Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - May 6, 2021

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 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation this is call 1-833-288-3986 communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if that is you if you are one of those folks who is not a catholic and yet here you are listening to a catholic radio show well why don't you uh think about it for a moment think about uh what the intro voice said there what is stopping you from becoming a catholic is it something that happened to you years ago maybe you've never been a catholic but you've been exploring the catholic faith and you're thinking these catholics have something that i don't have and i'm interested in it or maybe something is is bothering you about the catholic faith and you'd like to talk about that do give us a call here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply now we're also streaming today on facebook and youtube so if you want to uh send a question to us that way you can put that question of yours in the comments box that's another way to uh you know connect with us here on the program charles berry is our a producer michael birchfield is our phone screener and jeff burson is on social media i'm tom price along with dr david anderson tom how are you today very well how are you sir oh you know i'm fair to middling glad to hear that fabulous weather here in birmingham oh the weather is not fair to meddling it is just beautifully fair spectacular here is an email that we received from daniel who says good afternoon my freemason ex-catholic buddhist friend wow insists that the quote romans that is the roman catholic church misinterpret the bible for political power and that we'd be better off reading the original greek etc he is effectively rejecting the idea that the holy spirit guides church teaching and the authority of the catholic church in favor of his own private scholarship and other anti-christian mystical scholars and secular historians well how would you demonstrate the truth of these points he is rejecting it seems presently i can only pray for him because any argument is met with a rebuttal from some other scholar cheers daniel yeah thanks daniel so appreciate the question i got a few difficulties with it however one of them is that the way that the catholic church believes about scripture what we believe about scripture what we teach about how scripture is to be used and interpreted specifically issues all ideology i mean it's built into the fabric of catholic doctrine and the doctrine of the bible that scripture is not an ideological text it's not it's not to be used to build up ideological or political systems and uh but is in fact in its essence a moral spiritual allegorical text the purpose of which is the elevation of the soul to god and so if you apply the the catholic church's understanding of the bible to the bible it becomes impossible for you to use it for political purposes because that's that's built into the definition of what the bible is sure and and even at the literal level i mean jesus christ himself said my kingdom is not of this world and pope benedict when he was speaking to the german um parliament made the observation that christianity unlike other world religions does not believe in a juridical order imposed by revelation that's not the point of the catholic faith it's not to define some sort of political arrangement or some ideological theory and then impose that on civil society it's rather honestly to encourage the attitude of martyrdom in the individual christian who resists this kind of politician politicization of religion and ideology and is willing to resist it to the point of their own death so regardless of how some catholic may or may not have interpreted a particular passage of the bible at some given point in history the catholic doctrine of scripture does not admit of such possibilities right um and uh uh so i mean i can hardly think of a of a less politically controversial stance um than uh the attitude of the desert fathers who really are sort of the spiritual uh bedrock of of catholic spirituality through the centuries these guys left the army and then went out and sat in caves so that they could obtain the kind of equanimity peace of mind to not care uh what was going on in the political sphere and they worried about things like you know am i covetous and they would work for years on how can i eliminate covetousness or lust or gluttony from my soul right and avagrius ponticus who's one of the most famous of the desert fathers and the greatest probably their greatest theologian said that he labored his whole life to come to this state of mind called apathea or or indifference to created things he says maybe he got there in the last two or three years of his life in his autobiography that's what he tells us um you know that's not a that's not really an ideological or political agenda at all okay now as far as the idea that well we should be reading the bible in the original greek what do you think greek catholics have been doing for 2000 years hello yeah wait what do you think they've been doing sure they've been reading the same version of the bible for 2000 years they're part of the catholic church and what do you think the the latin christians who read the bible in latin dead well they went to the greek to translate it what do you think jerome was reading from and then as they're interpreting scripture which who which commentators do you think they're reading well they're reading the greek fathers of course that's what they're reading i mean greek christianity is profoundly influential in the evolution of latin christian spirituality and theology who do you think thomas aquinas was reading hello john of damascus dionysius the ariopagite so i mean like we're all about greek yes indeed we are greek very interesting uh path that this uh that this friend of his is on he's a freemason and a buddhist um rather interesting yeah i didn't know buddha was a free mason well apparently uh these things do happen all right daniel we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for your email in a moment we're going to be talking with