Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - Feb 23, 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 1-833 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 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 trying to figure out why do catholics believe such and such well it's very possible that catholics don't actually believe that why don't you find out for sure here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3 if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and of course you can always send us an email ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com the a team is ready for this program to begin charles berry our producer also matt kabinsky our phone screener jeff person is on social media if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now put your question 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 very well you my friend i'm doing decent thank you glad to hear it we have an anonymous question here from facebook my 13 year old grandson says he's gay how can i help him yeah thank you so this is tricky because i don't know much about the nature of your relationship to your grandson how close you are how well you communicate what his relationship to his parents are what his catholic faith is like there's so many factors here that uh that i don't understand and so i can't i can't give very specific advice um i think the most important thing to do of course is to love your grandchild to be present to him um i think that if you lead with uh you know lectures or criticism then you will alienate him i i think it's very unlikely that he's going to change his opinions or his activities you know based on that kind of relationship and generally experience shows i think in human relationships that if you want to influence a person telling them all the things that they're doing wrong it doesn't work very well no you know i mean one of my own children told me one time he said dad you know you're you're always right about everything and nobody cares you know and that's true i mean you can you can have all the right answers that doesn't mean you can get other people to buy what you're selling right yeah um however you can exemplify you can exemplify the virtues that you think other people lack and you the the irony is you will actually have a stronger influence on a person's behavior uh by saying less and being more walk on the walk exactly okay very good hope that's a helpful you thank you for your anonymous question and glad you're checking us out on facebook here's an email we received from ben in rapid city south dakota listing there on real presence radio ben says my nephew is being wooed by the argument that the king james version of the bible is quote the only correct bible what do i tell my nephew about the kjv only argument and thank uh thank you from that's uh ben yeah thanks so here's a major difficulty with um uh with the king james bible only position it was originally published in 1611. oops yep and so the evangelists and the apostles who wrote the sacred text good bit earlier than 1611. oh yeah and uh and they certainly didn't write the bible in king james english they wrote it they wrote it in hebrew aramaic and greek right sure and the king james is a translation and not only is it a translation but it is a translation of a specific family of manuscripts that does not even reflect the best critical manuscripts of the greek new testament right and so since since the publication of the king james bible biblical scholars have made major advances in what's called lower textual criticism that is see we don't have the original work that came from saint paul's hand what we have are multiple copies of say st paul's epistles circulating circulating around the ancient world and they don't always agree with one another and some of them are you know generations after saint paul and uh and so what you have to do is you have to kind of compare the different versions of paul's epistle that we're circulating in the ancient world written in greek and sometimes in in syriac translations and so forth and try to figure out what was the what which one is closest to what paul likely wrote and there are principles that textual scholars use to derive that now when you when you come up with a reading where there's a variant in manuscripts and you come up with a reading that you think is probably the correct one and you put that down on paper and you do that for for all of the text what you have is a manuscript that doesn't look like any specific ancient manuscript it's kind of a compilation of what you think of the best judgments about the variants when you have that you have what's called a critical text okay and uh in king james manuscript is actually based if memory serves me correct on the byzantine family of uh of of biblical texts not on the best modern critical editions okay so you're not even working from the best hebrew and greek versions right um and then of course it was commissioned by protestant monarch um and and uh and and and pursued by produced by protestant scholars that had a bone to pick with the catholic church and catholic tradition and so of course their theological predilections bleed into the translations beautiful english and no nobody's complaining about the uh the quality of the prose in poetry is quite beautiful and i mean i would read the king james english for an exercise in english prose uh but it's just not the best way to lay hold of the sacred text any uh any specific ideas that uh this person that ben could give to his uh to his uh relative there yeah so there's an another entire line of reasoning that we haven't even addressed and that is uh why does it matter like what is the function of the bible in the christian life and most of the people that advocate a king james