Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - December 27, 2021

1-833-288-3986 why do i need to confess my sins to a priest what's stopping you this is called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion merry christmas from us to all of you on this program just for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question about the catholic faith we're here to answer that question as we're heading through the beginning of the christmas season here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 you can also if you wish and you're living outside of north america well then you'll want to uh dial our 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 and of course you can always shoot us an email ctc ewtn.com ctc ewtn.com michael mccall is our producer and uh let's see i believe our rich jesse is handling the phones for us today michael's also handling social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live you can do that because we're streaming there right now just put your question in the comments box michael will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with and saying merry christmas to dr david anders hi merry christmas to you merry christmas to you my friend how uh has everything been for you the last couple of days uh you know busy busy bit of a whirlwind for the uh anders family we have a whirlwind you know we had we had the whole crew all five kids including the grown-ups and their spouses uh so it was a full house and lots of food of various kinds let's begin here with a little catholicism 101 david anders why would it be not only a you know okay but actually appropriate to say merry christmas on the 27th of december just because christmas is actually a liturgical season in the catholic calendar and not just a single day wow so how long does this season go how long does it go tom i believe it goes through the baptism of our lord that's exactly what it does all right well there you go so it's okay it's not only okay it's a good thing to say merry christmas at this point here's a very interesting question that i think you're going to get a kick out of this is from joe in omaha joe says i saw a video of a priest discussing the proposed topic that paul the apostle is alive on earth today they mentioned something about the wording in the bible where it says time and half of times for the life of paul and how it lined up with the 2000 years or something like that have you heard of anything about this and if it's true i imagine it may be something similar to the concept of the spirit of elijah being back with john the baptist so could the spirit of paul be back alive today uh so do you you know do you know him anything about this bible passages that mention time and half the times yeah it has nothing to do with saint paul who is very much dead thank you very much okay and you know we celebrate the martyrdom of saint paul got his head chopped off by nero in around 66 or 60 a.d uh so um he is uh he's in fact one of the reasons saint peter of the primary reason but peter and paul are the two imminent apostles who were martyred in rome and it's on account of their connection to the city of rome that that rome has the the primacy that it does in the christian world especially for saint peter's sick but we don't forget paul either was martyred in rome i'm guessing that perhaps uh this this video of a priest discussing this proposed topic probably not a roman catholic probably not a roman catholic priest okay all right well very good joe in omaha thanks so much for your question here's another one from another joe this particular joe says i was wondering if dr andrews could tell me some things about the ethiopian church their teachings and their canon of scripture someone i know is involved with a group that uses that canon of scripture it seems to have a lot of heretical teachings i don't know if those teachings come from the church or that just this particular individual would really like some help thank you joe yes thank you very much so the ethiopian orthodox church is one of the the churches that is in the what we call the oriental orthodox family so orthodoxy which are the eastern churches of the christian world that have roots back in the apostolic era basically divide into the chaldean orthodox and that's your byzantines your russians your greeks that's sort of the biggest part of the orthodox world you have your oriental orthodox that include some of the syrian church the egyptian church the coptic church uh the ethiopian church the eritrean church those are those are churches that did not accept up the the council of on so they have a slightly different christology from the caledonian orthodox and from the catholic church okay and then you have the uh you have the assyrian church of the east uh with the roots going back to the council of ephesus their their founders did not accept the conclusions of the council of ephesus and so uh what in the west would call the heresy of nestorianism found a home in the uh in the assyrian orthodox or chaldean orthodox churches now all of these all of these liturgical families all these liturgical rights have catholic expressions so there are there are churches that are in union with the pope the bishop of rome and full fully catholic that that share the same liturgies and the same sort of devotional and spiritual traditions that these communions do and so there's a there's a well there's a catholic expression of these rights and as as rights they go back to the apostolic era and so they're venerable and they have something of value for the universal church now your question about the ethiopian canon of the bible you're correct they have a different canon from the rest of the universal church memory serves me correct one of the texts that they have in their canon is the book of enoch which is a second temple apocalyptic text that's not in the catholic canon of the bible however it is mentioned in the new testament in the book of jude so it was a piece of literature that was well known in antiquity um but uh but did not make it into canonical literature so uh you know i mean from the catholic point of view uh the ethiopian church is an ancient church with valid apostolic orders