Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - Feb 22, 2022

starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation is call to 1-833-288-3986 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've got a question about the catholic faith we are here to help you get that question answered here's our phone number 833-28888 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're listening 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 ctc ewtn.com the address ctc at ewtn.com all right we have the a team in place ready to uh talk with you charles berry our producer matt kabinsky our phone screener jeff burson on social media if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there on both platforms right now and in addition to all of our other platforms our you know alexa and everything else uh but all you have to do if you're listening on facebook or youtube well just put that question of yours in the comments box jeff will send that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend i'm doing well thanks glad to hear that we're going to lead off with an interesting question here from germany cornelius says dr anders very grateful for your show i'm always looking forward to it my question is this i remember you saying sometime back that there wasn't much hope of salvation for judas but didn't judas show some repentance when committing suicide so is it because of his suicide that you don't think there could be any redemption for judas because he didn't truly believe in jesus power to forgive best wishes from germany cornelia thanks cornelia appreciate the question it's more complicated than that it's more complicated than that now the judas's suicide would indicate first of all not repentance but despair right which is the opposite of the virtue of hope yeah why is nothing that can happen that can redeem me from this is just awful and lost and that's that's regret is not the same thing as repentance repentance is the decision to put evil things behind us and to move forward uh on a new path in a life of virtue and that really depends on the virtue of hope that we think such changes such transformations are possible and worth undertaking and judas obviously lacked that that infused virtue of hope and charity but there's more to it than that as well so in in sacred tradition judas is is often represented both by the church fathers and in the liturgy of the church as someone who is lost and jesus christ himself says of judas that it would have been better for him not to have been born so just it's just not looking good for judas now you know there's not a dogmatic teaching in the catechism that declares the damnation of judas as a as a as a certainty but i'd say the weight of of catholic tradition and the text of scripture is against it but you know i'm not god ultimately is a judge of judas's soul not me okay very good hey calls are coming in right now if you'd like to get in the line our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 matt is screening those calls just as quickly as they can come in here's an anonymous email that we received about an hour ago just came in hot off the griddle as they say this is uh this person says dr andrew andrews in light of today's feast of the chair of saint peter my eleven-year-old daughter asked me what jesus meant by quote bound in heaven in matthew 16 verses 18 and 19 can you explain this yeah thanks so binding and loosing is a term that comes from rabbinical theology and it had to do with the authority to define things as clean or unclean or to admit it or exclude from from the community and by saying that whatever peter binds on earth will be bound in heaven it means that god will vindicate peter's judgments okay now he can only do that he can only do he only back peter up if peter is guaranteed to do that well yeah right that's the part of the the doctrine of the church's infallibility that what you wouldn't you know i'm not gonna hand you a blank check unless i'm certain that you're going to do what you're supposed to do sure sure that makes a lot of sense all right appreciate that anonymous email if you'd like to send us an email for a future show the address ctc ewtn.com peta in canada watching on youtube says i don't know if i have the heart for strength to enter the door luke 13 24 why did god not save the weak that are trying to enter is it a specific sacrifice not made what are they rejecting uh yes only look up luke 13 24 make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many i tell you will try and enter not be able to so you know christ says that the way of salvation uh is narrow and few enter in the way of damnation is wide many trudge down that path well what is the way of salvation well it's it's it's to follow the life of virtue that's what it is to imitate the life of jesus obey the teaching of jesus and to recapitulate his divine personality that we come to strive to see the world as christ sees it to value the people that he values to be close to the poor to give sacrificially of ourselves to renounce our own will when that will is selfish and narcissistic and egotistical and to give those things up well you know they're deeply embedded in us st paul describes the human condition in romans chapter seven of an individual who is somewhat at war with themselves they know the right thing to do but they have a hard time doing it and it seems impossible to do and without grace without the help of god it is impossible to do but take heart because what is impossible with men is possible with god okay oh very good and one last one as we're heading to break here this is from iron in tennessee who says would you be kind enough to explain the catholic definition of celibacy versus chastity yes so celibacy means being unmarried that's what celibacy means you're not married okay um chastity means that you conduct your sexual life in an ethical manner so married people can be chased meaning that they can find their sexual activity to their marriage and to acts that are intrinsically open to life celibate people can be chased in the sense that they refrain from sexual activity um continence means that you refrain from sexual activity so for for a celibate priest for an unmarried priest chastity