Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - Feb 16, 2022

becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation to confess my 1-833-288-3986 to a priest what's stopping you this is call to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn radio this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you yourself are not a catholic and you've got a question about the catholic faith we would love to take a crack at that question of yours or maybe you'd like to tell us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic or returning to the catholic faith here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's if you're 833-288-3986 to us outside of north america please dial the us country code and then 205 271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and of course you can always send us an email we'll lead off with one of those in a moment ctc at ewtn.com the address ctc.ewtn.com charles berry is our producer uh matt gabinsky is our phone screener jeff burson handles social media for us if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live just put that question of yours in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today i'm doing well how are you my friend you know a little bit on the sleepy side but radio usually wakes me up well that's a good thing i've i've noticed that some days you're you're kind of kind of uh not well i wouldn't say lethargic but i might say that you seemed a little bit sleepy but then by the end of the show boom boom boom you're raring to go i need my i need my call to communion fix well you're going to love this question then this is actually something from a listener named brian and brian is quoting a protestant person who um has a podcast and that person argued recently that and and i'm just going to read what we what we have here argued that the catholic view of the eucharist particularly reading regarding john 6 51-60 is incorrect he says does john 6 51-60 prove the catholic view of the eucharist well he says how did all those people get saved for the many years before john's gospel was written because the other gospels don't mention the body and blood of christ he goes on to say that john 6 stands for proposition that the people are saved by believing in christ not receiving the body and blood of christ he says eating the bread is a metaphor for believing in him he continues that the disciples quote walked away because they didn't get it he further states as a by the way it was strictly against mosaic law to drink blood transubstantiation takes drinking of blood literally which would have been asking jews to violate mosaic law and in closing he says start reading it at verse 35. he also says they took this took place midway through jesus's ministry not at the last supper clearly suggesting that one really had nothing to do with the other now the person that put up this podcast describes himself as quote a former catholic further suggesting his authority and reliability on the subject so i'm sure you have a few things to say and this was sent to us by brian yeah oh there's lots of things to say about this one i really appreciate that all right so much so so first of all let me start with the with this bizarre proposition or this bizarre question how did people get saved quote unquote get saved before the gospel of john was written now i i think i i think i know where he's going with that i think what he means is the only textual support that catholics can produce in defense of the doctrine of the real presence at best he would argue is john 6 and they misinterpret even john 6. so outside of john 6 there's no way that anybody could come to the catholic belief in the eucharist based on textual evidence that's his position that's his position all right let's just start with that what's the fundamental problem a fundamental problem in his premise well the idea that we determine the contents of christian faith from a text regardless of when they were written yeah and that that's a protestant presupposition asserted by martin luther but never taught by jesus okay christ never said the way to know the content of christian faith is to exegete it from a text and until that text is written you're just out of luck buddy on the contrary christ never wrote a word down taught entirely by way of oral tradition and by demonstration and by the institution of rituals and institutions and he said to his apostles go into all nations make disciples and teach them everything i have commanded you baptize in the name of the father son and holy spirit i'll be with you to the end of the age so when christ made provision for handing on the faith he didn't point to a text or even a collection of texts but rather to a body of oral tradition namely the tradition of his teaching and his commands which he entrusted to authorized individuals with a promise of divine assistance and the command go make disciples and teach them this stuff right so if you if you want to know the content of the christian faith you're not dependent on john or matthew or mark or any particular text you're the ultimate source for knowledge about the christian faith is the tradition the deposit of faith that christ instituted to the church that has been handed on faithfully for 2000 years so that's point number one secondly how did people get saved before the gospel of john was written well they would have gotten saved by doing what jesus said by obeying his teaching by persevering in faith hope and charity in the works of mercy until they die that's exactly how they got that's exactly how they got saved now he also made the argument that john chapter 6 is about believing in christ not receiving him sacramentally uh this is a false dichotomy because the catholic church by no means draws a kind of contra distinction between participation in the sacraments in the life of faith on the contrary st thomas aquinas who's kind of our number one theologian describes the sacraments as protestations of the faith that justifies they are they are performative demonstrations of they are enactments of the faith whereby we are joined to christ they they have their their