charles in kentucky listing on siriusxm channel 130 a first time caller we have a line open for you right now at eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six or you can text the letters ewtn to five five zero zero zero back in a flash with lots more on this thursday edition of call to communion here on ewtn stay with us [Music] hi i'm catherine hedrow next time on ewtn pro-life weekly president joe biden have been in office for 100 days now we take a look at his aggressive record on abortion so far don't miss our interview with former congressman dan lipinski who shares his perspective as a catholic and pro-life democrat please join me for ewtn pro-life weekly sunday at 10 a.m and 8 30 p.m eastern only on ewtn radio [Music] this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan one of the secrets of a happy home is for spouses to prioritize each other over anyone else even the children we know this may sound counterintuitive but the best way to be a great parent is to be an amazing spouse we have to put the needs of our marriage above the wants of our children what do children need more than anything else they need a mother and father who are completely in love with each other and who provide a stable safe place for that child to grow after all where do these children come from they are the fruit of your marriage so don't get confused and think that your children can be the focus of your family that is not good for them and it's not good for you your marriage needs to be prioritized and from that marriage you'll be able to provide a loving home for your children and you'll have the energy to give them the love and attention they need always remember you are a first a husband or wife and second you are a parent for more tools to improve your marriage visit us at dot messyfamilyminute.org [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 288-3986 you may have heard about our newest radio show here on the network mother angelica answering the call and a big part of the reason for the existence of that show is because we love mother angelica and we know that you do as well if you'd like to know a little more about her and celebrate her remarkable life her words and her works we've got a website just for you it's called ewtn.com slash mother angelica visit there today ewtn.com slash mother angelica learn more about this remarkable woman if you uh if you are ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn will begin with charles in kentucky listening on siriusxm 130 a first-time caller hey there charles what's on your mind today hi there and uh thank you for taking my call sure um i i am driving down the road so i'm pulled off to the side right now um i have several questions i first of all am a teacher and i teach in a catholic grade school i teach religion and my students sometimes ask me some questions and i have several of them here and you may want to shut me off after just one or two but the first one is the numbers 7 and 40 as used in the bible i think are sometimes symbolic and not to be taken literally and i'm i'm wondering about that well you would be correct on that right so so in fact the the catholic doctrine of the bible is that all of the bible is to be read allegorically not only allegorically there's other things going on as well but it is not is it is never not an allegory all right it's always an allegorical sense to the text um uh and so in that sense whether they be numbers or figures or narratives they always point towards some fulfillment in christ they also are to be read morally there's always a moral to every story some you know way of making human choices some human action that has moral relevance that is to be found in the text and there's always the anagogical sense of the text that basically lifts our eyes up to to the heavens where christ is seated at the right hand of god and anticipates his second coming and uh and i think sometimes the the the would seem to be sort of numerological aspects of scripture are particularly effective in that in that mode right um take the example of uh the story of elijah when he has done battle with the prophets of baal and seems to have been victorious although there's an irony built into that because he then turns around and has to run for his life right um so was he successful or not that's kind of questionable and he runs across the desert to mount carmel and um and we're told in the narrative that he runs for 40 days and 40 nights well you know i had an old testament professor that pointed out to me one time you get out of map lay it down and kind of estimate the average speed of you know human paces and figure out how far you would go if you ran for 40 days and 40 nights and you could go to mount carmel and back a bunch of times right from where he started out right so this is not to be taken literally and then when he gets there what happens he ascends this mountain and after just sort of blasting the prophets of baal with fire from heaven he's confronted with fire from heaven and then he's told god is not in the fire god's not in the fire or the wind or the crashing of rocks and all this kind of business so that whole confrontation with the prophets of baal is all about the wrong way to pray and then and then you end the story with him climbing up on a mountain into a secret place and encountering god in the quietness of his own interior life right and so setting it up with this uh what is obviously a sort of mythic presentation of time using this number of completeness 40 just heightens that sense of anticipation that something transcendent something anagogical is about to happen and we read the narrative in our and we we get the goosebumps going and we think oh there's something here i need to lift my hearts up my heart up to god where christ is seated at the right hand and listen in the stillness of my own interior life and the the numbers in scripture often have that effect okay charles did you have one more we have one more question for you uh what would that be okay yeah okay just one more um john jesus's cousin was an eth dean and i'm wondering if uh jesus was too but even more important um jesus was in these in the uh wilderness for several