Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - August 2, 2021

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 the 1-833-288-3986 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 now if that is you and you've got a question for us do give us a call but you know what we're even more interested in our question to you which is what is stopping you from becoming a catholic let's give it a let's give it a chat here 833 288 ewtn it's our phone number 833-288-3986 if you're listening outside of north america please dial the us country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and uh you can also shoot us an email if you prefer we're going to lead off with an email in a moment here and that email address ctc ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com michael mccall is our producer today how about that charles will be back with us very soon also the other michael michael birchfield on call screening jeff burson is handling social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now just put your question in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anderson tom how are you today very well how are you my friend oh i'm doing decent things how was that weekend did the lawn beat you up it actually did beat me up i mean i we're we're clear-cutting some some privet hedge and thorns and things of that sort of well my wife had a surveyor come out and survey our property in the backyard and we discovered that we don't have as much land over here as we thought we did but we gained a whole bunch over here and then stuff that we thought was the neighbors we found out was ours cool and so we're going to clear that that puppy and do something with it so i've been out there with a machete just hacking away like you know some sort of wild man and wow it hacked back these these things do these things happen all right we're going to lead off with a very thoughtful letter from tom in oklahoma and before i even read the letter tom i want to say thank you for your candor in writing this here's what tom says i get the impression sometimes that dr andrews looks down on the mostly evangelical protestant experience of quote accepting jesus as our lord and savior like what occurred at the old billy graham crusades i am curious as to why that is my apologies to dr andrew savai have misinterpreted his position on this subject i am exploring catholic radio and objectively listening to your radio program to see if catholicism would further enhance my walk in christ but if prominent catholics like yourself look down on or disrespect key spiritual experiences that have helped me shape or help shape me into who i am today it actually has the opposite effect thanks tom you know i really appreciate that i really do and look we are all products of our upbringing and our own personal narrative okay yeah and um i want to have the utmost respect and regard for people of any religious tradition and to value the things that they value and the good that it has brought into their lives okay um that being said i am a product of southern fundamentalist evangelical conversionistic christianity and to be quite frank with you in my own life uh i experienced the tradition as rather traumatic and i've had to come to terms with that throughout my entire adult life but i've i mean i can finally say it just flat out honestly that many of the elements of the tradition which i was raised that i tried so hard and so long to assimilate rationally and and emotionally and psychologically and socially into my uh into my philosophy of life and relationships uh left me quite traumatized and so i try really hard not to let that infect the way i feel about people right but there is kind of a note of you know i don't want other people to be hurt the way i was hurt i'm i'm thinking here of an old comedy album by the group the fire sign theater did you ever hear them they they had an album called everything you know is wrong and you know i'm i'm just thinking about that because you know it it has to knock the floor right out under you well yeah i mean so that was that was part of the trauma but not all of it right i did have that experience of like neo in the matrix and waking up and realizing that the world and that that i lived in or thought i had lived in was completely different than what i had been taught and that was that certainly was a trauma right um but another aspect of the trauma for me was the necessity of representing the world to myself and i'm talking about when i was an evangelical right necessity of forcing myself to see reality through a lens that i think actually distorted my own experience uh and my relationships with others in ways that was harmful and you know in when i wrote the book the catholic church saved my marriage i tell some anecdotes some stories about that having been raised in a tradition it was heavy on proselytism meaning trying to get other people to pray to receive christ and and to join our sectarian view of the religion i i developed the habit and and look i'm not the only person to experience this i know of seeing other people as kind of like car marks the way a carnival barker would you know for sure or you know certain kinds of sales people when they don't see a human being walk in the store they see a pocketbook walk in the store and uh and and the need to kind of put a feather in my own spiritual cap by coercing other people into you know quote-unquote praying to receive christ and it was profoundly dehumanizing to me and to other people that i was with and you know as a as i came into the faith as an historian reading history made me catholic and one of the many revelations that i had in that process was to come to recognize how incredibly novel that spirituality was you don't find it in antiquity or in sacred scripture or even in the protestant reformers it was an evolution of basically 19th century early 20th century american evangelical protestantism and i felt like i'd been kind of sold a lie when i realized that this is this is not the faith once we're all delivered to the saints or even the faith of my founders in the protestant tradition it was something that was sort of sold to me and it had the effect of sort of dehumanizing myself and the other people that i was in contact