Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - April 7, 2021

the mother for more news with the catholic perspective visit ewtnnews.com i'm theresa tomio and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation why do i 1-833-288-3986 to confess my sins to a priest what's stopping you 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 radio it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters do you have a question about the catholic faith are you yourself a non-catholic maybe you were an active catholic years ago maybe not maybe you've never been a catholic but you've got questions about the catholic faith and maybe those questions are stopping you from becoming a catholic let's take a crack at it here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288-3986 if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for the response from us which will be a real quick a little robo response and then you can 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'll get to one of those in a moment ctc at ewtn.com is the address ctc at ewtn.com charles berry is our producer ryan penny is our phone screener jeff burson is on social media he'll be glad to forward any questions you might want to post via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now put your question in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend i'm doing pretty well thanks we've got a very interesting question here from tom who says hello i'm a cradle catholic but have been a practicing protestant for the last 20 years i really love how pastors can bring scripture to life in their sermons by connecting threads on relevant passages throughout the old testament and new testament defining the words from the original greek or hebrew texts etc etc etc i never get the same level of enlightenment and understanding of scripture from the catholic mass or any other service or devotion i'm wondering if i'm missing something for example if i wanted to fully understand the passage i can do all things through christ who strengthens me i can find many texts and sermons on the protestant side that help me to understand it in context as a catholic how would i go about learning what the church teaches about a specific passage like this thanks tom yeah thanks tom i really appreciate the question a lot and you've put your finger on a major difference between the way in which protestants and catholics conceptualize worship or what we do on sunday mornings so uh you know in the reformation no one uh put a greater emphasis on the expository preaching of the bible than john calvin and in fact he had an almost sort of uh quasi-sacramental view of preaching he really thought this was the this was sort of the thing that god used to energize uh the sacraments even to make them efficacious in people's lives and this the style of preaching that you're talking about really was sort of the invention of of john calvin uh and in in doing so he he sort of drawing on his own background as a renaissance humanist and uh the sort of renaissance emphasis on pedagogy and teaching and and he wanted to make that central to the act of christian worship and uh so that that's that's very much a sort of protestant idea derived from calvin now when calvin did this expository preaching of course what he wanted to do was to read the bible in a way that would conform to his own doctrinal position right so it's a very theologically loaded way of reading the bible and uh and it was ultimately you know in the service of his his larger theological agenda now you know i still think that for a lot of protestants that that do this kind of preaching that that's that's still the mode right they're very engaging and they they know the bible quite well but ultimately they're pulling it together in a way that conforms to and sustains and bolsters their own particular theological system oh okay and and so you know to take that at face value well this is just what the bible obviously means because i've heard this great sermon and this guy pulled all these threats together you have to recognize that there may be very different threads that one could pull together and come up with a radically different interpretation of those texts and so just because you've heard a persuasive and an engaging sermon doesn't necessarily mean you've engaged the bible uh in the most uh a spiritually fruitful way being entertained being engaged being intellectually stimulated uh being sort of you know drawn along by the nose not necessarily indicators of uh of spiritual fruitfulness okay all right now um but i said this is different from the way process boy catholics think about what we're doing on sunday morning as profoundly different profoundly different and one of the problems that a lot of protestant converts to the catholic church has is they they don't understand these differences they come to the catholic mass with expectations that okay now we're getting rid of the meat of the thing the homily the sermon all right let me sit down take out my notebook and get ready i know what to expect and then they get blindsided by something that's radically different from what they're used to in the protestant church and they think hey this something deficient about the mass because i'm not getting this great expository sermon that ties all these things together that's what i've come to expect from christian worship and there's something missing in the mass maybe not maybe that's not the point of a homily maybe that's not the point of sunday morning and i'd like you to challenge your expectations about what we're supposed to do in mass altogether first of all where in sacred scripture itself where in the teaching of jesus did he ever indicate to us well you have to get together on sunday morning and listen to an expository sermon that ties together theological threads from the old new testament that that's what you're supposed to do where did christ ever indicate that where did the apostles indicate that nowhere nowhere this is an invention of the renaissance humanists behind the calvinist reformation right okay so it may or may not be fruitful but one thing is for sure it's not biblical and that way of worship is not presented in by in the bible itself as the ideal for christian discipleship on the contrary christ does give instruction about what to do in worship and it is