Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - March 24, 2021

executive election and knoxville bishop richard seika expressing sadness over new restrictions on private masses in saint peter's he says he treasures at times he was able to celebrate mass there with pilgrims from his diocese for more news with a catholic perspective visit ewtn ewtnnews.com i'm theresa tomio and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests why do catholics worship mary why do i need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the bible i think the pope has too much authority what's stopping you you are called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters so if that's you and you've got a question for dr david anders we'd love to hear from you today at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you are listening to us outside of north america please dial the us country code and then a special number just for you folks to 205-271-2985 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and for those of you watching on tv today you can participate as well here's our email address ctc ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com charles berry is our producer we also have ryan penny handling the phones and jeff berson is on social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now i'm tom price along with dr david anderson tom how are you today very well how are you my friend and i'm doing decent thanks i'm going to lead off with a question here from joy this is an email that came in recently some orthodox christians teach that heaven and hell are the same manifestation of god's love but perceived in different ways by the virtuous and by the wicked now i find this view very beautiful and compelling can i adhere to this belief and still be catholic or does it contradict catholic teaching thanks joy yeah thanks i appreciate the question so so all of the differentiation that we experience in in the universe in the physical universe are distinctions uh flowing from the the utterly simple uh eternal and infinite love of god right the distinctions among creatures i mean just to illustrate i'm drinking a cup of green tea that's good green tea is good it is at home i have three havanese dogs they're also good they're not good in the same way that green tea is good i wouldn't think so but they're good they're all good things right sure what they have in common you know is an analogous idea of goodness there's something good something desirable something intrinsically worthwhile in the green tea and the three dogs but it's not exactly the same but in each case their goodness ultimately flows from the goodness and the being of god himself right everything that is is because god willed it god made it it it it it exists in his mind and flows forth from his uh from his infinite uh creative potential and uh and all reality is like that every aspect of reality reflects some some differentiated aspect of the divine goodness and that there is a hell in and of itself is a good everything is good insofar as it exists now obviously that doesn't mean that we as rational agents experience everything is good right and we may find things that are very unpleasant very difficult very painful right but even our experience of those difficulties and pains finds their place within god's providential plan within the scope of his providence ordered ultimately towards the the good of the entire universe in himself and so i think there's an element of of of truth in what your friends are saying now there are distinctions between heaven and hell that are not merely notional and they're not merely subjective christian doctrine teaches that at the end of time there'll be a physical resurrection a bodily resurrection and that our eternal experience will be an embodied experience and uh and we don't know what the metaphysics are we're not gonna we're not sure how this plays out in terms of spatial location i mean all you guys here on the left all you guys here on the right we don't know how that works out precisely but uh but i i would i don't think there's any reason to think that souls in heaven and souls and hell are going to be you know sitting down at the same dinner table and one's having a great meal and one's having a terrible time i think they're going to be spatially distinct as well but do they both reflect different aspects of divine goodness yes okay joy thanks so much for your email by the way if you'd like to send us an email for a future show the address is ctc at ewtn.com joe is checking us out on youtube joe says if i am a frequent sinner how many times do i need to pray the rosary my sin makes me question my catholicism um yeah thanks joe i really appreciate the question so you know the way you frame the question makes me wonder do you think that the way to overcome sin is like massive repetition of the rosary well maybe maybe but i think there's a more direct route okay the rosary is not magic and there's no there's no guarantee that you know if you the at the ten thousandth and first recitation of the rosary poof all of your sinful inclinations are going to be gone i mean that's not the way it works okay the point in mental prayer and the rosary is a form of mental prayer you know we're thinking about the mysteries and trying to engage in the life of christ to marry and identify with them and seek their help as well the point of that kind of prayer is to draw our own attention to our own interior life and that's really where the work is done the conversation that we have within ourselves about ourselves and about god uh and about the meaning of our lives and our actions and the more self-aware we are about our motivations and our passions and our reasoning the more we we focus our attention on those things that elevate us to the consideration of god and divine things the more our actions will tend to fall in line with the meditations of our heart you know the psalmist writes says a man thinks in his heart so is he and this is a this is a process of developing habits of mind the rosary and other forms of prayer can be tremendously effective in