days and and he was tempted by satan how do we know all of this because jesus was by himself did he tell his disciples about these temptations okay thanks appreciate the question so john's identity as a member of the essene community is a matter of of academic speculation and that's a theory it may or may not be true it's certainly not necessary for catholics to hold that john was part of the qumran community although you know when you read the dead sea scrolls and and their documents they do seem to be some similarities in their ideologies but there was a lot of that sort of thing going on in the world today so you i mean at the world at that time so you can't really draw that conclusion um well clearly christ could have explained to his disciples what happened come back from the desert and tell the story yeah there you go charles thank you so much for your call i hope that's helpful for you that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion in progress here on this thursday afternoon here on ewtn radio matthew's watching us on facebook right now matthew says what is the best way to argue against the limited atonement doesn't the bible say that jesus will take away the sins of the world not just those of the elect yeah i appreciate the question so the theory first of all let's define our terms so that people who are listening who are not conversant in calvinism will know what we're talking about in uh in the calvinistic version of protestantism when if you ask calvinist what jesus accomplishes on the cross the the fundamental theory is that god punishes jesus on our behalf that's the fundamental theory of the calvinist that god is wrathful that he needs to expiate his wrath upon a subject he's got to get it out of his system so to speak and he'd rather not punish us but he's got to punish somebody so he punishes jesus instead of us and then lets us off scot-free and the price to lay hold of that if you will is faith so if you have faith alone this is the calvinist view then god imputes your sin to jesus he's okay let your let jesus be punished for your sin and he imputes christ's righteousness to you so that he looks at you as if you were righteous even though you remain objectively sinful now uh now the the debate emerged in 17th century calvinism well if the atonement works by way of imputation all right that's the that's that's integral to the theory that god is imputing our sins to christ and he's imputing christ's righteousness to us if it works by way of imputation then so the argument went he can't have died for everyone because if if the sins of the whole world were imputed to christ then jesus would have been punished for the sins of the whole world and of necessity the whole world would be forgiven but not everyone is forgiven some people go to hell therefore christ can't have died for the whole world he must only have died for the elect only the elect have their sins imputed to christ now that's the theory and it was it was it was made calvinist dogma at the at the senate of dort in the early 17th century in in holland right and that became calvinist orthodoxy it's a terrible theory and but the root of it is the theory of imputation and penal substitution that christ's death is substitutionary punishment and so the best way to go after it as a catholic is to attack those two basic premises attack imputation and attack penal substitution so first of all panel substitution is an atrocious doctrine because it implicates god in injustice the theory holds that god punishes the innocent and acquits the guilty well what would you think if a guy was running for office in your community for judge and he says elect me and i promise to punish the innocent and acquit the guilty i don't think he gets my vote he's not getting your vote no one would vote for that judge he he's i'm i'm going to completely pervert the order of justice and that doesn't change if he if his first name is god it's it's it's grossly unjust and it implicates god in injustice and well god's not grossly unjust god is is the essence of justice right and so he can't behave unjustly like that it's a horrible doctrine um and it's unbiblical because that's not what scripture says about the death of christ scripture does not teach us that the death of christ is a penal substitution it says explicitly in multiple places especially romans chapter 3 in the book of hebrews that the death of christ is a sacrifice of atonement a sacrifice of atonement was not a penal substitution go back and read about it in leviticus chapter five this is the hebrew sacrifice of atonement if you read the hebrew sacrificial literature what happens is the worshiper wishes to give god something in in compensation for or recompense of uh uh or to make satisfaction for his sin or it could be for other purposes as well like thanksgiving but the basic idea is you bring god a present you bring god a gift something that is costly and you offer it up you sacrifice it as a token of your repentance or your obedience or your gratitude or whatever it might be in the same way that say a husband might go out and buy his wife a a chocolate bar or a box of chocolates or flowers or something to bring back as a token of his gratitude or his appreciation or maybe even his repentance right not so she can take out her wrath on the box of chocolates but but as a token of of gratitude and love king david exhibits this attitude in um in um uh uh ii samuel chapters 12 and 24 when he says i will not offer the lord a sacrifice that costs me nothing right that's not panel substitution it's satisfactory offering that's what scripture says the death of christ is so the whole penal substitution thing gone and that's the whole basis for the theory of limited atonement now the other aspect is this imputation business the idea that that god imputes our sins to christ and christ's righteousness to us well that is a grossly unbiblical theory there's nothing in sacred scripture that teaches that not one single verse now there are some proof texts that calvinists like to cling on to right saint paul talks about abraham's faith being credited to him as righteousness when abraham believes god and god credits abraham's faith his