offering the sacrifice of the mass do this in memory of me if i had more time i could unpack that as a sacrificial admonition and a mission to a type of worship that is in essence sacrifice paul says your spiritual act of worship is offering your bodies and living sacrifice sacrifice is the essential act of the virtue of religion we come together to celebrate the eucharist as an offering that we make to god not primarily as a place to receive pedagogical instruction so i'm after this break we've got to go to i'll come back to the question how do i get the catholic interpretation of the bible sounds good uh tom sit tight we'll continue that on the other side of the break we'll also get to the phones and begin with isaac in wisconsin we've got lines open for you right now here on ewtn's call to communion 833 288 ewtn is our phone number 833-288-3986 on this wednesday of uh easter week on ewtn ewtn news in-depth is important for catholics everywhere there are so many questions there are so many unknowns out there as the world continues to change at a rapid pace we're going to ask the tough questions and get the right answers and make sure that when you watch this show you feel engaged and you feel empowered ewtn news in depth engaged informed catholic friday at 8 pm eastern on ewtn radio and television [Music] prayer can take on many different forms it could be a simple gaze up to the heavens glorifying god for the beauty of his creation it could be a cry for help in time of need it could be a request for some good that you think you need in your life all these things can be spontaneous and informal but prayer can also be formal as in the our father which jesus taught us to pray and the highest formal prayer the sacrifice of the mass [Music] now there's a fast and easy way to get in touch with ewtn the ewtn everything number call 1-800-447-ewt to get the latest information on programming special events pilgrimages and more our ewtn family viewer services representatives are ready to help you with whatever your needs may be the ewtn everything number 1-800-447-ewtn [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn our phone number three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six one of the many ways you can listen to ewtn radio is via a smart speaker well ewtn is on available uh is available on all kinds of smart speakers including amazon echo uh the google assistant and others too so for example if you want to hear this show you can say alexa ask ewtn to play call a communion and there you go it's a wonderful thing i have one in my car you may not have heard about these but you can now get the one of these smart speakers for your car which is a a great way a hands-free way of uh selecting the audio that you want to hear so you might want to look into that so we're going to uh continue with this question from tom who wanted a little more uh clarification on on how to unpack specific uh passages in the bible yeah exactly so so here here's the brilliant thing about being catholic which i it's one of the most liberating things about being catholic to me is when i came to understand that the catholic church does not does not prescribe a a definitive interpretation to every passage of the bible now for protestants who are used to thinking of the bible as a kind of textbook or manual user's manual on the christian life the you know the idea that what do you mean there's not an absolute block solid interpretation of this verse i mean i thought that the god gave us the bible as our rule of faith to prescribe everything that we do and if we can't come to a consistent interpretation of this passage then that throws that whole thing into question you bet that's exactly the point right the bible is not our rule of faith it's not there is a user's manual on the christian life to prescribe our every activity that's not its purpose all right it is a it's a book to be used in prayer and reflection and and theological investigation and worship but the rule of faith is the church right and because of the the kind of literature that the bible is a lot of it is poetry narrative story uh multiple genre all right they are there are it is some of the texts are inherently ambiguous in the sense that there are multiple applications that can be drawn from the same passage and they're not they're inexhaustible sources of reflection and insight and to say this is the only way you should read this text actually limits the bible's ability to speak to us in our lives opening them up to allow the narratives and the stories of biblical characters so that we can enter into them from our own particular circumstances and questions allows them to fluidly and dynamically continue to speak to the people of god who are on the same journey as the community from which the text of scripture arose those of us who are in relationship with the god of israel moving forward towards the eschaton guided by christ seeking to live in the kind of covenant community with god that the people of god always have right that's the way we engage the bible um so nevertheless if you want to get like authoritative catholic engagement with the bible right and you'll get different points of view you go to the commentaries you go to the commentaries and uh you read the commentaries of the saints you read the commentaries of the doctors of the church uh the fathers of the church i mean actually i got a computer in front of me right now and i'm staring at uh st thomas aquinas commentary on the book of isaiah and uh and you know thomas is coming to the book of isaiah from medieval scholasticism from an aristotelian and atomist he is thomas of course he's the father of thomism he's bringing his own sort of philosophical mindset to the interpretation of the text looking for answers to the kind of problems that were confronting him in his day um you know you could read augustine's commentaries from the fourth century in the fifth century that bring a whole different set of questions looking for different answers in these texts and finding inspiration and enlightenment from them for different sorts of problems you can read modern catholic commentaries that'll do the same thing and maybe bring more of a higher critical point of view to the understanding of these texts but the point is that they're an inexhaustible resource for the church to return to