helping us acquire new habits of mind a new interior life but they don't work after the fashion of magic spells you know it's not the mere recitation of the words or this or the rituals that brings about the interior change it's it's the intention it's the directing of our mind and heart towards the things of god that builds new internal habits and those habits help us to avoid sin and to seek virtue but they also have to be accompanied by actions in the world you have to take steps so if something is an occasion of sin for you so let's say my favorite example i have a natural inclination to eat too many pecan pies yes you do you know i i just it's just one of my weaknesses you know it would be a bad idea for me to stack pecan pies in every room of my house you know with a clean fork and a clean plate everywhere i mean i would just like putting myself in the occasion of sin so you clean out some of the pecan pies sounds like a plan joe thank you so much for checking us out on youtube we have lines open for you right now here on ewtn's call to communion our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 for call to communion here on ewtn stay with us he is only one of four popes honored as the great matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church saint leo the first was pope at a time when roman civilization was being overrun by barbarian armies he stood as a light in the darkness and even saved the city of rome from destruction by attila and the huns leo died in 461 for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com [Music] lent a season of grace with father cedric passania the same holy spirit that drove jesus into the desert has to drive us to lead us to control us to push us motivate us and empower us to change and to be illumined and i pray that this lent the spirit will touch you in powerful ways lent a season of grace with father cedric pesagna sunday 8 p.m eastern on ewtn radio the ewtn home video highlight for march is polish catholic with father mitch paqua accompany father mitch paqua on his personal journey of faith with an intimate look into the lives of poland's great saints and how they affected the faith of poland and indeed the world order your dvd set at ewtnrc.com 24 hours a day seven days a week or call 1-800-854-6316 [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders our phone number 833-2888 ewtn that's reading 833-288-3986 and listening on youtube right now um something just happened with rita's call so i think uh ryan is still working with that call let me ask a quick question here from carol watching on youtube you were discussing the existing the existence of god and you used a turtle as an example recently uh as in how did the turtle get there you may remember that dude pretty interesting uh thing there that you laid out well we all heard that we have had great great grandfathers how do we know that they were real okay thanks i appreciate the question so so let me distinguish in in talking about uh the existence of god and proof's existence of god i remember that phone call yeah and we were talking to a nine-year-old we were talking to a nine-year-old yes and so i had to adapt my illustrations uh to a language that i thought would be appropriate for nine-year-olds and i steered away from some complex vocabulary that i would be more likely to use if i were talking to an adult so now i'm talking to an adult let me switch gears a little bit okay catholic philosophers distinguish two different kinds of causes or causal series you think about cause effect cause effect cause effect and there's the kind of cause and effect that we can detect through time right where the cause might be a a distant remote cause no longer has to be in existence for the effect to endure and that would be like my grandfather my grandfather's not alive now he died back in the 90s now he still was contributing to my being here but he's not still around and i don't need him to be alive in order for me to continue to exist there are a lot of causes like that now you might be surprised to learn that i mean you can you can keep doing this with the whole history of the universe you can kind of go backwards in time and think about the present state of things depends on there having been a past state of things but we don't need that past state to stick around first keep going right and uh and and catholic philosophers including those like st thomas aquinas say arguing this way you can never really get to a beginning of the universe arguing in that way and and thomas would ask the question is it possible could is it possible that the universe didn't ever have a beginning in time could it be eternal this thomas aquinas who's the greatest catholic philosopher yeah that's possible it's not true it's not true there is a beginning in time but you couldn't know that just from reason alone now there are some people who disagree with thomas about that but that's not the way thomas argues for the existence of god he doesn't argue from some past event because he recognizes that that's that's in the past it's gone we're still going we just we just keep going forever that way we might never find god there's another way of thinking about causal order or causal series and that's that there are there are causes that have to continue to exist for their effects to exist and they can be stacked hierarchically so think of it like this like what is the cause of my present existence right now this very second what has to be the case for me to be sitting here in this chair well you know for one thing the laws of chemistry and physics like if they stopped i would just dissolve i would stop being here all right um and and what's the explanation of those things what what higher order principles are there you know get into subatomic physics maybe right and and there there are there are these sort of stacked hierarchical causes that that are at deeper and deeper levels of sort of metaphysical necessity all of which has to be operating right now for me to exist now if any one of those links in the chain is taken away then i stop and so it's more like if you think about