with and so yeah i mean that's that's my own personal experience now having said that i recognize that not everybody's going to experience that spirituality that way sure and for many people it may be an opportunity and occasion for real encounter with god and moral transformation and elimination i i need to be respectful of that so pardon me for my lack of respect and maybe forgive me my faults and maybe knowing something in my personal history will help hopefully so tom thanks again for your great letter in a moment we're going to get to the phones we would love to talk with you this beautiful monday afternoon 833 288 ewtn for the monday afternoon edition of call to communion [Music] the pandemic separated many of us from the body of christ as many catholics returned to mass the diocese of birmingham invites you to reflect on the significance of the body of christ in your life during the year of the parish and the eucharist ewtn takes you to the shrine of the most blessed sacrament in hanceville alabama friday august 13th at 8 30 pm eastern here on ewtn have you ever noticed how much attention atheists get do you know why that is because atheists aren't normal it's normal to believe in god but normal things don't get much attention it's abnormal to say there is no god and that makes the headlines g.k chesterton says atheism is an abnormality it's not merely the denial of a dogma it's the reversal of a subconscious assumption of the soul the sense that there's a meaning and a direction in the world and that there's a purpose to things and a meaning to life and chesterton says if there were no god there would be no atheists spend more time with the apostle of common sense visit chesterton.org for more information and go to ewtnrc.com to discover more books and programs written and inspired by gk chesterton it's called communion here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn if you have a question or something to ask dr david andrews or maybe you would like to tell him what is stopping you from becoming a catholic 833-288-3986 don't forget ewtn radio brings you the holy rosary twice each day we've been doing it for over 25 years very very proud of that fact be sure to tune in every morning 5 30 a.m eastern for mother angelica's rosary every evening at 9 30 p.m eastern for father benedict groeschel leading the rosary only on ewtn radio if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with john in lincoln nebraska listening on the great spirit catholic radio hey there john what's on your mind today sir thank you for taking my call just in response to what's stopping you from becoming a catholic it's going to be the lack of evidence that you have and proof all you have is faith and testimony and faith is kind of just like your feelings and facts don't care about your feelings hardcore facts you can sit there and say testimony and look at the bible but honestly when you examine those things you have nothing you have nothing please offer some evidence please i'm waiting yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so i think the fundamental fact the fundamental claim that you have to take come to terms with before anything else is the question of god and that may or may not be one of your issues i'm not sure but for many people who confront the claims of the christian faith of the catholic faith they have a preconception of the god that they think that catholics or christians have to establish as existing and and they can't find evidence for the existence of that conception of god therefore they reject the idea of god out of hand and then when you look into the debate you find out that it was actually a kind of category mistake because the item that the atheist the new atheist has rejected as god uh is not in fact the god of catholic belief and what catholics mean by the word god and and establish establishing god's existence is something very different from uh from what the atheist is actually is actually rejecting and so i think a better way of conceiving it is look at it this way when catholics talk about the existence of god and they debate with atheists so they take it up with atheists from the catholics point of view it's really not a debate about the number of items in existence in the universe so in other words you have all the trees and the rocks and the dogs and the cats and the and the atoms and then there's this one extra thing called god that fits into the picture and the atheist says well i can see atoms well with the electron microscope perhaps and i can see dogs and i can see stars but i can't see god and i can travel no god there it's just a mythological creation you know guy on the throne with the lightning bolts sky god we got other scientific explanations for those phenomena and therefore don't really need the hypothesis can't find any evidence for the hypothesis and therefore i'm going to reject the hypothesis that's not the way catholics either think about god's existence or the way you would establish the existence of god it's not a debate about the number of items in existence in the universe is really a debate about the order of rational explanation because the way a catholic understands god the universe lays itself out to us as intelligible like it can be it can be grasped and reasoned about um and uh in an ordered set of causes and principles and relations and that's that's conspicuous and kind of amazing that the universe lays itself out that way for us and it's the basis of scientific explanation and philosophical explanation as well in fact it's the basis for a claim of irrationality right so if somebody says well i don't believe in god because it seems irrational to me when the objection presumes that there is a standard of knowing called rationality and that the universe conforms somehow to that and so if there is an underlying unity or intelligibility to the universe to everything that exists that is simply what catholics mean by the word god they mean the first or highest principle in virtue of which the the whole show becomes intelligible right that's what the word means and you might respond that's a pretty thin concept of god like there's not a lot of content packed into there other than just that there is a unity whereby the whole show becomes