Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - April 16, 2021

one two nine eight five you can also text the letters ewtn to five five zero zero zero 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 we're going to get to one of those in a moment here ctc at ewtn.com is the address ctc at ewtn.com all right charles berry is our producer michael birchfield got it right this time michael birchfield is handling the phones today and jeff berson is on social media if you want to shoot a question to jeff via youtube or facebook live yeah we're streaming there right now jeff can take that question of yours that you put in the comments section he'll shoot it to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anderson how are you today very well how are you my friend you know i'm doing pretty decent happy 94th birthday of pope benedict the 16. how about that i saw that yeah that is awesome and feast day of saint bernadette at florida absolutely all right big weekend plans for you what have you got going on oh um fundraiser at the at the kid's school ah so that's a big thing yeah well very good now you know our theme here on on this program is what is stopping you from becoming a catholic and along those lines we have a couple of emails here to unpack uh carol wants to know i don't understand the trinity can you please explain it thank you i appreciate the question so the doctrine of trinity is really the heart of the christian faith because you know you can know that there's a god apart from christianity many people do philosophers know it other religions know it and for a catholic the word god basically just means the first principle that from which everything else proceeds right the where the buck stops the ultimate cause all these are just different ways of speaking about what we mean when we use the term god but we don't know much about what god is we know that god is we don't really know much about what god is we can't discern that from philosophy or from science we can see that there needs to be a cause it has to be some principle of the intelligibility of the universe but what exactly is that i don't know really not naturally until god speaks of himself and reveals himself to us and throughout the history of the human race and especially in the hebrew prophets and the scriptures he spoke to our forefathers in various ways but in these last days he's spoken to us through his son jesus christ who is the exact representation of his being that's the way scripture talks about christ so that when we see christ we see god himself now that's bizarre that's how i mean how can that be how can by looking at a man how can i see god and uh moreover when christ himself uh appears in his public ministry to have a relationship with god and i thou relationship with god the father as a second person how to make sense of this how to make sense of christ's representation of himself he who has seen me has seen the father and his own intimate interpersonal relationship with god as an eye vow kind of kind of relationship and and then this other shadowy character emerges in divine revelation of the holy spirit who's also sent by god proceeds from god to do god's will and is god is divine well uh the way catholic faith has formulated this mystery down through the centuries is the following we know that there is only one god one in nature one in essence but there seems to be some kind of relational division within god now no relation you can have a relation without there being two substances you know if i have a dog over here and a cat over here i have two different substances substance of a dog and a substance of a cat and they're also in relationship to one another spatially one's on the left one's on the right they might have another relation too if the you know dog tries to eat the cat food yeah might be another kind of a relation right but you can have relation without having substantial difference right so think about for example uh in your own mind you can think about yourself you can think about yourself well in that instance you're both the subject doing the thinking and the object being thought and your own mind is also the agent doing the thinking was there one thing are there three things well there's really only one thing there's you yeah you your consciousness is all the thing there is but your consciousness can be turned back in on itself in relationally distinct ways that's a model for understanding the inner nature of god we say that god is one nature but there is this relational distinction of father son holy spirit such that they relate back upon one another as father to son son to father father and son to spirit and this is obscure obviously this is a mystery what benefit is it to us why should we bother right what does it do for us to know this well one thing it lets us know that the ultimate nature of reality is love is relation is charity and what is highest in us namely our own capacity of free self-donation of of giving ourselves to another person with all of our rationality all of our will all of our consciousness all of our being to make ourselves of service to another human being enter into a deep interpersonal relationship with another that this is not just some sort of epi phenomena some sort of froth on top of an evolutionary sea of chance that's ultimately meaningless but rather reflects the deep structure of reality itself and that when i enter into the life of love in that moment i am most like god who created the universe all right hope that's uh helpful for you carol thank you so much for 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 in a moment we're going to get to the phones here talk with marie in des moines also nina in the bronx a couple of lines open at the moment at 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it 833-288-3986 call to communion on this friday afternoon here on ewtn stay with us as a catholic talk