efficacy their spiritual power precisely through the medium of faith so you know it's like telling somebody it's like watching a movie and reading the subtitles at the same time or you know speaking to somebody in english and in sign language yeah simultaneously right that's how sacraments work in fact the church refers to them as the sacramento fide the sacraments of faith so it's a it's a false dichotomy now i've got lots more to say don't know if we'll get to it we've got to go to a break right now so we will go to that break and uh when we come back we'll uh unpack a little bit more from this uh very interesting letter that looks like brian sent to us we'll also get to the phones talk with tom in twinsburg ohio there's a line open for you at 833 288 ewtn for call to communion this is life issues with brad mattis president of life issues institute earlier i told you about matt schranger a louisville kentucky police officer who was punished his offense was while off duty silently kneeling in prayer with his father in front of a closed abortion center matt was suspended for four months stripped of his police powers and placed under investigation compare this with his fellow officers who protested while on duty advocating for gay rights and black lives matter that face no discipline matt sued the city of louisville and the metro police department for violating his first amendment rights matt superiors knew they were guilty of content-based discrimination that's why said his attorney they quickly accepted their offer of 75 000 to settle the issue matt stood up for his rights and want praise god for this victory like us on facebook at life issues and stay informed more informed than you've ever been the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio more to life is all about exploring what it means to live the catholic difference in everything we do our goal is to help people see that when they are connected to his grace there is so much more to life more to life with dr greg and lisa popcheck tomorrow morning 10 a.m eastern on ewtn radio [Music] call to communion on this wednesday afternoon here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six in a moment we're gonna get back to that very interesting uh letter we received from brian who outlined a podcast uh from a protestant fellow who outlined a whole bunch of objections there we're going to continue that in just a moment first of all i want to tell you about something wonderful being offered actually very timely for you to prepare for the holy season of lent it is a cool new t-shirt called ash tag get it spread spread the lenten message of repentance and dust and ashes with a great t-shirt with the message the original hashtag if i could i'd give you a little rim shot there this t-shirt features an image similar to the typical ashes the catholics receive on ash wednesday on their forehead but a little bit of a twist there on the back of the shirt it reads remember you are dust and to dust you shall return lent hashtag ash wednesday repentance very cool this shirt is available in two colors plum or gray sizes small through 2x it's available right now at ewtnrc.com by catholicshopcatholicewtnrc.com just look for the hashtag i think that is hilarious all right back to this letter you had some other uh things to address here david yeah yeah yeah so so uh one charge that the fellow made was that if transubstantiation were true then uh then christians would be implicated in breaking the the strictures in the mosaic law against drinking blood and that's similar sometimes you'll hear people accuse catholics of being cannibals i've heard that and i'll give the same response that i would give to the cannibal charge and that is this is not normal eating this is not normal drinking and cannibalism in particular involves uh you know the immolation of a victim killing a victim dismembering him or her masticating uh you know chewing and metabolizing the flesh of your enemy so that it becomes incorporated into your own physiology none of those things happen in the celebration of holy mass first of all we don't immolate a victim christ isn't destroyed his body is not broken or divided in any way and we do not we do not metabolize him into our physiology the doctrine of the church is that the real presence perjures only as long as the accidents resemble bread and wine and that that's going to go away long before the digestive system is completed right so this it's the point of the eucharist is not to nourish the physical body as as normal eating and drinking is but rather the the sacramental action has a symbolic value right to to remind us of the spiritual reality of christ's true body and blood nourishing our souls so i'm saying real body real blood true presence but the true presence is not there for the purpose of nourishing our bodies and the reason the reason that we partake is because it is a powerful way of impressing on us in faith the reality that christ's true body and blood must nourish us in our interior life i.e in our soul right that's the way the new eucharist nourishes us unto eternal life you know not to the next track meet right that's not its point it's not a purpose so we do believe in the real presence but you're acting like we believe in a normal kind of physical presence with all the quantitative properties of bread of of flesh and blood that's not the way the eucharist works it just totally misstates misunderstands the catholic doctrine on the nature of the eucharist and then finally i would like to make a comment about the the charge does john 6 prove uh like beyond shadow of doubt the catholic doctrine of the eucharist and uh and he this fellow has made the allegations made the assertion that well you know you're just supposed to take it symbolically or metaphorically you're not supposed to take it straight forward like jesus says well i can always do that when i can take any text and go well you know i'm just going to give out the spiritual interpretation of this text and arbitrarily assert that your literal literal-minded reading is just wrong and you can't gain saint me i mean i could say well you know i'm