righteousness and they go aha imputation no it's not what it says it says god credits the act of faith as righteousness it doesn't say a word about imputation if you if you believe god and do what he says god says that's a righteous act a meritorious act not the imputed righteousness of jesus the only time the language of imputation is used in sacred scripture is to talk about the non-imputation of our guilt that god ceases to count our guilt against us he for in other words he forgives us right but not by imputing christ's righteousness that's a very unbiblical theory so once you've done away with penal substitution and imputation well there's no there's no architecture left on which to hang a theory of limited atonement and scripture says that christ died for the whole world not for our sins only saint john says in his epistle but for those of the whole world there you go matthew appreciate your watching us today on facebook here on call to communion on ewtn we have a line open for you right now what is stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about that at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 here's a question now from rose watching us on youtube this afternoon she says i thought god was merciful but in the old testament he smites people and is so angry why is that yeah thanks appreciate the question so uh the catholic view of the old testament is that you read the entire bible through the lens provided by jesus so the proper way to the to understand the old testament is through the lens of jesus and remember when when the disciple says to jesus show us the father and that will be enough for us jesus's response is you guys are such blockheads haven't i haven't you been with me long enough to know that whoever has seen me has seen the father christ is the exact representation of his being that's what the book of hebrews chapter 1 says that we see the character of god in the person of christ that's the lens through which you interpret the old testament all right and saint paul taking that theory taking that understanding applies that to his interpretation of the old testament he says you know they the hebrews drank from the same spiritual rock that followed them in the wilderness and that rock was christ in other words that that story about moses and the people wandering in the desert and they find the rock and moses strikes the rock out comes water gushing forth well did paul think that jesus had put on a rock suit and sat in the desert and waited around for moses to hit him in the head no no that's not what paul thinks paul says that this text in essence is an allegory it's an allegory that points to fulfillment in christ in the same way he looks at the story of sarah and hagar in the old testament and he says this is an allegory he actually uses the word al gorezein i think is the greek text it's an allegory for the two different ways of relating to god whether by the way of the law or by the way of faith all right and so we allegorize the old testament and the way that the many of the church fathers like say for example origen of alexandria principally would take texts about uh you know god sort of smiting the nations and say this is to be understood allegorically in light of christ's conquest of evil and our own personal sins and faults and uh and so we don't have to approach the text at the level of literal narrative history and if we do modern catholic interpreters like pope benedict xvi say that we can see a sort of progressive development in the hebrew understanding of god from early texts of the old testament up to the new testament and it's it's uh it's understandable to see like this old testament is the story of the the pilgrim people of god in their relationship with god growing in their own understanding of god's nature and character and they hadn't quite figured it out yet because all the way up to christ there are people like saint paul that think i'm on god's side that means i'm going to go slaughter his enemies right and and jesus says no you're not reading the thing right that's not actually what it means all right very good rose thank you so much for your question via youtube when you started to say rock suit putting on a rock suit i'm thinking of something john cleese would have done or john belushi i'm thinking about who's that who's the uh the character in the fantastic four who's like a big rock oh yeah you know what i'm talking about charles does it the thing oh yeah the thing there you go back in a flash lots more straight ahead on call to communion the venerable fulton john sheen it is a self-evident principle that the creator has endowed man with certain unalienable rights the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio unplanned the true story of abby johnson i would be the youngest director in planned parenthood history she believed in a woman's right to choose i've had an abortion myself so i don't have any problem with another woman making the same decision until the day she saw something that changed everything tiny perfect little baby and then it was just gone now she's pulling back the curtain on the abortion industry unplanned available at ewtnrc.com and the ewtn app 60 on 10 with monsignor charles pope the third commandment remember to keep holy the sabbath day you know of all the commandments it might seem that we would get this one right after all it commands us to rest one day but so often we're off to our own pursuits god asks us to take one day to stop reflect rejoice spend time with him and with our family but so often we're running everywhere else it's also a day for worship the book of leviticus says six days work shall be done but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest and a holy convocation you shall do no work it is the sabbath of the lord and the book of hebrews says that we should not neglect to meet together as is a habit of some and so again we're asked by god to spend time reflecting and worshiping and likewise spend time with our family the third commandment remember to keep holy the sabbath day for more about the ten commandments visit ewtnrc.com [Music] what do you wish you had known before having kids