show host and speaker and author i'm often asked how should we pray how do we pray really it's up to you and that's between you and the lord we have wonderful wonderful formalized prayers in the catholic faith such as a rosary the lord's prayer novena's but you can also just open up your heart and say lord help sos it's as simple as that how you pray is really up to you ask the lord how you should pray and he'll answer you [Music] beyond damascus with dan danatay and aaron richards is our show for young adults everybody's talking about encounter everybody's talking about that mountaintop experience what we fail to often talk about is what happens after what happens beyond that damascus moment jesus christ is calling all of us to be missionary disciples disciples of jesus who are on mission to bring the kingdom of god here and now on this earth beyond damascus with dan dimitay and aaron richards tomorrow at 8 eastern on ewtn the wisdom of mother angelica the only thing new about the heresies in the church and the schisms in the church today is it's mixed with satanic worship we in the church have gone from enneagrams to centering prayer to saltist worship to goddesses and you buy it as something new for more information on mother angelica visit religious catalogue at ewtnrc.com [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn on this friday afternoon our phone number two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six you know no matter you you might call it podcasting you might call it on demand uh the bottom line is you can hear the ewtn shows that you love anytime that you want you can subscribe to them podcasting you can listen to them on demand all you have to do is go to ewtn.com radio slash podcasts we post 11 podcasts every weekday and over 60 per week that's an awful lot of audio and we know it's just what you want to hear ewtn.com slash radio slash podcast you can listen and you can also subscribe pretty cool deal there it's absolutely free if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with marie in des moines listening on the great iowa catholic radio first time caller hello marie happy friday to you what's on your mind today hi um i was oh thank you for taking my call i had a friend recently asked me about indulgences and the practice of indulgences and where they came from exactly if they are biblical yes and um i know in like some older prayer books they'll say like oh if you say this prayer it'll be a hundred days indulgence or whatever so where do those numbers come from and things like that great question yes thank you so much so in sacred scripture there is a principle that we find throughout throughout the bible that god will show mercy to one person because of the virtue and the good works of another person that one person can do good works make acts of satisfaction make prayers on behalf of another and the other will benefit we find this illustrated in the very beginning of the bible genesis chapter 18 abraham pleads with god for the city of sodom and says will you wipe away the righteous along with the wicked when god says he's going to wipe out sodom and gomorrah god says no if there are 10 righteous people in the city i'll spare all of them right for the sake of the few i'll be merciful to the many in exodus 32 god declares his intention to wipe out israel and moses pleads with him and says god remember your promise to abraham isaac and jacob for their sake spare israel and then god spares israel job chapter 1 verse 5. we learned that job offered sacrifices on behalf of his sons and daughters in case any one of them had sinned and not atoned for their sin he did it on their behalf god himself endorses that principle in job chapter what is it 42 the last chapter of the book when he says to eliphaz and the other the other companions of job you have not spoken of me well you've gotten it wrong you've dishonored me but ask your servant job to pray for me and i'll forgive you saint paul in colossians chapter 1 says i fill up in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of christ for the sake of his body the church and of course the book of tobit chapter 12 revelation chapter 5 expressed that the saints in heaven are making our prayers and sacrifices known to god and interceding for us so this this relationship of sort of mutually interpenetrating merit and prayer and intercession the more righteous for the less righteous is is woven throughout the bible literally from genesis to revelation so uh that we should do penance that we should do meritorious works that we should make acts of satisfaction for our sins is also a biblical principle um good example in the life of king david in the in second samuel chapter 12 and chapter 24 david after he repents for his sin and is forgiven by god is nevertheless conscious that he needs to make acts of reparation and sacrifice and he refuses to make them unless they cost him something he says that i won't make the lord an offering that costs me nothing right and uh and so we find that also as a biblical principle now what happens uh in early christianity is that christ had given the power to excommunicate to the church for grave offenses in matthew 18. he says whatever you buy on earth is bound in heaven if you see a brother in sin and he doesn't repent and he doesn't listen to the church you kick him out and treat him as a tax collector and a center st paul does that in sec in first corinthians chapter five he uh he boots a guy out of the church for being unrepentant it makes the guy do penance and then he repents and the guy comes back and they re-admit him um now what happens how do you determine whether to let somebody back in or not what's when have they done sufficient penance well in the early christian world for the first uh well actually for quite a long time penances imposed for grave sin like murder apostasy adultery were sometimes very lengthy people might be