quite literally take the metaphor of links in a chain you have several links in a chain you take any one out the whole thing falls apart that's the kind of causal necessity that leads us back to the existence of god what what is that that in virtue of which all things presently exist in the laws of physics and chemistry which are necessary for my existence right now are not self-explanatory like they're embedded in a deeper structure of reality and and at the deepest level of that analysis we come to the first cause the first principle that catholics understand to be god okay well we thank you so much carol for watching us on youtube and for your question as well all right now we're going to get to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin here with ann mary in shiloh illinois listening on the ewtn app and mary what's on your mind today hi i've got a couple questions i was baptized catholic i went to catholic schools then when i went away to college at the age of 18 i met some evangelical christians called maranatha and they baptized me a second time and dipped my whole body underwater and they said they baptized me in the spirit what does that do to my original catholic baptism and do i need to confess that or what yeah thanks i appreciate it well it doesn't nullify your baptism any more than diving in a swimming pool would nullify your baptism you just got wet you didn't actually get baptized baptized baptism is a sacrament that changes you you do it once and it changes you chris saint paul says whoever's been baptized has clothed himself with christ you become a member of christ's body paul says in romans 6 that we die with christ in baptism are raised again with him to new life and uh in that catholic land we talk about having a baptismal character imprinted on your soul it's really the christ imprinted on you um so that you become like another christ walking around the world you reflect christ's likeness and image in your person and and that's a high order to live up to but it also comes with graces that empower you to live that holy life and uh and you can't nothing takes that away from you not not even mortal sin removes that baptismal character that's imp that that quality that's impressed on your soul that makes you a member of christ's body that's why in fact christ instituted the sacrament of reconciliation or penance he didn't he didn't institute that for the world he instituted that for members of his body to be reconciled after they'd fallen away so even sin doesn't take that away from you and so there's no need to repeat it you know you're baptized you made a member of christ and just so you wander off and do something terrible well you don't have to be baptized again you just come back to confession yes right you're always a member of christ by you're always member of the church if you've been baptized uh now you know sometimes these other groups they object to infant baptism and they say well you should be baptized when you're an adult and they don't base that on sacred scripture of course but on their own ideology because saint peter who who baptized the church at pentecost said the promises for you and for your children believe and be baptized for the remission of your sins the promises for you and for your children that's what saint peter told us and uh and so baptism is this great gift that christ gives us we need it to be transformed to be born again to become members of his body the church but once it's given it can never be taken away and need never be repeated now you know the church in its law would it would direct a catholic not to seek out a second baptism but you did this in good faith in ignorance right you were you were led astray somebody somebody you know connived and they manipulated you into doing this so you're you don't have any personal fault here because you were trying to do the will of god as you understood it um if you want to bring that up in the confessional that'd be fine but it seems to me you don't have any personal guilt because you weren't acting knowledgeably against church teaching you didn't know better yeah yeah it was interesting because she also mentioned baptized in the spirit i i caught that i caught that but i wasn't sure what this denomination intended by that terminology so i just you know there you go and mary thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 we're going to go from uh ann mary to mary mary is in warren ohio listening on living bread radio hey mary what's on your mind today hello thank you for taking my call sure i teach a catholic rcia in a prison ministry and recently the men have been very concerned about the comments that they've heard coming out of the vatican concerning homosexuality which is a constant problem in the prison system they are being questioned heavily by other inmates we need a good clear concise answer that they can use and i can use in the teaching situation well yeah thank you so i mean i think the catechism of the catholic church is extraordinarily clear in its teaching on homosexual acts when it says that they're intrinsically disordered and inherently sinful that's i mean that's not ambiguous it's not ambiguous it's very clear um you know where the confusion comes in i think is what is the what is the best uh pastoral approach for people who are inclined this way and then of course there are divergent opinions about how how to how to live that out pastorally i think one thing that's clear to everybody involved is that people are very wounded in their sexuality and they experience a lot of pain a lot of weakness and a lot of suffering and that's true if you're heterosexual it's true if you're homosexual it's really true wherever you are you know in whatever state of life this is an area of just of real sensitivity for people and it's quite difficult quite painful i mean i'm not a priest but i imagine that if i were and now we're hearing confessions this is probably an area that would come up like pretty much on a daily basis no matter who you are and and for most people you know who are desiring to live a holy life like they they know what the good