and valid sacraments um they obviously not in union with the bishop of rome and they have different they have they have a different theology on some important issues most important one of course would be the christological question and the status of the council of chelsean that being said like with every christian communion we celebrate all those things that we have in common with the ethiopian church and we pray for greater unity as time goes on all right well very good thank you joe for your question uh you know uh some programs here on ewtn are doing uh year-end reviews or best dubs or whatever not us we're live on this monday on december 27th call now to ewtn's call to communion [Music] the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio i'm quite sure i've heard over a thousand conversion stories and when you hear this you have this opportunity of asking the question oh like lord what was it that opened this person's heart to you what did you use the journey home with marcus grodi tonight eight eastern on ewtn radio and television this is dale alquist with a chesterton christmas minute gk chesterton says that it is in the old christmas carols that date from the middle ages that we find not only what makes christmas poetic and soothing and stately but what makes it exciting the exciting quality of christmas rests upon a great paradox that the power and center of the whole universe may be found in something very small a baby in a manger and it's extraordinary to notice how completely this paradox of the manger was lost by the brilliant theologians but was kept in the christmas carols the songs recall the main point of the story that god once ruled the universe from a stable and that the hands that made the stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle want more than a minute chesterton.org [Music] it is called to communion on this monday afternoon here on ewtn radio our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 you may have heard from time to time here on the radio a wonderful little program that we have called ewtn's bookmark brief this is a great show not the entire half hour bookmark but a uh like a little summary you know a synopsis of um you know various authors works interviewed by doug keck and uh you know it runs about two or three minutes i think they're fantastic and you can get those in your email inbox anytime you want just visit ewtn.com and click on the word subscribe and that'll get you to it ewtn.com and then click on the word subscribe if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin today with brian in portland oregon listening on modern day radio hey there brian merry christmas to you what's on your mind today hey merry christmas hey so dr andrews i had a question i was talking to a presbyterian friend and we were discussing the eucharist you know and so he subscribes to the you know the real but spiritual presence in the eucharist and so he had a question that i didn't really have a great answer for which which he asked you know why would jesus be physically present in the eucharist like i think his thought was along the lines of like what is the advantage of jesus being physically present versus being say real but spiritually present sure thanks i appreciate the question so a couple of distinctions that i'd like to draw first of all the church doesn't use the word physical presence of christ in the eucharist the church uses the term real presence of christ in the eucharist or substantial crescent presence of christ in the eucharist and the terminology is very specific so when we say that christ is substantially presence present what we mean is that the substance of christ's body and blood but nothing else none of the accidents none of the properties none of the qualities of a physical body are there other than the substance substance being simply that which constitutes the thing to be the kind of thing that it is and so certain things follow from it being the substantial presence but not physical uh physical in the more robust sense of like the normal mode of physical objects um the quantity of christ's body is not there it doesn't weigh 165 pounds you know to pick up a sacred host extension in space is not there jesus is not say you know five nine in the eucharistic species no specific shoe size no specific shoe size you know divisibility isn't present so when you if you break the host in half you don't suddenly break jesus upper torso from his lower torso all that is to say the mode of presence is quite mysterious and it is very very different from any kind of normal mode of presence with which we are familiar with our senses and in fact the only way we can have access to this to this uh real presence to this substantial presence is by faith we can't actually discern it through any other any kind of sense organ now i'd like to point out that is a a serious point of contrast between the catholic view and the reformed or the presbyterian view because your friend is correct presbyterians do hold to a a kind of real presence sometimes called the mystical presence whereby they think that when believers and only believers i might add only believers so this doesn't happen when unbelievers take the eucharist according to presbyterians when believers partake of the sacred host on the occasion of that partaking the body and blood of christ which are separated from the believer in space and time are nevertheless mystically united to that believer through the agency of the holy spirit so that one communes in christ body and blood but not locally that's the presbyterian view that view first of all is not taught anywhere in the bible or sacred tradition it's an utterly novel view and it calvin invented it because he was trying to split the difference between lutherans and zwinglians see lutherans believed in the real presence swinglines denied the real presence so john calvin tried to come up with a mediating position that would that would unite zwinglians and lutherans and they managed that in the consensus tigerinus which is in the 1550s they got the the swiss lutherans in this with swiss wingley insta agreed to stop beating each other up and calvin had a mediating role to play in that at least his theology did so it's