intelligible to us and the catholics response to that is that's exactly right the catholic claim about the existence of god is not that we have a sort of very thick conception of god's inner nature not the what of god's existence but rather the thatness of god's existence that god exists we think is demonstrable from the from the nature of intelligibility itself from the nature from the way rationality works it's built into the objection but of god's nature we don't know it's a mystery to us in fact it's ineffable and so we don't make claims about that and when it comes to uh the the life of faith you say well faith is just feelings um but i don't really think so that's not the really the way that the catholic understands faith in fact uh i'm usually at pains to emphasize that faith has very little to do with feelings i think we just lost him i think we did but that's all right it's rather a settled determination to orient one's life in accord with the patterns of intelligibility that one can rationally discern that's sort of how the catechism talks about a commitment of my whole self reason will emotion all of me to to realizing the truth that god is realizing not intellectually but with my entire person okay very good john thank you so much for your call keep listening to spirit catholic radio uh love to explain things like this and uh we'll do our very best to help you out and i i should add you know i'm giving a thumbnail sketch of how catholics think about god but there are of course many many many deep philosophical analyses of this issue of the proofs for the existence of god and so forth one that i would recommend would be five proofs for the existence of god by edward fazer very good you know i was just thinking uh as you know i've i've got a great interest in music and i was just thinking i'm hoping i'm getting the quote right but there was something that count basey of all people count basie said about god someone asked him about god and he said just look at an apple it's so perfect i thought that was pretty pretty deep in its own little way it's called the apple proof there you go all right hey that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 the monday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn catherine wrote this one i was studying the bible on a protestant quiz app because i couldn't find a catholic version of that i thought i'd be okay until i ran across this question who did god choose to replace judas and the answer is not matthias supposedly the answer at least on this protestant quiz app was paul i never thought of it that way where exactly does paul fit in with the apostles i must confess paul has never been a favorite of mine because i actually think he usurped peter a bit thanks catherine okay so it sounds to me like these guys are probably really good at building apps and maybe not as good as building arguments as biblical scholars right yeah yeah because sacred scripture says explicitly that matthias replaced replaced judas as one of the twelve the right yeah now uh the uh there to be an apostle was a broader category than being one of the twelve there are other people named in scripture as apostles who weren't among the twelve um and and paul was definitely not one of the twelve and he also he wasn't even part of the inner circle of the jerusalem leadership such that he had a hard time throughout his life getting accepted as an apostle he was always having to contend for his and his authority as an apostle and in order to do that one of the things that he did was go up to jerusalem and meet with uh uh with um with with peter and john and james so they could give him the right hand to fellowship and it was kind of like when they had their approbation then other people might listen to him a little bit uh but in terms of second question where does paul fit into the structure of early christianity and did he in fact use peter no he didn't user peter paul saw his own mission understood his own mission to be reconciling the gentiles to the god of israel and that was not how peter understood his mission peter he went to the jews by and large preached jesus christ to the jewish people paul would typically travel in diaspora communities jewish diaspora outside of palestine outside of judea he would go into the synagogues and they would say not interested and then he would turn to the gentiles the god fears that would sometimes be associated with the synagogues but were not themselves circumcised and his message to them was hey you don't have to be circumcised after all and they went oh that sounds really good sign me up [Laughter] and because christ has reconciled you through the same faith of abraham rather than through the circumcision of the flesh and of course paul was a prolific writer and uh the gentile churches grew rapidly and they collected and circulated paul's letters which is part of the reason why he's so important to christianity today because he left us this this record of reflection on the life of the early christian community and its theology whereas peter left behind very little in the way of written texts okay appreciate that thank you so much for your note here on ewtn's call to communion we have a phone line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn do you have a question for dr david anders or would you like to tell us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic in any event the phone number is 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 aaron just texted us aaron says can i get a catholic understanding of the seven gifts of the holy spirit um yes thank you so uh the best place to get a deep understanding of the gifts of the holy spirit i think is from the summa of saint thomas um in the second part and if you're not familiar with saint thomas's suma it's laid out in parts and it's kind of funny because he has the first part of the second part and the second part of the second part okay so you go to the second part of the second part where he talks about the life of the virtues the three theological and the four cardinal virtues and he understands the gifts of the spirit as operating in conjunction with with these uh with these infused infused virtues that we have and so a virtue is a subtle disposition a habit of mind that