Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - December 20 , 2021

now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation the 1-833-288-3986 global catholic radio network and here we are in the fourth week of advent welcome again to call to communion it's uh here on ewtn radio live on this monday afternoon glad that you could join us because uh this is a program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if we can answer a question for you about what the catholic faith really teaches then by golly we're doing our job here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're listening to us outside of north america we have a telephone number just for you just dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2980 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 of course you can always shoot us an email ctc ewtn.com that's ctc at ewtn.com or if you'd prefer to spell it out call to communion at ewtn.com we just like to make things simple for you all right michael mccall is our producer today also we have matt kabinsky handling the phones and jeff burson on social media if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now just put your question in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today i'm great how are you my friend i'm doing well thank you very much had a little uh mini family reunion over the weekend didn't you uh well getting there getting there i had my college kid came home yeah my grown kids were still being grown and often doing their things but we planned to see them over christmas fantastic i'm going to lead off with a question from seth in columbus ohio hey dr anders on this past friday show a caller asked about how missing mass on sunday was a mortal sin even if they were going to daily mass the other six days of the week well i understand there is a preeminence of the sunday mass however if every earthly mass is a participation of the one mass that is continually offered in heaven how would a sunday mass be any different than a tuesday morning mass and if there is no difference why would missing mass on a sunday be a grave sin if you went another day of the week does this just come down to adhering to the commandment to keep holy the sabbath or would this come down to the authority of the church to bind and toulouse please help me understand thanks and god bless seth yes thank you very much i really appreciate the question so the reason that catholics hallow the lord's day in particular is because this is the day on which we celebrate his resurrection and that's not true of monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday etc true uh the lord rose on the first day of the week and christians have from antiquity from the beginning of the church had the practice of gathering together to celebrate the lord's resurrection on the first day of the week and that was that's been the practice of the church from the beginning long before it was a canonical obligation it has in different times and places been been an obligation in this diocese or that diocese it wasn't actually until 1917 coda cannon law of 1917 it was a universal obligation of all the catholic faithful everywhere throughout the world promulgated by the pope and uh but the pope was simply uh articulating in legislation what had always been the long-standing practice of the church so you know the daily mass is actually uh not as ancient and there are there are rights within the catholic church that don't practice the daily celebration of the liturgy but the sunday liturgy was always the point at which christians signaled their christian identity and the reason it's a serious obligation is because the mass is where we come together as the people of god to affirm our corporate identity with one another i mean you got to do it sometime yeah yeah right and and in we've grown accustomed to a very individualistic notion of salvation but we forget that we're not saved as individuals we're saved as members of a body that's the body of christ which is the church and the saint augustine said this he said the reason god gave us the church was so that we could have other people to do good to which i love oh yeah and you've got to be with them sometimes sure right you got to be with them and that's the appropriate day to do it uh the the sunday is not just the sabbath day kicked one day forward on the calendar it's not just it's not just as if you know we got tired of saturday we decided to have the sabbath on sunday in fact it's not the sabbath sunday is the fulfillment the culmination of the sabbath it's not it's it's not it's christian version right it's this more going on than just uh abstaining from work which is the sabbath command is that people of god were to abstain from work on the seventh day of the week that's not the sunday obligation the sunday is a positive act of worship offered on the first day of the week not something commanded by the sabbath um and then and also the idea that you have of the mass being a participation in the one sacrifice of christ offered in heaven is true that doesn't remove its temporal aspect right so in fact the way cardinal ratzinger describes that one sacrifice in his book spirit of the liturgy is that it's the intent of jesus to offer himself the death of calvary happened only once but jesus ever lives to make intercession for the church that that that intentional self-giving that self-offering is his is his perpetual disposition towards the father on behalf of the church and we enter into that by our own act of self-donation that we give that a liturgical expression that we that we uh manifest that in a corporate visible bodily way is also very appropriate and it has to be manifest in in the corporal works of mercy too for i could say all day like i'm entirely offering myself to god but don't bother me that's kind of a contradiction of terms there yeah all right and uh james watching on youtube says you'll love this did you know the past popes are heretics from john the 23rd till now wow you learned something every day i didn't know that one time no i didn't know that was amazing well i beg to differ right i beg to differ so um you know there are in