a it's a it's an occasional action that was invented for for irenic purposes with no foundation in the bible i would challenge anybody to show me in sacred scripture where it where that bizarre metaphysical elaboration is actually articulated and in fact in the 16th century calvin's own parishioners had a really hard time wrapping their heads around it as we still have a hard time wrapping our heads around it today and typically when calvin preached this in his own church people's response was either to default to the real presence and believe that jesus was really there or to default to zwinglianism and imagine that he wasn't there at all and they couldn't grasp this fine distinction that he was making and it's unbiblical so there's no reason to hold it but nevertheless calvin thought that it was detectable and that's a big point of difference between the reform view and the catholic view in the presbyterian view the true believer the true believer for presbyterians when they partake of the eucharist can have a kind of effective response you know that faith for presbyterian has a more emotional quality to it and one could rather sense uh through this upwelling of emotion and and love and acceptance and faith and joy and assurance and so forth uh that that one was in contact with christ so while it wasn't present say to eyes or ears there was an organ of sense namely one's affectivity that could discern the reality of christ's presence whereas for a catholic it that's not true for a catholic it is just an act of faith there's no sensorial response there's no emotional response there's no affective response it's by because christ said it we believe it merely an act of faith and i would say that that disposition namely that we come to the eucharist believing that we receive the body and blood of christ but but knowing that by faith alone we don't have any sensory access to that reality puts you in precisely the proper frame of mind in order to gent have a genuine experience of god's grace because grace is something that escapes our experience it's throwing yourself on the mercy of god relying on his authority in spite of all the sensible evidence to the contrary you know my life seems to be going bad and you know maybe i lost my job or my wife left you know walked out of me or the doctor said i had cancer or my kids you know gotten in trouble or some tragedy has happened it doesn't seem like god is on the throne doesn't seem like things are going well for me you know and habakkuk says though there are no cattle in the stalls and you know the fields are all blighted and the philistines are coming over the hills yet i will praise you lord okay and so the attitude of the catholic coming to the blessed sacrament it's like it's like a dress rehearsal for all of life it's making an act of faith of god's presence in my life even though everything else in all the circumstances of my life would seem to militate against that conclusion so that's one aspect of the mystery of the doctrine of the real presence it habituates me to a kind of deep spiritual optimism about the nature of the universe that i will affirm in spite of what the senses and my affections tell me that there's a reality of of infinite goodness available to me here manifested to me sacramentally but but mirroring in a certain respect the catholic view of reality as a whole that god is present to us even though we may not sense that in in in manifold but mysterious ways uh that's one aspect the other aspect of the doctrine of the of the real presence and the local presence and the substantial presence as opposed to this merely mysterious thing is that for catholic teaching because christ is truly substantially present in the sacred host he is present even to the uh to the the heretic the immoral the impious and the irreverent now that's the thing that calvin could never abide see calvin's understanding of the real presence was that if if an impious or unbelieving or irreverent person partook of the host they would just have bread but the catholic position is if an impious or irreverent or immoral person receives the host they receive christ but they don't receive him to their benefit they receive him uh to their own condemnation and thus it becomes a matter of utmost importance that we be properly spiritually disposed to come to the sacrament because we come to christ himself because we come to almighty god manifest to us in the flesh we must prepare ourselves and examine ourselves to see that we partake worthily of the blessed sacrament in a sense it's impossible for a presbyterian to have a sacrifice sacrilegious communion it's an impossibility because if he's pious he gets the real presence of christ so he thinks if he's impassed he just gives bread so he's kind of safe right you see what i'm saying in that way and that way he would seem to be like he can't he can't sin against the body and blood of christ in the eucharist because if he's sinning it's not there you see on the reformed view but on the catholic view christ is really truly there and the reality of christ's presence calls forth a response from us of reverence and adoration necessitating proper preparation the real presence of christ in the eucharist is also what manifests and expresses and creates the unity of the church see for a presbyterian and particularly for the puritans it's not the real presence of christ in the sacraments that constitutes the basis of the church's unity it's the spiritual affinity of those who know themselves to be elect so the church is the club for people who know for sure they're going to heaven that's that's what the church is and for puritans were really serious about this they believed that the idea of the gathered church right so it's not through apostolic succession it's that uh hey i had this spiritual experience so i know i'm one of god's favorites i know for sure i'm going to heaven i know i'm elect and i'll get together with all the other people that know for sure that they're elect that i agree are really elect and then we'll make a little holy club of perfect people and if you're not one of us too bad for you and so the result of that in puritan new england was the utter fracturing of puritan society you had