to a priest because you know if we have access to jesus directed directly now why would we go to a man in the in the same fallen state as us they they felt that was a disrespectful to jesus i i didn't know how to address that yeah sure i really appreciate the question so of course pointing to the tearing of the temple veil has absolutely no relevance whatsoever at all to the sacrament of confession they are importing into that into that narrative from the gospels a significance that the text itself does not say so when you read the text of the gospels and you read about the temple tale veil being torn there's not a commentary it's not a theological commentary in there this is and therefore we don't go to confession to priests they're just they're just adding that they're reading that into the text because that's a symbol that protestants have often evoked to justify their doctrine of the universal priesthood or the priesthood of all believers but it it it's not a compelling argument right now more to the point in the book of hebrews which really goes into this stuff in great depth the explanation is that because of christ's superior priesthood the levitical priesthood is eliminated so we no longer have to offer animal sacrifices and we don't have to go through the rituals of you know purification rights of of mosaic law and so forth because christ offered himself on calvary once for all made satisfaction for sin and now lives always lives to make intercession for us before the father so this is why we don't practice the rituals of the mosaic law and that's true that's what the scripture says it doesn't say anything to this question but it does tell us that because of the sacrifice of christ we no longer have to go through the levitical priesthood now jesus himself instituted the catholic priesthood in john chapter 20 when he said to the apostles uh whoever received the holy spirit whoever sins you forgive are forgiven whoever sins you retain or retained now that's christ that's jesus who said that catholic church didn't make that up christ made that up and st james in his epistle chapter 5 commands us confess your sins one to another that you may be healed so i mean these are scriptural injunctions we're not making these up now it to the theological question how does this not denigrate somehow from the authority of christ do you remember the account of the man lowered through the roof the paralytic who lowers the lowest of the roof and christ looks at the man and says your sins are forgiven and the pharisees of course profoundly offended by that they say who does this guy think he is only god can forgive sins and of course that's the whole point yep in christ as well so that you may know the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins take uh you know take up your mind and walk and the guy gets healed and off he goes and that's a sign of christ's divine authority and then the text goes on to say and the people were filled with wonder and marveled that god had given such authority to men right and that is the point of the catholic priesthood that christ shares this jurisdiction that he has as the son of god and our high priest with those who he has sent he said to them go into all nations preach the gospel teach them to believe everything to obey everything i've commanded you i'll be with you to the end of the age and whoever hears you hears me whoever rejects you rejects me and so in the in the persons of his ministers and the persons of the of the priests christ is still present to us actually absolving our sins with something that the levitical priests could not do the the jewish priests could not say to a penitent i absolve you with the authority given to me by god and you are forgiven they can't do that in fact that's exactly what the pharisees asserted mere men cannot do that all right but christ could do that and he could commission others to do that in his name now when the priest actually grants absolution god the father of mercies who sent the holy spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins right may god grant through the ministry of the church and that's incredibly important language through not on my own authority right but through the authority that christ gave to the church through the ministry of the church may god grant you pardon and peace and i absolve you of your sins this is this action takes place this sacramental action on the authority that christ gave to the church whoever hears you hears me whoever sins you forgive are forgiven now sometimes the question is raised what's the point why why why do this thing if christ lives always in the front of the throne of the father to make intercession for us what is the point of the human intermediary and it is the same point in every sacrament the point of having a sacrament is not that god needs them to get the job done but we need tangible signs of his presence and so you know i could confess my sins straight to god and be forgiven by him but isn't it great that when i do it in the presence of the priest he can say back to me with christ's very own authority i absolve you and i know with certainty that the job is done todd thank you so much for your call in a moment we'll be talking with chad in wichita a couple of lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn on this ash wednesday edition of call to communion the words of blessed carlo ogutis what does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own corrupt passion it does not matter the real battle is with ourselves 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen the eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments because it contains in a substantial way the person of christ was the author of life it is the one sacrament to which all of the other sacraments look imagine six arrows in a circle all pointing to a center the center is the eucharist the six arrows are the other sacraments the eucharist is the sun around which the other sacraments revolve as planets all the other sacraments share in its power and they perfect themselves in the celebration of the eucharist it is a sacrament that is so sublime that human reason could never guess at it divine love is far deeper than we know the people you know and trust are on ewtn [Music] this is father spitzer from father spitzer's universe may the lord of