entails continence makes sense appreciate that iron thank you for checking in with us in tennessee in a moment we're going to get to the phones here and talk with jordan a first-time caller in michigan got a couple lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3 call to communion with dr david anders on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn stay with us [Music] ewtn global catholic network is the largest religious media network in the world 11 global tv channels english and spanish radio networks with over 500 am and fm radio affiliates one of the largest catholic websites in the world dozens of podcasts every week social media electronic and print news services and ewtn publishing ewtn is the global catholic network for more about ewtn visit ewtn.com 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen now in order to understand the knowledge of god you must make a distinction between far knowledge and predetermination the two are not identical god indeed does for know everything but he does not predetermine us independently of our will and our merits just suppose that you knew the stock market very well and because of your superior knowledge of business conditions you said that sections such as stock within six months would be selling 10 points higher than it is now suppose six months later it actually sold 10 points higher would you have predetermined and caused it to be 10 points higher although you foreknew it there were other influences where they're not beside your superior knowledge the people you know and trust are on ewtn [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn radio our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three eight want to tell you about a new book now available from ewtn publishing it's called spiritual excellence the path to happiness holiness and heaven by deacon richard eason he has prepared a practical and motivational book to help you pursue spiritual excellence and discover the abundant life our lord is calling you to experience and what better time than the approaching season of lent right this book is going to empower you to fly with the angels soar with the saints so you can live a happier and holier life do check it out it's now available at ewtnrc.com by catholic shop ewtnrc.com give you the title one more time here spiritual excellence the path to happiness holiness and heaven by deacon richard eason sounds like a plan to me all right if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin today with jordan a first-time caller in michigan listening on youtube hey there jordan what's on your mind today sir hello gentlemen uh pleasure to be listening to you and chatting with you here um so i am a protestant minister um charismatic non-denominational i have a master's degree in theology i'm currently pursuing my doctorate i say that to sort of frame what i'm about to ask okay um i'm currently in rcia over the last few years i uh stumbled upon and fell in love with the church fathers and i think they're phenomenal naturally there's still a handful of things i struggle with and to be honest with you i can i pretty much accept in a lot of ways i'm still in process but i accept things like the papacy the bishop of rome i can basically accept the marion dog dogmas the sacramental teaching etc but dr anders the thing i still really struggle with is catholic soteriology my background as a charismatic pentecostal was you're kind of you know you're saved lost they've lost they've lost pentecostals new officer call every week all that kind of thing well i came out of that i don't believe in absolute eternal security but i do believe that we are saved by grace through faith and i don't see anywhere in scripture where we get saved by grace through faith not at work but quote stay saved by work and so i i'm i know we could argue that here i again i do believe salvation can be rejected not lost as it were so my and feel free i can help you i can okay you have some yeah sure thank you so of course this by the way you you are touching on my favorite topic and i've got to restrain myself because i could i could go the next 45 minutes on this topic those of you watching on on tv right now know that david is smiling yeah so this is this is the issue that made me catholic catholic soteriology made me catholic like you uh i was brought up in a tradition that taught that i was saved by faith alone not by works of the law you know by grace through faith although not by works of the law and like most protestants my understanding of that phrase was conditioned by luther's reading of saint paul's letter to the romans in his letters of the galatians and i i understood works of the law in paul to mean morality ethical behavior and so the contrast that i believed used to believe that paul was drawing was between faith alone and then any kind of human striving and that that as i understood it having been influenced by luther paul was ruling out any sort of human effort any sort of human striving as the condition for being accepted by god and that it was that it was faith alone in contrast to that and moreover i thought that the way faith saved me was that christ that god would impute the righteousness of jesus to me so that if i had faith and i repented for my sins that god would look at me as if i were perfectly righteous even though i might retain flaws and wounds and sins and so forth and maybe do stumble here and there in many ways god would look at me and accept me as a son regardless of my lack of moral behavior because he had saved me for christ's sake and that's really what luther meant by salvation by faith alone and that's more or less pervaded the tradition now as you know there are some wings of protestantism certain pentecostals and wesleyans that fudge a little bit on that absolute you know faith alone and they they do allow for a kind of lapse in faith that you know associated with immorality but more or less like if you're in the camp you're in and it's not because you've earned your way there that's more or less the basic protestant position i was brought up with that like you were now several things happened to to kind of unravel that for me and it really began with scholarship and like you a master's degree phd in