all these desperate little congregations everyone certain that they were the elect going to heaven and sure that their neighbors were all going to hell you know uh janice knight i think it was wrote a book called orthodoxies in massachusetts on that topic orthodoxy is in the plural because everybody knew they were orthodox and everybody knew that their neighbor wasn't right whereas for a catholic again the reality of the church is something over and against above and beyond transcending my mere subjectivity it's not because i declare it to be the church that it's the church it's the church because christ established it and he made the sacraments the basis the objective basis of the church's unity not my mere subjective sense that i know i'm receiving jesus or i know that i'm saved and i know you are and i know you're not that's the presbyterian view not the catholic view all right brian is that helpful for you yeah that was great thank you very much thank you and that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn two lines open 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn radio going now to tom in twinsburg ohio listening to the rock hey there tom what's on your mind today um two quick sciency questions i'm sorry science background one is um is could is there a opinion in catholicism whether the physical universe whether god's creation is finite or infinite in size and the other one is if somebody dies in their elements their their body their matter goes into the biosphere and gets eaten by somebody else after a few centuries and then they die who gets that pound of carbon or whatever when the resurrection comes yeah thanks appreciate two good questions so regarding the first question does the catholic church have an opinion on the infinity or the finitude of the physical universe so you know in um in aristotelian philosophy in much greek philosophy the universe was thought to be eternal and potentially uh well it whether it had bounded edgers or not is a another question but at least temporally at least through an extension in time it was infinite may it may have had bounded edges uh you know geographically i mean spatially but that's another question at least in one dimension it was understood to be to be infinite and there was a debate in medieval catholicism as to whether or not you could prove the finitude of the world and st thomas aquinas who is sort of the chief catholic speculative theologian on these kinds of issues came to the conclusion that it was not possible to know rationally that the world had a beginning in time and so a catholic could hold as far as reason is concerned as far as reason is concerned the universe might be infinite or it might be finite however as an article of faith as an article of faith the catholic was bound to hold in the doctrine of the creation in time which puts at least one bounded edge to the universe and so it is an article of faith in the catholic church that the universe is not infinite at least not temporally infinite um and uh and um because of that in 1277 the bishop of paris a man named etienne tompier condemned certain theses from aristotelian and arabic philosophy about the necessity and the eternity of the world and insisted rather on the contingency of the created universe namely that the universe didn't have to be the way that it was and uh many historians of science most importantly the french historian pierre duhem understand 1277 to be the beginning of modern science philosophically speaking because it turned the eyes of natural philosophers away from what were thought initially to be sort of the eternal epicycles of reality from which everything else could be logically deduced see that would be the way you would think about things if you were a greek to the idea of the contingent and the particular and that's the specific move that allows for the beginning of natural science newton himself he was heavily influenced by the milieu of 14th and 15th century christian theology specifically presciended from questions of why gravity is i don't know why gravity just gravity you know and that ability to particularize your area of study to focus in on the narrow empirical phenomena michael strevin's historian of science in his book the knowledge machine makes this argument that that the the unique contribution of the modern scientific world view is the narrowness of focus onto the specific phenomena now now francis oakley uh intellectual historian 14th 15th century catholicism argues that perspective is the gift of the catholic church in its rejection of aristotle in 1277. now i didn't get to the question about resurrection and the and the particularity of matter way we can come back to that all right sit tight time we'll continue with uh called communion with dr david anders stay with us this is ewtn catholic radio 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen man who's free to love is free to hate he who is free to obey is free to rebel virtue in this concrete order is possible only in those spheres in which it is possibly be vicious a man can be a saint only in a church in which it is possible to be a devil you say well if i were god i would destroy evil well if you did that you would destroy human freedom god will not destroy freedom if we do not want any dictators on this earth certainly we do not want any dictators in the kingdom of heaven and those therefore who would blame god for allowing man freedom to go on hindering and thwarting his work are like those who seeing blots and smudges and errors in the student's notebook would condemn the teacher for not snatching away the book and doing the copy himself the people you know and trust are on ewtn want to be notified when call to communion with dr david anders goes live on facebook follow ewtn radio's facebook page and click the bell icon to be notified ewtn has its own official youtube channel with tens of thousands of videos covering just about every conceivable topic of interest to catholics and best of all it's free every day ewtn adds new tv shows live events devotionals homilies and specials to its youtube channel visit the ewtn youtube channel today ewtn the global catholic network tomorrow and more to life the life you were meant