all love and consolation send his holy spirit down upon you in this season so that you truly might follow him as disciple as apostle and as saint in his service in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen hi this is psychedelic later today on catholic answers live you can do it you can give up worry for lent gary zimac catholic ants was live 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio and now back to call the communion with dr david anders [Music] call to communion here on ewtn we do have a couple of lines open for you at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 amanda is watching us right now on youtube amanda david says uh i i want to do a daily prayer or a consecration or something for the conversion of a loved one for lent what can i do right well i mean any prayer is is effective in so far as you have charity in your soul i mean the more charity you have the more effective your prayers are that's what saint james says and uh and so you know if you're talking about a daily prayer i think the morning offering is about as good as you can do i think it's just a fantastic prayer that the lord's prayer the lord himself taught us to pray the our father these would be outstanding catholic prayers there you go amanda hope that's helpful for you here's one from adrienne who says and this is quite interesting to me david my niece was told by a jehovah's witness that they have lilith mentioned in their bibles lilith adam's first wife my niece asked why we are not taught about lilith because she's not in the bible that's why you know if i come out with the david anders version of the old testament and i put uh you know um gandalf into chapter two of the book of genesis right and you'd be tempted to do that i really would you know i'd like to stick gandalf in there um have him you know thou shall not pass to the snake when he shows up you know uh you would not be obligated to read the david anders version of the bible that includes gandalf right and if charles russell wants to borrow something from from jewish uh legend and throw it into his translation of the old testament i you know you certainly shouldn't uh shouldn't do it right you shouldn't follow him yeah all right there you go adrienne thank you so much uh for your question back to the phones at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 here is chad in wichita listening on catholic radio network hello chad happy ash wednesday what's on your mind today well thank you for taking my call i i've been reading the church fathers specifically the faith of the early fathers by william jorgensen i just had a couple questions for you uh one is some of them seem to talk about pre-millennialism and i guess i always related that to john nelson darby and the rapture i just wanted to know if you could clarify that for me and then the second thing is i just wanted to know if you have any resources for like more books that maybe continue into like the medieval ages like quotes of saints and things like that that is similar to this sure yeah thanks appreciate the question so so uh there well let's distinguish a couple things there is a difference between dispensational pre-millennialism associated with john nelson darby and the and the modern dispensational movement and uh and classical premier pre-millennialism there is a difference okay some of the church fathers did in fact hold to the classical pre-millennial view that there would be a literal thousand-year reign on earth of christ after the second coming and irenaeus was one of them but they were not they were not dispensational premillennialists now what darby added in the 19th century was a very complex theory of biblical interpretation where he imagined that history was divided up into these dispensations and that god behaved differently in different dispensations so that that you know the jews really did have a covenant of law where the possibility of salvation was held out to them by adherence to the mosaic law on darby's theory the teaching of jesus was similarly sort of hortatory moral ethical in character that christ commanded the jews to to uh you know to follow his literal commands and they failed to do so and then in darby's theory uh the gospel of grace really associated with saint paul and the epistles offers a different mode of salvation for the gentile church now that's that's a very uncatholic way of looking at the bible because god doesn't change from beginning to end and we've always been saved by grace through faith in christ the messiah to come or christ the messiah who has come such that we become capable of obeying the moral law and can merit salvation that's the catholic view from genesis to revelation and so the the extent of the covenant has expanded the the our participation in in grace and the holy spirit is deepened through the coming of christ but uh but essentially it's moral and ethical and gracious from start to finish so the eschatological question but what happens at the end of time is distinct from the soteriological question of the mode of salvation now darby's theory you know had these complex distinctions about how people are saved in different eras and when he adapted premillennialism to his theory one of the one of the reasons that he did so was he recognized well if you have jesus teaching one thing and paul teaching something else that's an absurdity on the face of it but he's this was his theory well you know and you have all these old testament prophecies where the jews are going to be redeemed on their own terms well what are you going to do with the church in the meanwhile like it seems to be inconvenient to the theory to have all these gentiles running around saved by faith you know and have this sort of jewish millennium happening you got to kind of get the church out of the picture so he adapted the theory of the rapture to his hermeneutical system as a way of getting the church out of out of space and time so he could then have a very old testament kind of religion come come zooming back into present day that's why dispensationalists are really excited when they hear about people in israel raising red heifers they can't wait to rebuild a temple and start offering sacrifices again because they think that has to happen before the end of the world and darby yanks the church out and takes them to heaven