theology my emphasis was on the history of the reformation but in really studying the pre-history of the reformation i got deeply into the soteriological issues both in the 16th century and antiquity and as you know the reformers all looked to saint augustine as their basically their progenitor their their model for how to do theology and think about these questions and so i spent you know many many months delving into augustine reading him quite extensively all the anti-pelagian works on grace in particular and what i found out was that gustin was a thoroughly catholic individual that augustine did not have anything close to a lutheran soteriology he did not believe in imputed righteousness or salvation by faith alone rather his conviction augustine's conviction was that grace uh which comes to us at god's initiative not ours like we don't earn grace uh grace comes inside of us and works by changing our character this was augustine's position so salvation is from faith through grace but not through the imputation of christ's righteousness rather grace works by changing us interiorly and infusing faith hope and charity into our hearts so that it is we in fact who are doing the loving right we're loving now as jesus is loving because christ has made us loving and that god then accepts us because we are objectively worthy of it we've been made worthy by god now it's a gift to comes from god it's a gift of god's grace but it's a gift that actually changes our character i mean if i can just a crazy analogy just came to me right okay you know um imagine a father who's trying to teach his son how to play basketball and uh and the son shoots for the for the goal and he misses and father says we're just going to count that as if you made it all right that's the protestant view of grace wow you missed the goal but we're going to act like you made it anyway wow now imagine if this was a marvel superhero movie and the father had some or maybe a dc movie and he had like a magic green lantern ring yeah and he said i'm gonna beam you with my magic ring and now you will be able to make all the goals and so the kid then actually makes the goals he doesn't even pretend to make them we don't count them as made he actually makes them but because the father has infused into him this power of of hitting the goal right that's more like the catholic view it does come from god as a grace but it's really us who are making the goal with god's help now um is so that really unnerved me when i figured out what augustine was thinking i said this is not the protestant view at all so maybe augustine is wrong maybe maybe if i read earlier in the tradition i'll find somebody who actually thinks like luther does so i began to read you know the third century fathers and the second century fathers and it just got worse and worse and worse it was just less and less like luther the earlier i got and uh and this is not just my judgment as you know i'm sure you know the history if you've ever read aleister mcgrath's two-volume study you stitch a dei on the history of the doctrine of justification and mcgrath is an evangelical protestant by the way you'll know mcgrath's judgment that the lutheran position is a novelty that nobody before luther read saint paul that way and that the overwhelming consensus east and west about the nature of salvation was that it is an infusion of righteousness a change in one's character a literal divinization of one's personality or theosis as they call it in the east whereby one participates in the divine nature ii peter 1 4 says that's the overwhelming consensus of all the church fathers east and west and that's the judgment of alistair mcgrath protestant evangelical historian not only mcgrath look at tf torrance an earlier generation his work on the doctrine of grace and the apostolic fathers comes to the same conclusion so i'm i'm very upset at this point when i'm discovering these things what am i going to do well obviously i've got to go back and re-study saint paul all right now here are some resources for you on understanding paul and the doctrine of works of the law and grace uh one that helped me enormously was christopher stendahl's book a paul between uh jews and judaism i'm paul among jews in judaism i'm sorry paul among jews and gentiles sorry christopher stendall paul among jews and gentiles all right um nt wright everything you can get your hands on by n.t wright his um what st paul really said another helpful book okay um uh uh anything that's ep sanders those things james dunn the scholars associated with the so-called new perspectives on paul movement all of which all of which conclude that luther misread saint paul on this doctrine so the key to understanding saint paul is what does he mean when he says that the works of the law fail to justify what are these works of the law of which he speaks now here's the position that i take and and i'll give you some scholarship to back this up when paul says the works of the law don't justify he is talking about the ritual performance of the mosaic code things like circumcision the dietary laws sabbath observances and the rest of it that an attempt to live a sort of pharisaical perfection according to the letter of the law fails to justify you it fails to actually unite you to god because it doesn't touch the heart and why do i think that is a reasonable way of reading saint paul well first of all let's look at the surrounding background history to that terminology if you look at john bergsma's book jesus and the dead sea scrolls it's a very good analysis and there's a whole chapter on the technical meaning of the phrase works of the law in the qumran community which is the earliest textual evidence we have of second temple judaism in jesus's context right and that's the way they use the term uh in the history immediately following the apostolic era if you look into the second century church fathers book by matthew j thomas paul's works of the law how do the second century church fathers understand paul's use of that phrase same conclusion works of the law means these these uh performance of of jewish ceremonial law that's what works of the law means and the whole thrust of paul's argument in romans and galatians is that these kinds