catholic theology there's a couple of ways of thinking about heresy heresy is a canonical crime and it's the crime of obstinately refusing to believe a dogma of the church that's you know been publicly taught and this individual has been corrected and their heirs pointed out to them and yet they they persist in their heir that is uh that's the canonical crime of heresy it's what you call formal heresy there's another there's another state where a person can be a material heretic uh that is they they might believe something against the teaching of the church but not be aware that it was against the teaching of the church and uh and that's that's neither a sin nor a crime it's just acting in ignorance no pope has ever been a formal heretic one or two may have flirted at times with material heresy but correct self-corrected when they were better taught all right very good thanks so much for your question in a moment we'll get to the phones at 833 288 ewtn call now the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio hello journey home family next time we'll welcome mother serafina marie to the program she will share what led her to return to the catholic faith share the journey next time on ewtn's the journey home the journey home with marcus grodi tonight eight eastern on ewtn radio and television [Music] have you ever heard someone say you've got to believe in yourself gk chester says the people who believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums you have to believe in something outside yourself you have to believe that there's a greater reality than the one inside your head if the only thing you believe in is yourself your world will become very small about the size of a padded self we live in a world that rejects the worship of the one true god and has substituted something called the god within but it's chesterton says if jones is told to worship the god within it ultimately means that jones shall worship jones spend more time with the apostle of common sense visit chesterton.org for more information and go to ewtnrc.com to discover more books and programs written and inspired by gk chesterton [Music] it's called a communion on this monday afternoon here on ewtn radio our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's about the 833-288-3986 media missionaries this is a very happy group of folks who prayerfully take ewtn to parishes and the community through the print and electronic media that we provide you can help ewtn share the good news by becoming a media missionary love to have you in the group visit ewtnmissionaries.com today ewtnmissionaries.com join us in sharing the eternal word with the world well we are going to go to the phones in just a moment here at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 but as we were in the break david was saying you know maybe i better revisit that question from james on youtube where he said do you know the past pope's our heretics from john 23rd until now that's a very specific number yeah yeah yeah sure it is i appreciate the question so first of all i was just talking about the nature of heresy and distinguishing formal for material here i see formal heresy is when you obsoletely deny something that's been defined by the church and you know better and you do it anyway material heresy is when you believe something incorrect but you don't know that it's incorrect and when you are corrected you you come into line and there's no case of a pope who was a formal heretic um there were a couple of guys in late antiquity in the middle ages that were a little squirrely on a few issues uh you know and and church corrected them and they saw the light basically but one of them liberius pope liberius during the aryan controversy he kind of mushed around a little bit on the doctrine of homo usis that christ is of one essence with the father which was a controversial term but he he he saw the light he came back around um popenorius uh promoted the heresy of monothelatism but it's ambiguous about precisely what he meant john the 22nd medieval pope taught the adoption of soul sleep that that the souls of the just don't immediately see god in the beatific vision he was corrected and he recanted that position before the end of his life none of those cases amounted to formal heresy they were personal errors and popes are they can make they can be they can be an error on their own personal theology it's only when they formally teach adoption that they are protected by the dogma of infallibility by the charism of infallibility none has ever formally proclaimed a heresy none has ever been guilty of formal heresy in that way a couple of them are a little bit squirrelly now our caller is making the claim that john from john the 23rd forward that all the popes since then are presumably formal heretics and my question would be well what what dogma of the faith did they did they obstinately deny i'm not aware that they have absolutely denied anyone and nor has any nor has any church authority said otherwise right now um very often there are some sort of radical traditions far-right catholic groups that decide that they're the magisterium and that they're the ones that can give the authoritative interpretation of tradition and so by that standard you know i mean like none of us are in good shape you know we're all here by that because we don't hold their little sectarian group but you know last time i checked jesus did not establish your sectarian group as the magisterium but rather the pope and the bishops and communion with him so they're the ones that define what conformity to the tradition looks like all right and james thanks again for your question via youtube all right if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 we begin with nello in chisholm minnesota listing on the great real presence radio hello nello what's on your mind today hello um this might this kind of ties in a little bit with that last thing you went over um just in talking to a few people lately who non-christians who have been had people try to evangelize to them and from different denominations and then you look into you know go on the internet and look online comparing one denomination