just going to stick to the spiritual interpretation of the constitution sorry officer i was following the spiritual interpretation of that stop sign back there you know don't you know didn't you get the memo yeah you can always do that right and and your your interlocutor can't contradict you there's got to be a principle however to determine how do you know how do you know if there is in fact an authoritative spiritualizing interpretation of the text because there are texts that that transcend the literal or that are metaphorical or that are to be read in a spiritual sense how do you know how to do that without being utterly arbitrary well saint paul actually tells us in first corinthians chapter 2 you do it if you have the mind of christ you you have to be in communion with christ in the church which is the pillar and foundation of the truth to have the objective principles to determine the right way to interpret a sacred text so you know just some guy on catholic radio or protestant radio who has a podcast has no personal authority to do that i mean i could declare anything arbitrarily to be a spiritual interpretation is that credible only if i have the mind of christ only if i'm reading the text with jesus and the company of his disciples can i then know that i have the proper interpretation which just means you have to read with the mind of the church right well so brian thank you for passing on that information from the fellows podcast we appreciate hearing from you and that opens uh opens up the phone right now if you're ready let's go to them at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin today with tom tom is in twinsburg ohio listening on am 1260 the rock hey there tom what's on your mind today um i was wondering why can't fulton sheen be beatified because of where just because of where his body's located i know it doesn't help him but it helps us on earth to have someone to follow who is beatified and hopefully in the future sanctified and he's kind of the forerunner of ewtn so i was wondering you know what what does the location place of his body and a few thousand kilometers here or there have to do with whether or not he's in heaven oh yeah thank you thank you so of course it has nothing to do with whether or not he's in heaven right no matter where you die or where you're buried that has no effect on where you're in heaven um but the point of a the canonization process is not just to give people peace of mind about who's in heaven but is rather to establish a catholic as worthy of veneration in the universal church and to and i'm going to use this word in a technical sense so don't use this in the sociological sense to permit the public cult of a saint cult here just meaning from the latin cultist meaning veneration right right right divine honor is of sort paid to a person right and part of the cult of saints in the catholic tradition involves the the veneration of their relics and so you you kind of want to get the whole process underway you know it's not just a declaration that fulton sheen is in heaven it's it's it's establishing him and the cult of the saint for the benefit of the prayer life of the people of god across the world and um you know there's a kind of a long history actually of catholics sort of battling over who gets the relics you know and that's a bit unfortunate and actually canon law deals with this kind of thing because in the middle ages they didn't have good principles for figuring out like who gets the relics so they would sometimes come to blows over who who had the body of some of some celebrated saint or hermit in fact there are tr true true story true story there are anecdotes from high middle ages of you know this town would have some celebrated hermit you know and they just thought he was fantastic and he'd get a little bit on up in age and so they'd start posting guard around the village you know maybe you can't leave buddy sorry you're our hermit we're keeping you here you're not going anywhere you know and um and uh so there's some of that going on but yeah wherever he reposes uh then people are gonna come on pilgrimage and for public veneration and so forth so they want to get that worked out before they establish the public cult of the saint they don't want to get it going and have a shrine yeah and then and then you know come up wake up one morning and find out that his arm's been taken off to someplace else we don't want that right and you know the church is very thorough that's right in the process i mean but in the meanwhile you can still pray to him absolutely yeah it's nothing stopping you from praying for him praying to him you know probably in heaven you know don't have the certainty of faith about the but that's a reasonable judgment so go have at it tom thanks so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 call to communion on this wednesday afternoon here on ewtn radio let's go now to eric in california listening on siriusxm channel 130 eric what's on your mind today um how you doing i am myself a practicing catholic um i have two friends who have divorced they were practicing catholics for a long time divorced kind of late into their marriage um neither one initiated the divorce or was the cause of the divorce um who initiated the divorce then their their spouse at the time they went along with it but okay so these two people were not married to one another no no no no oh okay i was confused i thought i had a couple they were married to each other and they got divorced but neither one of them started it and i was like okay i don't this doesn't make sense okay go ahead no i'm sorry i'm sorry it's just it just happens to be two couples i got you i got you so each of them was left their former spouse left them and divorced them yes right and then the the abandoned party went ahead and contracted another relationship prior to receiving an annulment no okay no um they both had tried to get an annulment and both were denied and i'm not understanding it totally but basically because there was a church sanctioned um sacrament at the time i mean when they got married they were both in the church and so they