to live we'll look at how the theology of the body can help you live a more abundant life that's tomorrow and more to life 10 a.m eastern 9 central on ewgn radio now back to call to communion with dr david anders [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 andrews couple of uh lines are open for you right now at 8 3 3 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 before the break we took a call from tom in twinsburg ohio the first question we answered the second question i just kind of ran out of time but it had to do with uh a pound of carbon very interesting yeah so there was a speculative question about if you die and your you know body turns to dust and is eaten by worms and they die and they turn to grass and the grass is eaten by cows and the cows die and they're eaten by more people and you know you keep passing through the ecosystem that potentially some of the the elements of your physical body will have passed through any number of other people's bodies over the course of millennia at the resurrection of the dead you know who gets who gets the quantity of matter that was you in the resurrection from the dead well believe it or not the scholastic theologians thought about this question wow they did i read a whole book about it one time uh a dissertation written on the topic years ago and and lots of you know fine grained arguments but i'll just go to chapter 160 of st thomas's compendium of theology god's action in supplying what is lacking in the body and in summary thomas's position is that you know god doesn't have to if you wait uh say 165 pounds when you died he doesn't have to reassemble all 165 pounds of your original atomic you know structure mass uh in order to recreate you um he just he just needs a particle uh you know of continuity okay and from that he can supply what's lacking and you know build out the the you again and st paul does tell us that the mode of our physical presence our physical our physicality will be qualitatively different in the resurrection qualitatively different okay tom thanks for a couple of fascinating questions there here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david andrews uh looks like two lines open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's here 833-288-3986 sam in austin listening on siriusxm channel 130. hello sam what's on your mind today sir hi thank you for taking my call and i really appreciate all the work you all do my question is in talking with a lot of solely solafide protestants how are catholics how should catholics interpret the word believe as it's used in john 3 16 and john 6 29 i'll listen to the answer off the phone thank you so much yeah thank you i appreciate the question so in the catechism of the catholic church uh if you read the definition of what it means to believe god it means the total commitment of one's body mind soul intellect affectivity all that we have to commit to commit that to following god after the example of our father abraham you know when when god called abraham to leave ur of the chaldeans and go to the land that he called him to abraham got up and went yeah he got what his act of faith was that he actually responded to the divine call you know it's kind of like i'm a parent i've had five kids every parent knows this yo kid it's dinner time come to the table i'm coming five minutes later child dinner is ready come to the table i'm coming you keep using that word i do not think you know what that word means you know what that word means i don't think you know what that word means you know and god says to abraham hey i've got this great promise for you i've got this land for you i've got these many descendants for you get up and come over here and abraham says i'm coming i'm coming just let me just let me you know i've got to count my camels and arrange my socks and eat a nice nourishing pizza you know you're not coming you're not believing okay yeah and that's what the catholic faith understands by faith really uh now the the dispute between processing catholics i think about the nature of faith and salvation is a bit more subtle and touches on other issues outside the definition of faith uh it touches on how faith unites us to god and you see the catholic point of view is that faith is absolutely necessary for salvation because it's through faith that we come to experience the love of god that transforms us into his likeness and image and union with god means that we're in love with him and he's in love with us and that we enjoy that love forever and that's not the protestant understanding of faith or the protestant understanding of salvation the well when i say protestant i know i'm generalizing here and that i'm not going to cover every person but i'm talking the mainline presbyterian lutheran reformed that kind of business episcopalian their view is that mankind is unworthy of salvation and that the heart is irredeemably corrupted and turned away from god uh through total depravity and that god desires to save mankind but mankind can't be adequately reformed to merit salvation and so god being wrathful at sin has to punish somebody for that sin so he expiates his wrath on a subject he punishes an innocent person namely jesus on our behalf and then imputes christ's righteousness to us and that the because of faith or through faith one is accounted righteous even though one remains essentially at enmity with god in one's will and that's why calvin and luther would hold that even believers sin mortally even when they do good deeds and so the union between the soul and christ for most protestants classical protestants is not the union of charity it's it is the union of a forensic legal imputation right it's god declaring you to be not guilty and him accepting you in spite of the fact that you remain a miserable sinner luther compared himself to a dung hill covered in snow like the dunghill was his essential nature his spiritual nature and the snow was how god regarded him and so uh for for many traditional protestants faith is just the medium whereby that exchange takes place where this with this grand exchange where our sin is impeded to christ his righteousness is imputed to us though though essentially we remain at enmity with