Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - August 18, 2021

from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn stop it i don't understand why i have to earn salvation do i need to 1-833-288-3986 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 this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters you may have heard about the program maybe you've never heard the program itself but you're tuned in today because you are a non-catholic who wants some information about the catholic faith maybe you were an active catholic years ago fell away for whatever reason and now here you are in 2021 and you want some answers to this this and this that the catholic church teaches and this this and this the catholic church says no we don't teach that so you've got those questions or maybe you'd just like to tell us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic or returning to the catholic faith 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 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 shoot us an email ctc at ewtn.com is the address ctc at ewtn.com all right charles berry is our producer we also have michael birchfield handling the phone screening situation and i believe charles is also no no rich jesse is handling social media today so if you have any questions that you want to post via youtube or facebook live rich is the guy to see and he will pass those questions on 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 oh i'm doing decent thank you got a question a question here which is right on point or as we would say on brand with uh you know kind of the theme of this show which is what is stopping you from becoming a coming a catholic this is from lisa who says dr anders i will tell you what is keeping me from becoming a catholic despite my fervent wish and attendance to rcia i just cannot become a catholic in full communion with the church because i am an unbaptized woman civilly married to an unba baptized man who was married twice civilly previous to our marriage i carry this pain with me every day i was told point blank by my catechist that i may be baptized but will thereafter have to live with the pain of sinning in my marriage and if not bear the painful cross of my marriage well i intend a lifelong indissoluble fellowship with my husband any thoughts i'm i'm a little bit confused about the nature of the difficulty so uh i think i think if i understand correctly this woman uh is is married to a man now yeah and she wishes to stay married to that man she intends a lifelong indissoluble fellowship with that individual um and that relationship uh it may or may not be a valid marriage but it's not a sacramental marriage because you're both unbaptized but it sounds like he's had previous relationships okay so it's possible to have a valid natural marriage and uh and so the question is were were any of his previous relationships valid natural marriages now uh i think it's highly unlikely to be honest with you now that's not my it's not my place to judge that marriage tribunal judges this kind of thing but it's unlikely that he intended by those unions what the church understands to be a valid natural marriage and so i it's very probable that um that uh that a marriage tribunal would determine that those are not valid marriages and so he's free to be married to you and you could have your marriage convalidated in the catholic church and uh and then that you'd be a certainty now if he were if your husband were to become baptized then not only could you have a valid marriage but you could have a sacramental marriage to boot yeah and so i don't i at least in the way i'm understanding your question i don't think this represents an insufferable barrier to your becoming catholic but um uh yeah so i mean as long as you're in it you may not have the person that you've interacted with uh about this matter it sounds like maybe it was an rcia director i'm not sure yeah um you know rcia directors are often very competent people in what they do and you know they're charged with making sure that the curriculum is laid out and answering questions about the faith they're not always experts in canon law right uh and so i would also i would i wouldn't stop there i would take the question up with the pastor of the church and um who's that is his competence to deal with questions or refer those to the to the proper officials in the in the diocese to deal with marriage law issues but i wouldn't i definitely wouldn't stop i would i would keep pressing on and if you don't if you're not getting a satisfactory response from the rca director i would i'd take it to the next step up the line to the pastor of the church okay sounds like a plan lisa thank you so much for your email here's one now from angela from atlanta why does the catholic church take the stand that animals do not have souls and thus cannot go to heaven many people who have had scientifically documented near-death experiences have reported being greeted by their deceased pets not to mention the bible in revelations and in daniel mentioning creatures that appear in visions of heaven thanks angela thank you so the church does not teach that animals do not have souls in fact the church teaches that animals do have souls a soul is that which makes an organism to be alive so by definition any living thing has a soul and that would include plants so there are plant souls there are earthworm souls there are dog souls they're cat souls and horse souls but the souls of plants and animals are material they're not immaterial and therefore they're a different kind of soul from the human soul and they are not they are not intrinsically fitted for immortality in the way the human soul is and there and christ didn't die to redeem animals from the curse of mortality and so they don't look forward to the resurrection of the dead now um yeah i always encourage people that whatever it is that you love about your animal you will find that love fulfilled in the beatific vision because god is is the entirety the the he is infinite goodness truth and beauty and everything that you love about an animal you will be fulfilled for you in