Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - March 22, 2021

going to lead off here uh with an email actually this is a a question via youtube from debbie debbie says i thought the bible was without error this loose method of picking and choosing what is literal and what is not seems very dicey to me how do we know if any of it is true yeah thanks i appreciate the question so um the church also teaches that the bible is without error but in order to know what some whether something is erroneous or not you need to know what it's asserting i mean i can't assess the truth or falsehood of something if i don't know what's being claimed yeah and we can't do that without some attention to the the nature of the text the genre of the text the purpose of the sacred writer and so for instance when jesus tells a parable you know they're they're the parable of the prodigal zone for instance and he says well there was once you know of son who went to his father and said give me my share of the inheritance and off he went well is jesus asserting the historical existence of that son and that father is that the point that we're supposed to gather you know like the most important thing to believe is that you know there was a father son in ancient judea yeah and this was their address and it was a tuesday right exactly is that the way we're supposed to walk away from us absolutely not i mean these are types right that illustrate moral relationships and something about the nature of the kingdom of god that he's unfolding to the people of israel people of judea looking forward to the inco in gathering of the gentiles there's a theological message that's being conveyed and the details of the story are are uh you know they're there for illustrative purposes but not not to be represented as you know like historical chronicle from uh you know some sort of reality tv show from ancient judea and and so on with the other texts of the bible now in order to properly assess and and apply these texts to our lives your question how do we know well you really can't without the benefit of catholic tradition and this is the this is the great comfort of being a catholic because you know where jesus didn't say well here here's this book go go do the best you can i'm gonna give you a book you go figure it out that's not what he did christ gave us the church and the the heart of the church is the conveying the sacred tradition the deposit of faith given to us by christ and part of that sacred tradition of course is compiling uh and promulgating the bible and and being the context in which the bible is to be read and preached and meditated upon and prayed and interpreted and so you understand the text of the bible from within the heart of the catholic church in the catholic tradition okay well there you go and uh debbie thank you so much for watching us on youtube here's a question from anthony came in via email anthony says recently dr anders spoke briefly about why certain books are in the catholic bible but not in the protestant bible could you please explain in more detail what happened to cause this difference yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so in in the second temple period after the diaspora when jews had spread around the ancient world and many of them had had begun to speak greek and live in large greek cities like alexandria there was a need for the people of god to have a translation of the old testament in the greek language which was the vernacular of the day and that such translation was produced it's known today as the septuagint that's the the name for it and uh and the septuagint has some texts in it that are not in the hebrew canon that came out of palestine so these were the product of the of the exilic uh diaspora jews and they reflect new experiences of the people of god and are very very very important for understanding the development of new testament thought and theology and there are some specific moves that the septuagint does the interpretations of old testament religion that reflect that that perspective in that timeline and this is why uh the apostles themselves when they reference the bible they're always quoting the septuagint version of the old testament they almost never quote the hebrew text like about like 90 of the new testament citations of the old are specifically of this septuagint sometimes they are citing the the hebrew texts in translation sometimes they're citing or alluding to the deuterocanonical text these works that are the product of the of the diaspora jews and and that's the that's the canon of the new testament church so that you know when the fathers of the fourth century are considering these questions and they say well you know what is the canon of the bible which books do we look at and then also which do we pick do we pick the old testament hebrew canon or he used the septuagint canon of the bible saint augustine if hippo deals with these in his book uh on christian doctrine he addresses the question of the canon and he says look you have to pick the septuagint this is the ecclesial cannon this is the this is the church's canon this is the canon that the apostles use this is the one that informed the writing and the theology of the new testament and so that's why this becomes the this becomes the ecclesiastical text of the old testament okay anthony thank you so much for your email by the way if you'd like to send us an email for a future show here's the address ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com hey calls are starting to come in if you would like to get in on the program and uh explain to us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic we'd love to talk about it here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that is a toll-free call 833 two eight eight three nine eight six or you can text the letters ewtn to five five zero zero zero back in a moment with lots more here on call to communion on