god in our wills and all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags that's not the catholic understanding either of faith or salvation or of union with god faith again unites us to god by bringing us into his love that transforms us causes us to love him in turn we love god and love neighbor he loves us and that union of love carried on to eternity is what we mean by salvation all right and thanks so much for your call sam it's called a communion with dr david andrews here on ewtn radio we go now to san antonio and talk with sebastian listing on the great guadalupe radio sebastian what's on your mind today hi uh nice to talk to you today yeah so my uh question is like is it fair when you come out like the rules of the bible like maybe talking about you know like uh same sex like marriage or women and like whether or not they can be you know priests that kind of thing is it fair to maybe not believe every single rule in the bible because maybe some human bias could leak in okay yeah sure i can i can absolutely talk to you about that so sebastian i think we have to we have to draw a couple distinctions here first of all uh properly speaking i don't think a rule is a sort of thing that you believe or disbelieve a rule is the sort of thing you obey or don't obey right a proposition can be believed a statement of fact can be believed or disbelieved but if i say you know god says to abraham you know get up from chaldea and move over here to to the holy land you know it's a that's a command right the the act of faith in that regard we just obeying right it's not so much accepting that there's a truth or falsehood there um now when it comes to the commands of the bible or the specific laws or precepts jesus himself clearly clearly diminishes or abrogates many of the commands of the old testament absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt he dismisses many of them as having a time and a place for which they might have been appropriate but they were not appropriate given the fullness of of god's revelation and his love and jesus let me give you an example in matthew chapter 19 jesus was asked whether it was lawful to for man to divorce his wife and you think of the context here in the ancient near east for men to divorce his wife would be to reduce her to poverty to penury maybe to a program kick her out she's a you know pariah has no way to support herself be a very cruel thing to do to abandon your spouse particularly in that context and the pharisees said to jesus can a man abandon his wife can he divorce his wife for any reason now they asked the question because there is a provision in the law of moses the old testament that said if a man divorces his wife because he finds something unplug you know unpleasant about her something disagreeable about her then you follow the following provisions and so there was a debate in first century judaism about well what is sufficient calls for divorce you know does it have to be grave cause or you know can you divorce your wife because you don't like you know she burnt the toast and jesus gives a surprising answer he says there's no reason to divorce your wife at all and they said well then why did the law of moses say that he says well because of your hardness of heart but it wasn't like that from the beginning god made the male and female and joined them together and said be one flesh and what god's joined man can't separate so there was a there was a a human ruling namely hebrew men could divorce their wives and jesus rejected it and said no that doesn't count anymore it was for a time and a place because of your hardness of heart but the real principle is the principle of love and that goes back to the very beginning of our creation because we're made in god's likeness and image and every human being has dignity and worth and value and that is the controlling principle that's the ultimate principle the principle of love and charity now that love and charity might entail and this is the case of divorce it might entail a husband doing something that he found very unpleasant so let's say god is married he doesn't particularly like his wife maybe he's not sexually attracted to her maybe his proclivity is run some other way and he up one day says you know i'd like to leave this woman i'd like to abandon my wife and kids i'd like to run off and find somebody that pleases me more or speaks more to you know how i've discovered myself to be in my mid-50s when i stopped being handsome and uh and jesus's answer is that's not very charitable to your wife and family it's the law of love that governs everything here you love means you have to will the good of the other person you have to desire to be in union with and love that other person because they're worthy they're made in god's likeness and image they have dignity and it's not about your sexual fulfillment it's not about your personal pleasure it's about serving the common good serving the good of your spouse serving the good of your child even if that calls for sacrifice from you because love is not an emotion love is not some romantic comedy you know where the universe converges to bring me happiness love is a commitment to the well-being of my fellow man and woman creating god's likeness and image because they're children of god and they're worthy of that kind of respect and dignity so in the answer to the question are there biblical rules that we can rightly dismiss today because those rules when written conveyed some human bias the answer to that question is yes that was what jesus did with many rules of the old testament another one was the rule that you should stone adulterers or put to death adulterers there was a rule in the book of leviticus that if a man and a woman were caught in adultery they should be put to death in john chapter 8 the pharisees called a woman in adultery they brought him to jesus brought her to jesus and said should we stone the woman and he said no he said no and you know the story probably he said that he who is without sin cast the first stone nobody had the guts to do it jesus turns to the woman and says has anyone condemned you and she says no sir he says neither do i condemn you go and sin no more and so did jesus dismiss