the beatific vision your experience of god uh we know very little about the new heavens and the new earth and the renewed material universe it is entirely possible that god might choose to populate that new universe with uh with uh with animal organisms we don't know that he doesn't uh you know will your cat fluffy be there i can't promise you that right but i i i keep going but i hear the music so i'm out of time sounds good angela thanks so much for your question lots more straight ahead on this edition of call to communion here is today's quote from mother angelica's perpetual calendar the spirit gives me a kind of spiritual awareness of the one thing necessary in this life the transformation of my soul into jesus the honor of the father and the good of the kingdom mother spiral bound perpetual calendar features an inspirational message for each day of the year it's available from the ewtn religious catalogue at ewtnrc.com on the next catholic connection with teresa tamio we do our very best at catholic connection to keep you connected to the church with interviews on issues that matter issues that impact our everyday lives as catholics in the world but not of the world whether it's featuring the latest from the front lines of the pro-life movement or the culture war that continues to range around us we will give you the tools to help you stay faithful as well as make a difference catholic connection weekday mornings at 9 00 a.m eastern on ewtn radio he was a doctor of the church and one of the greatest defenders of christ's divinity matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church and other nations of alexandria fought against the aryan heresy that questioned the divinity of christ he once condemned the aryans as opposers of christ who had dug a pit of ungodliness it was said of him athanasius contra mundum athanasius against the world but for christ he died in 373. for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com [Music] it's called a communion on this wednesday afternoon here at ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six looks like three lines are available right now three lines are being screened by uh mr birchfield so we'll get those on the air as quickly as we can right now i want to tell you about two new books available from ewtn publishing grace explained by father brian malady and finding frasadi by christine walhart first of all grace explained father brian provides one of the clearest and most luminous explanations of grace ever written employing the same everyday catholic language that has made him so popular as a host of ewtn's open line and a retreat master and then here's the other book finding frisadi you know blessed pierre giorgio forsati is identified as the man of the eight beatitudes recognized as one of the most fascinating and relatable saintly examples of the 20th century author christine wohar has created a practical guide to fursadi's very short but very spirited life a couple of great books available for you from ewtnrc.com grace explained and finding frasadi by catholic shop ewtnrc.com if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with dave a first-time caller from omaha listening on the great spirit catholic radio hey dave what's on your mind today uh hello hello dr andrews thank you taking a call i'd like to thank you and uh all the callers call in i learn as much from their questions that i do from your answers so thank you how can we help you today all right so uh my question dr andrew is this uh it concerns uh uh the individual judgment you know i came back to the church two years ago and my wife continues to remain in a non-denominational baptist church and as i understand the catholic church they teach an individual uh judgment media uh immediately upon death it's a judgment for all believers and unbelievers and from this judgment will either go to heaven or hell and you know in the soul and then wait for the final judgment for the resurrection of the body so my my question is whether explicit or a couple questions whether explicit or implicit what is the catholic basis for the individual judgment at death for all to include believers and then why do protestants still they affirm a standalone they will affirm they'll be required to stand alone in front of christ why is it just for the only believers and why is it just the issue of whether or not you receive rewards or lost reward and it's a matter of interpretation doctrine both yeah thank you i think i understand the question so let me lay out these distinctions a little bit if i may so uh the the the sense of the faithful from antiquity has always included uh the belief that the righteous dead are with god and in fact that underlies the practice of the veneration of the saints it makes no point to venerate the saints and celebrate the mass in their honor if they're not intercessors for us and sacred scripture depicts the the blessed departed living in an intercessory relationship between the church and and god so passage like ii maccabees chapter 15 uh the prophet jeremiah who was dead and gone at the time appears to judas maccabees and says i you know i'm up here praying for you guys we got this we got we got this we got this we're working for you you know hebrews 12 of course talks about a great cloud of witnesses uh revelation chapter five depicts the the saints in heaven offering the prayers of the church on earth to god and so there's there's scriptural warrant uh stephen at his martyrdom uh lord jesus received my spirit he sees a vision of christ of course and so uh the the i we go through all of scripture and find multiple multiple texts that indicate the church's awareness that there is a conscious enjoyment of god uh by those who die in his friendship right and and philosophically the church has often employed some of the arguments from pagan philosophy about the immortality of the soul to bolster this dogmatic position now we have to be careful because the catholic church does not simply affirm the immortality of the soul we do affirm the immortality of the soul but that's not all she wrote and there are christian groups that imagine that you die and