that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow on take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now back to call to communion [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn we have reached the halfway point our producer reminds us the halfway point we've still got 30 minutes of show left or so love to hear from you if you've got a question about the catholic faith what is stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it at 833 288 ewtn toll-free 833-288-3986 here's a question from jennifer in michigan if jesus ascended into heaven so that the holy spirit might descend at pentecost was the holy spirit not accessible to humans before that event how do i know if quote the spirit is speaking in my life jesus would have made his resurrection undeniable if he had visited the authorities jewish and roman who persecuted him rather than hanging in the edges of society why would god be so evasive thanks jennifer in michigan um yeah we got lots of different questions here all right together so let me try to unpack them the first one was what is the how do we understand the presence of the spirit of god in the old testament uh before the ascension of christ well first of all of course god's spirit is involved in every act of of god in the creation and the redemption of the human species so god's spirit is never absent and wherever you have god you have the trinity of persons but in a special way the spirit of god is indicated when characters in the old testament are empowered in a certain way for some kind of prophetic or kingly office and would often be uh signed either by an anointing or or some sort of effusion of power like when samson tears down the philistine temple and so forth um and and this was limited to just a handful of prophetic individuals the spirit of god came to isaiah and he prophesied saying that sort of thing or the spirit of god came to samson and he rose up with mighty power and you know slaughtered a bunch of philistines and the promise of the old testament is two-fold with regard to the spirit first of all book of joel says that in the last days god will pour out his spirit on all flesh that this this special empowerment it's not like god was absent from the lives of other people it's just that there's a kind of a special gifting for prophetic office that came to a few joel says this sort of prophetic identity will be poured out on everybody old men young men women children they'll dream dreams they'll have visions they'll speak the word of god with boldness they'll witness for god out in the world and be just great stuff the other thing is that the the interior work of the spirit renovating the human heart king david talks about this in psalm 51 he says take not thy holy spirit from me renew in me a right spirit right that interior work of the holy spirit that that will be the mark of the new covenant old covenant mosaic covenant was written on tablets of stone uh but you know that's not very effective it's not very effective if i if i come to you and i say look i've got the absolute perfect solution to your problems tom just stop sinning just just just quit just don't don't sin anymore and here's a list of sins don't do these and you're fine let's impotent that doesn't that doesn't actually empower you to do that right and uh you know just it's like don't think of pink elephants i mean you can't not do it all thanks and paul paul says that he says when the law is given it actually can provoke the very sin it's trying to prevent when we become conscious of the violation of the commandment we can have the effect of being tempted to violate the commandment just the mere legislation is impotent to bring about righteousness what we need is a new heart we need the motive force to actually live in a world in a worthy fashion and that's the other thing the old testament promises in jeremiah 31 ezekiel 36 deuteronomy 30 that in the last days god would change people's hearts give them a new heart circumcise their hearts ezekiel says pour out his spirit into their hearts so that they would love god right and and obey from an inner principle and not just from some legislation on a tablet of stone both of these aspects are fulfilled in the covenant in christ so in the book of acts chapter 2 at pentecost people are gathered and folks are speaking in tongues and and prophesying and what's going on guys and peter says this is to fulfill what was promised in the prophet joel when he said that he would pour out his spirit on all flesh now when we see that empowerment of the spirit in the book of acts it's almost always given for purposes of prophetic witness so that you can go out and bear witness to the mighty works of god in your life and in the church and and be christ's presence in the world it's it's given for the sake of service now we get that in the sacrament of confirmation and so part of the answer to your next question was how do i know the lord is speaking to me in my life well have you been confirmed if the answer to that question is yes then you have objective certainty that the spirit of god is speaking into your life in that fashion that is what the sacrament is given for it's given for this outpouring of the spirit in your life enabling you to bear witness to christ that's why we have sacraments so that so they can be objective tangible signs of god's work in our life now the other aspect this interior renovation in grace that makes us new men or new women in jesus that is conveyed to us through the sacrament of baptism so you say well how do i know that god's love has been poured into my heart how do i know that i've been given this new principle within me to live a holy life well have you been baptized if the answer to that question is yes then you've had that renovation and if you need a tune-up job have you been to confession now once you once you've been to baptism and and then you get the tune-up job in confession and the and the mechanic says i think you're ready for the high octane well then you go to the eucharist so how do i know the lord's spirit is at work in my life have you been baptized have you been to confession are you in communion with christ in the mass and have you been confirmed if you've