again and again and again not to exegete once get the definitive interpretation pack that away in a file cabinet and move on okay tom a very good and thoughtful question thanks so much for your email it's called a communion here on ewtn if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin today with isaac in delavan wisconsin listening on youtube a first-time caller hey there isaac what's on your mind today hey thanks for taking my call i really appreciate it it's been a great help for me in kind of my journey toward entering uh the catholic church i grew up protestant my whole life went to private school learned the whole um protestant talking points about being anti-catholic actually and in the last year i've kind of felt a pull towards the catholic church and and the fullness that i experienced when i attend mass with my friends and whatnot uh but there's one thing that i'm kind of scared of getting wrong and that's the eucharist and communion um i know the catholic belief is is the real presence that the eucharist is the body and the blood of jesus christ literal body and blood um and it's kind of hard for me to accept that and get over that that hump uh coming from protestantism where it's all purely symbolic i was wondering if dr david anders had had anything that he could uh kind of refer me to or an explanation himself to kind of help me see or realize or have confidence that yes is the body of the blood of christ because i've gone to like the early church fathers as well and seen what they had to say about it and i've seen even protestants go to the early church fathers as well and say well no no no they saw it as symbolic you're just reading me wrong so i'm kind of stuck in this middle ground where i want to jump in i want to be confirmed and i want to take part in the sacrament but i'm definitely afraid of getting the eucharist wrong yeah that's a really good worry to have that's in fact you know john calvin in about 1541 wrote a book called a little treatise on the lord's supper and what prompted him to write it was that the protestant reformation was split straight down the middle over the eucharist and the lutherans of course held to the doctrine of the real presence and the zwinglians of course denied it and calvin uh is about you know 20 years later than luther and he's looking at division within the protestant world just tearing the movement apart and he says you know of the kind of the poor people the parishioners the the common people were were waiting with baited breath for the servants of god to come to some agreement on this matter now he meant the servants of god he met the protestant theologians and they're sort of hanging in the balance and this was the interesting thing he says on this doctrine which is so necessary for salvation he wrote all right and i that struck me when i wrote when i read that for the first time because i thought i i didn't grow up in a protestant community that would have said that the nature of christ's presence in the eucharist is a matter that is so necessary for salvation but john calvin the father of my own protestant tradition held getting the eucharist right was essential for salvation luther luther thought the same thing he the reason he refused to have anything to do with ulrich zwingli was over disagreement on the nature of the eucharist and for luther he thought that that zwingli's error put him outside of redemption he didn't just think he was wrong he thought he was damned wow all right i mean the early reformers thought this was a make-or-break doctrine interestingly though they couldn't agree on what it was all right they couldn't agree and and like why couldn't they agree why couldn't they agree because they they they threw out the only thing that would be able to give them objective certainty about the christian faith christ's rule of faith you know when you leave it up to the private interpretation of individual theologians exegeting the bible you are you are engaged in a procedure that christ never never prescribed that's not the way jesus wants us to come to the faith first of all he never gave us the bible as our rule of faith and he never told us that private interpretation of such a text is the way to come to agreement on the contrary christ gave us the teaching church as the rule of faith as the authority to define the content of the christian religion and having thrown that out it was inevitable that protestants would disagree on the eucharist and everything else but i'm glad you have this problem now let me try to resolve some of your difficulties first of all look we have to accept one thing about the eucharist it proclaims a mystery that we cannot rationally demonstrate by observation or empirical science there is there is a eucharistic miracle is not withstanding there is no way that we can verify the doctrine christ's doctrine on the eucharist by observation or empirical science it's not going to happen because what is being proclaimed is something which by definition transcends our senses it's a reality that we cannot see cannot taste cannot smell cannot feel cannot hear the real presence of christ is hidden from our senses and so when you go to communion for the first time and you say hmm that tastes a lot like bread and wine looks a lot like bread and wine smells a lot like bread and wine acts a lot like bread and wine if it if it actually looked or tasted like flesh it would not be the eucharist because the definition of the eucharist is that the accidents of bread and wine remain if it appears to be something other than bread and wine it's not the eucharist so that's the first thing you have to wrap your head around now that's a mystery that's what we call a mystery something that transcends our ability rationally or sensibly to verify but this is at one with other mysteries of the christian faith so the eucharist is in the same boat as the doctrine of the incarnation when christ walked the earth as the god-man the only part of that that was visible was the man the god part was not available to the senses because god is a spirit cannot be sensed now you could reach out and touch jesus's hand and you were touching god's hand but you did not know that except by faith you could not sense or demonstrate empirically that you were touching god's hand and of course many people touched christ and didn't know