your soul goes to heaven your body rots and that's the end of the story and of course that's not the end of the story we also look forward to the resurrection of the debt all right so uh but we do employ some of those arguments from philosophy as well as those scriptural texts that indicate that the blessed dead can enjoy and see god but there are euphemistic ways of speaking about death in sacred scripture in the new testament sometimes the martyrs are described as falling asleep right that that some people have interpreted throughout history as suggesting that the dead are not conscious and that maybe they have to wait until the resurrection to have a conscious experience of god and that position the church never had to dogmatically address that distinction until the 14th century when believe it or not pope john the 22nd held to that position on soul sleep there was actually a pope who took that position and the all the catholic theologians of the time and bishops and so forth said uh pope you know you can't really hold that that's against the consensus of the faithful and he said i can pope i can hold what i want to hold and they said no you really can't and it's actually a very illustrative about the limits and nature of papal prerogatives maple authority because you know pope could be personally an error about a matter of christian doctrine he wasn't proclaiming it as a dogma right but he was being kind of hard-nosed about it and uh and eventually the universal church was like you really can't hold that pope and he said well okay okay it's just private opinion and i'm not dogmatizing about it and the the subsequent pope uh who was benedict the 12th actually taught infallibly so to clear up this matter and it wouldn't be subject to misinterpretation in the future in in a papal bull called benedictus deus that the blessed dead genuinely do at their death uh enjoy the vision of god although there is a general judgment and a resurrection at the end of time when christ comes back so that's how the doctrine evolved in the catholic tradition and what the dogmatic teaching is now within you asked about protestantism within protestantism there was a similar uh confusion so there were some people in the early history of protestantism particularly among the anabaptists that's the antecedents to the mennonites and the amish and those sorts of folks who went back to this doctrine of soul sleep the idea that the soul the souls of the dead do not see god immediately have to wait till the resurrection and interestingly john calvin who was a major protestant reformer of the 16th century many people know about his institutes of the christian religion that's the book they associate with him they don't know that the first theological treatise that calvin wrote in 1534 was a text called psycho panickia against the error of soul sleep wow and he actually attacked the anabaptist position and defended the catholic dogma on the vision of god of the blessed dead as well as the general judgment the end of time and so that's the predominant view among protestant groups today there are still those who hold to soul sleep but the vast majority of them believe that the blessed dead can see god immediately upon their death now i don't know that they have that they necessarily conceptualize that as a judgment i don't know that that language is common but it's implied because they don't think everybody goes to heaven i mean promises don't generally yeah and and they do think the soul can go either immediately to the vision of god or to damnation so that implies some kind of judgment although they may not use that language of the particular in the general judgments more catholic language but you do find some who do so they're really pretty similar to catholics on this okay very good dave thanks so much for your call hope that's helpful for you that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion on this wednesday afternoon here on ewtn radio let's go to maria a first-time caller listening in the same areas west virginia on a great radio station w-o-u-x hey there maria what's on your mind today hi i am calling for a friend i am catholic my friend's wife divorced him she was methodist i don't think i read dr andrew's book the catholic church saved my marriage i don't think it was a valid marriage from reading his book he plans to his wife divorced them he plans to marry a woman in a civil union he thinks their souls are safe that way what do you think of a catholic what does the church say about a catholic marrying someone else in a civil union without annulling a marriage or well it's invalid it's invalid it's invalid it's invalid it's not a valid marriage and does it is is his soul in jeopardy if he does that and does he jeopardize a woman i mean it's certainly not a place of security for him i mean i i mean there's a reason the church has the marriage law that it has right i mean of course i mean i'm not in i'm never going to say of someone that person is going to hell i can't make that judgment but but the objective teaching of the church and the objective grounds of marital morality are evident and the church has the laws that it has to guide us in in our proper activity in marital life and so it it we is is foolhardy for us to ignore duly constituted authority that has its divine authority instituted by christ and take upon ourselves the the you know the judgment about what i'm going to do and i'm what i'm going to i'm going to be my own judge i'm going to be my own legislator or do whatever i want to do and that's a very foolhardy position to take now i'm not going to say that this soul is going to hell i'm not going to make that judgment uh but yeah this is a foolhardy thing to do and it's it's it's in blatant disobedience to the church's teaching so uh look this is this happens all the time this is not an insoluble problem for the mount it sounds like he was abandoned uh he's probably the wounded party um you know before he runs off and has a civil marriage he ought to at least approach the marriage tribunal about the process for an annulment you got to start the process and let's just take one step in the right