is they're just having a hard time doing this sure and and i know when i go to confession if i go and say well father i did x y and z if his response to me is well you know you really shouldn't do x y and z that's really bad i'm like well yeah father i know that's why i came here in the first place right i knew that i wanted to get over this problem a compassionate response is often helpful to encourage me yeah you fell you get up you can do it better next time god will give you grace we love you anyway and uh you know bringing that pastoral sensitivity that is that's serious about the wound to be healed serious about the virtue to be sought but also compassionate with people in their weakness that's that's the rub that's the difficulty that's the that's where we're real empathy love virtue justice and wisdom is required in the part of the pastor all right appreciate that mary thank you so much for your call it is called a communion here on ewtn we have a line open for you right now if you have a question for dr david andrews hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic call now at 833-2888 that's 833-288-3986 here is larry now in kenosha wisconsin listening on wsfi 88.5 fm hey larry what's on your mind today okay first of all i have a comment to make i heard and the way i interpret it dr anders says that catholics don't divorce as much as other people don't think i ever said that i don't think i ever said that no no no i said you inferred it then uh the catholics divorced at a 28 rate evangelicals which i still believe is bad is 23 percent but here's my question uh my brother and i he's catholic i'm not we get a discussion in mary and he says ask me if i believe this stuff about mary and i says no i don't but i asked myself what is that necessary for my salvation i said mary didn't die or hang on the cross for me and as far as for the catholic i know that they have to believe it because that's doctrine but as a non-catholic do we have to believe that for our salvation yeah sure sure uh no no the fact that someone doesn't hold a catholic dogma is not necessarily going to disqualify them for being saved right that's you don't understand the the way in which these things are obligatory for catholics when catholics are told you have to believe this it's not because when we get to heaven god is going to hand us a a scantron with a multiple choice exam and you mark off which catholic dogmas you believe and your salvation is determined by which answers you get correct that's not the way dogma works the catechism of the catholic church says that dogmas are lights that illumine our path their aids in the spiritual life to help us form ourselves after the mind of christ they condition the way we think and feel and respond and ultimately help us to become more charitable people and it's on the basis of our charity our life of virtue that will be judged by christ when jesus himself gives the criteria for eternal life places like matthew 25 he defines it in ethical terms not in not in doctrinal terms it's who's clothes the naked and feeds the hunger and give drinks to the thirsty these are the kinds of things on which christ is going to judge us so when the catholic church says to it's faithful well you must believe in the immaculate conception you must believe in the in the virgin birth you must believe in the perpetual virginity of mary she she she teaches these things because these are salutatory truths that inform our interior life so it let's say i believe that which i do of course that the blessed virgin is immaculately conceived well how does that help me well it it inspires me with an idea that the icon of perfect christian discipleship namely the blessed virgin mary is preserved by god from sin in an imminent way now i don't have that blessing i'm not immaculately conceived and and yet the the image the picture before my mind of god preserving me from sin and giving me a powerful intercessor in heaven namely the blessed virgin who can win for me pray for me those graces that inspires me with hope to live a holy life to seek grace to ask for her help and intercession and to imitate her holiness and in that way the dogma of the immaculate conception becomes for me a light that's what the catechism says it's an aid in the life of holiness it changes the way i think about myself and my relationship to the world and that's why the church imposes these things it doesn't define every single truth and say you have to believe all these things it it highlights those truths of the faith that are that are that are luminescent that inspire us that lift our hearts and minds up to god so that we become holy people all right larry we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for your call today here on ewtn radio's call to communion and we're going to take uh just a real quick break here but in a moment we'll be talking with karen in eugene oregon listening on youtube it looks like some other lines are getting screened but we have a line open for you right now if you have a question for dr david anders what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why don't you tell us about it 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion here on ewtn do stay with us in this year of saint joseph join us and make the 33-day consecration to saint joseph starting monday morning 5 eastern after the rosary with mother angelica and ewtn radio why do we need to pray we don't pray because god needs our prayers we pray because we need god's grace and every day when i face the day i realize i have no idea what i'm doing and i need god to walk me through my day step by step giving me the grace the counsel the love the encouragement that enables me to glorify him in everything that i do and become the person he wants me to be prayer is my lifeline 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 [Music] today we pray for marriage almighty god and father we adore you you are the author of marriage and have made it a covenant of faithful exclusive and enduring love between one man and one woman protect this sacred institution from those who are working to deform