we have that inclines or if you will tempt us towards the good right and uh a habit of doing the good in particular domain is what we mean by virtue and the gifts of the holy spirit are the divine impulses if you will for particular acts of virtue that come in and collaborate with and facilitate and sort of uh put the high octane if you will into the acts of the virtues and so he associates the different gifts of the holy spirit with particular virtues so for example um he he ties the gift of wisdom interestingly to charity um and uh and so forth so that's where i would go for a detailed description just go through the summa of st thomas the second part of the second part read about the theological and cardinal virtues and the associated gifts okay all right very good there you go and uh thank you aaron for your text here is a text now from robert roberts says i'm getting married my in-laws are not catholic how do i talk about and defend the faith without making them combative and creating a good dialogue for the years to come um yeah thank you so uh you know first of all i i don't know that you have to start off by seeking out a conversation about the faith with people that are not catholic right if they have an interest in discussing it with you you can certainly take it up and answer questions but i mean i would start at the human level of just trying to have a good relationship with your in-laws and let them know that you're a real human being and that you're a virtuous person and and you love their daughter and you're going to be good to her and be a good family man and all the rest of it earn their respect and and let the conversation emerge organically in friendship right rather than feeling like you've got some obligation to impose a conversation on them that might feel off-putting to them are alienating and i remember a friend of mine a cousin of mine actually when i became catholic he was not too keen on discussing the issue and was somewhat irritated at me for becoming catholic in fact and so we just kept our friendship and you know several years went by and just you know he realized that you know my head didn't spin around and you know i wasn't growing antenna or some strange thing like that and eventually the conversation opened up and that guy's catholic to gay today pretty cool robert thanks so much for your text let's go back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here is keith in brooklyn listening on the tunein app keith what's on your mind today yes good afternoon gentlemen thank you for having me dr anders i i just like your style and a man of your stature that was a great that was a great leap for you to come over to the roman catholic church from from being a man of standing in the presbyterian church but here's my here's my premise i'm an episcopalian anglo catholic that's an episcopalian or an anglican who is true to the teachings of the roman catholic church and i love it i was raised low church evangelical but when i got a taste of high church i said this is it for me and when i learned what an anglo catholic was i said this is what i learned in in school and in you know in school and church and sunday school when the episcopal church was and i said this is it for me uh i am friends with the roman catholic uh diocese here in the greater new york area they are good to me matter of fact i i'm honored that priests have proselytized me to become a roman catholic uh priest but that would be a huge uh move for me and i i'm not ready for such a thing also um i'm a musician i love my music and the episcopal church we have very very good music sundays we get when when we sing hymns that our hymns are long we don't we don't cut them sure and then also i like my i like my processions i love a beautiful grand profession on sundays and especially when the bishop comes you know uh there's there's just pomp and pageantry for it it's really really lovely okay well we've got a lot to uh to answer here i think we're going to have to tackle most of it on the other side of the break would you agree dave i think we have we ought to do that on the other side of the break exactly how many seconds do we have until they start rolling the music oh maybe 20. 20 seconds well i can maybe get going on the 10 seconds or so that we have first of all well i appreciate the call and i thank you and i definitely understand your point of view and uh and i understand your appreciation for the anglican liturgy and of course you're not you're not alone in that now one of the things the church has done to reach out to people uh in your situation who feel drawn to the teaching of the catholic church but the anglican patrimony as well is lo and behold to create an ordinary hit that allows you to maintain your anglican patrimony about while being in obedience to the bishop of rome yeah so look up the anglican ordinariate of the catholic church and you might find a bridge uh to maintain what you like about anglicanism while continuing while being a catholic keith sit tight we're going to continue uh your conversation in just a moment here on call to communion don't go away [Music] jerry usher dr ray gurundy father benedict rochelle you'll hear the leading catholic voices on the largest catholic media network in the world this is the ewtn global catholic radio network christ is the answer with father john ricardo i tell often times an experience that i had at divine child when i was a young priest one year ordained first time i ever really saw the power of the blessed sacrament and we simply exposed the blessed sacrament at the end of mass one night i encouraged people i said you know what we've been in the habit of praying over people after mass i said we're not going to do that this week i'm just going to invite people to come out and pray if they want to pray and i put the blessed sacrament on the altar i kneel down as i kneel down the church is in the sanctuary the whole church and as i'm looking at this and i'm looking at the people there and i'm looking at jesus under the appearance of bread there i saw the lord standing on the altar and he's just standing there looking out at all the people and then at a certain point he turned towards me and he just bowed and he says don't you see how easy this is you don't