direction you know just the next right thing to do that's all you have to know how to do in life just know the next right thing to do well we know the next right thing to do you just need to approach the church and say i want to look into the possibility of an annulment and just take it from there there you go is that helpful for you maria i have one more question what if the marriage is not was not valid so we can't annul it oh no no no no it's not if that's what an annulment means oh right yeah if if an annulment is a declaration that the marriage was not valid if it's valid then you're stuck a valid marriage can't be dissolved right an annulment is a declaration that there never was a valid marriage to begin with appreciate your call maria it is called a communion here on ewtn with dr david anders our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six uh let's go to a question here from mike in plano texas listing on guadalupe radio mike says dr andrews you mentioned on a recent show that you like to listen to podcasts from time to time to learn more about the faith what are some of your favorite podcasts that you find fruitful okay when it comes to the catholic faith uh i really like the podcast from the tumistic institute really really like it those are those dominicans do a wonderful job of assembling top-notch theological experts from around the english-speaking world to lecture on a whole host of topics uh and it's just it's invaluable and i i'm always learning new theologians and new texts to explore and uh i just recently listened to a beautiful lecture about uh the second century fathers justin martyr in particular and uh and his use of of uh of a platonic philosophy and i learned some stuff about the reception of saint paul in justin and the second century fathers and that that'll be on day one and then you turn around you listen to a great lecture on thomas's doctrine of the eucharist and then something else on gaudium it's best and i mean it's just fantastic uh another one is the institute for catholic culture uh father uh hezekiah who's a uh in the mail called malkite eparchy in in charge of their chemical formation has this wonderful apostolate that tries to introduce people to the riches of catholic culture down through the centuries very broadly conceived okay every lecture is on spirituality the councils theology the arts you name it so those are two really great podcasts that i like and uh and of course uh ewtn podcasts everything i mean all of our content right from youtube radio is available by podcast so you know when i'm when i'm feeling like doing a little self-criticism i'll listen to called communion podcasts oh really yeah did i do a good job on that question oh i really blew that one you know trying to learn how to do a better job good for you yes uh you know and not for nothing here we put up 11 podcasts every day every weekday and over 60 a week which is an awful lot of podcasts so you can you can depend on ewtn to bring you that very solid content and uh you know i love a lot of things about the internet age that i find troubling but the availability of high quality you know long-form intellectual content is something that i deeply value so i'm always trying to educate myself about the faith about philosophy uh you know trends in modern thought and science i'm always into that back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here is jyn in houston listing on the great guadalupe radio jim what's on your mind today yes good afternoon uh i have a friend of mine he was baptized catholic and married as a catholic but his marriage was uh he got divorced and has his marriage annulled right now he wants to marry the girl who was baptized catholic but she was never practiced the faith and she got married to two different men who were not catholic and at at the moment right now she's she's divorced she's single can the catholic men marry that girl and what about those two marriages that she has in between okay i have a question for you do you happen to know if either of those marriages took place in the catholic church no none of them okay so they're going to be invalid because if she's if she's catholic then then for her to have a valid marriage her her marriages would have to take place in the catholic church they didn't so those are invalid so he does need to go to the priest and explain the situation and they may have to get the marriage tribunal to approve it but it'll be a slam dunk because those are invalid marriages okay now for his marriage to this girl to be valid he will have to marry her in the catholic church and then and then she's stuck right this will be this one will be valid and she's got you know you gotta stay with you gotta stay with this guy to the end all right very good but yeah there's a way to solve this very easily very good jen thanks so much for your call in a moment we'll get back to the phones at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion stay with us [Music] from rome this is edward penton correspondent for the national catholic register this is tracy sable from ewtn news nightly i'm joan mckeon for the catholic news agency get trusted catholic news every day on ewtn television and radio prayer is powerful because it's prayer it's not powerful because it alters the universe in the way we want god's a lot smarter than that he says to pray because it has power now whether it turns out the way we want is not an indicator of the particular power of prayer it is powerful because it is [Music] and now the ewtn family prayer with father joseph family a prayer that we pray together is a powerful prayer so please pray together with me our ewtn family prayer today we pray for atheists and agnostics [Music] o holy spirit spirit of truth we worship you we pray for those who either do not believe or who believe wrongly enlighten their minds with your light and inflame their hearts with your love give the gift of the faith to atheists and agnostics humble their pride and inspire their souls with your grace burst through their blindness with your radiance and use ewtn as an instrument of salvation for many amen [Music] tomorrow on more