they were both now annulled and unfortunately you know other than hercules and all that they both have left the church sure um you know they they can't receive communion um they don't get the benefit from receiving communion um neither one of them well actually one anyway neither one of them married sure um so that kind of so another one of them has remarried no okay so it's like what okay well hold on a second hold on if they haven't remarried if they haven't remarried then they're they they are not denied holy communion they're not denied participation in the church if they have not remarried if your spouse leaves you and you don't initiate that and it's not your fault you're not at fault you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to be blamed for there's nothing for you to repent of necessarily not not with respect to the marriage because the other party initiated it the church does not deny you sacraments or holy communion now if my spouse leaves me i'm validly married my spouse leaves me and then i go contract another relationship without prior annulment right without obtaining an annulment then i'm then i'm an adulterer right because i'm or you're a bigamist then the church is going to deny me holy communion not because my first spouse left me but because i've now gone and taken another spouse when i when i'm validly married to somebody else that would be a cause for denying communion but the church does not deny communion to people because they've been abandoned by their spouse right okay so i'm just getting this clear in my mind then so even though the annulment did not go through they could not get annulled um that doesn't mean they stopped being bored yeah but it's it's not it's not a sin for someone else to slap you in the face you know if somebody offends against me it's the offender who's done the sin i'm not i'm not guilty if your spouse leaves you and you don't want them to you're not responsible for that you're not punished because of what you're but because of your spouse's infidelity and they could certainly still receive holy questions absolutely they can go to holy communion okay i mean there may be other reasons they couldn't go to communion that i don't know about yeah but being abandoned by your spouse is it's the one who abandons who is in sin right the the injured party has done nothing wrong okay well there you go eric thank you so much for your call we hope that is helpful for you uh let's go now to uh this question here from deborah who's posting it on facebook good afternoon my friend said that god can prevent bad things from happening i don't agree with him because i feel bad things happen because of man's free will and choice what is your opinion with regard to this well my opinion is not worth the herbal tea that i'm drinking right now but i will give you what the church is teaching is on this okay god controls absolutely everything down to the smallest subatomic particle not a sparrow falls apart from the will of god that was jesus's teaching and so how does that how does that mesh with with human freedom god predestines he providentially determines the outcome of huma of human free choices god works human freedom into his plan providentially so that humans have genuine agency but god has has perfect control and complete foreknowledge of how that's going to play out i mean you know when you think about your own agency uh it's not very great i mean i i can i think i can make decisions in my life but i'm also very very constrained all around by all kinds of circumstances and conditions in history predilections biology neurology all kinds of things condition my choices in ways that all fall very reasonably within the providential uh care of god and function as secondary causes in the outworking of divine plan so i have human freedom but god takes that perfectly into account in order to bring to pass exactly what he intends deborah s thank you so much for your question glad that you're watching us on facebook and if you are watching us right now on facebook or youtube and you've got a question all you have to do is put that question in the comments box uh our buddy jeff burson will see that question he will pass it on to us here in the studio and we will get to it just as quick as we possibly can in a moment we're going to talk with elena in waco texas we'll also be talking with jeff in seattle washington and it looks like gene driving through california we're gonna get to gene as well two lines open at the moment eight three three two eight eight ewtn is that phone number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're listening to us outside of north america dial the u.s country code and then 205 271-2985 lots of different ways you can communicate with our program call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn [Music] to ask why should i pray is the same as asking why should i raise my mind and heart to god since that's what prayer is but when stated like that it's pretty obvious we need to pray because god is he to whom our minds and hearts are ultimately directed union with him is our ultimate destiny without prayer we lose our direction to god as our ultimate end and thus set ourselves on a path that leads back into the slavery of sin [Music] dear family let us pray together mother angelica's prayer for the united states lord god i ask in all humility that you bless this country as unworthy as we are protect it from every evil protect it from the enemy protect it lord that it may accomplish thy will and keep thy commandments i ask lord with a pleading heart to look down upon us in our unworthiness give this country a renewal of devotion to you to your law and to your commandments lord let us be once more a country under you lord may we once more say in god we trust guide us and protect this country from every evil and every harm amen this is dr david anders if you missed part of today's show catch the encore tonight at 11 eastern check out the podcast anytime at ewtnradio.net and click podcasts [Music] hi this is sci kellet later today we asked callers why don't you think catholicism makes sense carlo broussard our