to let that happen then brings them back at the end of time so his theory is very complicated and it's tied to his his protestant view of salvation and irenaeus believes none of that and in fact if you look at irenaeus chapter book 4 chapter 22 irenaeus says explicitly that the mode of salvation is identical from genesis to revelation that the people have always been saved in the same way namely by living a righteous and holy life all right well very good uh chad thank you so much for your call david i think the rapture i'm going to go with was that great song by anita baker came out of the late 80s remember that rapture oh fantastic anyway i should add though the irenas's opinion is a minority opinion right and and in the church by and large goes with saint augustine in its interpretation of the apocalypse and so there were there were pre-millennials in the early century but the dominant view among uh in the catholic church is the augustinian view call to communion here on ewtn couple of lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn doesn't have to be a question about ash wednesday or lent but that would be particularly timely can 833-288-3986 give a bulletproof argument or some other solid resources okay i'm not sure what you mean by a bulletproof argument how about christ taught it that sounds pretty bulletproof jesus taught it right that's the most bulletproof i can i can do right and and of course it's not something that we can discern empirically that's that's built into the doctrine that the elements have the appearance of bread and wine if they if they didn't look like bread and wine then it wouldn't actually be the eucharist that christ instituted which looks like bread and wine but isn't all right we believe in the doctrine of the real presence because christ said this is my body and my flesh is real food and of course not just in sacred scripture but embedded in sacred tradition which is earlier than scripture of course the church to whom the scriptures were committed whom they were written had had a history of practicing the eucharist of celebrating the eucharist before the bible was written so they knew what these things were before those realities were recorded in print and so we have this perfect coherence between an older sacred tradition and a written scripture both teaching the real presence of christ in the eucharist and an early awareness in church history that there were people who rejected the doctrine and they were wrong so saint uh ignatius of antioch for example the third bishop of antioch after peter early in the second century speaks about people that deny that the eucharist is really the body of christ right and he says they're wrong they're wrong because it it is christ's body and therefore it is for us the medicine of immortality and and so we can trace it out in sacred tradition we can trace it out in scripture we can see it in in patristic analysis and the dogmatic teaching of the church but we believe it on divine authority because christ said so and and the church has authoritatively defined the dogma guaranteed by christ's divine authority whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven so uh you know to believe any christian doctrine you have to get straight on what is the authority for christian faith how do you know what any dogma is and one thing it's for clear is that you you don't know dogma from scripture alone right you know it from the teaching authority that christ established whoever hears you hears me you know what from the teaching of the catholic church interpreting scripture and tradition okay appreciate your question cotton it is called a communion here on ewtn let's go to jim now jim is in lincoln nebraska listening on our great longtime partner spirit catholic radio hello jim what's on your mind today hey there um i'm in conversation with a latter day family member and they brought up ephesians 4 11 and 12 the other day i didn't have an answer for the current gifts of apostleship and and prophets and i didn't know uh if you had a good answer for that yeah i sure do so ephesians 4 11 to 12 says christ gave himself the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so the body of christ may be built up now on the on the mormon theory none of that happened right because as soon as christ established the church it fell into ruin and destitute and cease to exist that's the mormon theory right after after the death of saint paul the the church was just decimated that's their theory and it doesn't get resurrected until joseph smith so obviously jesus was pretty impotent god man right because he sets up this church and establishes it with prophets and apostles and it can't even last for a hundred years it just poof gone so it's not very much good right that's the mormon theory it can't endure christ's promise the gates of hell will not prevail against and i will be with you to the end of the age will they just make him into a liar because the gates of hell prevailed just like lickety-split like right after paul dies the gates of hell prevail and christ is no longer with them and these pop apostles and prophets are utterly impotent to guard the teaching of the church against heresy that's the mormon theory the catholic belief which is grounded in the teaching of scripture is very different yes we think that christ absolutely established apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers and that they succeeded in building up the church the body of christ for works of service and his promise that the gates of hell would not prevail and he would be with us to the end of the age that that he meant what he said he said what he meant and that happened and we still enjoy the fruits of that ministry this very day now the apostles appointed successors and this is this is the core of the catholic faith the apostles appointed successors in the persons of the bishops and said the the message that you heard from me you passed that on and you ordained others to this sacred office apostolic succession so we have the ministry of the apostles perpetuated in the catholic episcopate number one uh we also have the gift of prophecy now to to prophesy is to speak under the inspiration of the holy spirit for god now that is a charismatic gift that that arises as as the as the need arises um and uh and it is easier to recognize