of behaviors that tend to distinguish jew and gentile and that would be these works of the law don't actually touch the heart and if you look at romans chapter 2 this is the key chapter i think in all of paul's epistles and it's the one that protestants typically gloss over right what paul says is it is obedience to the law that will justify you that's romans 2 13. it's not hearing the law it's obeying the law by which a man becomes righteous okay but the obedience happens when the holy spirit circumcises your heart or your heart by faith so that it is not the the the air gone namu greek for works of the law but rather the matatunamu the righteous requirements of the law that have now been written into your heart in accordance with ezekiel 36 the promise of a new heart given by the spirit that enables you to walk in keeping with the divine with the twin command to love god and love neighbor so so we've got we've got the jewish prehistory in the dead sea scrolls we have the immediately succeeding history in the second century fathers interpreting saint paul we have paul's own text on this and then the the consensus of catholic theology from the first century to the 16th all teaching consistently one doctrine grace saves us by changing us interiorly and giving us the gift of love not by imputing christ's righteousness through faith alone luther's doctrine is a complete theological novelty that he made up out of whole cloth to satisfy his own need for a psychological release to confront his own neuroticism okay jordan is that helpful for you yes that is uh extremely helpful i appreciate all the time dr anders took there and uh especially but also the resources as well that definitely will give me some some things to chew on yes fantastic thank you you are welcome that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 call to communion on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn radio if you're listening to us on the east coast two minutes ago it was 222 on 2 22 22. so lisa marie on the jersey shore asks in honor of it being 222 on 2222 could you please explain the two natures of christ well i'll do my best all right i'll do my best okay but this is a mystery so what the church teaches is that the humanity of christ is real humanity he doesn't just appear to be a human being he's not mostly human there was an ancient heresy in the church called paulinarianism the paulinerians believed that christ had a human body but that he did not have a human mind a human soul really and that the divine logos like the word of god took the place in christ of a human mind or human soul so in that view he was sword human right but not a human soul okay uh and that was ruled uh heretical so gregory nazianzus was famous for the statement whatever is not assumed is not healed if christ didn't i don't you know god didn't come to save my toenails right it's principally by my soul that i'm in union with god it's the soul that's got to be healed christ assumed the entirety of the human nature in order to transform and heal it so he is completely and totally and thoroughly human through and through every he's 100 human however he's also god now if you just have a divinized humanity you don't have god if i have a human who's got a bunch of god juice in him he's not god he's a elevated human now the nestorians thought that christ was 100 human but that he had sort of been taken up by the godhead in a special way and united um you know like an oreo cookie is united the two halves of an oreo cookie are stuck together and you know by some sort of divine ectoplasm and that christ was divine in that sense but that's not a single person and so the doctrine is that he's one person with actually two natures that are uh perfectly in accord without division and without confusion okay lisa marie thanks so much for your question on 2 22 22. in a moment we're going to be talking with kathy in atlanta frank in texas looks like two lines open right now at 833 288 ewtn for call to communion with dr david anders [Music] this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan some people are down on setting goals saying what's the point we make a plan and then it fails if this describes you and your family life i want to tell you don't be discouraged failure is actually part of the learning process everyone is going to fail the question is what do we do with that failure failure teaches us what not to do how to overcome adversity and sometimes what our limits are failure can also inspire creativity collaboration with others and a deeper reliance on god really the only failure are those situations that we don't learn from we need to pick ourselves up and try again for the sake of our family we can never stop trying to improve our marriage ourselves and our parenting entrust everything including our failures to our heavenly father we invite you to join our family board meeting course and let us walk with you to discover god's unique call for your marriage and family find out about this valuable tool at our website messy family messyfamilyminute.org you can be a part of call to communion with dr david anders text ewtn to 5500 wait for a response then text us your first name and question it's that easy message and data rates may apply she is one of the most beloved saints of all time honored as the saint of the little way matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church saint therese of lizzie entered the carmelite convent of lazier in 1888 and survived only nine more years still her extraordinary holiness and prayer life prompted her superiors to have her write an autobiography the story of a soul it became a spiritual classic for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com hi this is sci kellet host of catholic answers live later today two hours open forum tom nash tim stables catholic answers live 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio now back to call to communion [Music] hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about that here on ewtn's call to communion we do have two lines open for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 how is kathy listening here the quest our great affiliate there in the atlanta area kathy what's on your mind today yeah