this monday afternoon on ewtn [Music] more to life is all about exploring what it means to live the catholic difference in everything we do our faith should change everything about how we think how we live how we love how we relate to others and it should help us discover godly solutions the challenges we face more to life with dr greg and lisa popchak tomorrow morning 10 a.m eastern on ewtn radio this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan the goal of fasting from anything whether food or other pleasures is to subordinate our flesh to our will basically we need to make ourselves do things we do not want to do and the more that we do this the less selfish and less self-centered we become we all need to continue to work on this muscle in order to develop its strength parents of young children take note nothing so naturally helps develop this muscle like children your children are cute endearing compelling little crosses made especially for you you know sometimes it's easier to handle across we choose ourselves like i will get up at 4 30 every morning it's harder to handle crosses we don't choose like my two-year-old randomly wakes me up at 4 30. it's important for parents to keep in mind that some subordination of the will is naturally baked into family life embrace those moments and don't underestimate them as opportunities for fasting put right in front of you visit us at it's called to communion here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 you ever heard of church pop have you ever checked it out you really should churchpop takes a fresh and fun look at the news shaping our world believe it or not with all the gloom and doom out there there is some uh fresh and fun news out there and i think you'll really enjoy it it features engaging inspiring and informative catholic social media content find it right now on snapchat on instagram and on the web at churchpop.com churchpop.com by the way you can get churchpop directly to your inbox just visit ewtn.com click on subscribe you'll have a several choices to choose from you choose churchpop give them your email address and you'll start getting those puppies right away if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with maureen in minneapolis listening on siriusxm 130 a first-time caller hey maureen what's on your mind today oh hi thank you for taking my call um i guess it's just goes back to many years ago when i was helping teach religion class and they were teaching at the time that a lot of the stories in the bible are myths and i just kind of wondered where we draw the line on real stories in the bible and myths and and why do they call it a myth i guess i only talked to one doctor or one father that said that it was because we don't know the rest of the story so i guess i just want to kind of know what your take is on that yeah thank you i really appreciate it i appreciate the question so of course the bible itself doesn't really use the category of myth uh to to it is a as a technical term to describe its own kind of writing right i mean this is a this is a category that's being imposed by interpreters on the bible but what the bible does do especially in the new testament the way the new testament reads the old testament the new testament allegorizes the old testament so it takes a literal narrative and says now the point of this narrative is and then gives an interpretation that definitely transcends the historical particularity of the old testament story i think probably the most uh obvious example would be in the book of galatians when saint paul looks back to the story of sarah and hagar and says it uses that he uses the word allegory he says well this is an allegory for the the two kinds of children of the covenant children of the flesh and those of the spirit those who rely on the literal subscription to the mosaic law and those that rely on the way of faith and grace and obviously when you go back and read the story of sarah and hagar paul's interpretation is not at all evident on the face of it it could only be arrived at rather creatively reading christian experience and theology and the person of jesus back through you know reading the old testament through that lens and uh and so for paul the significance of the story is really not you know kind of the the genealogy of of abraham's children the literal people of israel it it's a it's a it's a theological picture of the what's contemporary for him which is the relationship of gentiles to christ through grace um now and you find this this uh allegorical approach to the to the old testament throughout the new testament and in the writings of the early church father so saint peter again in 1st peter chapter 3 says that the story of noah and the ark is an allegory for christian baptism now if you go back and read genesis chapter 6 you're not going to find a word in there about christian baptism but that's what saint peter thinks the significance of the text is like our application of this to our present day circumstances is not like you know antediluvian geology but rather a picture of the moral renovation of the soul in christ through baptism that's the application that he wants to draw and the fathers of the church do the same thing nobody does this more than origen of alexandria who's a third century theologian uh and probably the most important theologian in the catholic tradition up until saint augustine and then augustine after him both of them are constantly allegorizing the old testament and augustine when he looks at say the open passages of the book of genesis draws an interpretation that strikes me is kind of amazing he says well this is an allegory for the creation of the church it's not it's not so much concerned with the question of of cosmology or ancient geology or astrophysics or something this is a book about the creation of the church that's the way augustine reads the story now uh you know that way of approaching the