i think in retrospect when we look back at prophetic characters of catholic history who have really moved the church powerfully right one that comes to my mind is catherine of siena saint catherine of siena i believe had the care the prophetic charism very powerfully such that she could go to the pope in avignon and say you're doing wrong mr pope go back to rome and he listened to her he did i mean can you imagine if i tried that i mean they'd throw me out on my ear you know i wouldn't even get within 10 feet you know 100 feet of saint peter's before they packed me back to the u.s you know wouldn't happen if i tried it i'm not a prophet catherine if sienna was she marched right up told the pope what to do and off he went right yeah uh you know i think uh uh there there are plenty of other people i mean to a certain extent just by the power of her life uh mother teresa of calcutta had a kind of prophetic witness to the radical call of the gospel such that she could speak truth to power presidents and kings and emperors and dictators and so forth they would quake in front of this miniscule little albanian nun right because here she comes and they would run right it was amazing right the kind of kind of attention she could hold and the conviction she could bring to public issues like abortion or you know care of children in war zones and things like that by the prophetic power for personality and saint francis of assisi another person who had powerful prophetic charism so you could go on and on and name plenty of people evangelists we got tons of those we're eating up with evangelists you know uh pastors and teachers we got lots of those every catholic priest who has a parish assigned to him is a pastor all catholic priests are to teach they have that charism they have that sacramental office really of participating in the magisterium ordinary teaching authority of the church and they get the job done they equip people for works of service and the body of christ is built up and there you go appreciate your call jim it is called to communion here on ewtn don't forget tomorrow morning at 11 a.m eastern it is women of grace with john ed williams she's got a fantastic program for women and everybody who wants to know women's spirituality even better and i gotta tell you it's not just for the ladies it is a wonderful program for everybody and john ed knocks it out of the park every show check it out tomorrow morning 11 a.m eastern only on ewtn radio call to communion in progress right now we've got a couple lines open for you i think we can squeeze in two more calls maybe three at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 john just sent us a text john says if one wanted to emulate the practice of testing all things against scripture where would one go to find the list of infallible catholic pronouncements yeah thanks so i i i don't really approve of the experiment because i think it it gets the teaching of christ upside down all right but if one were insisted on the experiment you could go to denzinger's in caribbean which is uh which is sort of an official compendium of all the authoritative pronouncements of the of the magisterium down through the centuries denzingers and caridian um but uh but but i think the experiment is uh is misconceived because the important question is what provision did jesus make for the authoritative transmission of the christian faith we got to answer that question first what provision did christ make for the authoritative transmission of the christian faith now if jesus had said look if you if you want to know the christian faith well here's a list of 27 books that the apostles are supposed to write jude don't run away i got one for you too all right and you take this collection and then you pile them together and then and then you attempt to construct a theological system out of these 27 occasional documents right that that aren't written like dogmatic theology at all they're written to address particular issues of individual churches by and large uh but you you treat them as a system and try to construct a confession of faith based on those 27 doctrine documents and then anybody that says anything else you test it against that theoretical construction that's the way protestants operate if jesus had said that then that's what we should do but that's not what jesus said he said whoever hears you hears me go therefore to all nations teach them everything i've commanded you make disciples baptize them with father son holy spirit whoever sends you for give are forgiven whoever sends you retain or retain whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven christ established the church the teaching office of the church with his divine authority as the authoritative means of transmitting the christian faith now one of the things that the magisterium of the church did was declare that the book of jude is part of sacred scripture in the book of second peter the book of hebrews in the book of revelation all right so you can't really get the project off the ground without the authority of the catholic church like against what are you going to test the claim that jude is sacred scripture well yeah but that's that's conveyed to us by sacred tradition we know that jude belongs in the new testament because tradition says so well how are you going to test that claim against the new testament when you need sacred tradition to have a new testament you can't do it you start with tradition then you arrive at the bible okay appreciate your call and uh thank you so much actually it was a text from john john thank you so much for your text uh here's another john john in dallas who says my children and i are having a discussion while reading the catechism the discussion is about hell and the apostles creed now our understanding from teachings from rcia and from the church is that the hell we know today was different than the hell we know before jesus came however the catechism makes it clear the hell before jesus came was without the beatific vision yet righteous people were there can you help untangle this yeah it's ambiguity equivocation and the meaning of the word hell all right the word hell just like the word heaven you know heaven can sometimes we use heaven to refer to the beatific vision to be with god forever and the reward of the just sometimes that's what