to life fighting fair are you tired of arguments escalating we're gonna help you get your communication back on track that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion [Music] call to communion in progress on this wednesday afternoon our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six and uh david we have an interesting email here from sonee who says hello how do you answer the objection that there should be a dogma on the atonement many theories have been proposed on the atonement such as ransom satisfaction moral etc as with most theories all of them fall short in capturing precisely precisely how the death of jesus saved us are we to understand the atonement like other divine mysteries such as the trinity and using a both and approach thanks sone yeah i really appreciate the question so first of all uh the church has not defined a dogma on the atonement because the church has not found it necessary to define a dogma on the atonement okay and i i you know that i'm fine with that i think that's quite delightful and c.s lewis who was not a catholic um but he was also not a fan of the calvinist doctrine of the atonement if you know c.s lewis he's very famous for writing the children's series the chronicles of narnia and if you stop and think about it's it's not exactly an allegory but it's a it's a depiction of of christ's life set in a fantasy universe of the land of narnia christ is depicted or the christ figure i should say is depicted as a mighty lion named aslan i mean many of you are familiar with the story and there is a a character by the name of edmund a little boy named edmund who violates the trust of his of his family and his friends and his community and he is treacherous and the white witch who's the enemy of the story who's sort of the devil figure lays claim to his soul and and uh and has the right to kill him and aslan negotiates a settlement with the white witch that she's allowed to kill him instead of edmund and she doesn't realize that he'll come back to life so she thinks she scored a great victory she lets admin go aslon is bound on the stone table and with glee she slices him open and thinks she's won a great victory and then he comes right back to life and eats her you know so he's ch gobbled her up and that's how he saves edmond love it and many people read the story oh this is beautiful it's jesus crucifixion he died for our sins they don't think about the model of the atonement that's being depicted there well you'll notice that in the chronicles of narnia story it's not god who's being paid off you know with some sort of debt of reparation it's the devil who's being paid off and that notion of christ conquering death and satan through his death rather than making an act of reparation to god is actually a common one in uh in ancient christian history gustav alain the swedish lutheran theologian brought this to prominence in the 20th century in a book called christus victor where he uh christ the victor where he highlights the the fathers of the church that held this notion of christ conquering death and hell and satan by his uh by his uh by his passion and there's a lot of scriptural warrant for that a lot of language in saint paul about christ triumphing over the powers and the principalities and leading them in triumphal procession like a conquering hero leading you know a train of captives into the city of rome or something like that a lot of language in in the epistles about christ conquering death and hell and satan and so it's not without reason that some of the fathers latched on to those images and propounded this theory of the atonement there's also language in the paul line epistles of course about about christ entering into death and conquering it and rising to again to new life and that we are incorporated into him so that christ becomes the second adam who literally reconstitutes the human race as a as a new type of a of a reborn human race and that notion uh is taken up by the church father irenaeus and recapitulation is the language that he uses jesus recapitulates human life with perfection and infuses divinity into it and we participate in that and that feeds into the eastern soteriological idea of theosis that by our incorporation into christ we're we're divinized and of course saint peter says that through christ we become participants in the divine nature and there's another metaphor we find in the bible which is christ's death has a sacrifice of atonement and there is that notion of reparation um and and paying something that is due and of course that informs saint anselm and his magnificent treatise curdes homo why god became a man which is articulated entirely in terms of a theory of satisfaction but all of these get at some aspect of the death of christ that is effective in us in many ways and affects us body soul intellect imagination and will now to come back to c.s lewis again when he treats this topic in his little book mere christianity he he deals with the question of the atonement he talks about the calvinist theory and he uh talked about how off-putting he found it as a child and then one day he said it struck him that uh that the important thing was for him was not so much the theory about why it works but the fact that it works ah and i think that that's uh that there's some truth in that lewis wasn't a catholic and not everything he said i would endorse but the idea that the important thing about the death and resurrection of christ is knowledge that he died for our sins to unite us to god to change us that we might become partakers of the divine nature and that by entering into the mystery ourselves recapitulating jesus's divine life that we die to ourselves we rise again we transcend our circumstances we're conscious of the state of forgiveness the need to make reparation uh to do penance we incorporate all these things into our personality so that we become reborn reconstituted new men and women in christ and you can do that without an elaborate theory and and some of that theoretical elaboration is uh is obviously you know highly figurative and imaginative and therefore it's evocative and it it it uh it lays hold of