text it's it's less important to determine well you know like was there really a guy named job that was there really a fellow named job who had the sufferings that are described in that book well that's a historical question it's of some interest but it's not as important as the theological message of the text which is how do we confront the reality of suffering in god's providence now you know with the advent of modern historical criticism uh critics have cast doubt on the reliability of some of the old testament stories as to whether or not they're historically accurate and pope benedict who i think of all the recent popes has wrestled with this question more than anybody else says catholics are obligated obligated in conscience and truth to take the claims of historical criticism seriously but to transcend them and so you know if if someone raises a question about the historicity of some old testament passage you know well did did you know did uh uh did saul you know really uh undertake to enforce the ban on the canaanites and these kinds of questions well those are legitimate historical questions and sometimes people might be disturbed by what they find pope benedict says you should take those kinds of questions quite seriously but you transcend them and the way you do that in his mind is you blend the sort of critical analysis that modern historians bring to the old testament and the allegorizing spiritual interpretation of the new testament in the fathers and so it's not an either or it's a both and nobody has done a better analysis of this in book form than matthew remage in his book uh the dark passages of the old testament that shows how to bring the best of both worlds a sort of modern critical study of the old testament together with pope benedict's insights on the allegorizing spiritual reading of the bible now to do this you can't do this if you're not a catholic right because you have to bring the perspective of catholic faith to bear you know um if you're a fundamentalist and your entire faith hangs on a wooden literal reading of the old testament when historical criticism calls those stories into question well your faith crumbles you got nowhere to go but if you're a catholic you say we've been doing this a long time like we've we've been approaching the old testament through the lens of catholic tradition using the allegorical method trusting the spirit to guide us to transcend the literal nature of those old testament stories and still provide us with spiritual insight and transformative power so that we might live new lives in christ we've been doing that for two thousand years we're just doing it now in a new context uh that's the catholic way okay hey maureen is that helpful for you yes thank you very much i enjoyed that thank you very much welcome thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 8 3 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 call to communion on this monday afternoon here on ewtn let's go to gene now in winslow arizona i'm standing on the corner there listening to uh youtube hey gene what's on your mind today hi hey good morning it's still morning over here okay um i with respect to the other call a couple of calls ago about the books in the bible i'd like to ask the corollary in our bible the catholic bible do we have all the quote-unquote books or scriptures from the jewish old testament never heard it ask that way they always ask about you know the new testament and you know the seven or whatever or the seven books that they took out of the old testament so i worried about well did we have everything that the jewish old scriptures yeah thanks well you need not worry in any event yeah you need not worry in any man and this is you know the question of what did the rabbis believe to be canonical is historically interesting and it's it's of some significance for understanding early christianity but it's really not relevant for the integrity of a catholic's faith right because the the consensus of the rabbis is not our rule of faith right the rabbis came to consensus on lots of things that we reject like for instance the ancient rabbis rejected the messiahship of jesus yep so i'm not particularly interested if the rabbi does or doesn't hold some particular belief it's not really that important it's historically interesting but it's not spiritually relevant to me in quite the same way because their their opinions are not authoritative jesus's opinions are authoritative christ himself confronted the rabbinical tradition and criticized it and asserted that he took primacy over the rabbinical tradition so it's what does what does christ teach what do the apostles teach what does the catholic church teach that's what's spiritually relevant for me what the rabbis taught is historically interesting but it's not normative for a christian there you go gene appreciate your call it's called a communion here on ewtn we would love to hear why you are not a catholic if that's your situation give us a call 833 288 ewtn what's stopping you from becoming a catholic 833-288-3986 let's go to howard in waldorf maryland now listening on ewtn television a first-time caller howard what's on your mind today yes lord bless you i'm i know there's a passage that one of peters writes and says there's one god and one mediator between god and men the the man christ jesus uh i'm wondering why the catholics prayed to and mary yeah thanks i appreciate it so catholics of course believe you're quoting from first peter excuse me first timothy chapter two verse five where uh saint paul says jesus christ is the one media between god and man and of course we believe that and we believe it in the sense that is elaborated in the book of hebrews where christ supersedes the entire old testament uh aaronic and levitical priesthood there's no more need for this old testament sacrificial system because christ is the high priest who ever liveth to make intercession for the