to the next and they're told you know they say well you guys have a lot of differences they say well no we we agree on many of the essentials just some of the non-essentials that we don't agree on and yet when you look at the comparison of all these denominations even ones within themselves the multiple baptist or whatever it looks like there's next to nothing that is agreed on and i'm just wondering do you talk to a lot of these apologists who probably tell you the same thing do you know when they say there's a number of essentials they agree on what those are because i swear i couldn't write them on a post-it note sure yeah so so first of all i would not personally i would not advocate the position that protestants and catholics agree on the essentials i don't think that's true at all if i thought that were true i never would have become catholic right like the reason i became catholic is i became persuaded that we disagreed on fundamental issues issues that were important enough were serious enough that i could uproot my family from my patrimony from my family's tradition of being protestant back as long as we could remember right that i could cause all that dislocation destroy my career in protestant academia right give up my hope of being a seminary professor i could let all i had to let all of that go because there was something essential at stake and i would be disobedient to my conscience if i didn't become catholic so if if there were no essential differences between protestants and catholics then becoming catholic would have been a very dumb thing for me to do but because i do think there are essential differences it was the only thing that i could do um and uh uh but your question is are there things that protestants and catholics agree on well whenever you generalize about protestantism you always have to say well which protestants which protestants uh because in my judgment protestants don't agree with one another on very much now you can take some some large you know more or less representative groups protestantism as it has been in continuity with the what's called the magisterial reformed tradition the magisterial uh reformation tradition magisterium not meaning the pope's magisterium but those protestants that were associated with the magistrates in their relative domains whether the church of england or the swiss churches or the german churches that produce the major protestant confessions like the augsburg confession or the westminster confession or the 39 articles for the anglican church you can take those kinds of protestants and you'll find that they affirm uh most of the trinitarian and christological dogmas of the first four ecumenical councils so that's that's pretty substantial basis of commonality yeah um they will affirm the inspiration and authority of 66 of the 73 biblical books right um and uh they can they can say the apostles creed with us so those are things that are held in common now beyond that there are a lot of things that are not in common and they don't always mean the same things by those affirmations so the clearest example when a modern evangelical prays that i see in creed and says i believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church you better believe that he and i don't mean the same thing by those words but there are there are other people who are in the protestant camp today that would not affirm the christological dogmas of the first four councils or the trinitarian doctrines they wouldn't affirm those things or they have different views of inspiration of scripture and they hold many other doctrines that are incompatible with say the catholic understanding of the sacraments of the way of salvation okay well thank you so much for your call nello 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 with dr david andrews on this monday afternoon here on ewtn radio sean checking in on youtube sean says i evangelized to a reformed baptist who referred me to romans 9 concerning the election of jacob you answered my question that god elected certain people quote for the benefit of the many for salvation you mentioned abraham was elected so are all the prophets in the old testament considered elected and merry as well also deeply disturbing to me when i asked her why wouldn't god pull out those he elected so we wouldn't have to suffer since we have no chance her continual response was everything is for the glory of god this makes god seem like a narcissist how do they come to this conclusion and i want to understand their perspective because this seems very unreasonable do you have any book recommendations and that's again from sean yes hi sean thank you very much i appreciate the question um so were all of the prophets elect um no there were people who received the prophetic spirit that were not even members of israel so uh one person that comes to my mind would be the prophet balaam um he uh you know he wasn't an israelite and he did prophesy by the spirit of god but uh i think no indication that he participated in the covenant community um and all prophets are elect insofar as they are called that's what election is it's a calling um and uh uh you know they were they were called to that particular ministry now the question uh is this doctrine is the reformed doctrine of election kind of irrational does it make god into a narcissist i think the answer to that question is unambiguously yes i think it is unreasonable and i think it does make god into a narcissist and this is a point actually that one of the major proponents of this doctrine of election admitted and that would be martin luther luther was just as big as a the necessitarian the fatalist about human freedom as any presbyterian ever was luther wrote a book about it called on the bondage of the will that he published in 1525 and the section of that book that's most memorable to me is when luther deals with this very objection that you raised and he says isn't this an unreasonable doctrine doesn't this ascribe something unworthy to god and he says absolutely absolutely and that just shows you the impotence and unreliability of human reason that's luther's position in fact he goes even further and