guest catholic answers live 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio now back to call to communion [Music] 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 three nine eight six two lines open right now eight three three two eight eight nine if you call right now we'll try to get you on today's program in the meanwhile let's go to elena in waco texas listening on our great affiliate there red sea catholic radio elena what's on your mind today hi so i'm a cradle catholic and something i've just kind of been thinking about that i've really been struggling with recently is i know you kind of addressed it in a previous question but like the concept of free will and the thing that i'm trying to understand is that like god knows everything he knows where you're going to end up he knows all everything you know he just knows everything and i'm struggling with how can that be free will if at the same time people are telling me like god has a plan for you like you need to go like where god leads you and i'm like well god is leading me which of course i understand i don't make great decisions but like how is that free will yeah great so these are these we got really two different issues i want to deal here with one is the philosophical problem of uh divine omniscience and human freedom and the other one is the the more sort of existential spiritual problem of discerning the will of god in my life and following a plan that sort of thing let's take those in turn so first of all with respect to divine omniscience and human freedom uh trivially in human life we have foreknowledge of other humans future actions in a way that does not constrain them but is nevertheless highly accurate so let me give you an example if i come home tonight and i offer to make my son brussels sprouts for dinner i know the outcome he will refuse the brussels sprouts i mean like i would i it's it's almost infallibly certain you could put money on yeah you put money he is going to refuse the brussels sprouts okay uh he won't refuse kale however offer him kale he'll eat the kale interesting he's a big fan of kale exactly now my knowing what he's going to do in no way causes him to do it you see all right and in the same way god has perfect knowledge of of every motion because he sees reality in a single permanent instant right there is no past or future in god doesn't god doesn't look down the line and anticipate what's going to happen from his perspective it's all one single permanent instant all right but in the same way that you know i can uh you know i can look at all of the pieces of a chess board simultaneously um and having arranged a certain order um or maybe dominoes are a better metaphor uh god can see reality in a single permanent instant having arranged all the sort of causal intricacies therein including the outcome of free human choices and yet not be the immediate agent bringing those choices to pass right in a in a kind of you know interventionist sort of way um now it also helps to conceptualize what we mean by human freedom and for it to be morally relevant human freedom requires the power to rationally deliberate between items that we understand to be good in some sense right i'm torn between doing this and doing that this is maybe a good pleasure maybe this is a good moral virtue i'm trying to debate i'm able to rationally discern the alternatives i deliberate and i choose okay that's what human choice consists in that's what the morally relevant free will consists in right but there are a whole lot of sort of background developments that have to take place for those things to be true for me for me to be capable of rationally discerning a moral good in a particular context for example presupposes a whole personal history and certain sort of cognitive emotional development all kinds of things that condition those choices all of which can reasonably fall within divine providence even in a more direct way without actually constraining my ability actually are the precondition of my ability to rationally deliberate right so that's kind of the divine omniscience in human freedom thing now let me let me add like one more wrinkle to that uh people often think about their relationship to god as if i'm over here and god is over there and and that has to be like you know if uh i don't really feel free you know if i'm a if i'm a kid and my mother makes me the brussels sprouts and she says here freely eat your brussels sprouts and she leans over my shoulder and you know sporks one on a fork and is shoving it in my mouth i'm like leave me alone leave me alone leave me alone go away go away go away i'm constrained here i'm not free okay and if we think about god in a similar way like we're an object over here and god's an object over there and he has to kind of move into our space and get in our face in order to constrain us and for me to really be free he sort of got me utterly separated from me and distant somehow that really misconstrues what catholics mean by the word god okay now i'm going to use a couple of analogies these are just analogies they're not literally the way god operates in us but they're just to kind of help illustrate catholics teach that god is the very act of being right now you can't have the very act of being exist over in one part of the universe in all the particular beings in another part of the universe all right that that doesn't make any sense it's kind of like you know i don't know how many geometric shapes are represented in my body okay but i mean i suppose i could you know find some bones or something that are relatively rectangular all right well you know it's not like the the the form rectangle exists in some other space and then the little bitty rectangle is in me like rectangularity as a principle is instantiated in me right and transcends me or you know imagine the strong weak nuclear force uh gravity and electromagnetism don't exist over here and then i'm over there no the fundamental forces of physics sort of pervade my being sure and create the conditions for my existence you see and in the same way our relationship to god saint paul says we live in him we hit