church and he gave his life once for all to atone for sin now sits at the right hand of the father and intercedes for us and so in that sense he is the one the ultimate the primary uh you know mediator and there need be no other priesthood ever instituted other than that of jesus now uh the question is in christ's mediation his unique mediation his supreme mediation how in fact does he convey the graces that he merited for us how does he convey them to us how does he actually get them into us if you will and jesus himself teaches that he mediates those graces through human instruments so he said to the apostles for example whoever sins you res you forgive are forgiven this is john chapter 20 receive the holy spirit ever since you forgive a forgiven christ christ wins for us the forgiveness of sins but he mediates it to us through the priesthood that he instituted um how does christ cause he said to nicodemus a man has to be born again but how does he mediate that rebirth to us well through an instrument namely baptism by water in the spirit we're born again those who die with christ are raised with him to new life whoever's been baptized has clothed himself with jesus that's what's saying paul wrote the book of galatians right and uh and and even the prayers of the church uh have a mediating function to convey for us to to convey to us the merits of christ so saint paul himself would write in colossians chapter one he says i fill up in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of christ for the sake of his body the church saint james chapter 5 exhorts us to pray for one another right that the ministry of mutual prayer and intercession our own sufferings and sorrows and merits we can all share in the goods of the entire church we see this dynamic all the way back in the old testament genesis chapter 18 when god tells abraham i will spare the wicked for the sake of the few righteous on account of a few people and their righteousness i'll spare the many right um submediating the the merits of the few on behalf of on behalf of the many and we see the dynamic continued in the church even into the next life so the book of revelation chapter 5 says that the saints in heaven actually carry the prayers of the church on earth before the throne of god so yes jesus is the unique high priest who wins for us the great grace of redemption but he chooses to mediate those graces to us through human and material instruments this does not diminish the glory of the uniqueness of the power of christ yet it enhances it because which is which is more powerful who's the more powerful leader uh the guy who has to do it all himself or the one who can make his will effective through instruments yeah right the latter is the more powerful leader because he's made the whole body of you know the body politic or the army or in this case the church the instrument of his divine will there you go appreciate your call howard it is called a communion here on ewtn let's uh do this quick email here before we go to break this is from zach zach says does the term eucharist also refer to the precious blood at mass yes could you elaborate just just a little bit more you're holding up we got another 30 seconds that's right give me a break here come on the word eucharist uh etymologically means to give thanks etymologically it means to give thanks and in sacred scripture it's applied to the whole action of this thanksgiving sacrifice that we make of christ's body and blood and uh and very early in the church's history the the the sacrifice of the mass which is this this this ritual that christ instituted on their upper room on holy thursday this is my body this is my blood given for you is referred to the whole sacred action is referred to as the eucharist now if you want to specify the technical term here is the two different species the two kinds we should talk about the host the consecrated host which is eucharist under the appearance of bread and then the the chalice and refers by figure speech to the contents thereof precious blood and both of them are this one eucharistic activity very good thank you so much for that zach thanks for your email in a moment we'll be talking with blaine in fort wayne i like that blaine and fort wayne indiana also talk with ivan in seattle looks like one line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn for the monday edition of call to communion [Music] in any language it means the same live truth live catholic ewtn 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 women considering abortion heavenly father we worship you you love the thought of each one of us and wanted us to exist and so you knit us together in our mother's wombs [Music] your love with those mothers who are considering aborting their unborn children dispel their fears free them from pressuring boyfriends or parents and give them joy in their motherhood spare them lord from a life of regret so that they may enjoy the satisfaction of a motherhood lived in love amen want the latest pro-life news wanted delivered sign up it's free ewtn pro-life weekly your source for everything happening now in the fight to protect the sanctity of human life new episodes delivered every week to your inbox so if you really want to know sign up today go to ewtn.com forward slash pro-life today tomorrow on more to life unstuck feeling stuck or unable to make a change will help you get unstuck that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion [Music] thanks for joining us for call to communion on this monday afternoon here on ewtn one line open at the moment 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 as promised blaine in fort wayne listening on the great redeemer radio hey blaine what's on your mind today hi there uh thanks for taking my call today sure um i just have uh a question regarding um uh the companies that produce the vaccines for uh coronavirus um and how they uh are using stem cells from