Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - March 29, 2021

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 everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn it's the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters like the lady just said what's stopping you from becoming a catholic that's the theme of the show a program for our non-catholic listeners so do give us a call if you would like to uh get those questions answered here's our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six now if you're listening to us uh outside of north america please dial the us country code and then 205 271 2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and if you're watching us on tv today you can participate as well our email address ctc at ewtn.com ctc ewtn.com charles berry is our producer ryan penny is our phone screener and jeff burson is on social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live jeff will pass that on to us here in the studio just put that question of yours in the comments box i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you sir oh i'm doing fine thank you got a couple of great emails to lead us off here today this one is from zach you frequently say that jesus never wrote anything well didn't he inspire the authors of sacred scripture did jesus inspire the authors of the sake of scripture so the sacred scripture itself says that the spirit of god inspired the sacred writers now in this sense i think i know where you're going and i'm going to agree with you um the church father origin origin of alexandria begins his treatise on the christian faith by saying that christians have to adhere to the teaching of jesus and then he immediately goes on to say but we're not just restricting that to the content of the four gospels or you know the red letter version of the gospels yeah but but in fact to everything that is conveyed in canonical scripture and and the divine logos the spirit that inspires all people right to to to reason and compassion and justice in a sense christ is behind all of those things so yeah i would agree with you now the context in which i often make that remark is in dialoguing the protestants about the doctrine of solo scriptura and the question is did christ ever specify to us that the bible that we have today especially the 27 books of the new testament did christ ever indicate that those books should be for the church its rule of faith did he ever say well if you have a question about the christian faith or morality just consult these books and that's all you need well neither did the historical christ say that during his earthly ministry nor did the spirit of christ inspire the prophets to say any such thing there's just no revelation through directly from jesus or through the prophets or from the apostles that ever indicates to us that the 27 books of the canonical new testament should be the church's rule of faith on the contrary there is very specific teaching from jesus about how christians are to form their faith namely on the basis of his sacred tradition and the teaching authority of the catholic church christ when he gave the command to hand on the deposit of faith he did not say go into all nations and hand them a book he said go into all nations and teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teaching teaching teaching that's what magisterium means everything i have commanded you which is his oral tradition and i will be with you to the end of the age a promise of divine assistance attached to the teaching office of the catholic church as it conveys the deposit of christ the deposit of faith received from christ okay very good and uh zach thank you so much for your email here's one that is right on point for this show this is from a listener named david david david says i feel as if everything is pointing me in the direction of the catholic church i am currently a protestant i am nervous though because i am actually going to seek out my local catholic parish very soon am i allowed to take part in communion with the parish i am attending or do certain criteria need to be met before i can officially partake thanks david yeah thanks no no you have to be admitted to holy communion by the church you can't take it upon yourself um now if the process is a little bit different depending on whether or not you've already been baptized if you have not been baptized then you have to enter the order of catechumens and receive formal instruction in the faith and be baptized and made a catholic if you have been validly baptized say in another christian denomination the church recognizes most of protestant baptisms as valid and so you are a christian already but one who's not yet in full communion with the church so then you become a candidate rather than a catechumen and you still receive instruction make a profession of faith and then you'll make your first confession of sin prior to receiving holy communion and there's a there's an order to do that you know across the year if you enter the rite of christian initiation for adults you'll be given instruction so the way forward for you is not just to start attending the parish and taking communion go to the parish start going to mass yeah but then let the the priests and the church office know that you would like to receive instruction and be received into the church and they'll direct you to the ministry of rcia or the right of christian initiation for adults that's all there is to it david thank you for your email it's uh let's do one more here before we go to break this is from pillar you said on the show that we need to wish for fallen angels to be punished can you please elaborate why i wish not the right word wish not the right word um so we should desire justice we should desire justice sure right we want to will what god wills and and justice means that god renders to each one according to his due and uh and in fact even in our own case we should wish for justice right and and that means that we want the rectitude in our own will that is lacking when we sin and we would will for ourselves we ought to will for ourselves the corrective measures that would