the emotional life and the affective life and motivates us and um you know within the catholic church theories about the atonement have not usually been a matter of deep controversy that would really separate catholic from catholic into radically disparate camps the one exception i can think to that would be the jansenist controversy in the 18th century there were jansonists that held a theory similar to calvin's and a doctrine of limited atonement and of course the church did uh condemn jansenism over and over again and quite emphatically and so there have been errors about the atonement that have been ruled out but the church never felt the need to formally promulgate a theory or a doctrine of the atonement and really you know i think the atonement is exemplified made present to us in the holy sacrifice of the mass and so if you want real catholic experience and thinking about the atonement you enter into the heart of the mass that's where you encounter christ's atonement that's where it's renewed within you that's why pious pope pius xii could speak about the mass as being the most efficacious means we have for coming to sanctity when we truly penetrate the mystery of the mass the death and resurrection of jesus made present to us that we ourselves recapitulate now you've entered into the meaning of the atonement all right very good and we thank you so much for that it is called a communion here on ewtn lines are open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 quincy is listening in jamaica via facebook quincy says hey dr andrews why is john's gospel so different and deeper than matthew mark and luke uh yeah because he had other things to say i mean that's the simple answer that's a very simple answer now the church fathers of course wrestled with this question they considered it from many different angles uh aaron ass who i referenced earlier spoke about uh he talked about the four-fold gospel right that there needed to be four gospels and that the the sort of the four-foldness of its presentation was integral to its nature and expression he said uh irenaeus that uh uh that if if the if the gospel writers had had overlapped with one another perfectly then the church's detractors would have accused them of collusion and the fact that they give independent accounts uh humanizes them and lends credibility because that's the way that's the way testimonial works you know if you have 10 people in a room and they all witness the same event you get them all separate and ask them to give an account of what they saw there's going to be a lot of overlap but they're going to be differences of emphasis it's one of the reasons it's good to have more than one witness to an event right and uh and of course the the gospel writers wrote for particular christian communities and those communities had uh distinct theological questions and spiritual needs and so they wrote for those communities to address the spiritual needs that they had the gospel of john is widely regarded as being the the last of the gospels to be written at a much later date in christian history towards some day but even maybe towards the end of the first century and they were you know probably writing at a time when the christian community and the jewish synagogue had had parted ways and uh they were faced with persecution and different kinds of theological questions one of the most interesting things to me about john's gospel is how the sacraments are presented but in a kind of veiled and oblique manner there are obvious references in john 3 and john 6 to baptism in the eucharist but they're not explicit they're kind of oblique and it suggests a kind of discipline of the secret that may have been operative in the john's community an awareness that there's certain things jesus said i'm not to to them i speak in parables but to you i unveil the secrets of the kingdom of heaven this idea of the christian community as a a group that had been called out from the world that held these things close to their heart and shared them with initiates and maybe not so clearly with the world and yet there is a note of universality there as well uh christ is the divine logos the the light that enlightens every man that come into the world and yet the world did not recognize them so these are themes that john highlights that i think are derivative of his of his place in time and the community that he's writing for in their social situation uh and the apologetical needs that he has okay and thank you so much for your question glad that you're listening to us in jamaica quincy we do appreciate that call to communion here on ewtn there's a line available for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 let me tell you about a great uh book that you can get for your kids it is our ladies picture book by anthony de stefano in this charming sequel to his best-selling book our lady's wardrobe anthony introduces catholic kids to more well-known images of the blessed virgin mary our lady's picture book highlights mary's unique role in salvation history by explaining some of her most famous titles of honor children children will not only be captivated by these beautiful images but we'll also learn to ask our lady to intercede for them with jesus at all times and in all circumstances our lady's picture book a beautiful book length prayer to the mother of god do check it out it's available right now at ewtnrc.com i'll give you the title one more time our ladies picture book ewtn rcd it is available for you here's a question from ashley it kind of breaks my heart a little bit david actually says dear ewtn my name is ashley and i lost both my parents do you think they can hear me up in heaven when i talk to them please let me know ashley hi ashley thanks for the question i definitely think you should talk to them and that's the simple answer i definitely think you should talk to them what is their level of conscious awareness of your prayers i don't know the answer to that question uh i know that uh our our prayers to the saints and to the departed souls that died in god's friendship i know that those prayers are efficacious and the church encourages us to