aborted fetuses um from my understanding from what i've heard um two of the vaccines have used aborted uh then the two approved vaccines by the pope and by the bishop um as approved by meaning morally it's immorally okay to receive them uh they use the aborted fetuses um in research not in the actual vaccine unlike another vaccine which is not the first choice of vaccine you should do as a catholic but i just don't understand how it's morally okay that that use aborted fetuses in any way because it's still uh abortion regardless of when they use it um so i was just uh kind of trying to get some clarification on like i don't want to like disagree with the pope or like you know go against the catholic faith and stuff but i'm just having trouble understanding how that i'm with you i'm with you okay well i need let me draw a distinction in the question there you you really asked two questions one was about the the locity the appropriateness of a catholic taking the vaccine but then at some point in your question you actually said i don't understand how it's okay for them to use these stem cell lines those are two different questions and the answer to them is not the same so with respect to the second question it's not okay it's not okay for vaccine manufacturers to use uh fetal body parts or or stem cells or whatever they shouldn't do that and the church has made that clear that we should find alternatives to do our scientific research um so then the question becomes well if the if the vaccine manufacturers are involved in something that they ought not to do complicity and abortion through this research then why would it be okay for a catholic to take a vaccine that had been manufactured in this morally compromised way and now to answer that question we have to get into some distinctions in catholic moral theology and the most important distinction is the distinction between material cooperation with evil and formal cooperation with evil and you you understand these distinctions and they govern your activity every day but you may not think about them consciously but you're always engaging with them and you're always reasoning morally through them and the church just draws to your attention what i think is kind of common sense formal cooperation with evil means that you desire the evil that is being done you are you are trying to make it happen you want the evil to occur formal cooperation is always wrong always wrong so for example if if you are trying to facilitate abortion you want there to be a specific abortion or more abortions in general that's formal cooperation with the evil of abortion you can never do that wrong wrong wrong can't do it all right of any kind you never formally cooperate with any evil for any reason material cooperation means you don't intend the evil that is being done but something about your activity contributes to the matter of the evil being done now an example here might be let's say you are a manufacturer of surgical instruments and uh you know you're making surgical instruments because you want them to be available for doctors to do their work well that's a good goal that's a good reason to make them and maybe you want to make a buck and that's okay too but it happens that you know maybe some health care centers collect these surgical instruments and they use them to patch people back together and make them healthy that's what you want but maybe somebody picks one up takes it into an abortion clinic and uses it to kill someone well that's a terrible consequence but that's not what you were shooting for you weren't aiming at the death of a child you were aiming at manufacturing a surgical instrument that might be lawfully used right did you cooperate materially did you provide the matter the actual stuff that performed the murder yeah you did but did you was that your intent no so you materially cooperated you didn't formally cooperate and uh and then we also distinguished material cooperation that is remote really far away and proximate really up close and the more remote the cooperation the less culpable the participant is in the in that moral activity so in the case of the vaccine the catholic who takes the vaccine that has been produced in a bad way is certainly not formally cooperating with the act of abortion that's not what that's not in any shape form or fashion and their material cooperation such as it is is extraordinarily remote because the abortions that took place were talking about grievous harm grievous sin but way in the past 30 years ago because arguably you're not even contributing materially to that particular activity okay now and there's one other distinction we draw in catholic theology that's relevant and that's the that's the principle of the double effect all right i can never intentionally will evil can't do that that's formal cooperation but i can lawfully will a good some good thing like inoculating myself against disease even if that good thing that i'm willing comes with an unintended negative side effect if you will provided i have a proportionate reason for doing so and that also would hold in the present case so uh do you do you want there to be abortions no you don't and so to the extent that you can and this is why the church actually has said let's think critically about which of these vaccines we would prefer to take which ones are more approximately involved in the evil of abortion which ones are more remotely involved but in neither case is the catholic willing the end of abortion they're not formally cooperating and uh and to the extent that this may in a sort of secondary way contribute to the abortion regime that is an unintended double effect of an otherwise lawful intention namely inoculation against disease and there is a proportionate reason because we're trying to preserve a present life right now blaine we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn ivan is in seattle listening on youtube a first