got those things then you've been fully incorporated into the church and you have the promise of all these graces pouring into your life now is there a sort of sensible proof in your interior life that you have the spirit can you infer from some sort of religious enthusiasm that you have the spirit the answer to that question is no because the spirit of god does not necessarily bring one emotional state but is consistent with any number of varied emotional experiences from the heights of of of ecstasy to the depths of desolation and despair and all of those emotional states are not there's none of them that's intrinsically inconsistent with holiness okay you can be happy sad angry fearful all of those things can happen to you in the course of a daily life doesn't mean you're a good or bad person like what we do with that emotional life whether we turn that into acts of love and service to our neighbor that's what's motivated by the spiritual activity in our life great question there uh jennifer thank you so much for it it's called a communion here on ewtn back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here is john in indianapolis listening on youtube a first-time caller hello john what's on your mind today uh whatever's on my mind uh dr anders uh satisfied anyone of his answers just now pretty much you know i mean the sacraments is uh is the key seems like it's really the key that unlocks uh us to have that full conversion into catholicism and i um i just need to kind of probably um sit on that and just kind of ponder that for a while okay that's really the key yeah what i also want to say is that uh in in your seminary when you went into your seminary i noticed that a lot of the the the evangelists today in in in the protestant world um it seems like you know dallas dallas texas or seems like that's where is the hub um is that once once you uh go through your your um your vocation into the seminary and you become obviously the evangelist a full-blown evangelist and you find your church somewhere in the world in the united states or whatever and you're preaching the gospel um is that where the the the the you guys at least were you think you get schooled and you hone your skills and your tools um and and uh and and literally become anti-catholic in the sense or um and and so whatever um your conversion into the catholic catholicism it seemed like it came at that at the crossroads when you're you're entered into the seminary yeah i can speak to those i appreciate it so first of all let me go back to the sacraments for a minute if i could and you made the statement that the sacrament seemed to be the key to to full conversion to catholicism and i agree with part of that and not with part of that all right in other words it's possible for a catholic to to frequent the sacraments and and be unconverted there are unconverted catholics or catholics who live a worldly self-indulgent life with nary a thought for god or neighbor who nevertheless are frequently in in the physical building of the church and partaking maybe in a superstitious way of the sacraments so you should not think of the sacraments like magic you know in other words hey my life is a wreck but if i just go if i just go perform these rituals my life will stop being a wreck and it'll all turn out great okay that's actually a very superstitious view of the sacraments and the catechism of the catholic church in paragraph 211 warns us against that way of engaging the sacraments the sacraments are occasions for divine encounter there are opportunities to be certain of god's presence and and to convert ourselves and to commit ourselves more deeply to god into one another and the promise that if we do god will respond with grace and he'll help us in that matter right but it still requires like the act of conversion of of intentionally following christ of deciding to change my life and follow him that can come uh in a moment it can come over a lifetime it could come in in direct confrontation with the sacraments it could come outside of the sacraments you know saint francis of assisi's story of his conversion uh it occurred when he was far from the sacraments and he's you know going down the road he sees a beggar and he's kind of overcome with with pity and remorse and takes off his cloak and hands it to the fellow and and uh you know conversion is a mysterious thing for saint augustine saint augustine was in a in a household garden and he heard a child chanting a phrase take up and read take up and read and he thought well that's weird and he found the letters of saint paul and he opened the text of saint paul and found an admonition to give up his sins and cling to christ and conversion came to him in an instant right but there are others for whom conversion is not this sort of lightning bolt moment from heaven but the process of a lifetime of seeking to follow christ ever more closely and they're never conscious of some sort of lightning bolt moment and and it's not necessary to have a lightning bolt moment but the sacraments are key to growth and holiness this is how god makes his presence manifest and evident to us now in terms of you know my own story of the seminary um and protestants evangelists and so forth yeah well anti-catholicism is baked into many forms of protestant christianity in my own tradition presbyterian tradition just i grew up in uh sort of the key doctrinal statement for that is the westminster confession of faith well our doctrinal confession had as an article of faith that the pope was the antichrist i mean it's like we believe in the trinity and we believe in christ and we believe the pope's antichrist wow i mean that was part of what we confessed in in in our doctrinal statement right and the whole culture of the church was through and through anti-catholic so it's just kind of the air we breathed and when i you know so i didn't learn that in seminary when i got to seminary i i was already inhabiting that culture in the whole seminary and the education was set up to essentially justify the reformation break with rome right i mean you have to give an account for why are you what you are to be protestant is is explicitly available to be not a catholic so