he declares himself to be an outnet irrationalist and says that that if it were reasonable then it wouldn't be worthy of ascribing it to god that god's justice whatever that means is something that must appear as injustice to us so no analogy in luther's view between divine justice and human justice the radically discontinuous incommence realms and so uh i i personally find this to be an utterly atrocious doctrine it stands in in radical contrast to the catholic position which is that between god and creatures there is an analogy between our understanding of justice and god's justice between our understanding of love or reason and god's love of reason but our understanding of being in god's being there is analogy so that the world can be for us a kind of ladder ascending to god that's the language of saint bonaventure and so in gregory of nissa for example gregory nissa applies this moral principle of commonality to his interpretation of the old testament and in his book the life of moses he deals with the question of the death of the firstborn and he says this seems like an irrational thing there doesn't seem any reason for these firstborn to have died they didn't do anything deserving this now what luther would have said in response to that is yeah well god can kill who he wants to kill you know whatever he does is just by definition it's not the way gregory not the way st gregory does it he says in order that we might preserve a a notion of god that's worthy a dignified idea of god it's necessary for us to seek the spiritual meaning of the text the allegorical meaning of the text not the letter not the letter and so he applies a entirely different hermeneutic where the reasonableness of god becomes the interpretive principle augustine does the same thing uh but he asserts the love of god being the interpretive principle any interpretation of scripture that offends against love or reason is to be rejected that's the opposite of luther who said you reject reason you reject love uh if it's contrary to that sort of straightforward literalistic reading of the of the god of the old testament that's that's what's primary so basically a fundamentalist view of you know of of of interpreting the bible so these are very different ways of looking at these texts now if you want to you ask for some book recommendations honestly luther's on the bondage of the will was written as a response to erasmus of rotterdam who had attacked luther specifically on the question of the freedom of the will so you might find that an interesting interchange very good appreciate that sean thanks for your question via youtube let's go now to gilbert gilbert's in harrisburg pennsylvania listing on holy family radio hello gilbert what's on your mind today hello there hi thanks for taking my call i mainly just have a question to ask a friend invited us to a church yesterday and they were doing a christmas program charles dickens uh christmas carol and it was a good show and it was going good up to the point where he was saying that all have false and all has fallen short in sin and there's nobody without the original sin and that includes the catholic church and their dogma on mary and it's like okay well that kind of struck me on a bad nerve there they're saying that all has fallen short everybody including mary so is that a catholic thing that they we bring up or i know it's a dogma of the catholic church yeah thank you i can talk about that yeah sure and i think this guy was even a catholic before he became a a preacher okay appreciate the question so uh first of all when saint paul says there's none righteous no not one or all have fallen short of the glory of god does he mean every single individual person without exception every historical individual well all you have to do is look at the context of saint paul's remarks in the book of romans and it's very evident the point he wants to make is that jews and gentiles as distinct classes of people both classes both jews and gentiles stand in need of redemption that's the argument he's making he's not really making an argument about every distinct individual but about whether or not jews need to need the grace of god to be saved or whether they can be saved by the mosaic law okay and this is because he wants to deal with whether gentiles have to follow the mosaic law and his conclusion is no everybody sends we all need the grace of god to be saved the law of moses won't do it it's really not addressed to the question that your friend is raising about every distinct individual and there are instances in scripture where individuals are accepted from that rule so job for example is described as a righteous man in whom there is no fault enoch is a righteous man who walked with god so god took him jesus christ of course is a human being in whom there was no fault so plenty of exceptions and we can talk about the marian side of things after the break and we'll do that so uh sit tight gilbert we'll continue with that question in a moment also talk with sherry in tampa bob in northeast washington lots more straight ahead here on call to communion with dr david anders on ewtn ewtn the global catholic network christ is the answer with father john ricardo i tell often times in experience that i had a divine child when i was a young priest one year ordained first time i ever really saw the power of the blessed sacrament and we simply exposed the blessed sacrament at the end of mass one night i encourage people i said you know what we've been in the habit of praying over people after mass i said we're not going to do that this week i'm just going to invite people to come on up and pray if they want to pray and i put the blessed sacrament on the altar i kneel down as i kneel down the church is in the sanctuary the whole church and as i'm looking at this and i'm looking at the people there and i'm looking at jesus under the appearance of bread there i saw the lord standing on the altar and he's just standing there looking out at all the people and then at a certain point he turned towards me and he just bowed and he says don't you see how easy this is you don't have to do anything you just have to put me out you put