have to do anything you just have to put me out you put me out and i will work here's today's quote from mother angelica's perpetual calendar our heart should be like a bee get all the sweet we can not feelings feelings come and go we thank god for that but the sweetness of jesus the love of jesus the hiddenness of jesus mother's 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 more to life carrying your cross are you feeling weighed down by the problems in your life we'll help you find the resurrection that comes after the cross that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion [Music] hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 as you if you've been listening to our program for any amount of time you probably realize that that is our signature question to you what is stopping you from becoming a catholic and we heard from keith in brooklyn who is uh still with us there keith is an anglican he's very happy where he is he enjoys the pomp and pageantry in his liturgy and he says that's why he will not become a catholic yeah so before the break i began telling him about the ordinary of the chair of saint peter the anglican ordinariat of the catholic church that that allows people who are drawn to the anglican liturgy and patrimony to continue to maintain some of that element of their of their practice while while um becoming catholic and and uh being drawn into union with the bishop of rome and the universal church so if it's a matter of style uh you know there's a way to scratch that itch so to speak within catholicism and you know within the life of the catholic faith also some people are only familiar with the parish of their local liturgy of their um excuse me the liturgy of their local catholic parish and that's clearly where most people are gonna go but uh there's actually significant amount of liturgical diversity within the larger catholic family including entirely different uh catholic rights like you know byzantine right of the church for example uh that would have um let's see they're kind of they got pomp and pageantry up to their eyeballs oh yeah you know so there's there's a way to scratch that itch now um you know so i guess the reason the question i would have is well what is what is a good reason for becoming a catholic what do i think is the right reason for becoming a catholic and i don't think it boils down ultimately to style right i think it boils down to the truth claims of the catholic faith about being the church that christ founded and having the teaching of teaching authority that christ conveyed to it and all the means of grace and so you know gk chesterton was once asked why he became a catholic and he said well to get rid of my sins of course and that ultimately i think is the best argument for becoming a catholic okay keith thank you so much for your call thanks also for your honesty it's always good to hear exactly where where people stand uh uh especially on questions of faith all right very good our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six call to communion in progress here on ewtn dede checks in from texas and she says my local bishop just said starting august 15th we are all obligated to go to mass every weekend however my question is what if we're not able to go due to physical or mental health issues this past year i started getting panic attacks in social gatherings i have had these panic attacks in big places like walmart and small places like my church so i watch the online recordings of mass every weekend instead what are the rules for problems like this or should i just talk to my local priest yeah thank you i appreciate the question so the universal law of the church is without a dispensation catholics are obligated to go to mass on sundays and holy days of obligation now local bishops can of course qualify that with you know out of regard for public health and other concerns so during the pandemic for example many bishops dispense the obligation to go to mass and that dispensation has ended the obligation returns it's not something that your bishop has imposed is something that the universal church imposes he's just going back to the law of the church now i know in my own in my own diocese when my bishop brought our diocese back to the the obligation to weekly mass attendance he specifically indicated that as has always been the case this doesn't apply to people who are sick or who are not physically or maybe even economically capable of making it to a mass so there are always exceptions to that rule and there was a particular sensitivity with respect to issues around things surrounding the pandemic including this is my diocese yeah including the psychological issues about coming back to mass now i would imagine that when your bishop promulgated this rule that there was an accompanying letter or explanation that laid out the uh the exceptions and the qualifications and i would be surprised if they didn't include situations like yours okay um now i would encourage you however uh long term to seek help uh for the the psychiatric condition the the uh the panic attacks and so forth yeah and i i'm not a psychologist nor the son of one but my layman's understanding is that this is for many people for many people this is treatable and curable and uh and so i wouldn't just throw up my hands and and um and uh and endure i would actually seek out help and and in the hopes that you can come back to a practice of the catholic faith in a public way dede thanks so much for your email by the way if you would like to send us an email for a future show here's the address ctc at ewtn.com ctc.ewtn.com we'll get back to the phones in just a moment here here's a question from anita anita is a catholic living in london anita says i really enjoy watching call to communion on youtube thanks be to god i have become a better catholic by doing so i pray that long may it continue to be on the air god bless you one of my non-catholic friends is asking me the following question how should i answer this can you help when christ died on the cross all sins were washed away correct what about original sin if the original sin was not washed away what was the reason and if the original sin was washed away by christ dying on the cross is infant baptism necessary