time caller hey ivan what's on your mind today hello hi yeah i have a question i want to know um why why would uh why would why necessarily become a catholic um and not just any christian denomination okay sure is it possible to save um and not be a catholic yeah thanks i appreciate well those are two different questions that's two different questions the second question the answer to the second one is yes it's possible to be saved to not be a catholic yes it is so why then should i become a catholic what's the what's the motive for becoming a catholic if salvation's possible outside the catholic church can you get over an infection without taking antibiotics just as possible yeah it's possible if you're pretty sick you want the antibiotics take the pill you want to take the pill right you know let me draw a few more analogies let's say uh you know the protestants typically have 66 books in their bible from genesis to revelation could they get by if all they had was esther just one well you know esther's pretty good book but you're missing out on a lot what if they had two of the four gospels you know or half the epistles of paul or maybe 75 of the 150 psalms well these are all good but don't don't you want the whole thing don't watch the whole thing how about eight of the commandments do i get to pick which ones i take out you know and so this is an analogy this is analogy what the non-catholic churches have is good a lot of it is right and the church itself catholic church itself says that these traditions have elements of truth and sanctification elements and these elements can be salvific they can be salutory they can they can be very productive you know my grandfather was not catholic he was a baptist from the catholic point of view he only had two sacraments we got seven he had two baptism in marriage well he squeezed an awful lot of grace out of his two sacraments i mean good for granddaddy i think he's in heaven right but imagine what he would have done if he'd had seven like he'd been the high octane granddaddy at that point that's right right you know and so the motive for becoming catholic is to obtain the fullness of the christian faith and and it makes it makes a huge difference because look there are elements of truth and sanctification in these other traditions but there's also admixture of error there are some mistakes there's some wrong-headed things that that went on and when you make those corrections it makes a really really potent difference in your spiritual life and i'm speaking as a convert myself about things like here's some concrete examples so the way i came to understand the relationship of faith and reason is profoundly different as a catholic than it was before i was catholic and so i have a much deeper consistency coherence in my intellectual life far less cognitive dissonance a much higher regard for the competence of reason and a more sort of expansive and tolerant attitude towards culture in the world that enables me to engage people more charitably right these are all intense benefits that i obtained by becoming catholic um a much sharper focus on the preeminence of the moral life you know the tradition i grew up in sort of diminished the moral life as a way of salvation and said well this is just kind of evidence of you know some spiritual experience but the real real heart soul of religion is is the conversion experience and believing you're saved and so forth and when i became catholic well those things are good and having confidence in my salvation and being converted are good but the catholic faith really focused me in on the importance of my own moral life and virtue formation and things and of course if you if you aim to acquire virtue and seek to bring that perfection into your life it's going to have a material impact on the way you live your life or your marriage or raise your children or interact in civil society and it had a profound impact on the way i looked at my relationship to history you know as a protestant growing up i thought that the first 1500 years of the church were more or less awash and were kind of lost to me as a source of insight because i figured that you know luther was really the guy who had read the bible correctly well he came 1500 years late and when i became catholic it was like this tremendous cascade of of historical wisdom just suddenly became my patrimony fell into my lap if you will and my my heroes became much better people than my heroes had previously been they were the likes of thomas aquinas and augustine of hippo and and uh i i found so much so much grace so much wisdom so much insight from the running of the church fathers and i mean i could i could do this all day right clearly motive upon motive upon motive for considering the fullness of the catholic faith ivan thanks so much for your call i've got to ask you just a quick aside david on that uh when you were a protestant which was you know like what half of your life or or me even more of that protestant for 33 years i guess so did you read thomas aquinas because i know that you're the chairman of his fan club at this point but did you read thomas aquinas as a protestant did you pay much attention so you know when i was growing up uh and going to seminary and graduate school obviously we thought the fathers of the church were lutheran calvin right like our guys were the main guys right but i knew that i needed some appreciation of the catholic intellectual tradition because this was the seedbed out of which the reformation had grown so i really started reading augustine as the first catholic thinker i got deeply involved in and i went i like this guy i like this guy a lot you know and when uh when i started getting into thomas was when i began to really really confront the question of the relationship of faith to reason and the rationality of the act of faith and i had an account of that question as a calvinist that had ceased to work for me i