bring about that rectitude and uh and likewise if we've defrauded someone or done something against the order of justice we would will to restore that order as however we could and we would will that for other rational agents as well and so you know it we angels lack the ability fallen angels lack the ability to repent right i mean the fallen angels are permanently fallen they're not going to turn and begin to worship god so the only good for them that we can will is the good that they get what is actually in according to their own actions and that is the divine justice okay very good well we thank you for your email and if you would like to send us an email for a future show here is the address ctc at ewtn.com but you know what we're taking your calls right now and those are live at 833 288 ewtn 833-288-3986 it's called to communion here on ewtn to stay with us on the next catholic connection with teresa tamio we do our very best at catholic connection to keep you connected to the church with interviews on issues that matter issues that impact our everyday lives as catholics in the world but not of the world whether it's featuring the latest from the front lines of the pro-life movement or the culture war that continues to range around us we will give you the tools to help you stay faithful as well as make a difference catholic 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family minute dot [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn for call to communion that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six going to continue with a couple of emails here as we're getting some of these call screen here's one now from seth who says you answered a question recently by saying that we are brothers and sisters in christ with protestants through baptism well would catholics have called the other great heresies such as gnosticism aryanism pelagianism and nestorianism would we have called those brothers and sisters in christ um yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so we need to really make a distinction between between protestantism and gnosticism you just can't lump them into the same category um and uh uh you know ancient gnosticism was the complete transgression the utter inversion of the major premises of the catholic religion and and it was intentionally that way and deceptively that way what i mean is ancient gnostics rejected the whole edifice of of catholic sacraments and hierarchy and doctrine um and uh i'm even down to rejecting the the goodness of the catholic god which they associated rather with the devil i mean it was just the the utter rejection and repediation of catholicism through and through and yet they would pose as catholics in public and and seem to have catholic congregations for the purpose for the specific purpose of drawing catholics away from the catholic church into their gnostic clutches after which time they would unveil their quote-unquote mysteries and secrets and and uh and steal a soul right and so it was just a very pernicious extremely transgressive movement and this is one of the first major heresies that the fathers confronted and they recognized that we're not bedfellows with these people at all i mean they're really just a complete rejection of everything we stand for um the um uh you know with respect to arianism and historianism um you know aries came up as a as a catholic cleric and initially in his uh in his work he was trying to do theology and come up with a rational i should say rationalistic explanation for the unity of god and the divinity of jesus and uh he wasn't comfortable with mystery and so he he he sort of diminished the divinity of christ to retain the unity of god and he was you know teaching this stuff publicly and he was really trying to promote his his own idiosyncratic opinions he was even writing little ditties and songs he was sitting out through alexandria putting on the top 40 list to get people interested in songs really yeah yeah he he like probably rhymed in greek it doesn't rhyme with he used to have people saying there was a time when he was not yeah because he uh right for the reference to christ suggesting jesus was a creature uh that christ had had a beginning in time which course is false and uh and of course the bishops sort of caught into this and they said no that's not what we think that's not what we think you know and uh and of course aries just doubled down he didn't respect the sacred tradition or or religious authority and so he really made himself pernicious in the eyes of the church and eventually his position was repudiated by the council of nicaea and the aryan party still didn't back down even after that but they continued to fight and argue for claiming the catholic mantle claiming that theirs was the catholic faith and so the church had to really radically differentiate the orthodox doctrine from these interlopers that were trying to reinterpret the meaning of the faith from within imposes catholic bishops now you know early in the reformation you did have something kind of similar you had people who were like luther was a catholic priest brought up within the the catholic church school in theology and he presented his novel doctrines as a legitimate interpretation of catholicism as such and calvin as well john calvin had a very keen awareness a sense of himself as being having a certain office or mission within the one holy catholic apostolic church that led to him placing himself essentially in the role of the pope as the interpreter of the tradition and uh and really intentionally trying to uh to sort of deform the church from within so the church had to again radically differentiate itself from that position and go no that's not the christian faith that's not the catholic position the council of trent did that now is that the same situation of somebody who uh you know like take my baptist granddaddy who was born in the early 1900s and probably never met a catholic for the first 50 years of his life and knew no expression of christianity other than the baptist faith that he was raised in the bible that was given to him and through no fault of his own and with good faith sought to know