they were touching god's hand the roman soldiers who put the nails through his wrists didn't know they were touching god's hand or nailing god's hand to a cross they just knew the man right so so while the two natures of christ is a different doctrine from transubstantiation with their one in being mysteries that we can hold only because god has revealed them now there are some other things we can do to unpack the eucharist make a little bit easier to swallow when we understand the nature or the mode of christ's presence it doesn't take away the mystery but it makes it a little bit more intelligible first of all what are we saying about the eucharist it's really it's the real presence of the real presence of christ's body and blood we talk about the substance substantial presence of christ's body and blood but we had freely admit christ is present in a mode that is entirely different from the normal mode of physical presence now one of the clearest distinctions to draw is the distinction between substantial mode and quantitative mode we say that christ is substantially present in the eucharist but not quantitatively what do i mean by quantitatively well you know in a normal physical object it has the property of quantity it can be measured it has height it has length that has width and depth and mass and weight right all of those properties and it's divisible because it has extension so if i have an actual piece of bread in front of me i can break it in half and i can have half the bread over here half the bread over there have a pound of bread break it into and now i got two half pound loaves the real presence of christ in the eucharist is not present in that way quantitatively so if i break the host in half i don't suddenly have jesus's head and torso over here and his legs over there right what we say is that we have all of christ over here in all of christ over there body blood soul and divinity in whole and entire in every single particle of the host every single particle of the chalice so we admit this is a very very mysterious mode but some of the paradoxes are resolved once you understand the nature of the mode so people would say well isn't the eucharist cannibalism if you're eating christ's body and blood no because we're not masticating and breaking up jesus's real presence or his body in order to incorporate them into our physiology nor are we killing him or immolating him or or you know that like you would do in the act of cannibalism it's a very very different mode now what's the purpose of the real presence like why did he give us this was it necessary well nothing in redemption is absolutely necessary god could have saved us in some other way it is however fitting there is a fittingness to the real presence first of all the promise of redemption is i will be your god and you will be my people and i will dwell among you that he would leave us a memorial of his death and resurrection in an abiding mode of engaging his presence not just not just intellectually but but but but truly his body and blood with us is a tremendous tremendous gift didn't have to do it that way but he chose to do that way it also becomes for us the the the central focal point of our of our uh unity as a people that we are we come together as the church primarily to receive christ's body and blood we who partake of the one loaf the one bread are made one bread in him that's what saint paul's language in first corinthians chapter 10. now when you if if you're accustomed to going to worship to hear a sermon right what happens well you know people tend to subdivide according to the type of sermons they like to hear oh yeah right but when you come together for this one of the things you'll notice when you go to your first catholic mass if you've come from you know the highly divided protestant denominationalism was well here comes everybody right you know the diversity of christ's body is made manifest in this one sacrament also and this is the most sublime reality of all having christ the victim who died for us on calvary really present on the altar of sacrifice and holy mass the whole church is then able to turn and offer that back to god as uh as an offering as worship as true sacrifice the book of malachi speaks of the new covenant where uh the gentiles will offer to god a pure offering now there is no more pure offering than the body and blood of christ and so the the central act in the virtue of religion is to offer sacrifice and god christ gives us it's just like in the story of abraham and isaac isaac's looking around going abraham dad uh we're missing something here abraham says the lord himself will provide the sacrifice abraham did not know how true that was god himself has given us the wherewithal to offer him that true worship and spirit and truth that jesus says is the work of true religion isaac what a great question thank you so much for your call in a moment we're going to talk with matt in greenville north carolina also norman right here in birmingham got a great question also from matthew watching us on facebook this afternoon if you'd like to join in our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 the wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn this is tracy sable from ewtn news nightly this is raymond arroyo host of the world over this is jeanette demelo from register radio get trusted catholic news every day on ewtn television and radio [Music] hello this is brian kemper of priest for life with pro-life update many of you pray the chaplet of divine mercy did you know that this prayer was given to saint faustina especially because of the sin of abortion god revealed to her that because of this evil the world needs his mercy more than ever he even permitted saint faustina to suffer special pains representing the pain of abortion on divine mercy sunday this weekend please pray for the many people who seek forgiveness from abortion by coming to rachel's vineyard which operates under the umbrella of priests for life and is the largest ministry in the world for healing after abortion not only do we provide retreats but we also enable people to make the long journey of healing through various forms of individual counseling may god's mercy come to all this is brian kemper on the ewtn global catholic radio network [Music] he was a 10th century saint priest mystic and doctor of