mean utterly broke down in incoherence and i lost my faith almost entirely as a result of calvinism and uh and i started kicking around for a way to be an intellectually fulfilled christian and uh and i stumbled on de veritate thomas's treatise on truth and i read that and i said okay this is the stuff this is this is the way to make an intellectually fulfilled act of faith in the christian religion very good appreciate that thanks for illuminating that for me uh call to communion here on ewtn in a moment we're gonna get to richard in dover new jersey first of all i want to remind you that women of grace plays tomorrow morning at 11 a.m you won't want to miss it johnette williams embraces the essence of feminine spirituality she'll inform instruct and inspire her listeners with the truth of the catholic faith and i want to put one little urban legend to rest here a lot of men listen to women of grace an awful lot of men listen every day and really enjoy it really uh you know leads to their understanding not only of of how how women think and process things but how all of us should be looking at our faith anyway check it out tomorrow morning 11 a.m eastern right here on ewtn radio richard hang in there wait got a quick question here from bernadette bernadette is watching us on youtube she says i am aboriginal and our people have an ugly past with the church i grew up hating church and god but was put through all the steps to be a catholic because of my grandma well i stepped back into my faith the last two years my question is why do i hear so much about the book of enoch and why was it taken out of the bible okay thanks so i have no idea why you're hearing about the book of enoch i don't have a clue because this is not canonical scripture uh it's a it's a jewish apocalyptic book that is of some historical interest but it's not canonical scripture so i don't know why this would be prominent in your in your church community now um the question about taking it out it really wasn't taken out it wasn't put in right i mean there are a number of of uh of religious texts from the first centuries that were in circulation in early christianity and judaism that some communities regarded as authoritative and there were there were some of the ethiopian christian communities still regard enoch as an authoritative text but the majority of the church fathers did not um and the way the canon of the bible is defined in the fourth century the first criteria is ecclesiastical usage so so in other words when the bishops in the fourth century were looking at okay which books do we actually compile as sacred scripture they said well what are what are the texts that the catholic churches are reading in liturgy and uh and if and if a text had nearly universal uh uptake that was a very strong criteria to place it in the biblical canon on this you know the judgment that sacred tradition is a mode of revelation okay and uh and enoch didn't didn't fit the bill it just didn't meet the criteria as being a text that was universally regarded as canonical by the early christians all right there you go uh bernadette thanks so much for watching us on youtube today as promised here is richard in dover new jersey listening on ewtn television a first-time caller hello richard what's on your mind today hi fellas i'm in a hospital bedroom so i um saw you in the air here flipping around um i heard the story where augustine was talking to his mentor and said what was he almighty doing before he decided to create the heavens and the earth he goes dreaming up the hell for people that ask questions like that i just thought i'd throw that in okay my question is the question is i have a lot of uh catholics who are i lack a better word have been seduced by these bible churches in the area and i've got to them i go to mass on a sunday and then i'll go over there see what they have to say i get a lot out of it don't get me wrong but my question is christ had a sermon on a mount that was a sermon it wasn't worship when we go to church to worship we all participate has to be some ounce of participation from the from the congregation so we repeat things we say the prayers together we bow our heads we kneel when i go to these places um i'm pejoratively i'm saying when i go to them and listen to them it's an hour of discussing a bible scripture and you sit there and you tend to daydream a little bit it's impossible not for the human mind not to you know veer off a little bit is this considered worship in the true sense of the word when you're just sitting there listening to the bible study basically or a sermon yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so jesus christ himself tells us when he was asked the question in john chapter 4 about where we ought to worship and the samaritan woman says are you supposed to worship here or there and he says i tell you a woman a time is coming when true worshipers will worship god not on this mountain or that but in spirit and in truth so what is that worship in spirit and in truth that's the heart of the christian faith that christ prophesies about well saint paul gets into this a bit in romans chapter 12 and he says offer your bodies as living sacrifices this is this worship in spirit and in truth this is your spiritual act of worship he says so it's the it's the offering of oneself to god uh the act of sacrifice the essence of all worship is sacrifice and that's uh that's uh that's what the scripture teaches that's what even reason teaches i mean you even look in indigenous uh non-christian religions of antiquity the most pervasive uh religious act is the act of sacrifice the recognition that we owe god something and uh and that it he is he's worth our very lives now what christianity brings is it purifies this intrinsic this inherent need to to approach god to supplicate god to make sacrifice and offering to god to lay our lives down for god it purifies that inclination of superstition