god from the words of sacred scripture and to the extent that he knew anything about catholics at all he was given a stereotype um and a political stereotype that he'd inherited from you know 500 years ago and never had the wherewithal or the education to test that uh that stereotype now pius ix specifically addressed that question how should we regard these kinds of protestants people who were brought up in a tradition that by now is centuries old who through no fault of their own they didn't come from the heart of the catholic church and reject its authority from within and try to reformulate a religion in their own image they're really trying to respond in good faith to the truth the elements of truth and sanctification that uh that they've been given in their own tradition do they are they really like the ancient gnostics in their character or or the the pelagians or the aryans who had this very sort of defiant you know rejection of ecclesial authority they're really not in the same boat because they are probably invincibly ignorant and so instead of taking this sort of deeply oppositional political stance and demeaning them we can be grateful for the elements of truth and sanctification that they have access to and i'll take my baptist granddaddy as an example he was a fine individual he was a loving person and he sought to love god and do right by his neighbor really to a kind of heroic extent i mean he was way ahead of his time in terms of where alabama was in the you know 1940s and 50s with respect to racial justice and things like that he was tremendously far-sighted in fact one of the last things he ever said to me on his deathbed was asking he said please ask you know the the the black folks uh to forgive us because we as a people didn't treat them well that was the kind of but he did i mean he treated joel right that's the kind of guy he was right and uh and and so the church says you look at the elements of truth and sanctification that these protestant brothers and sisters have access to and you give thanks for that celebrate it and then you that becomes a launching off pat really uh forces impelling towards catholic unity and of course that was true in my own case it was the the good things that i got from my protestant parents and education that led me ultimately to the fullness of truth in the catholic church seth thank you so much for your question we really appreciate that if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin today with fran in libertyville illinois listening on ewtn television a first-time caller hello fran what's on your mind today well i have um thank you first of all for taking my call um i have been listening to uh your show for uh since this pandemic started and i want to say that i think that both of you do a wonderful great job thank you now when i um was listening about a week or so ago dr andrews was trying to explain to somebody about the host or the eucharist and he said and um and repeated this several times that the host of the eucharist is a symbol and that is the false statement the host is god and when i go to receive holy communion i believe i'm receiving god and not just a symbol of god so i think that he maybe made a mistake or i want to say he makes a mistake because he is really very excellent and so i just want to tell you that that i can't sleep at night because i keep saying that i've got to tell you this that uh that that is wrong to say and to the to thousands of people who listen to you yeah friend thank you so much i really appreciate the question so uh you are absolutely correct you are absolutely correct and we affirm i affirm and we at ewtn affirm the catholic doctrine on the eucharist which is that in receiving holy communion we are truly receiving really receiving the body and blood soul and divinity of jesus christ who is the god man and uh we're not just receiving a symbol of christ's body and blood but his actual body and blood the doctrine of transubstantiation namely that when the priest utters the words of consecration the bread and wine literally become the substance of christ's body and blood that is the catholic faith that's our profession that is my belief and that is what we teach amen but you will notice you will notice that the body and blood of christ though truly present really present are present in an unusual way because to our senses they do not seem to be body and blood but they look like bread and wine and the church refers to this as the the accidents the properties of bread and wine remain while the substance of christ's body and blood are made present and uh and so we're left with the question well why not you know why not be manifest in uh with the appearance of body and blood why why the appearance of bread and wine and and what the church teaches us is that yes it is christ's real body and blood but the but the accidents themselves the appearance of bread and one have a function they serve a function and the church does actually use the word symbol to describe this function now a symbol is a is a is a is a token a sign that indicates something else and something more profound and so the appearances of bread and wine do indicate something that goes beyond mere bread and wine in that sense they do have a symbolizing function though though they are not only symbols and and and since they do have that symbolic function we actually can derive a number of insights about the nature of our relationship to god now one of them is the the sight of the sacred host seeing it conveys to my mind the idea i am about to receive the body and blood of jesus i mean as a token as a sign as a symbol of participation of communion in christ it indicates that relationship to me and then in fact it delivers it and so it's not only a symbol the reality is contained within the symbol right right there are other things that are symbolized not symbols only but that are indicated to my consciousness to my awareness one of them is in saint paul uses this in first corinthians chapter 10 he says when we partake of the one loaf and he's here speaking of the eucharist even though we know it's not really a loaf it's really christ but he uses that