subjected to penance for most of their life you know a murderer might be excluded from the eucharist until the end of their life and in fact the council of nicaea in the year 325 made specific provisions for making sure that those people got back in to eucharistic fellowship before they died because that's how long some people were staying out in the middle of the 3rd century in around 250 there was a persecution of the church by the roman emperor decision many people apostasized they denied the faith under persecution that's that's wrong you shouldn't do that and so they were subjected to penance when they wanted to come back in the church they were you know kept at arm's length and they were not allowed to come back to the eucharist although they could enter the order of penitence which we don't really have anymore so to speak and um but other people had not succumbed to persecution and were either executed or they were languishing in prison and the early christians and not really the bishops this was a lay thing this was a popular thing that arose from the bottom up early christians remembered that biblical principle well one person can make sacrifices on behalf of another that's a biblical principle and so they went to the folks in prison and they said look i goofed i get it i'm sorry but you're sitting here earning merit with god with your time in prison would you mind lending me some of that merit letting that count for me so that i can get my penance done and come back to the eucharist and many of these uh of these confessors that were in prison said yes and they wrote out writs of indulgence saying i'm i'm sitting here languishing in prison let my time in prison count for this guy's penance and then they carried them back to the bishop who happened to be cypriot of carthage and they said uh bishop what do you think about these letters and the bishop looked at him and he said make sense that's biblical that's biblical that's the communion of saints at work i have one qualification i have one addition that the spiritual goods of the church need to be administered by the bishop it can't be at the discretion of the guys in prison it has to be at my discretion but i agree with the principle and thus was born the sort of official practice of indulgences now what an indulgence is is we appeal to the church that the merits of the saints might avail on our behalf to minimize or to eliminate the penance that we owe the satisfaction that we have to pay for sin the language of days 100 days 200 days this comes from that era of the church the days that we're talking about were days that someone was consigned to the order of penitence now this terminology is useless today because we no longer have a public order of penitence our penance is all done privately and confessional right that's a development in the middle ages um and so it's a bit anachronistic and to be honest with you you know it would not it would not be totally out of line if the if the uh sacred office of penitentiary apostolic penitentiary you know would i don't know stick some footnotes in there or something in the encouraging enough indulgences to just to clarify because some people wrongly believe that that refers to days off in purgatory that's not what it refers to very good now does that make sense to you uh marie yeah the uh the fact that it doesn't refer to the days off in purgatory that's what i was thank you yeah you're welcome thank you brian appreciate your call and that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn we have three lines open at 833-288-3986 the friday edition of call to communion on ewtn let's go to nina now in the bronx listening on youtube hey nina what's on your mind today hey um i have a friend who's uh discerning whether she's protestant but she's um studying orthodox and catholicism yes and i the question is how does orthodoxy and catholicism both call themselves up apostolic do they both have apostolic succession and if they do i how do i understand that yeah so i think you're explaining it i really appreciate it so apostolic succession is uh is given by the valid ordination of bishop to bishop going back to the apostles so a validly ordained bishop who who ordains another bishop transfers that power of apostolic succession now that subsequent bishop is connected to the apostles through the valid ordination of bishops and so the orthodox are in possession of valid bishops and they have valid sacraments in consequence and therefore they have valid apostolic succession what the orthodox lack they have apostolicity right which is one of the marks of the church they lack the full catholicity right because they're not in union with the whole catholic church because to be in union with the whole catholic church is to be in union with the sea of rome and they're not in full union with the sea of rome and that's a development right there that that state of being outside of union with rome is an historical development they used to be in union with rome um and uh and it was a progressive thing and you know we kind of grew apart over several centuries and had some squabbles and it didn't really come to a head definitively until the fourth crusade um but uh you know we they we made some noises in the middle ages and patched things up and then made some more noises and patched some things up again and then it you know we really kind of got off the rails at the at about the time of the fourth crusade um and uh uh and and to justify that state of alienation from the sea of rome the orthodox began to invent some novel doctrines some doctrines that are not catholic all right that are not taught by the catholic church not taught by sacred scripture or tradition um you know one of them is they they began to teach that the doctrine of papal jurisdiction like that the pope is has jurisdiction over the whole church that that was that that was a heresy well they can't teach that because