and uh and rationalize it this is why paul can call it the the um the rational act of worship and the essence of this worship is the act of the mind the intention that self-donation where i say lord i give you myself king david kind of illustrates this for us in uh psalm 51 when he says sacrifice an offering you do not desire o lord and he's speaking here about the blood of goats and bulls but a contrite heart you will not despise right so it's that that element of self-donation proceeding from the heart and you're you're correct that merely to listen to sort of a pedagogical address on the exegesis of a bible passage that can be an utterly passive activity it can be an utterly passive activity and really really wouldn't constitute the essence of worship in new testament theology which is this self-donation now granted a catholic can also be guilty of this a catholic can go to mass and be utterly passive that's not good that's not good and because of that the fathers of the second vatican council instituted some of the changes that you already alluded to namely the need for an act of participation of the lay faithful in the rights that we have certain responses that we make to prayers and recitations and affirmations of the creed but of course the the highlight of the catholics participation in mass is not any verbal formula but it is in fact the offering of christ's body and blood uh on the altar to god in reparation for the sins of the world the immaculate victim christ himself is made present on the altar by transubstantiation and the whole church the ministerial priest priest at the altar effects the sacrifice brings christ down from heaven on to the altar but the entire church all the lay faithful participate in making that offering offering god calvin christ to god the father and ourselves along with him you know we think about the morning offering that many catholics pray i offer you the body and blood soul and divinity that's night the morning offering that's saint faustina's prayer um jesus through the immaculate heart of mary i offer you my prayers works joyous sufferings and sorrows along with the holy sacrifice of mass off everywhere throughout the world um that's the that's really the essence of catholic worship christian worship that worship in spirit and in truth that self-donation that christ calls for not on this mountain or that mountain but everywhere throughout the world appreciate your call richard hope you're feeling better get out of that hospital as soon as you can let's go to uh sam now in fredonia kansas listing on siriusxm 130 a first-time caller hey sam what's on your mind today we have a problem in a nearby parish of mine it's in the i'm in the diocese of wichita this is in the diocese of kansas city kansas and and the priest has been consistently preaching and i have a tape of it as well as a video this weekend he preached that he could he used the words i guarantee all of you are going to heaven all you got to do is be nice love god and you are going to heaven and this is a consistent theme of his we are afraid that the bishop um probably supports it we're not sure but i would like to be able to point out to the parishioners theologically and canonically what is wrong with that statement okay well you know listen if i understand you correctly the priest attached a qualification all of you are going to heaven provided you love god that's a big provided you bet that's a big provided now you know be nice i prefer we stick to jesus's language which is agape a gothic love of one's neighbor but the essence of the law is to love god above all things and our neighbor is our self and in that sense now that's a tall order but it's an uncomplicated order and therefore jesus can say that his that his yoke is easy and his burden is light in comparison to the 613 commandments of the mosaic law the command love god above all things and your neighbor and as yourself is is fairly uncomplicated if rather difficult to accomplish and so if if the priest's message is you can all go to heaven provided you love god and neighbor well i would say that's the catholic position now if he's interpreting their activity and saying i guarantee that you are already satisfying those two commands you're like i've got inside knowledge on the state of your soul and you are in fact successfully loving god and neighbor so and i am acting as judge right now and i am determining your eternal fate and i'm telling you that on the last day jesus will pass a positive verdict in your case well then he's definitely overstepping his bounds because the gospel of john does not say and god entrusted all judgment to father bob yeah that's not what he said it says god entrusted all judgment to the son in sacred scripture there is one who is appointed to judge and that is jesus christ the king of the universe saint paul said of himself i do not judge myself god will judge me yep and that's where we're gonna get got to leave it because the music is coming up sam what a great question thank you so much for it uh wish we had time for more there were a couple of calls that we just couldn't get in hope that those folks will call us back tomorrow we'll put them at the head of the line all right hey dr david anders thank you sir thanks tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn radio 2 pm eastern for our live broadcast we also have an 11 p.m eastern encore of that same broadcast in case you missed it and in case you really missed it and it's a couple days later maybe even a week later be not afraid because you can always check out the podcast at ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us look forward to seeing you again tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless hello this is father john trujillo find out how you can bet

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: icNWwebvU98

Length: 52min 0sec (3120 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021