language he says we partake of the one love we are made one body now in the dedicate which is a very early christian text a liturgical manual a book of church order it actually says in the same way that bread is made into one unit by combining all these different grains of wheat so we as the members of christ's body are brought together like so many grains of wheat into the one loaf and so our participation in christ but also our participation in one another as members of christ's body are indicated to us by this sacred sign which is the eucharist now here's another thing that's indicated by the the symbolic nature of the eucharist which again it's not only a symbol it really is christ's body and blood but it does have this signifying power is the separation of christ's body from his blood and this is seen most clearly in the consecration of the two elements of bread and wine displayed for us in a state of separation now this is one of the most sublime and interesting reasons why christ gives us himself under the appearance under the sign of bread and wine and not just you know letting us see a hunk of flesh sitting there because we know that the participation we have in christ's body when we go to communion and we receive the real presence of christ we are not receiving a dead christ we're receiving a living christ a glorified christ in whom body and blood are not separate so if you were privileged to be taken up into heaven and and and look at jesus right now you got the whole jesus intact in in in entire not separated his body from his blood not broken and bleeding but glorified and that's the way we receive him we receive this glorified jesus but we call the mass the priest in the words of the eucharistic prayer refers to the mass as the memorial of his death and resurrection so the sacrifice of the mass calls to our mind his death on calvary and one of the ways that it does that is by displaying for us in a symbolic manner the separation of his body from blood through the double consecration bread over here wine over here shows christ forth in a state of victimhood that's the language that pope pius xii uses in his encyclical on the eucharist mediatra dei all right now again is he really truly present in the eucharist yes absolutely 100 percent but is it also a symbol yes and as a symbol it conveys lots of information to us that inform our act of faith and help us to draw closer to god so we never deny the real presence of christ in the eucharist but we also affirm that it is both the real presence and a powerful symbol that teaches us fran thank you so much for your call we hope that clarifies it for you that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 398 a question from ryan watching on youtube what are some of the key differences between the united church of christ and the catholic church i met someone in the ucc i would like to be able to discuss catholicism with them yes thanks i appreciate the question so the united church of christ has its origins in uh in the the the christian church movement of the 19th century alexander campbell barton stone were theologians instrumental in that and they that their attitude was one that was intensely primitivist meaning that they wanted to reject all vestiges of tradition and attempt to reformulate christianity um based on a very radical interpretation of the protestant doctrine of sola scriptura lutheran calvin early protestants believed in the bible alone but they did think that you could approach the bible through the writings of the church fathers and they would nod to tradition when it suited them alexander campbell took a much more radical view and said he wanted to read the bible as if no one had ever read it before now that's the origin that doesn't get me to their present state which i'll have to come to after the break we'll do that and uh ryan sit tight we'll get to the rest of your question in just a moment here on ewtn's call to communion looks like two lines open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's for 833-288-3986 to communion in this year of saint joseph join us and make the 33-day consecration to saint joseph tonight nine eastern after the rosary with father groeschel on ewtn radio 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen peace be to you what is prayer well the best definition of prayer is that it is a lifting of the mind and the heart to god to make it more simple prayer is a dialogue man breaks silence in two ways a dialogue with his fellow man and a dialogue with god my dialogue with a fellow man is a proof that he is a person and so am i the same is implied in the dialogue with god and both of these dialogues are fulfilled in the two commandments love god and love neighbor the people you know and trust are on ewtn now not only can you watch ewtn anywhere but anytime with ewtn on demand get on demand access to more than 12 000 ewtn programs including live shows and specials all in one place all free just go to ewtn.com forward slash on demand there's nothing to fill out no memberships required and no fees to pay all you need is an internet connection and you're good to go ewtn on demand fast easy and free tomorrow on more to life finding god struggling in your faith having a hard time experiencing god's love knowing his will or accepting his mercy let us help that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion it's ewtn's call to communion what is stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on the program with dr david anders our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six before we go back to the phones uh we were uh tackling a question here from ryan who wanted to know some of the key differences between the united church of christ and the catholic church yep so mayor culpa mayor copeland mayor culpa i i left off the united part in my in my mind right there is a church of christ tradition and i began to describe that tradition the united church of christ things get really different animals there's a different animal it comes out of another tradition so disregard what i said before the break united church of christ result early 20th century merger of a couple