i sort of just built into the fabric of the thing now i bought into that hook you know hook line and sinker and it's when i started to study church history in order to ground my protestantism better that many of the core theses of protestantism like faith alone or scripture alone really began to fall apart because i saw that they weren't warranted they were neither biblical and they certainly weren't uh the faith of the ancient christian church and it was very destabilizing to me and eventually i realized i was in the wrong communion and i became catholic there you go john appreciate your call thank you so much for checking in from indianapolis call to communion here on ewtn you know i was mentioning earlier in the hour about one of our brand new programs mother angelica answering the call well we're also rolling out another show in the month of may and that is the catholic sphere you of course remember brian patrick he's been on ewtn for many many years he's got a new show and this week he will be discussing mother's day and our holy mother mary with armando cervantes and father elias lades so check it out the catholic sphere sunday afternoon at 2 30 pm eastern right after mother angelica answering the call right here on ewtn radio love to talk with you this afternoon about the catholic faith at call to communion our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 here's a question now from darrell watching us on youtube he says how can you respond to the claims that christianity is more of an understanding of paul and not of jesus oh quite easily yeah yes so i i can quite happily uh arrive at catholicism and major doctrines of the catholic faith from from the teachings of jesus and i mean i would tell you if you if you if you could only walk away with four books of the bible i'd be perfectly happy for you to walk away with the four gospels right and the way catholics read paul is we read paul as explicating the teaching of christ the person of christ and that's the way paul explicates himself he says i handed on to you what i received from the lord yeah right and um uh and so the idea that there's some sort of opposition between paul and christ that's not a catholic idea that's a protestant idea and uh and luther had a whole theory martin luther had a whole theory to explain that what seemed to be this radical dichotomy between the way he read paul his interpretation of paul and then what he saw in the gospels and it boiled down to this that for martin luther the founder of protestantism he believed that saint paul was issuing any kind of moralism that paul said you know do away with morality or good behavior as having anything to do with our relationship with god and it's just faith alone that was luther's view whereas jesus is so is so uncompromisingly ethical in his demands if you want to follow me you have to take up your cross you know you have to be willing to suffer and you have to be poor in spirit and pure in heart and hunger and thirst for righteousness and it's just so it's just so uncompromisingly ethical it does not fit with luther's interpretation of paul well as catholics we just think luther got paul wrong luther is just wrong about paul paul is just as uncompromisingly ethical romans chapter 2 to those who by patient endurance and doing good seek glory honor and immortality god will give eternal life that's what saint paul says it's not those who hear the law it's those who obey the law who are justified that's romans 2 13. paul's paul's just as ever uncompromisingly ethical as jesus there's no there's no conflict between those two at all okay very good appreciate that thank you so much for checking us out today online here on ewtn's call to communion we have a couple of lines open at the moment you can probably still get in if you call right now 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 got an email here from john who says dr anders i have a quote for you from clement of alexandria and this quote appears to very clearly deny the real presence here's the quote and this is from the instructor book 6 chapter book 1 chapter 6. the quote is but you are not inclined to understand it thus but perchance more generally hear it also in the following way the flesh figuratively represents to us the holy spirit for the flesh was created by him the blood points out to us the word for as rich blood the word has been infused into life and the union of both is the lord the food of the babes the lord who is spirit and word any thoughts there um yeah first of all um clement of alexandria is not known for his winsome prose [Laughter] it is a little uh yeah so that's that's first of all um secondly whenever someone throws a quote it makes particularly one that's drawn from the church fathers and look i've read the instructor by clement of alexandria and it is a turgid piece of prose and it is some thick writing and it's not particular it's certainly not perspicuous and you really have to kind of wade through a lot of verbage i mean if he were in my expository writing class i would definitely fail clement of alexandria you know rj stegner my high school expository writing teacher had a way of he would give us an assignment and then he would go at your writing with a red pen and he would mark out about 80 percent of the text and then when he handed it back to you realize that he hadn't marked out any of your argument like what you actually meant to say was still there he just cut out all the unnecessary things right he would i think he would have he would have had a heart attack with clement [Laughter] so in other words i would really before i really give you a definitive interpretation i'd like to go back and read the thing in context but just from the language that you've given if this is in fact a eucharistic passage and i don't it wasn't clear tom i don't remember any specific reference to the eucharist there rather just a flesh and blood that's correct so so here's my here's my my sort of my gut instinct from what i know about clement um first of all clement it deeply platonizes and he is a profoundly platonic thinker as were all of the church fathers meaning the philosophy of plato of uh of uh ancient philosopher plato as