i just have a question about what is the proper way to dispose of expired gospel in a scripture literature that i receive in print um examples would be like the 2021 advent literature the last year's latin literature or old missiles i just don't feel comfortable just throwing them in the crowd um yeah thanks so so when when it's when possible one should always dispose of sacramentals and other sacred items in a respectful way they can be burned or buried um they can also be donated uh you know if you find somebody that wants to make use of them sure um you know end up in a church library someplace but uh yeah but you don't want to just throw them in the trash pile if you can avoid it appreciate your call and let's go now to uh frank in texas frank is listening on our great station there armor of god radio hey frank what's on your mind today sir hi good afternoon dr anders a quick question and then i'll hang up why did god have to harden pharaoh's heart so much uh when the israelites were trying to leave egypt and thanks for your answer okay thanks so i'm gonna dance around this a little bit if i could and and uh and the reason why is the new the old testament is told principally around the story of the election of abraham it's the call of abraham that is the driving force in the narrative and so abraham is the sort of preeminent example of election a predestination and what does that mean at abraham's case and i'm getting to pharaoh don't worry what does that mean in abraham's case well it means that god called abraham for a task he has a job description and the job description is to bear children uh who collectively will be a light to the nation to the nations excuse me a blessing to the entire world and ultimately to be the progenitor of the messiah who will be the means of salvation of the entire earth so the biblical account of predestination does not mean singling out one person to save or a group of people to save and condemning all the rest but rather it's singling out one group of people to be an instrument or a channel of blessing for all of the rest and i like to use the example when i learned to do cpr in high school the first thing they tell you to do when you find someone who's not breathing and you're gonna do cpr you don't start cpr right away you turn and look at the on looking crowd you point to somebody that looks swift of foot and you say you go get help now that's election i'm picking somebody out to do a job for the sake of others i'm not i'm not saying hey you i'm saving you and i'm killing everybody else no i'm picking you out for the sake of the other people sure and that's the way that god calls abraham it's also the way that god calls the catholic church to be a catholic is to have a vocation for of being light to the nations so that the catholic church can be a source of blessing to everybody so that think about that as you think about what it means to be to be called okay now the calvinists the reformed tradition protestant tradition looks at this in similar stories and says well you know god called abraham to save him only and he reprobates everybody else and sends them to hell and they they still believe that they think that god saves a small number of people and that everybody else god decides ahead of time to send to hell all right and that if through no fault of their own they've not made decision in the matter god just designs them as vessels of wrath right uh i don't think that's what's going on here i don't think that's what's going on here um so why god allows any evil is kind of a bit of a mystery and yet we can see this that god allows evil because he intends to bring out of it a greater good and that's true in every case that's true in the case of even somebody like abraham it's true in my case your case how many of us have done things that we deeply regret and if we could undo them we would right and yet and yet we can also look back on some of those events and say i we call the spiritual interpretation of the bible so as a happy fault okay now when we come to the case of pharaoh i want to offer you a principle of um biblical interpretation that comes from the new testament and from the church and the principle is what we call the spiritual interpretation of the bible so we start with the sort of grammatical denotative sense of the text he comments on the texts about moses does not take the death of the firstborn to be a literal historical truth because it would seem to implicate god in evil because he has god punishing innocent people for things that they're not responsible for so rather he says this should be understood as a kind of type or allegory or symbol for the necessity of cutting off the first stirrings of evil in our hearts okay okay and whenever we encounter virtue an analogy from the old testament if you go back and look at the book of first samuel chapter one samuel's father used to go up to the priest at shiloh that's a levitical priest uh with an animal to offer and sacrifice and it was not the levite who was offering the sacrament worshiper who's offering the sacrifice the job of the levite was basically that of a butcher his job was to chop it up and and to arrange the pieces in the ritually appropriate way burn the offering and then distribute the the meat from the offering to what is his name elkanah who would then take the meat back to his family and feed it to his he had two wives and and their children um so the the person making the offering wasn't the priest in the old testament it was in fact the israelite who brought the animal for sacrifice in the case of the eucharist the priest is also offering but it's the whole but it's the whole church that's offering and uh and if you know something about the tradition of requesting votive masses you know you can you can ask a mask uh be said for your intention right you're the one offering you're the one that's making the offering yeah and the the part of the mass that we call the offertory when bread and wine are along with the gifts that people have given are brought to the altar it's highly indicative of this aspect of the ritual that that the entire church is making and offering so what is being offered specifically well several things but most importantly the body and