different pro mainline protestant denominations with roots both in congregationalism and in and in lutheranism um so it's kind of a mishmash of some historic protestant trends today united church of christ is characterized by little not not in every case they're independent congregations but overall by what you would kind of consider sort of a liberal progressive uh moral and theological agenda right and um and so on a lot of moral issues they would they would definitely track far to the left of the catholic church on things like homosexual marriage and abortion and things like that they would definitely not see eye to eye with catholics um but uh also on other sort of historic differences between protestants and catholics they would not see eye to eye with catholics so for example i mean principle difference between all protestants and catholics is the nature of religious authority and catholics following the teaching of jesus hold that christ gave us founded the church gave the church a mandate to teach the deposit of faith and promised his divine assistance and that he said what he meant he meant what he said and so when christ founded the church on saint peter and gave the apostles that command to celebrate the sacraments and teach the faith and that he would be with the church to the end of the age that that that actually took place and that the the catholic church is the continuation of that ministry of the apostles down for 2000 years protestants beginning with martin luther uh took a completely different line and they they hold that the rule of faith for the church is not the teaching office of the catholic bishops but rather the bible a book that christ never mentioned never made any reference to um the bible that we have today that is and uh and so they take their stand on the bible alone that's a doctrine that martin luther made up uh another difference between all protestant denominations and catholics has to do with the way we're saved how we come to be in heaven with god and catholic faith finding itself on the teaching of jesus holds that blessed are the poor and spirit and the meek and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and the pure in heart the beatitudes the sermon on the mouth the teaching of jesus described the inner life of the disciples of christ and that by obedience to him his teaching and following his life and being being actually joined him in baptism and conformed to his image that we're made participants in the divine nature and able to be saved and christ can say to us on the last day well done good and faithful servant because we've been participants in him and in his grace and and done his will throughout our life and said we're sorry when we're wrong and been forgiven and continued and persevered onto the end that's the way catholics understand salvation most protestants have a different account of salvation and hold that salvation is by faith alone faith alone and that jesus counts you as righteous even though you remain objectively sinful and all you have to do is believe and you'll be saved even though jesus never said all you have to do is believe he actually gave quite a lot of commands for us to follow gave the apostles the command teach them everything i've commanded so we hold the teaching of jesus about that that's another major difference between those traditions all right there you go ryan thanks so much for watching us on youtube it's called to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn going now to teresa in california hey there theresa what's on your mind today okay um i just returned to the catholic church a year ago after being away for 55 years my family left the catholic church right after i got my first confirmation at age seven and so it took me all this time to to get back there and i'm the only one in my family that's returned so now i'm trying to convert my family and especially my children who i basically raised without religion at all and the problem i'm having is i need a good book to recommend for people who are kind of agnostic they claim to be spiritual but they kind of want to make up their own religion they want to they want they say if all these religions in this world can't be wrong i can just make up my own and it and it'll be right so what book can i give them that will help to guide them in the right direction yeah thanks well there are lots of wonderful books uh in the catholic tradition and and you know to say which one am i going to start with um you know a life of christ might be a place to begin i mean these are people who who are indifferent about the religion that they follow and they haven't yet encountered the uniqueness of jesus as someone with whom they have to uh they have to do business and you know uh pope benedict the 16th book jesus of nazareth is uh you know is an interesting text to begin with um uh guardini's uh the lord um fulton's life of christ many of these places kind of encounter the teaching of jesus now um the the anglican writer c.s lewis wrote a book called mere christianity that in a lot of respects is amenable to catholics and in fact has been known to convert some people to catholicism um is a probably even more readable place to begin and and that might that's that's that's a pretty easy bridge for a lot of people who haven't considered christianity at all have gotten a lot of good out of c s lewis and well he's not pointing to catholicism specifically his his faith was uh pretty pretty commensurate with catholics in a lot of ways and so that's that's been a helpful book uh the works of of peter creft um uh catholic philosopher have been of great help to a lot of people transitioning from no faith to you know sort of a first consideration of the possibility of god and and christian belief frank sheed famous catholic apologist early 20th century anything that frank sheed has to say is a often a good place to begin um and don't undervalue the witness of your own life and you know as you grow closer to the lord and closer to the faith in the church uh as jesus self himself said let your light shine before men don't take don't put it under a bushel but uh let your good works uh give glory