the church honored as the first poet of armenia matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church gregory of narick is revered by armenians as a watchful angel in human form his masterwork the book of lamentations was intended to be his last testament an encyclopedia of prayer for all nations he was named a doctor of the church in 2015. for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com [Music] hi this is psychelette join us later today on catholic answers live as we do our best to explain and defend the catholic faith catholic answer is live 6 pm eastern on ewtn radio now back to call of the communion with dr david [Music] anderson hey we're glad you could join us here on call to communion on ewtn our phone number and we have two lines open right now 833 288 ewtn what's keeping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it on call to communion 833-288-3986 here is matt in greenville north carolina listening online ewtn.com a first-time caller hello matt what's on your mind today uh yes uh mr anders you made a comment um it's been a long time ago and never been able to get in and have you expound a little bit on it and what you said was um without mary's intervention or intercession i forget that that we are sunk and i will listen off air yeah sure love to talk about that so i'm really talking about um the enunciation angel gabriel comes to the blessed virgin mary and declares that she'll have a child this child will be the messiah the king of israel the savior of the world and her response is to say be it done to me according to thy word right she consents to the divine plan now here's the question philosophical question that i'd like to pose is her consent immaterial is her consent immaterial or material is it significant is it does it contribute in some way does it is it cooperative in a way that's essential to the divine plan well once you've posed the question you recognize well it has to be material has to be substantive it has to be genuine cooperation with god's plan in a way that that contributes something to the process of redemption otherwise it would be obscene i mean to think that that god would bring about this great redemption through uh through an unwanted pregnancy is is obscene that's not the kind of god we have right uh one who profoundly respects the dignity of our choice he lets us make our own bed and lie in it right to both to our own heart and our you know into our salvation potentially and uh uh and and so he dignifies mary with with the capacity to participate now no she was gonna say yes she was gonna say yes she wouldn't have said no and god of course four knew this from the beginning of time in fact the the the decree of the incarnation in god's eternal plan includes god's predetermination from from all of time for the immaculately conceived blessed virgin mary to freely consent to the incarnation so he he knew it was going to turn out that way but nevertheless in spite of god's total control total providence over all all of creation and all of history he builds into his providential scheme the free cooperation of his creatures as genuine instrumental causes you know we're not just automatons you know running a program we actually have free will and agency that god controls now you you said what what whoa whoa whoa god controls our yes yeah it's really free will we really do have agency we really make free deliberative decisions that have an actual impact in history in our own lives and god is simultaneously in control of the whole show both of those things both sides of the coin are true and so as catholics we look to the consent of the blessed virgin mary's it's not something that god didn't impose it on her and and she was always going to do it but it's not it's not immaterial her consent to the incarnation is part of the process that brings to our salvation it is a link in the chain it is an it's a necessary link in the chain of our salvation now uh and so we can we can legitimately thank her so you know take a a trivial analogy all right because this is the way god works all up and down the chain right god always uses the intervention of of instruments of media to bring about his plan god rarely just you know calls straight down from heaven intervenes in the natural order and changes things he usually works through secondary instruments and secondary causes you know i remember when i was uh when i was applying to graduate school and i really really really wanted to get into this one program and you know win this fellowship and i had a similar professor who had a pious wife and she promised that she would pray for me and i put a lot of faith in her prayers and uh and then lo and behold i got in and i got the scholarship and i was just thrilled i ran and i found her and i said thank you so much for praying for me and she was very self-deprecating humble woman she's eyes he's all god and i was like well yeah but thank you for praying it into being like your prayers were not they weren't immaterial like i believe that they contributed and yes god did it but he used your prayers to do it you know all of salvation is like that at every step of the of the game uh god extends his grace to us through media the whole catholic faith is built on this idea of mediation so i go to the priest he gives me sacraments god could have given me the grace without the sacraments he chose to give it through media through instruments and so it's fitting for me to say father thank you so much for just took away all my sins every one of them just poof gum out of here at your word how amazing is that thank you that's an inappropriate thing thank you father that's an appropriate response even more so i can say thank you mary thank you blessed virgin mary for saying yes now it's an impossibility she wouldn't have said no but mary's yes was essential to bringing about the incarnation and salvation of the world all right thank you so much for your call it is called to communion here on ewtn back to the phones right now here's norman norman's right here in birmingham listening on that alexa we were talking about earlier a first time caller hey norman what's on your mind today well but peace be you peace be with you and and your team members thank you we have a question my wife and i in matthew 21 the parable of the two sons one son says he won't go or says