me out and i will work want to be notified when call to communion with dr david andrews goes live on facebook follow ewtn radio's facebook page and click the bell icon to be notified saints are the heroes of the catholic faith they serve as examples for all catholics showing us how to lead a more satisfying more spiritual life in communion with our lord and savior jesus christ view our comprehensive documentation of saints who serve as theologians and doctors of the church it's easy visit ewtn.com and click catholicism ewtn the global catholic network [Music] tomorrow on more to life god help me this christmas is driving me nuts dealing with difficult people this holiday season will help you make peace that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion with dr david anderson [Music] hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about that here on ewtn's call to communion 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 looks like we have three lines open at the moment so before the break david we were talking with gilbert in pennsylvania uh regarding this whole thing about um mary and the immaculate conception yeah thank you so where does the doctrine of the immaculate conception come from so it's very important to understand uh that the earliest teaching we have about mary in the catholic tradition is that mary is the second eve and that is implied by the scriptural narrative and taught explicitly in sacred tradition so you know in revelation chapter 12 for example we see this picture of a woman clothed with the sun the moon and stars under her feet she gives birth to the child who will rule the nation with a rod of iron that's obviously the christ child and she is seen in confrontation with that ancient serpent the devil well if you you couldn't ask for a stronger more visible parallelism between eve and the new eve than depicting the woman who gives birth to the christ child as in confrontation with that ancient serpent the devil um in of course in the gospel of john both chapter 2 and chapter 19 jesus addresses his mother as woman and that immediately conjures up overtones of the woman from um uh from the genesis account and adam says you gave me this woman you know and she did this she ate the fruit then gave it to me right and uh and christ said you know my hour has not come and now my hour has come and then he he declares to saint john behold your mother right so uh the the the overtones here of the genesis account are are palpable and then in luke's account of the annunciation mary's response to the annunciation is be it done to me according to thy word and so the um the fathers of the church saw in all of these texts this deep illusion to the person of eve now the doctrine that christ is the second adam is explicitly taught in sacred scriptures in paul's first letter to the corinthians the father is also found in these texts a parallelism with with with uh with the blessed virgin as the second eve now one thing you'll notice about eve's excuse me mary's parturition the scripture says she's the mother of all those that believe in christ is that it does not occur by way of natural generation mary is not my mother because i came forth from her womb she gives birth to me spiritually by giving birth to the christ to the god man in whom i am reborn through baptism so she is my mother in a spiritual way right and stands as an icon of that spiritual regeneration in christ what what does that what does the mother of all those who believe in jesus look like what's her character as a spiritual creature well the end of all of grace in my life is sinlessness christ calls us jesus be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect and mary saint luke tells us is one who had grace to the full kikira tammany in greek one having been graced to the full and so never do we find anywhere in sacred tradition the notion that mary sinned never stated in scripture certainly never stated in sacred tradition in fact the opposite has always been affirmed so from the doctrine of her plenitude of grace her life of sinless perfection her identity of as as the second eve and the mother of the church the inference that she was conceived in this state is the rational one it's the it's the appropriate influence to draw so marian doctrine like all of christian doctrine develops over time just like the doctrine of the trinity we don't find a fully articulate doctrine of the trinity until the 4th century doesn't mean it's not authoritative it's drawn together from the reflections of the fathers on sacred scripture and it expresses perfectly the faith of the church but had to be drawn together in an articulate manner they did so at the council of nicaea in the same way the full doctrine of mary's immaculate conception emerges out of the scriptural themes of her sinlessness her divine maternity her identity is the second eve and so there is development in mary and doctrine but there's development all the time in doctrine that doesn't make it illegitimate so that's kind of the origin of the thing and for us the immaculate conception uh is a shining luminous example it's an icon moreover a symbol of what all christians are called to and so there are many is things like this in the bible the count of the transfiguration comes to mind matthew 17. you know jesus lights up like a like a fluorescent light bulb and you say well that that doesn't seem to convey a lot of doctrinal content to me you know i'm not may not be learning propositional facts when i regard in my imagination this image of the luminescent christ no it doesn't convey facts what it does is it becomes a symbol of future glory and then i can by by way of my memory and imagination and contemplation can participate in that be drawn in towards it it's a its purpose is edification not information and in the same way the immaculate conception of mary stands for us in this is a sort of luminous shining exemplar this symbol of of the human perfection that we're all called to in christ and which is the ultimate end of the grace that she had to the full gilbert thanks so much for your question it's called a communion with dr david anders here on ewtn radio we have three