certain old testament laws because those laws uh were were expressions of a particular bias of a particular time in human history the answer to that question is yes but does that mean that we have a free pass to write any laws that we want to please our fancy no because the real laws that we that everyone always has to obey is the law of love grounded in the inherent dignity and worth of every individual created in god's image as he made them we cannot rewrite that image i can't tell you what i can't define for myself what that image means god defines what that image means for me it is that i am a rational free creature with moral responsibility and the body that god gave me and the identity that comes with that body those are all gifts that god has given me and i and their gifts that he's given you and their gifts that he's given tom and i have to respect and love every human being as the person that god made sebastian thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn radio you know you may have heard the phrase the catholic life is a better life and there's somebody right here on ewtn radio that can unlock what we're talking about and that is uh john ed williams on her wonderful program women of grace each and every weekday at 11 a.m eastern john ed shows you how to embrace the catholic life with joy and peace and you know in 2021 peace is sounding pretty good right about now do check out this wonderful program women of grace with john ed williams 11 a.m eastern each and every weekday right here on ewtn radio let's go now to adriana in miami listening on the ewtn app adriana merry christmas to you what's on your mind today merry christmas thank you so much i've learned so much on this program i have a question i i saw on the news that um there's a catholic priest in new york that is asking the parishioners to show their vaccination card and this past week my local catholic church said the text saying that there is a lot of covet cases to for those who have pre-existing conditions to please be aware where your mask will that carry through other diocese nationwide will that be something that um we will be looking forward to i mean that we're not looking forward to but since the cases are going up is that something that we should expect i appreciate the question thank you so much so the way the catholic church is governed universally is that the bishop is sovereign in his diocese and so it is it is can it is possible that you could have two contiguous diocese and the two different bishops can have two different policies yeah that are not the same even though they may touch on the same issue because every bishop is sovereign in his own diocese and um and and priests are not free agents priests serve at the at the behest of their bishop and their jurisdiction is extended to them from their bishop and uh and so you know i don't know what the policy in your diocese is i don't know if your bishop has said that every priest in the diocese must require a vaccination card from catholics that wish to commune or be present to parish ministries i i don't know if that is the case i kind of doubt that's the case and if that that might be a policy that a particular priest has articulated for his parish and it might be worth investigating whether or not the diocese wants that to be the case yeah appreciate your call adriana let's go now to uh betty in florida betty is listening on siriusxm channel 130. betty merry christmas what's on your mind today thank you merry christmas um i have a question i i've always been taught and totally believed that the blessed mother um is immaculately conceived but i was wondering if you could tell me i heard recently that saint john the baptist was immaculately conceived could you tell me if that is true or an error or if there's anyone else any other saint that could possibly be immaculate conceived other than the blessed mother yes thank you i appreciate the question so there are characters in sacred scripture that seem to have had singular lives let's put it that way whose union with god is unique and the first one that we read about is the this mysterious character of enoch in the book of genesis chapter five someone who was described as having walked with god uh and then he was no more for god took him and there's a much later jewish tradition concerning enoch that he was more or less assumed into heaven in something like the fashion of the blessed virgin mary and and the jews thousands of years later wrote fanciful apocalyptic texts about enoch imagining him as this sort of heavenly celestial figure who would give revelations and so forth and that's that's all you know fantasy and legend but it was inspired by this text of scripture that suggests that there was something special about enoch we don't really know what it was but he was a he was an odd character to be sure and close to god in some way uniquely close to god the book of job chapter 1 verse 1 says that job who lived in the land of us was blameless and upright blameless is pretty good stuff yeah blameless not bad um john the baptist was clearly sanctified in his mother's womb and that's the position of the catholic church that he was he was sanctified in his mother's womb and not necessarily at the moment of his conception but from very early on and was consecrated to the lord's service and never deviated from that path so um it is it is conceivable that there have been singular individuals that may not personally have ever committed an actual sin now i'm not asserting that as a fact i'm saying that's a conceivable possibility or at least had an extraordinarily close union with god that set them apart in some sort of iconic way from the rest of the human race okay nevertheless we would not say of those characters that they were immaculately conceived and that for two reasons one it is a dogma of the catholic faith that mary received the plenitude of grace i mean not just like a thimbleful of grace we're talking you know the whole ocean of grace at the moment of her conception at the moment of her conception and specifically in view of the dignity of having been chosen to be the mother of god and so even if god chose to grant sanctifying grace to some other soul from a very early age