he will go and doesn't go and the other says he won't go and then does go and then jesus asks the followers which one did the right thing and everyone chooses number two and he rebukes them and we don't understand why yeah thanks okay so let me read the passage if i could okay um what do you think jesus says a man had two sons he first went to the son and said go work in the vineyard that day and the man answered i will not but later changed his mind and went the father went to the second said the same and he answered i go sir but he did not go which of the two did the will of this father they said the first the guy who actually goes then jesus said to them truly i tell you the tax collectors and the prostitutes are getting into the kingdom ahead of you for john came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him but the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him and even after you saw it you did not change your your mind and believe him okay so they he told the parable because the people who he's interacting with are those who did not follow the preaching of john the baptist but they recognize from the parable that look saying i'm going to do something and not doing it doesn't count you actually have to follow through john that was john the baptist's whole preaching john the baptist's message was do not say for yourself that i have abraham as my father i tell you god can raise up children for abraham from for abram from these very stones rather bring forth fruits and keeping with repentance and what john the baptist and jesus were dealing with was a religious hierarchy that said we are god's elect we are god's chosen because you know we have the right rituals we have the right doctrine we wear the right clothes you know we we preach on the right street corners but they were neglecting the weightier matters of the law justice and mercy and so forth and and that's what god was desiring of them and and and so that's that's where their rebuke comes in you you you you may have ign you didn't follow the preaching of john the baptist you are like the guy who says yes i'll go and then doesn't go you're the one who says i'll do the will of god but then you cling to your your empty ritual and tradition that doesn't actually bring about the righteous life that jesus desires there you go hope that's helpful for you norman thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn here is a question now from matthew via facebook matthew says how do i answer my calvinist friend who says that judas could not have refrained from betraying jesus he has argued that it would have been impossible because it would have denied god's prophecy yeah thanks so i i sort of got into this earlier when we were talking about the predestination of the blessed virgin mary catholics believe in predestination we believe that that there are those whom god knows will be saved and he he determines before the foundation of the world to grant them the grace essential necessary and sufficient for their salvation um but he doesn't do so in a way that destroys their own agency so so human freedom free deliberation our free agency fits within the scope of divine providence it's not in not in conflict with it now um here's the thing to ask yourself which which view of god ascribes more power and dignity to god the view that says god can only be in control if he over overwhelms your will and destroys it or the view that says god can be in total control while yet granting you free agency which is the more think about a human parent who's the more dignified noble admirable parent the one who who who has his household in order because the members of the household lovingly do his will because it's good or the tyrant who rules with an iron fist there you go appreciate that uh thank you so much for your question via facebook matthew let me do one more quick one here also from um social media this is from charlie watching us on youtube our righteous protestants granted with salvation to the kingdom of heaven sure so if by righteous you mean that they love god and love neighbor yeah and not only protestants but anybody anybody protestant not protestant hindu buddhist islamic jewish anyone who loves god above all things in the neighborhoods themselves is saved you know the young man came to christ in mark chapter 10 said good teacher what should i do to be saved jesus says keep the commandments and he says yeah but i want more he says okay well sell everything come follow me god says i'll go back to the commandments thank you yeah yeah but you know what to do love god above all things love your neighbor as yourself you'll be safe so here's the question then well then what does the catholic faith add to the picture if that's available to everybody potentially why become catholic well because within the catholic church we have we have the the clearest teaching about how to do that and we have objective means of grace to give us the divine help to actually carry that out because that's a hard task in fact it's impossible to us naturally to love god above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves exceeds our natural capacity so we need supernatural help and within the catholic church it's like we've got that it's right in front of you there's no mystery about where to find it there it is i mean there's the teaching right in front of you there's the sacraments and the grace right in front of you you know i mean if you get sick you might get well without going to the doctor but if the doctor's like dude i got this antibiotic you could take the pill of course appreciate that and thanks for watching us on youtube today charlie call to communion here on ewtn one of our wonderful weekend programs is a doctor doctor you can check that out saturday morning at 11 a.m eastern dr chris stroud dr tom mcgovern and dr andrew mullelly bring you engaging discussions of practical and current medical topics with a focus on the dignity of the human person body and soul it's also a very timely program you know when we were in the very worst of the pandemic last year these guys would you know redo the program at a moment's notice if if they could bring even more timely information to our listeners that's what they're all about so it's a very important show glad to bring it to you on saturday mornings at 11 a.m eastern doctor doctor right