lines open at 833 288 ewtn that's let's go to a 833-288-3986 in northeast washington listening on sacred heart radio hello bob what's on your mind today sir yeah doc i'm glad i got a chance to talk to you hey so um i'm i'm not a catholic um although i like catholics uh and i was in a catholic church the other day i attended a lot of churches like i believe in the way um and i and they had a call for communion so you know so i i hop in the communion line and um i get up to the priest and and he doesn't allow me communion and and although i in his credit he gave me a blessing and so um uh i just have to ask this question is the catholic church and the practice of denying children of god communion that's you know communion is a wonderful thing but i think that's horrible that you would deny someone communion oh yeah thanks i really appreciate the question yeah the catholic church would deny me communion am i catholic and she would deny me communion if i were not properly disposed to receive communion and i would be horrified if my priest gave me communion if i weren't properly disposed because saint paul says in his first letter to the corinthians that an improper communion one where i don't have the proper disposition is of no benefit to me but in fact i'm eating and drinking my own condemnation and so what is that proper disposition how do i come properly disposed to receive communion well again paul teaches us that the right of holy communion expresses manifests and affects our union with one another as the corporate body of christ we become one loaf because we all partake of the one bread he says and the proper disposition he gives us in first corinthians 1 verse 10 he says you must agree on everything you must agree on everything you can't have systems with one another can't be in opposition to your brothers can have sectarian divisions because the communion is this right of the church's corporate unity so by going to communion one of the things that i am that i'm doing by my behavior is i am affirming everything that the catholic church declares to be revealed by god that's what i'm affirming and so for someone who does not believe the catholic faith in its fullness to receive communion in a catholic church is a kind of performative contradiction i'm saying with my actions something that i do not believe in my heart now let's say that's not you let's say you well andrews i believe everything that the catholic church teaches to be clear to be revealed by god everything i believe all of it all right then then that means you should be catholic but she said well hold on a minute there anders you know i don't believe in purgatory i had a problem with this mary stuff i'm not so sure what i think about indulgences uh you know i think you guys have too many books in your bible i think i'm just saved by faith alone you know you start listing all these things where you disagree with the catholic church and then i would say okay well then why would you want to participate in a right the purpose of which is to affirm your complete unity with the catholic faith yeah now so that's that's part of it now the other thing is um you remember in again in first corinthians when uh there was a fellow who wasn't living right he was uh he was with his stepmom and paul says kick this guy out of the church kick him out hand him over to satan he actually says first corinthians 5. till he comes to repentance then you can readmit him now in second corinthians this guy comes back and paul says uh i forgive him in the presence of christ that's what paul says i forgive him in the presence of christ now paul was exercising that power that christ gave to the apostles in john 20 when he said receive the holy spirit whoever sins you forgive a forgiven and so with his authority as an apostle paul was absolving sin and admitting this fellow back to corporate participation in the sacraments of the church now we still have that power in the catholic church priests who operate at the at the behest of their bishops can't absolve and forgive sins and because christ promised that they could and in doing so they're basically validating this person is properly disposed to receive holy communion now you know i don't know the content of your soul and i wouldn't ask for it but the presumption when someone goes to communion is that the church has validated that you are in the state of grace improperly disposed to receive communion you don't have any grave sins that separate you from the love of god and you've received forgiveness and and and this is something that's discerned internally and and privately between the priests and the penitent now i would be horrified horrified if i went to communion and let's say there was a priest who knew me and uh and and he knew that you know i i was because i told him like i'm not in state of grace i'm not repented for my sins i hadn't gotten straight with god and i haven't received absolution if he's just handing out holy communion like cotton candy he's not doing his job and he's not helping my soul because he's just hardening my heart making me kind of giving me impunity against the commands of god right it'd be very bad for my soul if he gave me communion power in that state now you may not be in that state but but like the priest can't know that because you're not in his confessional because you're not catholic so both for the sake of the community the body of christ which is the church and for the sake of the individual's own soul to properly uh receive holy communion to be properly disposed one has to affirm what the catholic church affirms and one has to have received absolution from sins from someone authorized by christ to give it otherwise we're not doing any favors yeah so this is not a matter of hating non-catholics the church does this with her own children all catholics aren't allowed to receive communion yeah only those who are properly disposed now you know a protestant who says i believe i i totally believe then we can make you catholic then you can come to communion or there's another exception right let's say a protestant is in danger of death and he hasn't got time to become catholic but he believes the