him and moving him and have our being in him right um so he's not he's not something that's an object separate from me he rather is the condition uh uh well he is the presupposition he is the ground he's the principal in virtue of which i have my being including my rational being which is the basis for my free determination so he's more interior to me than i am to myself saint paul says and it's quite frankly because i participate in god's rationality in god's being and in god's freedom that i have freedom and that i have moral relevance that i'm a moral agent because i participate in the the utter morality if you will of god's very being now when it comes to this business about discerning god's plan for your life um there is a there is i think a sound way of approaching that question and then there is i think a kind of superstitious and romantic way of of of doing that if you've ever watched a romantic comedy and you know popular movies there's always this kind of sense that the the sort of bumbling you know young people who are falling in love that they're destined for some person you know there's that that perfect person is out there for me if i can only find them i'll be happy and then they run around and they make a mess of things and they get embarrassed and they date the wrong person and then sort of the universe coalesces for them to finally meet and then they embrace and then everybody walks off into the sunset and they're all happy and that's a really pernicious idea because it suggests to people that the universe is somehow particularly interested in you having this romantic adventure and if you don't find that then you're destined to unhappiness you know it's out there someplace for you you've got to find your true love and that's really not what we mean by the idea of vocation or god having a plan for your life um rather we all have a particular kind of character and that could be the result or temperament that could be the relative genetics or environment or history or culture or a whole mess of things right and and so like what i can do reasonably with my life the kind of gifts and aptitudes and things that i am capable of that can give me a meaningful existence they're not out there someplace like a secret to be discovered they're really imminent within me because they're part of my constitution and i could conceivably go in any number of different directions you know i could do this career or that career marry this person or that person and it's really up to me fulfilling the potentialities of the character that i have that will determine the kind of life that i live in the outcome that i have so it's imminent within me not something that's sort of a mystery out there to be discovered and of course those things are imminent in me because of the character that god has imprinted into me yes indeed elena is that helpful for you today yes thank you so much thank you you are welcome thanks for calling it's called a communion here on ewtn let's go to uh jeff in seattle listening on the great sacred heart radio hey jeff what's on your mind today hey there i heard there's a such thing as unforgivable sin and i really need to know what it is because i'm a little freaked out i'm scared i may have committed it you haven't you haven't if you care about it you haven't done it that's right yeah the unforgivable sin is final impenitence so you know if you thumb your nose at god in the in the final moments of your life as you're dying and you refuse his grace obstinately and say you know set your your face against him and i'm determined not to accept god's mercy period in the paragraph and you do that until death that's the unforgivable sin if you're worried about it you hadn't done it yeah so as a as a rule here jeff don't do it don't do it appreciate your call jeff thank you so much for checking in today here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders tom price here reminding you to join us for ewtn bookmark with doug keck coming up saturday afternoon 4 30 p.m eastern this week dr paul vitz joins doug to discuss his book the complementarity of men and women and how god made us male and female to give us a full picture of god's image do check it out saturday afternoon 4 30 p.m eastern right here on ewtn radio okay let's go now to uh nancy in seattle listening on youtube this afternoon nancy what's on your mind today yes um hi dr anders and tom price i love the show i listen often um i was just watching cnn last night just happened on it and the end of the show they had father back on and they were talking about a priest that had given uh in the normal course of him being a priest had used we instead of i in the formula for uh i baptized you in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and anyway the stir was is that there was this talk of way you know the guy is going to have to do a redo on all these people that he's baptized and married because he's been using repeatedly the wrong uh you know the unauthorized formula of the you know i baptized you in the name of the father he's been using we over and over anyway dr anders i thought of you right away and i thought gosh this is incredible but at the same time i felt a tremendous amount of peace about it because i've listened to you so carefully and you've told me that so often you know that uh whether it be the a pope or a priest and he's you know maybe not doing his job properly that we don't have to worry about that so i'm just calling in today just to let you know and that's all okay well i really appreciate the question i mean the comment and and the words of encouragement this is a terrible shame obviously and i have no idea what was in the man's mind i'm not going to speculate about that just for the purpose of our listeners to understand what we're talking about um the catholic church believes that the sacraments instituted by christ really do convey grace and they have a proper form that christ instituted we have to follow that uh by the law of the church and and in order to have certainty that we've done the sacrament the proper way right you know so if christ says uh we're supposed to take bread