to your father in heaven and and also i would encourage you is admirable that you wish to evangelize to your family you don't have the obligation of converting them you know jesus said no one can come to me unless the father draw him and christ himself was seen seemingly kind of unconcerned when he would put the truth out there to people and some folks would turn and walk away and not accept it they would say this is a hard teaching and he would go yeah it is that's right you know and uh and the apostles you know they he's turned to them and goes you guys gonna leave too you know he he jesus was about living and teaching the truth uh but he said let let him who has ears to hear hear yes and uh and and you you can't you can't turn a person's mind just with argument alone and you can't make them will the good you can't get in there and will on their behalf so unburden yourself of uh you know as if you had an obligation to convert them you can't convert people you can witness to the truth god is the one that does the converting wow teresa some great resources there including your own uh personal testimony thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go now to uh chuck in bardstown kentucky listening on holy family radio a first-time caller hey chuck what's on your mind today afternoon guys um i was thinking listening to your show is you know my wife is catholic went through you know catholic school system and all that and my mother was catholic so well i go to church with him i've never been baptized but i didn't believe in jesus jesus lord jesus you know and my question basically is how hard is it to be that time it's about as hard as getting rained on it's not very hard to get baptized and and i would strongly advise you to seek baptism as soon as possible because you know saint peter if you read the book of acts chapter two the people said to saint peter so what shall we do peter said repent and be baptized repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of your sins baptism brings the remission of sin washes away all the sins that we've committed up until that time also makes us members of christ's body the church you know if we're not baptized we can go to church we can be edified we can learn things we can pray but we're kind of there as spectators you know if you really want to enter into what's going on in the mass and receive christ in holy communion and have access to all the sacraments baptism is the door that makes all of that possible tremendous graces and benefits come from baptism saint paul says we die with christ in baptism and are raised again with him to new life and we want that for you and i hope that you would want it too and so i would say thing to do is just call up the church and say you know i've been coming to mass with my wife for a long time never been baptized i'd like to get on that train and they'll make it happen absolutely chuck thank you so much for your call glad that you're listening in bardstown call to communion here on ewtn as you know or as you probably know if you've been listening to us for a while you know that we love the holy sacrifice of the mass and we love that we can bring it to you every day right here on ewtn 8 a.m eastern live seven days a week every day on ewtn radio and television and here's something very exciting for us to be sure that you don't miss out we can send you a link to your email inbox every day just visit ewtn.com and click on subscribe then you'll see all sorts of things that you can subscribe to one of them being the holy sacrifice of the mass so uh check that out ewtn.com let's go to martin right now in bristol tennessee listening on ewtn television a first time caller hey there martin what's on your mind today i want to ask if baptism by pouring is morally acceptable i was raised in a protestant denomination and i've been i've been a catholic for almost 40 years 41 years now uh the denomination i was raised in practice uh baptism by immersion so um is baptism by pouring acceptable or just yeah thanks i appreciate the question so uh uh baptism by by pouring water over the head of the one to be baptized is acceptable and that's the way the catholic church does it um you know the important thing is to get the water on the scalp and the priest says what the celebrant says in the name of baptizing the name of the father son and holy spirit and of course jesus himself never indicated that there was some normative rubric for the way you baptize me it just leaves the question undefined if you actually study the scriptures the word baptism etymologically means to you know basically take a bath get get dunked but the etymology of a word is not the meaning of a word right and if you actually look at the earliest uh images of christians being baptized or christ's own baptism they they never depict or almost never depict immersion they usually depict pouring so you know somebody would stand in the jordan river and john the baptist you know takes a conch shell or something and dumps some order on your head uh no indication that dunking was the normative practice in ancient christianity and of course the church has a long historical memory and that's one of the benefits of being catholic we have access to catholic tradition and uh and there's there's never been a rubric handed down by sacred tradition from christ to the apostles that insists on on immersion now uh immersion is okay i mean you can you can certainly immerse that's a valid form of baptism but doesn't have to be immersion okay very good and uh thank you martin for your call glad that you're listening to us in bristol call to communion here on ewtn let's go to maurice in omaha now listening on the great spirit catholic radio a first time caller hey maurice what's on your mind today i had a question for dr anders um i had a non-catholic ask me this they said it was a stumbling block i wanted to know is it proper to say that the catholics believe that mary is omnipotent by grace where jesus was omnipotent by nature they were citing something from saint thomas aquinas and i'd never heard that before yeah thanks so you know i i you know the thing about the scholastic definitions