we mean by heaven heaven can also mean the sky yes right it can also mean the sky it can also be a a figure of speech to mean god you know when christ speaks about the kingdom of heaven he's really talking about god's reign right so the word heaven is ambiguous in sacred scripture hell is also ambiguous or equivocal sometimes it can refer to the hell of the damned the state of permanent exclusion from god's presence which is something that the dead of the ancient world before the coming of christ could experience right if they died without sanctifying grace just like we do but it can also mean the abode of the dead and it can be ambiguous about whether that is the hell of the damned or or the limbus of the father is the abode of the righteous dead okay two different things appreciate that thank you so much uh john in dallas for that question call to communion here on ewtn uh carol sent us a scripture passage quote but noah found favor with the lord for you alone in this age have i found to be truly just my question carol says what is just yeah thanks so just means rendering what is due that's what just means means that person has rendered what they ought to render to to another and to themselves for that matter above all we have to render honor to god justice towards god is the virtue of religion all right we owe god love love god above all things our neighbor is our self if we live that way we have lived justly okay there it is appreciate that carol thank you so much for your question uh here's one now from richard uh regarding offering jesus sufferings my wife asked me how we can offer the sufferings of jesus to god help me explain it i just believe it but maybe you can help me explain it sure so uh the way we offer anything to god is by intention right it is an act of the mind and uh and so trivially what's the difference between a hebrew sacrifice and a barbecue right materially they're the same you take an animal you slaughter it you burn it you eat it materially it's the same yeah right the difference and it's i mean almost exactly the same the difference is in the intention the the priest making the hebrew priest making the offering says i i dedicate this offering to god in reparation for our sins slaughter the animal eat it all right it's an act of the intention act of the mind all right uh similarly imagine what's the difference between me beautifying my my windowsill with a flower and me bringing my wife a flower to beautify the window hmm it would be the very same material act yeah right but it's all in the intention i i am bringing you this as a token of my love and sincerity or whatnot you know for you to put on the windowsill and that's the way we do it i mean jesus ever makes intercession for us in front of the throne of the father and his sufferings make atonement for us um but we can we can choose to to intentionally associate ourselves with the paschal mystery and appropriate them into our lives in a way that is meritorious for us and beneficial for those around us if we do this act in prayer okay richard thank you so much for your question let's go to tom now in portland listening on modern day radio tom what's on your mind today hello i'd like to inquire uh i i have a relative that collects rosaries because she says she loves god and in a position i always thought that was incorrect they shouldn't be just saved to be uh show people how they love god and should be working what is my position there i'm related to this person should i give her a call and say hey you're doing it incorrectly or what should i do uh in in my judgment this does not merit correction uh you know when it's it's not clear to me that she's doing anything wrong at all but even if but even if she were you know only the only thing that might merit correction is you know if someone if someone uh engages in prayer practices or devotions in a superstitious way where say for example they thought well just in virtue of having a thousand rosaries in my bedside table you know god will save me when i die because i'm i'm loaded up with these things well that would be that would be a misunderstanding of the way grace works right that would be something that might that might merit correction but but if someone has a kind of aesthetic attachment to an object of devotion uh and and likes collecting them it doesn't seem to me that that in itself is problematic and even if it were provided they're not deeply superstitious about it you know we we need to reserve our admonitions when we admonish other people for things that are really quite weighty you know so i mean i know a lot of people who uh who are fond of uh devotional accoutrements let us say um but their lives are disordered in other ways that seem more problematic right and that would be more like a symptom than a cause and uh and it seems to me more prudent if if i'm the person best suited to make such an admonition which is doubtful that uh you know that we might go after the the you know the weightier things rather than how many rosaries you'll have on their bedside david sure it makes me think of a of a friend of mine out on the west coast she and her husband very faithful catholics very solid in their in their belief system they have a collection of holy water fonts i've never seen anything like it they probably have 30 or 40 of them in their living room just because they're beautiful well you know having them because they're beautiful seems like a very good reason to have them you know but when i get to heaven peter is not going to say how many holy water fonts were there in your living room oh come to the front of the line you know probably not all right there you go tom thank you so much for your call hey dr david anders thank you so much don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn at 2 p.m eastern live monday through friday with an encore at 11 pm eastern and a best of show on sundays at 2pm eastern you can also check out the podcast anytime you want at ewtnradio.net you can listen you can subscribe whatever you want on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us today on this beautiful ash wednesday see you tomorrow god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,002

Rating: 4.8235292 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: GrksmOl0y9A

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021