no ecumenical council ever taught that and by their own standard you have to know what orthodoxy is because the ecumenical councils declare it well nobody ever no counsel ever declared that heretical so they're kind of violating their own principle here they declared that the that the rule of faith for the church was the judgment of an ecumenical council that was how they formulated their rule of faith but scripture doesn't say that tradition doesn't say that nope christ never said that christ gave us a different rule of faith christ's rule of faith was thou art peter and on this rock i'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and that's why we find byzantine and syriac and other eastern fathers of the church that recognize the primacy and the jurisdiction of the sea of rome of the pope of rum going back long before the schism and uh occasionally somebody in the east would pop up and say well i got a great idea let's let's let's stop making the pope the head let's make the ecumenical patriarch to head and the whole church said nope nope we don't we're not going there that was a novel idea you know and uh but they do have absolute succession and they have valid cycles and they've got you know most almost all the truths of salvation and so they're so close to the heart of the catholic church that the church does not seek to proselytize the orthodox catholic church does not try to go out there and sheep steal from the orthodox that's not the way we operate instead we pray for a a general corporate reunion that the the orthodox bishoprics and the orthodox bishops will be brought back into full communion with the sea of rome and uh and and in a way that recognizes what is integral what what where where integrity does lie within the orthodox communion as a valid apostolic church that's just a hair's breath away from being in full union with rome appreciate your call nina and do pray for unity call to communion here on ewtn quick email as we're heading to break this is from ricky why is the god of the old testament such a terrifying god while jesus seems like a much kinder person okay thanks so uh well first of all i i kind of gets i kind of stumble over the idea that jesus is all like lambs and lollipops and the old testament god is all is all like blood and gore um first of all because jesus says some pretty old testament god-like things woe to you corazine and bethsaida it'll be more tolerable for sodom and gomorrah on the day of judgment than it will be for you and jesus has some pretty strong language that's pretty condemnatory i mean the book of revelation thinks chapter 14. speaks about the winepress of the wrath of god this is the new testament pressing out the blood of the nations flowing out to like i don't know was like 14 fathoms or something i mean i mean it's violent images in the book of revelation about the wrath of god poured out at the end of time i mean it's pretty strong stuff uh you know saint paul the thessalonian correspondents talks about god meeting out judgment on unbelievers and you know doing some serious fire and brimstone smiting jesus in the temple there you go all right now that but that being said the way the new testament reads the passages of the old testament the way catholic theology reads them is that these are these are anthropomorphic condescensions these are this is a metaphorical way of rendering god's nature the real nature of god cannot be captured by you know anthropomorphic language of of human emotion and human decision making but this is accommodated to the to the cultural progress of of bronze age israel okay ricky thanks so much for your email in a moment here we'll be talking with lori in florida listening on facebook today hey we've got a line with your name on it if you have a question for dr david anders 833 288 ewtn what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it uh 833-288-3986 in any language it means the same live truth live catholic ewtn the ewtn home video highlight for april is hope to die with dr scott hahn and rob corzine dr scott hahn and rob corzine explore catholic teaching on death and the resurrection of the body helping us to look forward with hope to eternal life with god order your dvd set at ewtnrc.com 24 hours a day seven days a week or call 1-800-854-6316 saint alphonsus liguori made a vow to never waste time he was a bishop he oversaw a religious community and he served people in need he wrote about 60 books and he'd write those books in little half hour increments when he had the free time to do it but for all his busyness he would drop everything if someone needed to talk to him and not just people who were a big deal but anybody and he'd have no problem spending an hour or two with somebody who just came by and needed his help you see he never saw wasting time on people as a waste of time what a beautiful thing i'm a really driven guy i'm always going to the next task the next project i need to remember to stop if somebody comes to my door if a kid wants to talk to me if a friend wants to chat people come first that's how jesus did things he didn't just preach to large crowds he always had the time for the one just like he does for you do you make that kind of time for people this is christophanic from real life catholic hi this is sci kellet if you've got bible questions later today on catholic answers live jimmy aiken two hours of bible questions catholic answers live 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio now back to call the communion for dr david anders [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic we are here to talk about it at call to communion on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six let's go back to the phones right now and talk with lori in florida listening on facebook a first time caller hey lori happy friday to you what's on your mind today hi dr anders thank you for taking my call um it's a little bit of