blood of christ under the form of bread and wine so the council of trent session 22 said that jesus offered up to god the father his own body and blood under the form of the form of bread and wine right that's what's being offered now um you might say well i don't understand how that's a sacrifice right because it like nothing's he's not dying here and he's not dying that's emphatically the case that he's not dying in the mass he died once at calvary that's why we say that calvary is a bloody offering this is an unbloody offering it's an unbloody offering you don't have to have a death to have an offering even in the old testament people used to offer produce you know you have to you have to kill a tomato to offer it you just offer it right yeah yeah um and uh and so we're not killing jesus by offering his body and blood um in a sense what we're doing is saying see here lord the body and blood of your son that was offered on calvary remember you know and be clement and merciful to us right there's no actual death involved now uh we're offering something else along with the body and blood of christ under the form of bread and wine we are offering ourselves the council of uh excuse me the second vatican council and its uh dogmatic constitution on sacred liturgy sacramento sanctum concilium says that the faithful are to be taught that they along with the ministerial priest offer the immaculate victim and also themselves and also themselves right what does it mean to offer yourself to god in the holy sacrifice of the mass pius xii in his beautiful encyclical on the liturgy media today says it means that we turn that the heart and mind turn to god in the quest of a perfect life that's powerful stuff the heart and mind turned to god in the quest for a perfect life so i am consecrating myself to god to the highest good to to truth and charity to the avoidance of vice to the pursuit of virtue to the love of my neighbor i'm consecrating myself to those ends in imitation of and in union with christ who offered his own body and blood for me in a bloody fashion at calvary and in a sacramental form in the species of the eucharist wow there you go anthony appreciate your call thank you so much for it let's go to uh cherie now in greenville south carolina listening on the ewtn app sheree what's on your mind today hi thank you so much so i've heard dr anders talk about atonement for the dead so i've heard dr anders talk about atonement for the dead in maccabees and my question is how do we know that purgatory and not limbo where moses and abraham would be waiting to go to heaven and did they even know that heaven was existed and the gates were going to be open yeah thank you i appreciate the question so the there's there's no reason to think i believe in my opinion there's no reason no reason to think i believe in my opinion there's no reason to think that uh second temple judaism uh or even earlier forms of hebraic religion held anything like a complete picture of you know metaphysical account of the afterlife that would correspond to the full catholic teaching on purgatory hell and the beatific vision there's no reason to think that um in fact i think it's more probable that that hebrew people you know over a thousand years had a developing awareness of the nature of the soul and of the afterlife this every reason from within scripture is the case so these texts from the old testament and those like in second maccabees should not be taken to give us a kind of absolutely solid comprehensive thorough and identical account of the afterlife to that proclaimed by the catholic church as dogma but are rather to be seen as intimations uh as as sort of first thoughts as a as a move in the direction toward both the immortality of the soul the resurrection of the body and the intermediate state of the dead as they await the beatific vision now the full developmental understanding of that of course awaits the coming of christ i mean there were things about christian eschatology that we learned only at the coming of jesus for example for example you know christ's teaching about the indwelling of the blessed trinity um in our communion in the eucharist as a as a means of attaining the resurrection of the body and soul i mean these are things we didn't know until the coming of christ so i think the ancient judeans had a profound intimation that the dead needed help and they ought to be prayed for yeah um did they know how all that worked out i i rather doubt it probably not sheree thank you so much for your call today by the way marks the feast of the chair of saint peter the apostle the the apostle we are not really impossible i like that peter the apostle we are not also we are not impossible peter the apostle we are not worshiping furniture are we i just want to clarify that we're not worshiping furniture but i like the i like what your mind goes john price okay yeah so the uh you know from antiquity the bishops would sit in a chair right as a sign of their authority yes we still do today actually if you go to an ordination you see the bishop sit in his chair um and so it's the chair is a reference to the authority of bishop of of saint peter over his uh over his episcopal see right there you go so uh to put a a little button on it today a celebration of course of the shepherd of the universal church and his chair and his chair the authority of the universal bishop the chair is our symbol of the role and office of saint peter in the church the chosen one by christ just so you know all right then dr david andrews thank you sir thanks tom remember we do this program monday through friday here on ewtn radio 2 pm eastern for our live broadcast and then we encore that for you 11 o'clock eastern tonight 2 22 22 and all those other weekdays uh following and before this don't forget you can also check out the podcast by going to ewtn ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us today looking forward to our next visit hopefully that is tomorrow wednesday here on ewtn's call to communion god bless [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,579

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: S5AdK920NSw

Length: 54min 20sec (3260 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 22 2022