make them and i know that those souls pray for us that's all i know for sure exactly what how that relationship works out metaphysically does god make those individual prayers known to the saints so they have conscious knowledge of every prayer or inner or or imprecation that's made not imprecation impatration that's the word i'm looking for do they have specific knowledge of every individual prayer or do they just have a general knowledge and they merely ask god to pray for all those seeking their intercession i don't think the church has ever defined the distinction between those two but we know that we do have a spiritual contact with the departed and our prayers are meaningful now for my purposes and i've also lost parents and i love very much that i miss my dad every day of my life i often talk to my beloved dead i seek their prayers and intercessions and uh and i'm confident that god can let them know what they need to know and that those prayers are not wasted and i know that they pray for me now i pray for them too right i say i'm gonna pray for you guys you all pray for me and i'm usually hitting my father my grandfather and my spiritual mentor father lambert i mean i'm talking to those guys all the time and i have i have i nurture a hope deep in my soul that when it's my time that god would be so gracious to me that he lets those three guys come for me yeah that's what i want to see but i mean hey i'll i'll i'll go in an old buick right okay anyway i can get there god will do it the way he wants to but if i uh if i have my brothers i hope they show up ashley thanks so much for your question here's a question that came in overnight on our ewtn listener comment line my name is ray i'm from worcester my question is how come in the glory be at the end it says world without end amen and i'm hearing another archery religion that the world will end i hear that a lot in the catholic church so i'm confused there yeah you can clarify uh why one virgin one prayer world without him and then other parts should be classically linked to each state if the world will end thank you okay yes i i i that's a very common question uh i think it is uh is an unfortunate unfortunately it's the fault of an infilicitus translation it's an infilicitus translation of the phrase in secular secularum which is the latin text here that's being translated which really means a better translation would be forever and ever forever and ever um but uh but it's idiomatic in in uh english speaking catholicism to render this as world without end the word seculum in latin can mean many things it can mean age it can mean world and and so it's just it's sort of an accident of history that it got translated this way but it's ambiguous and it leads to the kind of confusion that you're suggesting i i wouldn't change it you know i think it one doesn't one should not rationally change liturgical custom um even in the interests of translation purity right because liturgical forms become familiar and hallowed and sacred so one shouldn't rush into changing things but in this case i do think you know the english language has changed somewhat over the centuries and it's a bit of an infilicitus use of words but the concept is forever and ever thanks so much for your call that came in overnight on the ewtn listener comment line i always like to bring those in here's a question now from joe who has questions about bible references on purgatory we are blessed to be able to listen to someone so scripture versed as yourself i listen to your program wherever i can i often hike with a protestant friend of mine and we frequently share our views about the christian faith the other day he asked me where to find references about purgatory in the bible please help me out with finding those references blessings joe yep thank you common question uh so the first one i'm going to give you your protestant friend is not going to like but i'm going to give it to you anyway it's in second maccabees chapter 12. why is he not going to like it because his bible does not have second maccabees chapter 12. they took it out the protestants took it out why did they take it out because it proves purgatory that's why they should get out so you see you got a little bit of a catch-22 here yep you ask for a bible verse i give you a bible verse they don't like that book so they take it out of the bible so they won't have a bible verse but that's the first place you go now how would i handle this question of second bag of beast 12 with the protestant um what i'm going to do is say look first of all would you concede my protestant friend even if you don't recognize second maccabees as a book of the bible which most of them don't would you concede that this is representative of judaism in the second temple period prior to their coming of christ that that this is what some jews at least believe that this is the this is the theological context in which early christianity is born so the early christians are not making the stuff up out of whole cloth they're not borrowing it for example from paganism early christian belief is derivative on second temple judaism would you concede that much now i think he's gonna have a hard time denying that okay uh and here's another question all right what about second maccabees um was this in the bible that the apostles used trick question answer yes right in fact it's from the septuagint translation of the bible over 90 of the new testament citations of the old testament are from the septuagint and there are passages in second maccabees that are alluded to in the new testament the book of hebrews in particular so uh we find new testament allusions to maccabees we find the early church referencing maccabees and using that that translation of the bible and it's representative clearly of of second temple jewish belief and so it makes perfect sense that the early christian church would continue the practice never never discontinued the practice the jewish practice of praying on behalf of the dead which implies an intermediate state in which such prayers would be effective hence the doctrine of purgatory right so that's a that's your old testament text