god bless anita yeah thank you so i think a lot depends on what you mean by the phrase washed away and let me put it this way theologians often distinguish between the objective redemption won by christ on the cross and the application of that redemption to the individual believer and so we have to distinguish those two things what happened on the cross several things happened on the cross one of them is that christ merited our salvation it was a it was a it was a sacrifice of atonement and christ offered his own self as the immaculate victim in a worthy act of sacrifice that merits recompense and saint paul teaches this book of acts teaches us that because of his humble obedience unto death god exalted him to the right hand poured out on him the gift of the holy spirit that the church now enjoys so he won that for his faithful christ's death was also an example to us saint peter writes we should follow the example of christ who was faithful even unto death christ joined us to himself through baptism so that we in a mystical way participate with him in his death and resurrection and it's open to us to become new creatures in christ all those things jesus accomplished on the cross but we have to make them our own they're not automatically applied to us right and the way we receive and appropriate the graces that christ won for us is faith the sacraments and our moral cooperation and that is an ongoing procedure right so we can be baptized and the the guilt of sin is eliminated and the gift of the holy spirit and of sanctifying grace is given to us that's getting rid of their stain of original sin right and uh and then the virtues infused into our life making it possible for us to obey the law follow god love god and love neighbor but then to continue in that requires our free cooperation we have to develop the habits of virtue and continue in our sacramental practice in order to continually remain plugged in saint paul uses the metaphor and christ does as well of the vine into the branches and be nourished by that sap so that's the way it works now in terms of the question of infants well they also need the grace of christ they need the grace of christ and they're going to receive it the same way that you and i do which is faith and baptism and their ongoing participation and cooperation in the faith so they need it just like they need you know to be inoculated against polio yeah you know you wouldn't withhold a vaccine from your child if you if you thought they needed it for their physical health you're not going to withhold the life of the christian faithful in the grace of the sacraments from them if you know they need those too anita thank you so much for your letter uh let's see here let's go back to the phones and talk with vicki in new york city listening on ewtn television today vicki what's on your mind oh hi i have a question for dr anders yes dr anders god said preach the gospel till the ends of the earth just in case uh the missionaries or the ewtn has preached the gospel the whole world what what do you think god in that in that time we would expect everybody to to believe in him no more no more atheists no more mormons no more non-christians no more lgbtq that's executing he expects us to thought before his second coming thank you i really appreciate the question so christ uh tells us that he in john 17 he prays that all those who believe in him might be one so that the world could know that that he came forth from god the book of ephesians chapter 1 verse 10 speaks about christ reconciling all things to himself and we could cite similar passages that anticipate a growing unity of of of the human race into into the person of christ but i don't think that we can know in advance predetermine the way that will look the way that will actually shake out and the church's understanding of herself is that she is a light in fact there's a document from the second vatican council called the light of the nations lumenegencium that describes her inner nature as being like that of a light to shine the light of christ and of grace and truth and mercy on the whole human race and it's not necessarily to to ensure that everybody that every single individual will come to be a catholic it's rather to let the light of christ penetrate human civilization and bring about benevolent beneficent changes which is happening in an ongoing way so we can see through the course of human history how the church has done that has been salt and light and done so much good in the world by way of you know good works and institutions of benevolence and uh and insight about the dignity of the human person and human rights we can see the good of catholicism seeding the entire human race even affecting the way other religious traditions practice their traditions so you'll find even you know modern hinduism modern buddhism modern judaism those traditions have been radically changed radically changed from antiquity because of their interaction with uh with the catholic church and with the christian faith it's brought a kind of humanizing uh dignifying dimension to the practice of every religion now how will all these things be reconciled before the coming of christ i don't think we can really say we just know that there's that there is a unity and a reconciliation that christ intends that he will bring about um and our job in the meanwhile is to be the church itself to be a giant light bulb and for each of us individually to be little bitty light bulbs and that means live in in love live in truth live in virtue live in the forgiveness of one's enemies and the love of one's neighbor vicky thank you so much for your call it is called a communion here on ewtn we have time for a few more calls at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 tomorrow morning at 10 a.m eastern a wonderful program more to life with dr greg and lisa popcheck and tomorrow they're going to be talking about carrying your cross are you feeling weighed down by the problems in your life hey dr greg and lisa will help you find the resurrection that comes after the cross check it out tomorrow morning 10 a.m eastern right here on ewtn radio susan sent us a text just now she says i was debating with a protestant recently he said his authority comes from the word