well as platinus are influential in well not platinus he's later but that the sort of middle platonism is in the air by this time uh deeply influential on clement and in fact clement believes that uh plato must have gone to egypt and studied moses right that's what he thinks he's wrong about that but he thinks that plato must have been familiar with the old testament he reads the whole thing in a sort of platonizing vein and as a platonist a good platonic philosopher clement is always going to see the material as evocative of the eternal and the unchanging that when you encounter some particular material entity that there is some sort of uh spiritual resonance that that points you upward to the eternal realm and so he's simply looking at the different elements of christ's person through that kind of platonic lens i find that an unobjectionable way of approaching the the new testament and the person of jesus and if you applied that same understanding to the eucharist it would not offend against the catholic doctrine of the real presence in the slightest it would simply reaffirm in a kind of philosophical way what the church has always said about the eucharist which is that it's a sacrament and sacraments are signs but they're signs that have something attached to them namely the they deliver the thing that they promise so the sacrament of christ's body and blood both symbolizes and delivers christ's actual body and blood but the body and blood of christ are given to us not just so that we can have like an extra dose of protein right but because they're spiritually transformative and it seems to me that that's what clement is getting at all right very good appreciate that thank you so much for your question here's one from uh terez listening to ave maria radio and she says hi i love your show i appreciate it so much i know a few catholics who go to a spiritual director is that something that is recommended for all catholics okay thank you for the question the answer the question is yes well spiritual direction is indicated for all catholics that being said is very difficult to find a good spiritual director and so do not be frustrated if you don't have one um what are the purposes of catholic spiritual direction um it's not therapy that's first of all and it's not confession and more often than not people confuse spiritual directions with either psychotherapy or with or with confession the actual purpose of sort of classical spiritual direction is to help you understand your own prayer life and there are many many many many pitfalls in prayer many pitfalls in prayer and if i could summarize all of the pitfalls into one and i'm learning this from i think people like teresa of avila who's sort of the key doctor of the church on the prayer life growth in prayer is a lifetime of learning all of the things that are not god and you think you know what's not god yeah and then you you fall in love with some aspect of your own prayer life and become persuaded in spite of yourself that you're a really spiritual person and then this voice in the back of your head kicks in and goes you're not supposed to think that because you're supposed to be humble okay i'm a now i'm a humble spiritual person right and and you can't stop this process it's a natural part of growth right and you you start paying attention to all these aspects of your own character and personality and free associations and some that we just kind of identify well that must be god talking that must be me talking and getting this sort of endlessly self-referential sort of narcissistic thing and you can spend 20 years there right and you can go off on the wrong track and you've all met people who are incredibly religious and they can talk a blue streak about what god is doing in their life and then you realize after about six months this person is selfish and i don't want to be around them and they are self-proclaimed expert in all things catholic but i don't i wouldn't want my kids to grow up and be like this person and then you meet someone else who says very little but just seems to be unflappable and always present and with a ready eye to service and to the love of neighbor and you find out that what they've never talked about is they spend half of their life in a kind of wordless contemplation of god's mercy and making sure that you become that second person and not that first person is the job of a spiritual director when you go in and talk about your wonderful experiences of prayer and he gently points out to you well you've had a wonderful experience of yourself yeah and uh and and it takes a skillful person who is educated in the theology of of christian prayer and this is going to sound crazy but teresa of avila said she would rather have a learned priest than a holy one as her spiritual director now orthodoxy goes without saying all right because a a deeply sympathetic person who was ignorant could give you bad advice in this regard and so she wanted to have a learned priest who knew the church's doctrine on prayer and was able to prudently recognize the pitfalls when he saw them and then properly direct her so you know the right kind of preparation to do that is hard to come by and that person should be experienced absent that you know you can have a kind of mentor experience with an older catholic who who is a virtuous person and father mark once told me find someone who has what you want you know you look for the person not that has that that sort of pedantic expertise that they can you know drop at a moment's notice yeah but the person whose character seems to indicate their genuine knowledge of god and love of neighbor and education you know along along with it therese thank you so much for your question hey dr david anders thank you so much thanks tom remember we do this program monday through friday here on ewtn radio 2 pm eastern live with an encore at 11 pm eastern on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you tomorrow here on call to communion god bless tomorrow morning on the

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,704

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: b2ShmEwrhF4

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021