is they're very specific and they usually rule out they usually tell you exactly what they mean and they rule out alternatives right so it really would depend on what you mean by omnipotent okay uh clearly mary does not have the kind of omnipotence that we would ascribe to god certainly not i mean god can create out of nothing blessed virgin mary cannot create out of nothing right she's not off creating little universes or something right so she doesn't have divine omnipotence uh but she gets what she asks for in prayer i mean her prayers are like 100 percent efficacious yes she but she also only asks for god's will yeah so you know she is constrained by the limits of the divine will jesus's prayer be it done you know not my will but thine be done her prayer the annunciation be it done to me according to thy word the lord's prayer thy will be done that's mary's prayer and she always gets exactly what she asks for but she only ever asks for what god wills great question maurice appreciate your call today here on ewtn's call to communion i just got something from alexander watching us on youtube today alexander says what is the catholic teaching for the rosary isn't it just the repetition of a prayer yeah thanks i really appreciate the question uh no the rosary is not just the repetition of a prayer now some people object to the rosary because it is repetitious and it to be sure it's repetitious um because they remember that jesus said don't be like the pagans who think they'll be heard because of their many words now jesus actually never condemned repetitive prayer he condemned being like pagans who think they will be heard because of their many words right he couldn't have condemned repetitive prayer because he commanded repetitive prayer when the disciples said teach us to pray the lord did not answer well just say whatever comes into your head he actually said when you pray pray like this and he gave us a formula called the lord's prayer the our father you've prayed it twice you're praying repetitive prayer in christians of all denominations have prayed the lord's prayer daily well that's pretty repetitive and the lord actually commands it um but not only that the psalms which are the prayer book of the church and of israel we are tremendously repetitive prayers psalm 36 i mean how many times you ever gone to sleep saying his love endures forever his love endures forever his love and tears forever it's a very very very repetitive psalm given by divine inspiration so repetition is not the problem repetition is not the problem the problem is thinking you'll be heard because of your many words you remember the story of the prophets of baal and elijah and the prophets of baal you know they they're trying to call down fire on their sacrifice and so they're hooting and they're hollering and they're slashing themselves and they're dancing around and playing the tambourines and turning all the instruments up to 11 and they're just carrying on like anything and nothing happens well that's a good demonstration a good illustration of the kind of prayer that's not efficacious st james however james chapter 5 gives us the formula for prayer that is efficacious he says you know the prayer of a righteous man avails much now what is the point of the rosary first of all is it just a single prayer well actually no it's quite a few prayers all tucked in together so we do pray the hell mary pray the lord's prayer pray the glory be catholics have since added the prayer of the from the fatima children pray the creed so we pray a lot of prayers in the rosary and and combine them with meditations reflections on moments in the life of christ and uh and of our lady so it's actually intended to be a contemplative meditative prayer where through the repetition of the prayers we actually come to to a sort of stillness of heart or we place ourselves in the divine presence and that's really the essence of prayer it's just being alone with god in our interior life and the great masters of prayer who who commend the rosary will tell you you know if you're praying your rosary and you find yourself sort of slipping into a sort of deep contemplation of god or one of the mysteries it's perfectly okay to put the rosary down and sit there and rest in that in that deeper engagement in god because that's the ultimate end of all prayer is that we might pass deeper and deeper into our awareness and love of god and these other things are tools that we use they're not magical formulas uh that compel god's activity their their their gifts the church has given us that deep in our own interior life and our own participation in him so that's that's uh you know the rosary is a devotion that emerged in the middle ages uh and honestly it was sort of an imitation of the psalter he got 150 psalms and medieval catholics had introduced a prayer a devotional prayer with 150 petitions to our lady because many of illiterate like catholics didn't have access or couldn't pray the 150 psalms like the monks were doing and they said hey we want to get on on that we like what you guys are doing give us one and so they came up with the rosaries a way for lay people to do that very good alexander thanks for watching us today on youtube call to communion here on ewtn before we roll on david since i know that you are a guitarist and you mentioned turning it up to 11. have you ever turned it up to 11 well you know my my amp doesn't go to 11. understood here's an email now from daniel who says in the gospels jesus promises to grant our petitions if we ask rightly persistent prayer refrain from sin and have faith etc so why then do so many especially in the clergy and even during the masses prayers of the faithful speak and pray as if it may be or likely isn't god's will to heal people instead of praying for healing they pray for jesus to console them or to give them strength to bear it and they ask if it's according to your will any thoughts there david yeah probably because so many people don't get healed um i mean that'd be my i mean this is not like a formula the church doesn't instruct like whenever you pray for healing make sure you qualify it i mean that's not what the