a strange situation i actually have been studying um catholicism online and looking up things uh on my own time and i've decided to become a catholic after about a couple of years maybe of of learning this way what i'm wanting to know is if there is a catechism during this time of covid that i can take online and have it um i don't know worth something or is it yum yeah thank you i understand the question okay so first of all are there online catechetical classes that will instruct you in the catholic faith yes plenty and i'll give you some resources in a minute uh for those to count for a priest or a bishop to receive you into the church on condition that you go through those programs you would need the permission of the priest or bishop to do that right so you you can't just show up one day and say hey i i went through the online program i'm ready to be confirmed like they have to instruct you that this is the way they want to do it um and so if you're running into like a snafu if you've got a parish priest who says well i'll confirm you but not yet because i want to wait for know what nobody knows the end of kovat like when code's over well we don't know when codes are right it may be interminable you might you might go this is a possibility i'm just i'm not saying this will work but you might say well father i respect that would it be possible for me to receive instruction privately and be received into the church privately because i'm anxious to be admitted to the eucharist and i really don't want to wait you know a year and a half or two years or some interminable length of time you know this is a matter of my soul so could we come up with another arrangement now in my own case as long before covet i didn't go through public catechism to become a catholic i became a catholic in 2003 and i went and knocked on the door of the priest's office he said what can i do for you said i think i want to become a catholic he said why and i told him what i'd read among other things i said well i read the catechism and he said well you don't need rca let's get you in next week you know i mean it was literally that it was literally that quick yeah that doesn't mean your priest will do the same thing but many priests will and many priests would the important thing is that at least the priest needs to agree to those terms so that you won't waste your time right um and uh and look you i mean to be quite blunt you can shop around a little bit i mean like if if you've got you know parish x and they say absolutely not you can't come in well you go check out paris y you know you can do it that way and ultimately you can contact the bishop's office too some of the online programs there's one for free then my own diocese diocese of birmingham and alabama it's called the catacotical institute you can find it at our website office of religious education and the youtube channel uh all the whole programs online it was we produced it all the priests of our diocese and some laypeople contributed and it's uh it's essentially the content of the catechism presented in a video format and it's it's public domain and you can use it for free there are some other programs that are not free but also very good one called credo produced by the eastern province of the dominican order one called symbolon produced by uh the augustine institute and many many parishes and diocese use these programs in their rca instruction and then they say all tried and true you could actually read the catechism if you feel like it yeah you don't have to you read the catacomb cover to cover and they're all based on the catechism anyway sure um and uh but the important thing is just go have the dialogue with with this priest or another and say i really want to come into the church and i'd rather not wait you know an interminable length of time and i'd be willing to do the work on my own if you'll instruct me or advise me lori is that helpful for you yes thank you very much i just didn't want to go to the next parish and be embarrassed so i will go ahead and and do that sounds good thank you thanks so much for your call our phone number here 833 288 ewtn what's stopping you from becoming a catholic 833-288-3986 call to communion on this friday afternoon here on ewtn tony's watching us on youtube right now he says the vatican has more money than anything on earth why give money to them why not give it directly to charity why does the catholic church have so much money okay thanks well so first of all by my uh accounting according to the last balance sheet published by the holy see i think the assets of the holy see are 1.4 billion euros i think right okay which it roughly is you know a little bit more than a billion us dollars you know what the market cap available computer is i think it's 2.48 trillion more or less as of this month so we're talking two and a half thousand times apple computer has two and a half thousand times the market cap of of the vatican's you know assets listed in their balance sheet and that's just their assets i mean you know um or maybe it's the net worth might be the net worth and um i think the value of the us stock market is um 49 million millions 49 million millions was that 49 quadrillion it's a lot you know i think that's what it is you know uh you know i think i think they're billion dollar companies that now count as small cap like they're tiddlers yeah right you know i mean they don't make millionaires they don't make billionaires like they used to like you know bill i read financial news that i've just some 26 year old kid who starts some software company is like you know newest 26 year old billionaire no all right the vatican been around 2000 years you think they cut they could have done better with their investment portfolio than a mere 1.4 billion euros is chump change you know i'm not sure what the assets in jefferson county alabama are on the balance sheet but they got to be that