catholic faith the church actually will give that man communion because it's a matter of life or death to this guy right but if it's not a matter of life to death then come on in become catholic and then you totally enjoy all the rights and benefits of the sacraments yes indeed bob thank you so much for your call appreciate hearing from you today in northeast washington call to communion with dr david anders here on this monday afternoon last week of advent hard to believe um phones are open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 tom price here reminding you that the journey home tonight features mother seraphina marie she's going to be on with marcus talking about her reversion to the catholic faith do check it out tonight 8 pm eastern right here on ewtn radio and television as well let's go now to joe in birmingham right here in town listening on siriusxm channel 130. hello joe what's on your mind today sir hey uh earlier caller talked about the play went to where the preachers spoke about uh the virgin mary not being born or being more fat it made me think from an apologetics point of view at least it occurs to me the thought is that well she wasn't the only one born about original sin so was adam and eve i mean they originally when they were i know they weren't born the way we know to be birthed but still they were born or created they didn't have original sin to begin with they created original sin by their disobedience but actually there were there was at least two more people that we know of that were born without original sin so why is it not possible that the virgin mary was not formed without origin sure yeah you're absolutely right there are a few differences between adam and eve and mary one of them is well adam and eve were not created with original sin they were created in the state of grace they did not have grace to in the full that mary had that would have prevented them from ever sinning and so they were they were capable of sinning and they did in fact sin mary's grace was such that it was not possible for her to sin and she did not sin and adam and eve actually had what we call the preternatural gifts some of which mary would have had by grace but not all of them one of the predenatural gifts adam and eve had was immortality it was possible for them not to die and mary did not have that and of course it's a it's an open question in catholic theology as to whether the blessed virgin died before her assumption there are traditions of of her dormition that she did die and was assumed others that she didn't um so there are some differences but the point you make is a very good one original sin is not like an infection or you know a congenital defect that you get through natural generation original sin means that you don't have sanctifying grace in your soul wait that's what it means so the gift given to mary was that she was she was conceived with that grace given to her from the moment of her conception adam and eve of course were not conceived in the normal way so that's another difference joe thanks so much for your call here's a question from joseph who says we listen to dr anders talk about the laity contributing to the ministry as it concerns catholic education when answering a man about a quest answering a question about a man sponsoring a child who is not catholic but a school with catholic nuns so our question for dr anders is does sending your own children to catholic school fulfill the laity contributed to the ministry or does the contributing become greater okay thanks so the way that we all take personal responsibility for the ministry of the church depends entirely on our own unique situations our our charisms our vocations our talent skills and so forth so the uh saint paul says that each has given a different gift according to the spirit for the good of the body so there are some who have the gift of teaching and that's what they do there are some who have the gift of administration and that's what they do i'll tell you a little secret i have one of those gifts and not the other all right i'll let you guys switch one you know okay um uh there are some people who have the gift of helps right some who are overflowing in mercy and so you use the gift that god has given you for the good of the body um now you know as parents we are in an ecclesial state in virtue of the sacrament of matrimony and so when we do good to our children for the sake of the common good of the church and in society we are sanctifying the world and there are people who are very skillful and virtuous and as parents i don't lay claim to that myself that patrimony i've made plenty of mistakes right but there are those who are exemplars of christian charity and parental prudence and my goodness those people sanctify the world oh yeah and and it one way that they do that perhaps is participating in catholic education in the way you indicate but sometimes that's not possible maybe somebody lives someplace where there's not a good catholic school or one that's not appropriate for their children and they have to bring their kids up in the catholic faith in some other way so the church has been very clear that the catholic school is a privileged institution it has a unique mission the mission is not to have a public school with a little catholicism sprinkled on top that's not the point of it the point of a catholic school is precisely to help the catholic child learn how to how to uh negotiate uh between faith and culture how to how to understand how to live their faith to the fullness in all of the areas of human life whether they live as scientists or or you know lawyers or engineers or school teachers or husbands or wives or laborers or whatever they do the catholic school has given them a preparation to think about intelligently about their catholic faith in light of whatever social condition they find themselves in and that's that goes above and beyond what you can do it's a parish religious education on a sunday but you're getting a comprehensive formation in all of human culture infused with the wisdom of the catholic tradition so it's a privileged institution and we ought to support catholic education at