church teaches us specifically to do but i mean as an empirical fact most prayers for miraculous healing seem to be unanswered i mean we got a lot of sick people going to mass right and all denominations and undeniably the expectation that i have a right to demand physical healing right now and that if i utter the prayer with just the right qualifiers that that god will necessarily heal me and that that is the position that some christian denominations take especially in the pentecostal tradition well that that's not that prayer actually is no more answered than the than the qualified prayer of these priests you're talking about what it does do it it breeds an awful lot of disappointment in in the minds of people who aren't healed i mean i remember i knew a lady one time who who was handicapped disabled from diabetes and nearly blonde and didn't have her feet and it was just in bad shape uh but her worst suffering was this expectation that if only she had had enough faith god would have healed her and so she blamed herself for her disability and it was a you know it was a huge psychological burden that she bore and um and and how tragic that was and you know and no no amount of self-abuse just like the prophets of baal you know no no matter of sort of beating herself with psychological whips uh solve that problem and and so you know i mean the the wisdom of the church is that the ultimate end of prayer is to unite us to the will of god and that's the ultimate end of prayer and god can change physical reality around as he chooses but but our prayer ultimately has to be be it done to me according to thy word and if it's your will lord that i be united to you through this cross of suffering then that's the that's the good i should will for myself that's a hard pill to swallow um you know but the alternative sometimes is just deep frustration and uh and a loss of faith yeah all right good and uh thank you so much for your question here's one from mary watching us on facebook today mary says where do catholics find veronica in the bible also where is the name of the good thief found well we don't find veronica in the bible because she's not there and uh the well not in the bible at any rate she's in sacred tradition but we don't find her in scripture and the same with the name of the good thief this is something that's conveyed by we call him saint dismiss but he's unnamed in the bible very good and here's one now from patrick watching us on youtube my wife is not christian and wants to wait until our son is quote old enough to choose his religion catholics like like myself know we must baptize our children so what would you recommend yeah thanks i appreciate the question so i really think this this attitude that's more and more common today really misunderstands really what religion is and how it functions i mean a lot of people will say well you know i'm spiritual but not religious and uh they neglect to realize that everyone is born spiritual but not religious like from the moment you're conceived you're spiritual you have an immoral soul sure and you're not religious because you hadn't begun to practice the virtue of religion and uh the historical religions christianity among them are our cultures uh attempt to shape and form the spiritual capacity of the human person according to virtue so that so that our that our innate capacity to desire and reach out for god our desire for god is well formed right and uh and so religion is a virtue it's the habit of rendering god what is his due now would you apply that same logic to any other human perfection you know would you say uh well you know i i want him to choose for himself whether he wants literacy you know we're not born literate you know we were born with the capacity for literacy but if you don't start really early i mean he's going to be way behind and he might never learn to read wait let him decide whether he wants to be vaccinated against polio no no i mean there there are there are human perfections that we can only receive by being in enculturated into them you know by our by our forefathers and these are i mean some of them have come by way of divine revelation but all of these things are the goods of culture we can't create culture for ourselves out of thin air right because we're social beings and that means we're connected not only to our parents and our families in our country but to our past and if we're christians it means we're connected to sacred past and so it's it you literally you cannot receive the benefits of of that by inventing it for yourself it's impossible it's a contradiction in terms it's like saying well you know i don't want my child to i'm an american right i'm born in the united states of u.s citizen i want him to be born without citizenship let's just let him be a neutral like doesn't belong anywhere no passport right then when he gets to a certain age then he no you want you want your child to have all the benefits that are conveyed by belonging to the society in which you live and for christians that is the society of the church which again comes by sacred tradition so you wouldn't withhold these other goods from your child and act like he could invent them for himself um nor should you withhold the goods of sacred religion from your child there you go uh patrick thanks so much for your question glad that you're watching us today on youtube wow we got through uh just a bunch of calls here calls emails youtube facebook i think we got covered the waterfront here david thank you so much thanks tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn and that's it monday through friday 2 p.m eastern time live on the radio with an encore at 11 pm eastern we also put up the podcast just for you at ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you next time right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless hello this is father john trujillo find out how you can better defend your faith open line monday is next on most of these ewtn stations want the latest pro-life news wanted delivered

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 54min 14sec (3254 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021