much yeah so i mean the idea that the vatican is just awash in tons of gold uh it's just false and it's just not true all right i mean you know they've got they've got artwork they've got prime real estate they're not going to sell it beautiful cathedrals you know yeah they've got they've got the cultural patrimony of the catholic church and the west that they're curating for the sake of the common good i mean would you rather that jeff bezos owned that stuff or or you know bill gates would just sit in their private collection in seattle we would never get to see it so the church all of us yeah so the church just curates this stuff for the common good and you can go to rome and look at it spend all the time there you want right so they don't just have just tons and tons of money um they got a lot of prestige all that's going down every day but they don't just they're not just sitting down on sitting on big huge piles of money um secondly when i give money to catholic charity in the united states it doesn't it doesn't funnel up to the pope it doesn't that's not how it works the catholic church is not a corporation with the pope as ceo you know he doesn't get the financial statements from from every catholic parish throughout the world and you know take his pound of flesh out of everybody's offering basket that's not how it works every diocese in the world is is a semi-autonomous society governed by a bishop and in many dioceses actually incorporate parishes as independent corporations non-profit corporations that have their own kind of financial integrity or lack thereof depending on the parish we're talking about and uh and they're not rolling in dough i mean i i see their i see their financial statements from what i do in mind sure i know i know what the financial state of catholic institutions is and most of them are barely making it barely and i mean the record of closure of catholic schools throughout the united states has just been devastating over the last 30 years and i look they they the statements come across my desk i mean they're they're they are just bleeding out and and in my own case i mean i'm conscious of my own bishop previous administration just literally bleeding himself dry in the diocese to do everything possible to give as much money as could be given to to the poor and in particular to educate the poor in the worst served areas of the neighborhood yeah right i mean just pulling out all the stops doing everything possible to try to serve the poor and uh and uh you know he said to me one time god is gonna hold me accountable for what i do for the poor and he did everything his power he could to to work for the poor like nothing i've ever seen and i saw the financial statements and we couldn't afford it so you can't sit here and tell me the catholic church is just a washing doe and we're all driving around in lamborghinis right no that's not how it works that doesn't mean there's not mismanagement of course there is some bishop over here or some priests over there you know absconds with a pile of dough yeah of course people are human beings all right but that's not doesn't characterize the church as a whole right um so so there you go so there you go tony thanks so much for checking in today on youtube it's called a communion here on ewtn we're taking your calls live on this friday afternoon at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 2a tonight be sure to join us for ewtn news in depth that's at 8 pm eastern monte alvarado hosts a panel discussion on the moral implications that euthanasia laws have on communities also learn more about the brave faith of a syrian refugee who is using his journalism skills to serve the church a very important program i guess it's our newest show here on ewtn radio and it's called ewtn news in depth check it out tonight 8 pm eastern only on ewtn call to communion in progress here we do have a line open for you at 833 288 ewtn quick email here from ryan who says hey dr andrews what is your best argument your best argument against atheism my best argument against atheism is that catholics also disbelieve in the god that atheists disbelieve in yeah so it's actually finding common cause with atheists that's a show stopper right there right that when when an atheist tells you he doesn't believe in god i will come along and say neither do i given the way you define god and if you if you read the atheists especially the so-called new atheists today for for most of them this is how they conceive of god all right they they think of a universe or a cosmos right as a kind of a big extended space in which there are a collection of objects of beings of of concrete particular existent things and that the biggest one in the collection is something called god who who runs the show maybe he's the architect that built the house but nevertheless he's he's a concrete particular a singular existing object in a universe of singular existing objects and and yet they don't find him in their empirical experience or their investigations or their other science you know they go they go poking around looking for god they don't find it and therefore they declare it's kind of like looking for the non-existent unicorn in the room right you can poke around all day long you're not going to find the unicorn therefore there really is no unicorn that's how they think about god the problem is that's just not what catholics mean by the word god at all a better way of thinking about the existence of god is what what is it about reality such that investigation of the physical universe looking for causal order and sequences is an intelligible and understandable and a reasonable thing to do what makes the universe to be that kind of way like why is it that there is intelligibility in the universe what is what are the conditions about reality itself that would render reality intelligible it's not a given i mean like it doesn't have to be that