it bring to conversion those who cohabitate and restore the dignity of marriage and family life to our land strengthen those who are struggling in their marriages and protect our children from neglect and divorce we ask us through christ our lord amen tomorrow and more to life the life you were meant to live we'll look at how the theology of the body can help you live a more abundant life that's tomorrow and more life 10 a.m eastern 9 central on ewgn radio [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn glad you're with us today our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 what's keeping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion we're going right now to uh karen karen's in eugene oregon listening on youtube hey there karen what's on your mind today hi so uh thank you for taking my call sure and the reason i'm calling is i worked with a woman very nice woman who was a seventh-day adventist and um and this issue wasn't important to her i think because she is african-american and she is a seventh-day adventist and she pointed out a papal i guess i'm looking it up it says papal bull in 1452 pope nicholas v that gave portugal and spain full and free permission to um i guess perpetu perpetuate slavery um what do i how do i counter that statement which i don't think is true okay thanks so i have not studied this particular encyclical by pope nicolas and so i can't comment specifically on it i will tell you that the history of the church's response to slavery is progressive um and reveals a a growing awareness of the universal rights of human beings as all made in god's likeness and image of course within the document the new testament themself one of the sort of signal features of the new testament is its inclusivity right because coming out of out of judaism there was a clear demarcation between the jewish world and the gentile world and the law of moses was really the barrier of hostility between the two and jesus and saint paul are extremely clear that the message of christ breaks down that dividing law and creates one new people that's uh that's inclusive across the world and saint paul teaches explicitly in christ there's no male free doesn't excuse me no slave free male female rich poor you know jew greek were all one in christ and so uh while earliest christianity was not engaged in social activism i mean a minority community in palestine is hardly going to have the wherewithal to challenge the roman empire and its civil policy within their own ranks they lived an ethic of of equality and and and freedom and and care for the least among them and so they would exhort people who had slaves as property that emancipation was the charitable thing to do that's that and they didn't have the wherewithal to impose that as a kind of law but they said this is this is the way you ought to live and so slavery among christians died out because of that ethic because of that sense of the the common dignity of christians and recreated in god's life as an image and uh and throughout the catholic middle ages there you know there was serfdom uh but there really wasn't shadow slavery as such until the age of discovery in the colonial period and uh the more or less consistent response of the church to that question when it was raised in the 15th century and beyond was to explicitly forbid first of all the slavery of christians that would include newly baptized indigenous peoples uh but then eventually also non-baptized indigenous peoples and the theory of human rights the idea that individuals are endowed with with inalienable human rights you know in view of their rationality and dignity and freedom that is a catholic idea it was invented actually by francisco de vitoria dominican theologian salmanka spain specifically to address the question of the enslavement of native peoples now you know it's it's telling that the theory of human rights which now undergirds all of these this this dialogue about civil rights and and racial justice and so forth this is a catholic invention specifically in response to the question that you've raised you don't find it emerging in buddhism you don't find it emerging in islam you don't find it emerging in any other civilization you find it emerging in catholic spain in the early modern period and it's an outgrowth of the catholic doctrine of natural law and the the common dignity of persons created in god's likeness and image now obviously it took until the modern period for the implications of the catholic anthropology to work themselves out as these questions were were raised now along the way as the church is wrestling with these social issues they there is legislation canon law on the books that regulates institutions that are intrinsically immoral so you will find early cannons that talk about well you know if you're a slave holder this is how you have to operate they take for granted that there is such a social institution and uh you know what do we do with that well we open our eyes and recognize that that's almost always the condition that the church is going to be in any any civilization so look we live in a regime right now that many people think has deep intrinsic systemic injustice built into it i mean look at the financial system usury nearly destroyed the economy in 2008 sure did right and there were a lot of catholic commentators that pointed out hey we've got a long tradition of condemning usury there were some deep systemic problems in the way the the government's debt regime was operating that caused a lot of hurt and we should draw attention to that meanwhile catholic parishes and dioceses around the world borrowing money you understand what i'm saying it's like where you're you're kind of always embedded in these systems and you're always striving to figure out what's the best pastoral social response to them that doesn't justify the evil it contextualizes the way the thinking on this stuff has to evolve over time all right hey karen thank you so much for your call we hope that's helpful for you our phone number here 833 288 ewtn what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it 833-288-3986 