of god and no other how should i respond yeah a lot of things you can say the first one is how do you know that it's a good question how do you know that who told you that right who told you that jesus didn't tell you that if by the word of god you mean scripture which is probably what he means jesus never said that on the contrary jesus said exactly the opposite he said you guys search the scriptures because you think that in them you'll find eternal life but you neglect me and i'm the one to whom the scriptures point and you have heard that it was written but i say to you christ actually contrasts his own person and his authority with the text of the old testament as understood by the his contemporaries so he he doesn't he doesn't indicate that we should advert solely to the text of the bible for our rule of faith he never says that anywhere gave no instruction even about writing the new testament documents those weren't even in existence during the ministry of christ so how can we say that christ wants us to consult the texts of the new testament as our rule of faith if he never even mentioned them but gave us a different rule of faith namely whoever hears you hears me on this rock i'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it so the first question i would ask is well how do you know that you didn't learn that from jesus the second question i would ask him is okay so you're going to make your stand on the word of god i.e the scriptures how do you know what they are how would you recognize the scripture if it were given to you how would you how do you know with text to scriptural he says well i've got it right here it's a zondervan printed it oh zondervan's got divine authority dude baker book house has divine authority king james has divine authority is that what you're telling me so you you've got this this compilation in your hands and you know that's the word of god why how do you know that how do you know that well i mean it was it was compiled it was printed by some human agent did that agent have divine authority well interestingly the answer to the question is yes there was an agent that compiled the books and put them together and promulgated them as the word of god and it did have divine authority but it was called the catholic church not zondervan publishing house right and christ established the church gave it the power of binding and losing whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and it was the catholic church that actually collected the text of sacred scripture and promulgated them as the word of god now you know sometimes the protestant will say well they may have they may have done the archival work but you know the authority comes from god yeah but you still have to deal with the problem of there are 27 new testament books 66 or 73 old you know total old testament news hasn't combined depending on how you number the seven all right but they're not the only books in contention in antiquity in the early christian era other books floating around claiming to be the word of god different christian communities have disparate canons of the bible even to this day christians have disparate canons of the bible how do you know you've got the right one how do you know you've got to have divine authority to know it's a fair question yeah so how do you know that the bible is your rule of faith how do you even know what the bible is right if you don't have a divine authority that tells you and what in fact did jesus say about the authority to govern the church and teach the faith he didn't indicate the bible indicated the teaching church and finally i would say that you can't live that way consistently you you cannot live consistently with the notion that your only authority is the word of god all right i'll give you an example you step into the street like i did today actually i got sleepy at the office so i decided to take a walk around the block okay and i stepped into the street not paying attention where i was going into oncoming traffic whoops and i said exactly that whoops and i jumped out of the way okay who told me to do that and i had to human action i stepped out of the way of an oncoming car why did the word of god tell me to do that no not the scriptures no scripture that says don't step in front of oncoming cars reason showed me to do that reason taught me to do that reality was the teacher now that that may not be the only authority in my life but it's an authority now the catholic faith actually says when reason conveys some truth to you and you know that it's true like don't step in front of the oncoming car you have a moral obligation to obey reason there was no scripture that told me what to do there but my my my reliable prudential judgment told me step out of the way and the catholic faith would say you have an obligation to obey reason matthew really hold strictly to the bible alone then it should be a matter of indifference morally whether you step out of the way or not susan appreciate your texts and here's another text now from elizabeth who says why does the god of the old testament seem more vengeful than the god of the new testament how do we reconcile these differences and say that god never changes yeah so the my answer to that is a little bit more nuanced than you might think um the god of the new testament is remarkably vengeful and as represented in a number of passages saint paul says in the thessalonian correspondence that christ is going to be revealed in flaming fire where he will wreak havoc on those who are disobedient the book of revelation describes uh a final conflagration when uh the winepress of the wrath of god will press out the blood of the nations to something like what is it 14 leagues or something i mean some pretty violent images of of divine conquest over unbelievers and christ himself says that it would be more tolerable for sodom and gomorrah on the day of judgment than than for uh uh then for those cities that rejected him in his earthly ministry so and you know sodom and gomorrah stand as kind of the the ultimate in divine wrath in the divine wrath business you know the sodom and gomorrah the the archetype it looks like you know brimstone from heaven and the light and christ says it's going to be better for those guys than