and wine consecrate them as his body and blood and his holy communion you know i can't use pizza and beer i've got to use bread and wine that's what christ did now um if he says baptized in the name of father son and holy spirit i can't do it in the name of the creator redeemer and sanctifier you know i've got i've got to use the formula that's been handed on by sacred tradition to have certainty that i've done the thing in the proper way now you know i was once in a conversation with a very talented and gifted canonist a person whose job it is to make sure they have the law of the church right applied to particular cases and i was uh i wasn't worried about this sacrament baptism i had another sacrament in mind where where questions of validity usually come up more frequently i had to do with marriage and uh you know i was a little bit disturbed by some rulings that i had heard and what that meant for the spiritual lives of people involved and this uh wise and discerning candidates made an important point to me she said you know the job of a candidate is to determine validity we determine validity we don't determine grace you know okay and while the point of a valid sacrament is if i have a valid sacrament then i have certainty that god has extended grace through that sacrament right right but in the absence of a valid sacrament you're never going to say to somebody well you know you have no grace in your life you're not going to say that right because god god will reach people the way he's going to reach them sure so we need to have valid sacraments we need to have certainty about the form and and we have to have great pastoral sensitivity if somebody's flubbed and done the wrong way i mean the church had to really really treat the people who were mis-served with kid gloves and be amazingly gentle and sensitive to that right not just you know send them a letter in the mail and say show up for your sacrament they really need to reach out to him pastorally sensitive ways we need to have those valid sacraments but at the same time we have to recognize that god can always act in a soul according to his own purposes in ways that are hidden from us so we never want to say to somebody you don't have grace we're not going to say that that god's we're not the judge of that god is the judge of that nancy thank you so much for your call hope that's helpful for you here is lou now in saint louis listening on the great covenant radio hey lou what's on your mind today sir hi thanks for taking the call this is a follow-up on that ladies question i i heard that a segment on the cbs radio on that and then the final statement was and in the catholic church baptism is required for salvation i would like you to comment on that yeah sure so you know moses wasn't baptized not with water in the name of the father son and holy spirit adam wasn't baptized in that way abraham wasn't baptized in that way righteous job was not baptized in that way john the baptist seemingly was not baptized in that way and so as a sort of you know metaphysical categorical truth no a person does not have to be baptized in the name of the father son holy spirit with water flowing on the scalp in order for them to go to heaven when they die however baptism is normative it has been instituted by christ so that we can have a sign that that we can lay hold of with certainty knowing that the grace signified is conveyed by the sacrament and so by christ's institution the church is to be a light to the nations to bring god's teaching and love and mercy to the world and one of the instruments that god gave the church to do that is the sacraments and we need to perform them and we need to do them in the proper way and so it's necessary for us to baptize it's required in that sense at christ's ordinance because when people are baptized they're reborn right i mean it's a tremendous gift um and so we want to have that but if someone is denied that through no fault of their own are they cut off from god in grace no they're not okay appreciate you call lou here is sarah in peru indiana listening today on facebook live hey sarah what's on your mind today hi i had called the other day and i was just at the end of the show and i know that dr anders said that my friend who didn't receive a catholic funeral wouldn't be punished for what her children did but i just wondered if he could maybe explain the benefit of having a catholic funeral for us catholics yeah if there's something to remedy what happened to her like with the mass memorial mass blessing of a grave something along those terms right absolutely so the uh the catholic funeral can serve two major purposes one is to offer the mass and prayers for the repose of the soul of that that has died okay and the mass is efficacious for the the suffering souls verification so we want to have a mass said for the repose of that person's soul now if you miss the funeral mass you can always have a mass said you know ask any priest you know have this as your mass intention to say this for the pose of this person's soul so we got that covered okay the other reason to have a catholic funeral is for the sake of the mourners and so there are many rites and prayers in a mass that give hope and encouragement to those of us that are left behind now unfortunately this woman's loved ones have deprived themselves of that grace of that benefit but your friend is not denied the prayers of the church or even a mass said specifically for the repose of her soul i will be honest with you i have not delved deeply into the theology surrounding the blessing of the casket the body and the gravesite um you know to to bless something is to set it aside for a sacred purpose and uh and to invoke god's blessing upon it and you know i think that is in as many ways as those physical items can be consecrated to god's uh purposes and can become uh points of contact for the faithful to be to bring them into the orbit of the prayer life of the church the intercession of the church the the act of blessing is efficacious right but it's not going to have if you don't bless if you don't uh if you don't bless the casket it's not going to