for call to communion here's a question from ian now watching on youtube is there a point at which god's mercy runs out for a person like when saint paul talks about those who chose not to keep god in their knowledge and quote gives them over to the desires of their own heart etc yeah so the catholic doctrine on god is that god does not change at all period in any shape form or fashion god does not have changing mental states right i mean we when god doesn't even think discursively and by that mean i mean god in his thoughts doesn't reason from premises to a conclusion you know he doesn't have to because god knows all of reality in a single permanent simple instant every conclusion that could be drawn is implicit in everything that god knows in himself there they're literally god doesn't have moods i mean he doesn't change at all in any way here's an analogy a picture drawn from human experience the light of the sun now the sun changes but from our point of view it seems like it's always the same thing there is a big bright burning yellow ball giving us heat and warmth and light it's always there it doesn't seem to change but can my reception of that light and heat change absolutely easiest way go outside with an umbrella boop put it up no light and sun put the umbrella down light and sun all right that's a metaphor for how sin impedes our relationship with god god in his goodness and love and mercy is always there unchangingly beaming if you will down on us desiring to be in relationship with us we can put up barriers we can put them down yeah and when we do there's the light of the song and there you go all right well thank you so much for that it is called a communion here on ewtn cynthia is listening to us on siriusxm 130 in stockton california hey cynthia what's on your mind today hi there thank you for taking my call i wanted to [Music] ask a question in regards to having a daughter who has just come out saying she's gay um and not really knowing how how to to handle that well how old is your daughter you know within my within my catholicism and hers hers as well how old is your daughter she is in college she's college age okay all right so you know one once our kids are especially in this day and age once they're after the age of majority 18 19 years old they're off to college like we we as parents lose an awful lot if not all of our control over the kind of choices they're making the lives that they live and so in order to help them uh generally speaking there's a time in our lives when we can really direct their activity they get certain age we stop being able to direct their activity and the only changes we can make is in our in ourselves and and we can try to model for our children our adult children the kind of love and virtuous behavior that we would like them to exhibit and there's a there's a kind of paradox in in how teaching changes as as our kids get older when we get older that the direct approach is off often the least effective you know the psychologists talk about something called resistance and this is when the the client goes to the therapist for help and the therapist says okay here's how you hit how you can fix yourself and the client goes well i couldn't possibly do that you know and it's a it's well-established fact in the therapeutic relationship people tend to reject advice of any kind because they're insecure and they're defensive sure right um and so so the way you help people is you have to get at them in the kind of paradoxical way you know you you you model the love the acceptance the virtue uh the chastity um and uh but without you know with but you try to do it in a way that they that they'll be receptive to that they can't argue with you know yeah and uh um i i would encourage you to continue to love your daughter you don't have to condone what she does you don't have to accept her beliefs or her activity right um not at all i mean and and you can uh you can disagree profoundly with what she's doing still love her and accept her now i think it's reasonable to hope that she would extend the same courtesy to you right and that might be something you might have to bite your tongue for a while and then maybe you know if you've given it six months or a year and and she's all over your case you point out you know i i think i've been okay like the way i've been acting towards you how about extending the same courtesy to me um you know and uh uh and go from there i mean this is not gonna be a quick fix yeah yeah okay cynthia thank you so much uh god bless you and your daughter hope that all uh works out well for you it's called a communion here on ewtn if you love this show you want to tell people about it well you may want to uh either refer yourself or them to the ewtn podcast page you know we now post uh 11 podcasts every day every day and over 60 in a week if you uh if you go there you will never miss out on any of your favorite ewtn programs and they're all absolutely free here's what you do go to ewtn.com radio slash podcasts you can listen you can subscribe check out the latest maybe you missed yesterday's show it'll be there waiting for you so do check all that out by going to ewtn.com radio slash podcasts it is called a communion here on ewtn we've got a line open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 david we got a great email here from cyrus he says in the new testament st james seems to be top dog in terms of running the show in the early church well given that the keys of heaven were given to saint peter and he seems to be a conversion machine like saint paul what's up with that yeah thanks so i don't really think the new testament depicts saint james as top dog i think what you are seeing is evidence of an internal conflict in the early church that's well attested in scripture between um hebraic and hellenistic jews and we know from the book of acts that this is the this was the neuralgic issue right that led to the creation of deacons the hebraic jews were kind of holding it out against the hellenistic jews giving them a hard time there was kind of racism in the early christian community and there was a