every possible turn but recognize that not everybody can do so and not everybody has a good catholic school available to them yeah that's true joseph thanks so much for your question lily is watching us on youtube this afternoon lily says do we know why mary visited elizabeth and for how long she stayed thank you for your show my 88 year old mother also loves your show well that's very nice yeah thanks i appreciate the question so when saint luke wrote his gospel it's fairly evident that he was borrowing from the the style of historiography the the style of history writing that we find in first and second samuel and first and second kings and so you know it's not only the explicit teaching of saint luke but even even things like his literary style evoke these points of identification with the old testament and presenting christ as the fulfillment of various old testament longings and expectations many commentators and uh uh most prominently almost most easily accessible i should say dr scott hahn his great book on blessed virgin uh what is it called hail holy queen yes draws this out from patristic commentary about the parallelisms between mary's visit to elizabeth and the ark of the covenant in the old testament being brought back to israel and also to jerusalem and you know would get captured and taken off by the philistines or it's kept in the wrong place and finally gets come comes back and the people greeting it with acclamation and joy and of course david second samuel six uh he's he's dancing in front of the ark wearing an effort no idea what an effort looked like you know but whatever it was he was dancing in one and his wife got offended at him you remember that passage um and so i think these are the kind of associations that saint luke wants to draw our attention to in terms of you know the actual historical episode how long she was there no idea no idea because what luke tells us satisfies his his his narrative purposes very good let's go now to laura in austin listening on youtube also this afternoon laura what's on your mind today hi there um i'm so excited to um actually get this question answered because um i'm i i get asked questions by protestant brothers and sisters and i've always kind of wondered how to make this answer um it's regarding the lineage of jesus in the royal house of david um as we know the story of creation goes you know from the beginning all the way down you know as listed in matthew as with like the jesse tree telling the story of creation uh to you know jesse to solomon and so forth and a question that i get is that if joseph was the stepfather and he was of the house of david and mary being the biological mother of christ being given child by way of the holy spirit how do we make the connection of the royal lineage of christ um to the house of david sure in two ways and you've said them both already so one is by way of adoption and this is a perfectly acceptable way to trace royal lineage in antiquity you know most of the roman emperors were adopted by their predecessors and they took the family names of their predecessors and yet they were regarded as having legitimate succession in the empire so this is a common idea nothing offensive about it at all so joseph adopting christ as jesus says his as his son gives him legal rights to joseph's position and of course we have mary's genealogy as well and she also is of the house of judah the house of david so he's got it coming both ways yeah okay there you go and thank you so much for your call here's a quick one now from gerald dr anders is it really possible that god spoke to abraham in ur of the chaldeans the chaldeans believed in at least 10 gods isn't it much more likely that abraham was a member of the cult of believers who followed the pharaoh akkanen then you you know who i'm talking about yeah yeah yeah yeah sure okay sure right so so first of all is it possible for god to speak to somebody answer the question is yes all right um if you want to get into the higher critical question like you want to get behind the text of the bible which is what higher critics do they try to discern what can we learn from archaeology and comparative you know textual studies and this sort of thing about the history of the is the israelite doctrine of god um so there uh we find references to yahweh who is of course was understood in some places to be a tribal deity i believe in edom right outside of israel and so the israelites were not the only people that held to the worship of yahweh the the egyptian henotheism that you refer to may or may not have influenced um israelite culture it's that's that's you know that's possible um and uh so i mean these these are speculative questions there are other lines of evidence we can bring to bear to talk about the development of the israeli israelite concept of god i think all of those are interesting but from the point of view of the narrative we are regarding abraham as the father of faith who is obedient to the divine command now you know even from within the point of view of the narrative most of the biblical characters before genesis 12 respond to god without knowing his name that's true right including abraham yeah in fact we don't learn god's name until we get to the account of the burning bus bush in moses okay and abraham may have had some confused ideas about god well could be and uh michael our producer corrected me uh it was uh ochnutin yep so there you go wow fast moving hour here dr david andrews thank you sir thanks tom don't forget we do this program monday through friday on ewtn radio with a live broadcast at 2 p.m most days and then a encore for you at 11 pm eastern check out the podcast anytime you wish at ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net on behalf of our wonderful team here i'm tom price along with dr david anders hey thanks for joining us we'll see you next time hopefully that's tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless tomorrow morning on the sunrise morning

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,395

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: DckQRvMo5nc

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 20 2021