here on ewtn radio back to the phones now for trish in alamogordo new mexico listing on youtube a first-time caller hey trish what's on your mind today hi everybody uh god bless you um i'm an rcia um instructor and i have a really hard time with a couple of scriptures that are protestants no i don't call them students but catechumens have about confession and i know this scripture is part of that and it says and i really don't understand how to explain this one um whatever you bind and lose which is in matthew uh chapter 16 and 18. and then um also in connection with that would be who forgives sins but god himself um and then in mark chapter two and then it says jesus forgive forgive sins so i guess i need to know how to explain to um these folks because they're afraid of confession they're a little leery about it and so how can i bring in that those those scriptures to them and help them understand that jesus gave his disciples that power as priests to forgive which i think is connection to bind and lose which i don't know how to explain i really need your help yeah absolutely thank you so uh first of all let's deal with this subjection that who can forgive sins but god alone right all right that's true and god can do it through agents god can do it through instruments and this is hinted at first in matthew chapter nine verse eight when when the the men lower the paralytic down through the roof to jesus and jesus says you know your sins are forgiven and everybody looks around and goes who does i think he is who does this guy think he is right and well so that you know that the son of man has authority to forgive sins i say get up take your man walk and heals him and then we read that the crowds are filled with awe and glorified god who had given such authority to men to forgive sins now christ of course is the god man right but but this isn't this is indicative this is a hint of what christ is then going to pass on to his disciples jesus himself has this power he can forgive sins in his own name and then of course he commissions disciples and says whoever hears you hears me whoever hears you hears me whoever hears you hears me and uh the passage on binding and loosing in matthew chapter 18 is precisely connected to the power of forgiving and retaining sins because the context is jesus says if you find your brother in sin and he won't listen to you you take him to the church if he doesn't listen to the church he's subject to the discipline of excommunication that's what jesus teaches jesus actually counsels to excommunicate people if they're unrepentant publicly for grave sin and then he follows up you know gives him the power of binding and losing and says you know when you agreed on anything your father in heaven will ratify it a lot of people apply that passage to efficacy and prayer that's the wrong context jesus actually applies it to the process of church discipline excommunication and what you bind on earth god will bind in heaven right so it's a disciplinary structure and we get deeper elaboration of this in the gospel of john chapter 20. when christ rises from the dead he appears to the apostles breathes on them says receive the holy spirit whoever sins you forgive a forgiven whoever sins you retain retained and that's about as explicit as you can get no right that christ says explicitly you have the power the church has the power to forgive sins you flip over into the paul line epistles in second corinthians chapter five we see paul exercising this power as an unrepentant sinner in corinth and he demands that the corinthians expel him from the community until he comes to his senses and then in second corinthians they readmit him and paul says i forgive this guy in the presence of christ he uses the power of absolution so it's all through the teaching of jesus and the principle god alone can forgive sins is true and god can do that through agents whoever hears you hears me whoever sends you for give or forgiven now uh so the the one of the struggles for protestants is why like why why why would i want this i mean if i can go straight to god and receive the forgiveness of sins why tie it to a sacrament and here the what is useful is to recognize that tying it to a sacrament doesn't restrict it to a sacrament so the sacrament of confession does not diminish the flow of god's grace it's not like the old testament saints had this great blessing of being able to get forgiveness of sins by praying directly to god and now we're somehow tied down to the sacrament we still have access to god in prayer as catholics we can still go privately to the lord and ask forgiveness of sins is called an act of perfect contrition psalm 51 david says against you o lord you only have i son done what's evil in your sight therefore wash me and i'll be clean catholics can pray that in fact we do every friday it's in the liturgy of the hours right yep and and we trust that god hears those prayers and forgives our sins in the same way god can give the grace that is conveyed in all the sacraments in some way outside the sacrament god could if he chose to give us that grace outside the sacrament what's the value of tying it to a sacrament the reason that we have sacraments is because they are visible tangible signs that give us certainty of having received the grace so when i was protestant for example i used to go to the this prayer chapel at my protestant college and folks would write prayer requests and leave them for other people to pray for little prayer intentions and a lot of them amounted to confessions of sin i'm struggling with x i'm struggling with why please pray for me and it was years later that i reflected back on that and thought what comfort and by the way this was a dark enclosed room this prayer chapel you know i thought what comfort i would have received they would have received if an audible voice you know had whispered so to speak over their shoulder saying i did it's all good it's taken care of you're good you're forgiven right it's precisely the tangibility the sensibility that i can hear it and know that it comes directly from god by divine authority that it is psychologically vastly more powerful i can have an abstract conviction god that god god forgives the sort of the abstract notion yes god forgives repentant sinners what i what i can't be sure of subjectively is well do i meet the criteria and that's why protestants in my experience having grown up one tend to vacillate between presumption and despair i know i'm saved no i'm saved i know i'm saved maybe i'm not saved maybe i'm not saved maybe i'm not saved right and there's there's no there's no objective voice to adjudicate that dilemma and you know kind of depending on your personality type you might get lumped into one or the other category permanently when you become catholic now all of a sudden you have an objective tangible sign of christ's presence of your regeneration and rebirth of uh of christ's minister and of your own forgiveness and so when you go to the confessional and the priest absolves you and you hear those words of absolution if you receive them in that attitude of faith it's mind-blowing it's mind-blowing um now the other stumbling block is the whole humiliation aspect of revealing your sins privately to another human being and maybe maybe the guy's not a very nice guy that just adds you know it's even more difficult yeah yeah yeah and and how important is humility to salvation it's like almost the whole show the pharisee and the tax collector i thank the god that i'm not like that other guy or have mercy on me lord a sinner humility is almost the whole show and the the the discipline of examining your conscience and making an honest assessment honest confession of your fault to another human being is profoundly sanctifying saint james says confess your sins to one another so that you can be healed i mean this is a direct command from scripture confess your sense to one another now historically private confession and absolution are joined together in the in the 12th century the 13th century at the fourth lateran council all right prior to that the church would exercise the the the sacrament of absolution without requiring private confession they just did it publicly right so some people get tied up about the box look you want the box the box is so much better than what it used to be which was public definitely you know but it's not absolutely necessary and so there are occasions you know emergencies and so forth and the church allows other modes of exercising this gift of absolution the real key is did christ give the church power to forgive sins yes he did there you go trish appreciate that and we hope that's helpful for you and for your rcia students there in new mexico let's go now to joe in walla walla listening on khss 100.7 fm hello joe what's on your mind today hi and i just have a real problem i'm trying to be the best catholic i can be and my mother is a jehovah witness and she they know of course they're hung up on on the jehovah thing well i'm reading my 365-day bible and it's not a catholic bible and it has jehovah in it a whole lot and so i look at my catholic answer bible and it's there's a lot of places it just says lord so to answer her which we go on and on about because i said like i call you mother do i have to call you your name you know don't you know who i'm talking to when i say mother and she says yes but then i i my my what's bothering me is did the catholic church church take jehovah out of the bible yeah i understand someone so first of all the word jehovah is a neologism it's not a hebrew word it doesn't exist in the hebrew text of the bible or the ancient greek septuagint of the bible uh it this is a this is an invention of english translators uh to accommodate a a convention of masoretic uh translation the maserates were medieval jews who preserved the hebrew scriptures in hebrew original ancient hebrew does not have vowels it only has consonants and the divine name which the english equivalent consonants would be yhwh sometimes the divine name is pronounced yahweh right occurs frequently in the old testament uh but the the maseratis the jewish scribes would not pronounce the divine name they wouldn't say that out loud um when they said it they would substitute the word adonai which means lord now eventually hebrew invented vowels in the form they're called vowel pointings and the maserates were so hung up on not saying the divine name that they wouldn't even use the proper vowel pointings so when they came to the divine name they would use the hebrew consonants but they would insert the vowel pointings for the word adonai and so it creates this this neologism this this which is never actually said right that gets translated into english as jehovah but it's a it's a made-up word it's not actually in the biblical text and so the idea that you somehow have to call god by this uh by this neologism that's not even in the bible but is a was it it's an invention of of maseratic scribes in the middle ages to accommodate a jewish tradition about pronouncing the divine name which then gets translated into english it's just a ridiculously anachronistic way of coming in scripture so no the catholics didn't take jehovah out of the bible it was never in there to begin with do you feel like a lot of jehovah's witnesses get get hung up on this well usually that's not the complaint they come at catholics with it has to do with the divinity of christ that's the typical jehovah witness complaint with with catholics as a doctrine of the trinity i see um but you know this is one of their idiosyncratic doctrines there you go joe thank you so much for your call glad we could squeeze you in there could not squeeze in joshua in valley center kansas just couldn't do it he wants to know about predestination yeah and whether it's in the bible of course it's in the bible but that doesn't make the calvinist doctrine of predestination correct the catholic doctrine of predestination is correct read gary goo lagrange predestination glad we could get that in dr david anders thank you sir oh yeah thank you tom gotta stick to the script here david we uh we'll see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion i'm tom price you have a wonderful day we'll see you next time which is hopefully tomorrow god bless this is colleen kelly mast from mast appeal wishing you a joyful and wonderful easter season from all of us at ewtn radio the leading catholic voices are on ewtn

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,069

Rating: 4.9183674 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: yzkkuvamzJU

Length: 54min 25sec (3265 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021