way why why not a reality in which one moment i'm looking through a microscope and then in the next moment you know i'm a pink bunny rabbit why is why is there like existential inertia built into the fabric of reality what accounts for that what accounts for it being intelligible well the catholic understand is god is that which accounts for the intelligibility of the world god is that which accounts for the investigatability of the world um god is the the is what accounts for there being a world to begin with it's not the sort of thing that you would be able to poke around and find like you would find the non-existent uniform unicorn god is rather the very active to be itself the the condition for there being anything and so as long as you're limiting your search to the concrete particulars you can hunt and peck all day long before you've raised the question of being itself wow there you go hope that's helpful for you call to communion here on ewtn we do have a line open for you at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 all right now we're going to uh dive into a a hornet's nest here david this is this is from stephen stephen is uh watching us on youtube and he says i play contemporary christian music and have recently been playing at mass well there have been complaints with people claiming that it's not catholic or that it's a protestant worship kind of music what is the church's stance on music at mass wow wow all right simple answer go read musicom sacrament from the second vatican council okay there is a massive literature a massive literature in the catholic church on sacred music and the pr appropriate norms and principles and standards of sacred music and this is actually something that that uh that the program director's wife knows a lot more about than i do she is a music director she knows a lot about this it's not my area of expertise but i'm conscious that there are you know there's a profound tradition in the catholic church of sacred music and essentially music has to be ordered and this is a very simplistic explanation and you catholic musicians will pardon me for not being an expert it's ordered towards the ends of the liturgy itself right and and it must be it has to reflect the dignity and the sublimity and the nobility of the rights of the mass right and so it's not self-referential it's not focused on our own uh subjective you know experience of our interiority it's not simply there you know to give us happy feelings but really is at the service of the nobility of the sacrifice of the mass i mean that's the basic principle of the thing and a lot of modern so-called worship music now i really am going to get off into dangerous territory historically you can trace the history of this business um it flows from the um uh the the jesus people movement in california in um in 1967 68 right there was a movement you've heard about it that kind of big hippie thing that went on in california called the summer of love and you have these acid rock bands like the grateful dead and jefferson airplane and they kind of cut a certain sound and there were a lot of young protestant kids that were out there for that kind of thing and they began to bring that spirit and ethos of you know let's let's make music that really gets people pumped up and kind of in love with their own emotional response let's bring that into the christian churches and that movement was called jesus people calvary chapel is a protestant denomination it's kind of born out of that the vineyard churches is another one john wimber carol wimber were very instrumental and they wrote a lot of music that got spread throughout the protestant world and really began what has now been come to be understood as so-called the worship movement and what's characteristic of that movement and it is a sort of theological spiritual as opposed to musical movement is the idea that what you should do in worship is to affect or to or to evoke certain kinds of religious emotions right and those emotions are experienced as or as understood to be quote unquote the presence of god and so one is conditioned to think well you know like if i have a certain moving kind of emotional experience well then god must have shown up today in the worship service and if i don't have that moving experience well then god didn't really show up well that doesn't that if that's the sort of the theology and that is very characteristic of a lot of these uh sort of mega churches if that's the theology that's undergirding the worship i'm trying to kind of evoke an emotional response and that that's the essential point of of gathering together to to make music so that we can have this emotional response and interpret that as the action of the holy spirit then that is that is running in a direction that's very different from the the spirit and the goals of the catholic liturgy it's nice to have moving emotional responses but it's not at all necessary because the act of worship ultimately is not a passionate response of the emotions it isn't the intellectual response of the will right it's the it's the settled decision of the will to offer myself to god self-donation in sacrifice saint paul calls this the worship and spirit and truth or the or the rational act of worship he uses that language in romans chapter 12. and that happens ultimately and and preeminently through the holy sacrifice of the mass i come to the mass with the disposit with this disposition jesus i offer you my prayers my works my joys my sorrows along with the holy sacrifice of the mass in reparation for my sins and for the intentions of all especially the intentions of the holy father that's called the morning offering and it really captures the spirit of catholic worship and that can happen in a in a state of emotional dryness it can happen in a state of emotional desolation it could happen in a state of emotional elation but it is it's really the the