for you my contemporaries that didn't accept my ministry so i always kind of stumble when people say that there's no there's no depiction of divine wrath in the new testament i think it's kind of up to the eyeballs in divine wrath and i also don't think that the old testament is utterly bereft of this idea of a merciful god on the contrary i mean the the new testament constantly adverts to the old testament to ground its teaching of the loving god who sent christ to save us ask the money changers exactly and the prophets the psalms and even the pentateuch are full of testaments to god's forgiving grace and mercy and and and the like now so so i don't really agree with the contrast the way it's been stated however i do think i do think that there's clear theological development in the bible from from the earliest chapters of genesis all the way through the new testament there's there's clearly theological development and there's a number of ways that we can understand that development so one of them is that god brings his people historically to maturity and the way saint irenaeus uh put it was this way he said that the reason christ came when he did in history was that the human race had to be this is his language now habituated to the logos now you know saint john's gospel says in the beginning was the word the logos and the word was with god the word was god he's with god in the beginning and he was the light that gave light to all men right and so the fathers of the church associated that with with the rational faculty with men in creating god's likeness image image and the capacity for philosophical reasoning and that's clearly something that develops historically and sacred scripture talks about development and the church fathers clearly saw that there needed to be a habituation of the human race through time that's being providentially directed by the hand of god to bring people to the capacity to recognize the universal significance of the teaching of christ so there is historical development throughout the biblical narrative elizabeth elizabeth thank you so much for your text let's go to a question that came in overnight on the ewtn listener comment line hey uh my name is parker i'm from illinois uh i had a question about imputed versus a huge righteousness so how do we correlate infused righteousness with verses like romans 3 10 that say that no one is righteous uh not even one okay yeah so i appreciate the question um so that that uh uh that's clearly why we need to be redeemed in christ right and the whole argument of the book of romans is that both jew and gentile alike are under sin and in need of redemption and this is not going to happen by the obedience to the mosaic law so i can hand you all the legal codes in the world that you want no matter how righteous those codes are and say here go obey this legal code and you are not going to become righteous by attempting to obey a legal code rather you need an interior transformation because more than propositional knowledge is necessary and that saint paul teaches comes by the gift of the holy spirit through faith what he calls the circumcision of the heart romans 2 verses 25 to 29 but when you have that interior renovation by grace then paul says you fulfill the righteous requirements of the law so without that grace of god you're sunk you're you're you're totally not without sin you're in a bad way and mere imposition of the mosaic code is not going to solve that problem but through faith and the sacraments you have a participation in the nature of god you are inwardly transformed the love of god is poured into your heart romans 5 5 and then the righteous requirements of the law are fully met in you all right well there you go thank you so much for leaving us that call on our listener comment line we're going to close out with one here from ryan it's a very simple question only five words david ryan says how do you save souls i don't i don't save any souls i don't save any souls and that's not my job my job isn't to save souls my job is to be a light bulb and keep my own soul shining if i can right and let the grace of god work in me hopefully to save me and then maybe i can be an instrument through which god reaches other people but god is the one that saved souls talk a little about being that light how do we do that yeah well so maximus the confessor says that that our participation in god is like iron heated in a fire and we you know you bring the iron in into connection to the fire and it heats up right yeah and uh and you know you could bring the light bulb into contact with the electricity and it lights up so if i want to be a light bulb and illumine i need to stay plugged into christ i need to stay connected to the life of the church the teaching of the church the practice of the church the grace of the church to flow through me just like electricity and lighten me up and i can work hard to eliminate impediments and obstacles to that flow of of divine electricity if you will and the scripture gives a lot of instructions on how to do that make every effort paul teaches in second corinthians 7 to purify yourself of everything that would contaminate both spirit and flesh out of reverence for god so we have to get serious about renouncing those things that draw us away from god and then to actually practice the life of the virtues so that we can cooperate with grace that's the way to stay plugged in and the sacraments of course are the the context in which we live this life of virtue and asceticism all right appreciate that thank you so much ryan for uh giving us a great way to end the show dr david anders thank you sir tom don't forget we do this program right here on ewtn radio 2 pm eastern monday through friday it is live just about every day monday through friday with an encore of that same show at 11 pm eastern we also bring you the podcast michael will have that posted for us in the next couple of hours at ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net on behalf of michael and all of our great team here i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,133

Rating: 4.9487181 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: l_NePShsbxc

Length: 54min 0sec (3240 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021