circle in jerusalem of the hebraic sect that that had been personally associated with jesus they hung out with him some of them were his cousins in st james one of them and they took the attitude that hey you know we were cousins jesus we're here in jerusalem and we're you know we're the top we we are they may have thought they were the top dogs right you know they had this kind of attitude this sort of hubris and so much so that they started sending around to the hellenistic churches and saying well you know you guys have to be like us and you have to follow the mosaic law and they really call us to stink so they're kind of a problem you know and uh and paul i mean he goes after these guys big time in the book of galatians and he says i don't care who you are i don't care i don't care who you know right don't care that's not the gospel this is not about you know you've got to follow the law of moses and i don't care if you came from james all right that's not the way this goes um but but peter's a different story because peter is part of this group he's one of the disciples he's come up with christ and jesus singles him out he didn't single out james all right he singles out peter says you're the guy you're the man you're the bomb you're the rock and on this rock i'll build my church yep and then what happens to peter after that i mean i'm talking about after the ascension well peter's hanging out with james and the others and he's you know not eating pork and staying off the shellfish and avoiding the hellenistic people then god sends him this vision of all these unclean animals in a sheep let down from heaven and voice comes and says peter kill and eat peter says oh not me god and he says no what i have declared clean you're not to call unclean and immediately a guy knocks at his door and says there's a roman centurion that wants you to come eat with him and he goes and says i would have said no before but god has shown me i can't call what he's declared clean unclean right and it leads to the conversion of cornelius and the inclusion of the gentiles and the hellenists into that family of the christian church and so peter stands up at the council of jerusalem and he's face to face with the party from james the hebraic jews the mosaic law guys and they go this way we think it needs to happen and peter says uh guys you got it wrong let me show you what the lord has shown me and they said peter's right peter's right and then what does the council declare it seems good to the holy spirit and to us and they give out the petron decision there we are cyrus thank you so much for your email great question uh let's go now to uh al in portland oregon listening on the great modern day radio al what's on your mind today how you doing uh what i don't understand is i hear you say that mary was a virgin her entire life i never found that in the bible but what i have seen is that the bible said that joseph did not know mary until after jesus was born yeah so can you tell me where i can find that at yeah absolutely yeah i got several things to say about this the first one is why would a christian doctrine have to be in the bible in order to be believed jesus never told us limit your christian belief to only what you can find in the bible jesus never said that on the contrary when jesus instructed the apostles to teach the faith he doesn't reference the bible he references his own oral tradition matthew 28 says go into all nations teach him everything i've commanded you he didn't say teach them what you find in these books of the bible he said teach everything i've commanded you everything he taught was oral all of it so st paul when he talks about the deposit of faith he says the tradition i receive from the lord i hand on to you not the text not the book i received from the but the tradition i received from the lord and hand on to you and that has always been the way of the christian faith the bible that we have today was compiled by the catholic church 400 years well 380 years maybe 350. after the ascension of jesus it was put together as a product of catholic tradition so when a when a catholic goes to think about the content of the christian faith he does look at the bible as a product of catholic tradition but he looks at the whole tradition the whole tradition that which is written down as well as that which is passed on orally and in liturgy and prayer and devotion in the church so it's not necessary for some doctrine to be found in the bible in order for it to be divinely revealed and to be sure the perpetual virginity of mary is a catholic tradition from the earliest days and has always been believed everywhere always by christians throughout the world but we also find hints of it in the bible and that does go to your question in gospel of luke of course when the angel gabriel comes to the blessed virgin and says you're gonna have a baby and she's look she's betrothed to be married to joseph and she knows where babies come from and her response to the angel is how can this be how can this be she she she utters surprise well she's not dumb she's about to get married she knows where babies come from why is she surprised why is she surprised the fathers of the church all find in her surprise evidence for her vow of perpetual virginity the earliest evidence we have about saint joseph himself suggests that he was a much much much much older man there's actually an early document about saint joseph that suggests he might have been as old as 90. wow and she was probably 14. and his attitude towards her was much more one of kind of you know solicitude and care and custodianship rather than romantic interest and it makes perfect sense within that context that mary would utter surprise at the angels enunciation but there's a there's a deeper theological reason that we would also hold to the perpetual virginity of mary you know uh our first mother our mother after the flesh eve said no to god and it led to the ruin of the human race mary says yes to god be it done to me according to thy will and it leads to the salvation of the human race the incarnation of the son of god in christ christ is the second adam we're born in the natural way through adam and eve and our parents we are reborn spiritually in christ and so mary in a sense becomes like our spiritual mother now the book of the bible says this about her in the book of revelation chapter 12 it says that she is the mother of all of those who believe in jesus but it's it's not natural maternity it's not physical parturition it's spiritual rebirth and so it's fitting it's fitting that the mother of our redemption would in her own person express the heights of this spirituality this total consecration to god that is the life of perpetual virginity now christ himself was perpetually virgin jesus did not have a wife saint paul tells us that this life of consecrated virginity is the most perfect way the one who is called to this life should live it because he can give himself entirely to the work of lord jesus says this is a grace given to a few in matthew chapter 19. and so it's fitting that this icon of perfect sanctity the blessed virgin mary our spiritual mother would live that vocation of perfect chastity and perpetual virginity as a symbol for us to imitate in our own lives of chastity and of course as i said it's also confirmed by the teaching of catholic tradition now with respect to your question about the text in saint matthew's gospel that joseph had no relations with her until he took her into his house the there's a there's a greek preposition that we translate in english as until it is the greek word ha-os in the english language the word until sometimes suggests a change of state like you know you're doing this up until and then you're doing that yeah ha-has in greek does not necessarily convey that sense but merely you know uh continuation and time up to but not necessarily change in state so for example there's a text in the new testament where saint paul uses that word and says make sure you continue with the reading of scripture until i come not at all indicating that they should stop reading scripture after he comes right right but just like hey while you're waiting on me make sure you're reading the bible and that's the sense in which the preposition is used here in the greek language in the in saint matthew's gospel the point of it is to teach that mary was a virgin when christ was conceived period okay appreciate that al thanks so much for your call let's go from portland to seattle and talk with janice watching us today on youtube we just have a few minutes here janice what's on your mind today well hello um i have a granddaughter that just turned eight that's turning 18. she called me and asked me if i could send her a bible uh none of the grandchildren are baptized except for one i have six grandchildren and she they they don't know the lord two of the grand boys are 14 i would like to send them bibles as well and i would like some suggestions on um what bibles to send them okay thanks yeah so i i you know any bible is a good one um you know if they're very young often illustrated bibles are attractive to children you know and with with the little kids even a you know like a picture bible that doesn't contain all the text but just says select stories is often good i imagine the ewtn religious catalog would be a good place to look you know absolutely so that's what i have to say okay hey janice thank you so much for your call let's uh go out with this one this is an email from jacob in paragraph 2116 of the catechism the church condemns casting lots but in acts 1 26 it says that the apostles cast lots to determine who should replace judas this seems contradictory to me and even maybe hypocritical what are we to make of this yeah thanks well notice that in the book of acts the last time they cast lots is before pentecost all right once the spirit comes every authoritative decision that the apostles make they refer to guidance of the holy spirit and to church councils and to sacred tradition and the teaching of our lord so they don't do it anymore and i think that that's by design in luke's gospel i think he's drawing a contrast that he wants us to notice between how they were making decisions before pentecost and how they were making decisions after pentecost okay very good and a final one here from toning in the philippines david uh could you please explain the association of the mark of the beast 666 in revelation with emperor nero yeah so gematria is what we call this ancient practice of indicating numbers by uh designating letters of the alphabet anybody that's ever learned roman numerals understands that but a lot of ancient languages did that and there's a good deal of evidence that that's the identification with nero not only from the greek texts of of the book of revelation but in the syriac renditions of the new testament the numbers are actually changed so that they match up with nero showing that early christians had an understanding that was what was being indicated and uh so you know how do we respond to that today of what significance is that for us well you know nero represents a type of tyrannical political power and that the beast of the sea the beast of the earth in revelation represent corrupt either political and religious power that that rule for their own self-aggrandizement rather than the common good well that's a pretty perennial problem oh yeah we see that today and so you know st james says that you know there are lots of antichrists that have come and we're always confronting these types in our in our public experience we have to be on guard as christians not be drawn into that tony glad you're listening to us in the philippines hey dr david anders thank you so much well thanks tom don't forget we do the program here on ewtn radio 2 pm eastern each and every monday through friday with an encore at 11 pm eastern on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you next time here on ewtn's call to communion god bless you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,225

Rating: 4.7777777 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: Kz-kTcbRAB4

Length: 54min 25sec (3265 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021