it's by the act of the will seeking to conform my will to the will of god regardless of my emotional receptivity or my emotional responsiveness that is the the centerpiece of christian worship and when those differences are are expressed in the in music that deflects from that then that would be in a kind of a direction that would be contrary to the mind of the church yeah you may want to check out that musicum sacrum it is a part of the writings of vatican ii uh very important document actually thank you so much for checking in with us stephen let's go to allen in springfield missouri right now listening on catholic radio network alan what's on your mind today uh hi uh so i've i don't know i'm gonna try to make sure i work this correctly okay um i i yeah so sorry i'm so nervous for some reason oh it's okay i was wanting to sit down yeah i was going to sit down with uh believe it or not a church leader eventually and um i i will let you know my wife is part of the church this assembly of god it's a really neat church actually and uh i want to hear your idea of how i should i was wanting to kind of spark get the spark going of of inviting them back to the roman catholic church and and to bring bring some answers if they have any questions about whatever blocks that it would be to for them to uh you know for for them to eventually join uh you know and i'm gonna be as humble and as nice as i can respectful force and i i just want to hear your thought about how i should go about that perhaps yeah i think sure i think the most important thing is to be profoundly respectful of them as human beings and and uh you know your your your job is to love the faith joyfully and intelligently and articulately but to live the faith joyfully and virtuously in a way that's attractive and don't concern yourself as much with with changing their minds uh because we we can't change other people's minds and we can manipulate them but we can't we don't really want to do that we want this to be their own free self-determination as they see the beauty of the faith that are attracted to it not because they've been manipulated into it and ultimately you know god's going to take care of them so you don't have to worry you're not god and you don't have to worry about that you let god take care of that but you live your faith with generosity and joy now if you if you have a good relationship and you get to talking about the faith and you want to express the catholic distinctives what's different about the catholic faith in a way that might really inform them i think the best place to go is that the nature of authority how do we know the truth about the christian faith and the protestants and aog is protestant they always presume the way we know the faith is to study the bible the bible's the rule of faith the bible is the the you know the big deal the final the final word they never ask themselves where do we get that idea from all right and as soon as you raise that question where did you get that idea from what did jesus say that did jesus say the bible that you're holding in your hand right now is the rule of faith well no jesus never said that the bible they're holding in their hand right now wasn't even around when jesus was on the earth i mean the new testament wasn't even written and he he never mentioned it jesus doesn't talk about matthew mark luke and john acts and the epistle to the romans and all the rest of them he never mentions them of course he didn't instruct that that's how we should know god christ gave a completely different rule of faith christ established the apostles as the leaders of the church gave them the power to bind and loose and made saint peter the head said you're peter and on this rock i'll build my church the gates of hell will not prevail against it whatever you bind under the bound in heaven whatever you loose and earth is loose in heaven whoever hears you hears me whoever sins you forgive are forgiven whoever sends you retain or retained go therefore make disciples of all nations teach them everything i've commanded you all of which was oral tradition none of it was written down and i'll be with you to the end of the age a promise of divine assistance christ founded the catholic church with the with the guidance and the role of the bishops apostolic succession and the promise of divine assistance to the end of time and the gift of infallibility whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven that's christ's rule of faith where's this bible alone stuff come from i'll tell you where it comes from comes from a guy named martin luther 1500 years late he made it up so really when you say bible alone you're just really quoting a human tradition yeah and we also uh might make a recommendation for you alan uh is to ask your friends to listen to this show because this is a wonderful wellspring of information and and no misinformation we're going to tell you what the church actually teaches rather than you know getting it second hand or or third hand but absolutely what david is saying is right on the money uh listen to the show call the show and get those answers that you need alan thank you so much for your call uh it's a wonderful thing that you're doing as a as an outreach to your brothers and sisters hey dr david anders hope that you have a wonderful weekend thank you tom don't forget we do this program monday through friday here on ewtn radio 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern you can check out the podcast anytime charles will have this particular show posted in about an hour or so at ewtn on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks so much for listening and have a great weekend from all of us here at ewtn god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,468

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: Is34mhZz3io

Length: 52min 45sec (3165 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021