affect the fate of that person's soul per se you know um so that's what i have to say there you go sarah thank you so much for your call called communion here on ewtn radio all right we're going to go to uh ted in dallas listing on youtube this afternoon hello ted what's on your mind today sir well first of all dr andrews uh i appreciate your program you're the my number one favorite program well thank you on catholic radio my concern is about the eucharist and the lack of belief among the catholic family in the in the true presence of our lord and [Music] i think we need to do more about it uh i guess i'd like your reaction to that yeah i have some ideas too sure thank you very much i appreciate the question well clearly clearly we need to catechize people about the doctrine of the of the real presence and it's a tragedy that so many catholic people seem to disbelieve in it okay now how to remedy that here is where i think i may be a bit different from maybe some other folks i don't think the solution into in the to the problem is simply to turn up the volume and frequency uh by which we proclaim the doctrine of the real presence right i don't think that's the solution i because i i know people who understand the teaching of the church and reject it so it's not that they're ignorant of the doctrine in my judgment right in my judgment not that they're ignorant of the doctrine of the real presence it's that they don't find it relevant it's not it doesn't move them and they see no sense in it they see no point in it and so they walk away from because they don't find it transformative that's that's what i think the real problem is and so just pounding the table and saying real presence real presence isn't going to solve that problem now uh here's what the catechism the catholic church says about sacraments the sacraments are efficacious signs of grace the sacraments are efficacious signs of grace instituted by christ and entrusted to the church by which divine life is dispensed to us now catholics rightly emphasize and particularly in conversation with protestants efficacious it's the real deal divine life is dispensed we emphasize that as we rightly should but i think in a political context especially if you're up against a protestant who doesn't believe in the real presence there is a tendency on the part of catholics to neglect the other part of the definition namely that they are signs the catechism also says because they are signs the sacraments also teach what do they teach they teach what we call the kerygma the proclamation of christ's death resurrection and ascension for us and for our salvation that we might be joined to him in faith hope and charity and come to have the mind of christ in other words the sacraments are efficacious in us through the medium of faith through understanding not just the doctrine of the real presence but the entirety of the christian life the story of salvation history right the message of jesus his divine teaching and his divine life uh who becomes ours and we become his so that as he took on human flesh to recapitulate our life perfectly and offer it as an offering to god we might in turn imitate him and his charity and come to see the world through christ's eyes the transformative aspect of the sacraments is not the real presence alone but it's the real presence as the vehicle to bring us into living loving faithful communion with the person of jesus whose divine personality suffuses and transcends our own so that we come to have the mind of christ we have to proclaim the whole council of god and the entirety of the christian life in all of the spiritual riches of the catholic tradition i i can't i think in my 19 years of being a catholic i think i've only heard one homily in a in a diocesan parish in 19 years that addressed spiritual theology and i mean the ages of the interior life you know progression and asceticism and illumination and union all that business won in 19 years wow i could probably count on one hand the number of homilies i've heard other than those on ewtn uh touching on moral theology you know uh how rarely do i hear homilies on on how to develop an act of prayer life sad you know it's just the fact right yeah and so i think that it's it's um if you present the doctrine of the real presence in abstraction well it really doesn't cost people anything okay that's a that's an interesting esoteric doctrine i don't see how that connects to me i think the way to increase belief in the real presence is to increase belief in the christian life that the real presence is meant to work within us and then people have a reason to believe a motive to believe because it becomes spiritually and existentially relevant to them well christian life that is the boots on the ground right on the ground all right very good ted thank you so much i wish we could get uh get back to you and get some of your thoughts on the subject but we are flat out of time i also wanted to get to uh steve in the villages in florida also jared in kansas michael in los angeles i'm sorry folks i just can't get to you today but please call back tomorrow at this same time or on the day of your choice uh just let our phone screener matt know that we just couldn't get to you today and he will put you at the head of the cube dr david anders thank you sir thank you tom don't forget we do this program monday through friday 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern right here on ewtn radio you can also check out the best of call to communion on saturdays at the same time 2 p.m eastern and the podcast available anytime by going to ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team here i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us today see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion have a great day and god bless on the next catholic connection with teresa tamio we do our very best at catholic connection to keep you connected to the church with inner

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,965

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: Bkzks1V7AXc

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 16 2022