or even from conception if he so choose it still would not have been the same measure of grace or in the same mode or for the same reason for which we call mary the immaculate conception because none of these other characters were predestined from eternity past to be the mother of god and so when we say mary is the immaculate conception we we are not just making a local claim about you know the the about a zygote we're although we are making a claim about a zygote yeah we're making a claim about the structure of the universe namely that god god determined from eternity past to predestine and elect this woman to be the the vehicle for the incarnation of the second person of the trinity all of that is packed into the concept of the immaculate conception in a way that mere sinlessness would not convey thank you so much for your call let's go to michael now in providence rhode island listening also on siriusxm channel 130. michael what's on your mind today hey michael in providence are you there michael is not there let's go to uh jody in cincinnati hey jody what's on your mind today hey this is julian julian sure how can we help you today yes yes so my question is um isn't the rule of the priest uh primarily for sacrifice um offering sacrifice after god and all of that and so since jesus came and was the ultimate sacrifice and hebrews says that he was the ultimate sacrifice then doesn't that make the role of the catholic verse obsolete no it certainly doesn't i appreciate the question however so as you know uh saint peter says in first peter chapter 2 that we are a spiritual house a spiritual temple built by god to offer spiritual sacrifice and that's biblical teaching right that the purpose of the church is to offer sacrifices first peter chapter 2. and saint paul elaborates on the nature of that sacrifice in romans chapter 12 verse 1 when he says offer your bodies as living sacrifices this is your spiritual act of worship when jesus prophesied in john chapter 4 that the day was coming when the father would seek those worshipers who would worship him in spirit and in truth it is evident that he had in mind this spiritual offering of the church when we offer our bodies as living sacrifices uh saint paul actually refers to himself one time in scripture as a priest in romans chapter 15 and the sacrifice that he says that he is preparing to offer to god is in fact the gentiles as he went and made converts in the gentile world he was he was consecrating gentile believers as something that he would offer to god as a sacrifice in that he understood as a priestly function you can read about it in romans chapter 15. so the idea that the job of the church is to offer sacrifice and that that entails a priestly identity for the apostles is a very biblical and new testament teaching now what has changed is the mode of priesthood and the mode of sacrifice the old testament priesthood of course was by it was by genealogies by physical descent from aaron and the nature of sacrifice was the ritual slaughter of animals which god tells us he took no intrinsic pleasure in he says i don't really care for the blood of goats and bulls don't really need that don't do much for me uh the sacrifice i seek is a contrite heart right and fasting and rending your heart not your garments and and doing justice to the poor that sort of thing that's the sacrifice that i desire says the lord and so christ came and did away with levitical sacrifice with the slaughter of irrational animals which was not intrinsically pleasing to god instead offered up his own life in a death of martyrdom he was put to death for his teaching that we should turn the other cheek he had to turn the other cheek in order to be martyred and then established himself as an example that we should do likewise that's exactly what peter says christ died as an example that you should do likewise and moreover mystically we die and rise with him the power of christ's resurrection flows into our lives through the sacraments so that we can put to death our old ways and purify ourselves of all unrighteousness and come to live righteous and holy lives and then become capable of offering ourselves along with him and so the whole dynamic of the christian life is to enter into and to recapitulate christ's eternal sacrifice which we which the church is always making and which is our essential identity all right very good we're going to close with this quick question from bradley on facebook how can we possibly consume the soul of christ in the eucharist if the human soul is purely immaterial yeah thanks so never said that we like masticate and digest and metabolize the soul of jesus no wouldn't claim such a thing that wouldn't make any sense what we say is that the eucharist is properly the sacrament of christ's body and blood yes it is but try getting a hold of body and blood without soul good luck with that i'm not if i if i if i go move tom locally three feet to the right his soul is going three feet to the right with him yep now i'm not going to cannibalize him if i did i don't suppose i'd eat the soul you know but i mean you can't i can't have the one without the other right and so neither neither can you have christ's body and blood without his soul now here's the thing that'll really bake your noodle right you also can't have the body and blood of christ without his divinity but you can have his body and blood without the soul if he's dead so in the tomb you had body blood and divinity but the soul had descended to health all right dr david anders thank you sir have a wonderful day thanks tom and a merry christmas to all of our listeners we'll see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david andrews i'm tom price we'll see you then god bless [Music] the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio people who go to church on sunday live on the average five years longer than the people who don't go we're kind of made to go to worship god ewtn live with father mitch paqua wednesday night eight eastern on ewtn

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,258

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: y0wbY_E8d4c

Length: 54min 15sec (3255 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 27 2021