in the new testament saint paul in 2 timothy chapter 1 also prays for the dead verses 16 and following praise for his dead friend onisiophorus and so purgatory or an intermediate state is is an inference from the practice of praying for the dead and we we put that together with other scriptural principles like the need for moral purification or the need to make reparation and then we begin to understand a little bit of the logic behind that intermediate state now of course this gets formulated in the theology of the church fathers like augusted and cyprian and then defined as a dogma in church council okay appreciate that joe thank you so much for your email we also have a question here from sydney who's listening via youtube today hello sydney sydney says dr david can we ever have any sort of communion with liberal muslims about 40 of their beliefs are similar to catholicism absolutely of course we can yes yes and we should we should uh so the second vatican council uh talks about the elements of truth and sanctification that we share in common with those that are not catholic uh some of these are from our common humanity the natural law for example some of them are from our common patrimony within the abrahamic religions and so with islam there's a little bit more there than you would have with a pagan and uh these can be the council says force is impelling to catholic unity and and we are encouraged by the church to find common cause with with uh with all of humanity as much as we can in the good true beautiful things that god has placed in all things and in human culture and you're right so there is uh you know islam is a very diverse religion down through the 1500 years it's been around and you find a lot of different formulations of islamic thought and practice many of them were integrated very deeply into philosophical discussion in medieval catholicism especially in the scholastic period uh averroes and um avacena were deeply commented on and very well known to scholastic philosophers like thomas aquinas um and uh uh you know in the modern period sort of renewed knowledge of sufism in persia and the importance of that tradition has been appreciated i think more by western scholars and christian scholars and then you're right i mean the the the european involvement since uh sort of modern regime of human rights in historically islamic countries especially in north africa like algeria which of course has a long history of of involvement with the french has manifested some some pretty broad-minded modernist-tending uh forms of islam that uh that don't look anything like the stereotype of islam that's presented by you know the media and you know some of the more radical things that you see out there now that that those folks are a minority i think within the islamic world and they've got their own sets of problems that they got to deal with but i mean i think we yes absolutely you know i i've had some wonderful conversations with moderate muslims about religion over the years and i got to befriend a fellow at the ymca a while back who was muslim yeah and we used to sit there and have conversations about medieval philosophy and morality and the pope and avicenna and avaroise and and uh you know i asked him one time kind of leading question i said you know in islam there's this idea of of um religious law being imposed on the state like there's a there's a there's a political expression of islam that's more important than such similar ideas in christianity it's very important it's very central to the notion he says that's true and i said okay so if islam has an idea that the state is supposed to be islamicized and there are islamic states in the world i said which one do you think best represents the real spirit of sharia like what what's what would you point to is like the islamic state that best incorporates what you want to see and he said well none of them this is from a muslim talking about you know because he recognized as a westerner kind of some of the objective problems and maybe not the same conception of human rights that he would like to see and uh so you know we had lovely conversations and i would encourage you to do that sydney thanks so much for your question via youtube we have one more and this is going to be a softball just for you david hi the question is um how do i bring back my son who has strayed away from the catholic faith i don't know if it is i don't know what influenced him to stay away from the church but i would like to bring him back if at all exemplify the spirit of christ yup that's the best you can do you can't do better than that exemplify the spirit of christ be that example be be the kind of catholic with the kind of virtues the kind of charity and justice that you would like catholicism to bring to him manifest in your own life the virtues that you think the catholic faith ought to produce in him let them be manifest in you all right very good thanks so much for that appreciate all those calls that have come in uh overnight via the listener comment line appreciate all of your texts your emails your questions via youtube and facebook and of course your phone calls i love to get all these kind of questions makes for a very interesting mix dr david anders thank you sir thank you so much tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn live at 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern check out the podcast anytime at ewtn radio ewtnradio.net on behalf of charles michael and rich i'm tom price along with dr david andrews see you tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion god bless [Music] i was listening to the ewtn and you were on with one of your little snippets and you said some words that brought me back to the church i've been away for a long time you don't know how much i appreciate those words and i don't know why those particular words that day got to me ewtn helping people grow in their love and understanding of god ewtn live truth live catholic hey all

Channel: EWTN

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Id: xWnsaEDaf4M

Length: 54min 35sec (3275 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021