only approach to the bible also just presume the protestant doctrine of sola scriptura namely the bible is to function in the christian's life as the kind of rule of faith this is the standard sort of definitive guide on all things christian and what to do and think and believe and that's a really erroneous way to think about the bible because the bible doesn't present itself that way the bible doesn't announce to you this is the this is the definitive guide on christian life for faith and practice um rather the bible is i mean manifestly you pick it up look at it flip it around it is a collection of disparate texts uh cobbled together in a in a coherent document to guide the church in in prayer and worship and reflection but not as a stand-alone sufficient guide to the christian life that's the job of the church itself all right ben thanks so much for your email hope that's helpful for you and for your nephew we're going to go to the phones in just a moment here at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 399 call now faith is a precious gift from god as the largest religious media network in the world ewtn has an important role in educating others about our catholic faith and spreading the good news of salvation we invite you to explore our numerous pages of historical faith documents prayers teachings and other current issues in catholicism today visit ewtn.com and click catholicism ewtn the global catholic network [Music] christ is the answer with father john ricardo he always starts with the good things you know the seven letters to the churches and the book of revelation is a great way to write letters to other people by the way or to have conversations with other people you start with what's going well you do this this and this really well i love it thank you here's what you're lacking and i think for many of us as men what the lord's communicating at that second part of the letter or the second part of the conversation is here's what we're lacking you don't ever spend enough time with me you have no idea what i'm trying to offer you in the gift of my friendship or if you do you don't make time for it and if you would but come to me i would change your life like that but you don't come not with the regularity that i want you to come not with the arter and the fervor and the passion that i want you to come i have a hunch i've more than a hunch that's what he says to me and i got a hunch that's what he would say to many of us [Music] it's called a communion on this wednesday afternoon here on ewtn radio our phone number 833 288 ewtn my personal recommendation hey call now while we have a couple of lines open 833 we'll get you screened just as quickly as we can here's a good reminder for you ewtn radio now available on smart speakers like amazon echo google assistant and pretty much all the others for example you can listen to ewtn radio just by saying alexa ask ewtn to play call to communion and off you go it's a wonderful thing another great way to listen to ewtn radio and because ewtn is everywhere i'm going to get to the phones in just a moment here at 833 288 ewtn a quick email here from joe in pennsylvania he says dear dr anders catholics honor and venerate saints well a catastrophic earthquake in lisbon portugal killed tens of thousands of people in 1755 and that occurred on all saints day seems like the saints were dishonored instead by this horrific event on a day dedicated to them can you comment yeah sure so scripture tells us that we should not try to assign moral or theological significance to specific natural catastrophes and jesus addresses this uh directly when he says there was a tower that fell on people in jerusalem he says do you think these people were more sinful than all the rest because his tower fell on them he says no uh you guys better repent or something worse is going to happen to you however right christ specifically addresses this and the book of job really is all about this right that tragedy can come into a person's life even though that person has lived well and they don't do anything that would seem to deserve this kind of catastrophe uh we don't always know why things like this happen um and i will tell you this is another aspect of it the the purpose of venerating the saints is not to ensure good weather it's not the point of venerating the saints and that's not the point of prayer even in general right it's not we can't ask for good weather but the fundamental purpose of prayer is to unite us to god in charity and so it's oriented towards changing our hearts rather than changing uh the material circumstances of our lives and if it were the other way we all just you know we don't have a lottery here in alabama but this past weekend i was in louisiana they got a lottery and uh you know you go past a lottery machine some of those payouts are pretty big if the purpose of prayer were just to change material outcomes and that was reliable i would say you know god i'd like to say so and so i'd like to win this lottery right now sign me up sign me up that's not the point of the thing okay very good and thank you so much joe in pennsylvania appreciate getting your email on the radio if you would like to send us an email for a future show i'd love to hear from you the address ctc at ewtn.com ctc ewtn.com if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin here with uh jacob jacob is in carbondale illinois listening on the great covenant network hey jacob what's on your mind today thanks for taking my call um so i was hoping that you could shed some light on i not sure which of the gospels that it's in and i'm driving so i can't look at the moment but where uh i was just looking at it last night where it says that the virgin mary and jesus family basically want to think he's out of his mind and want to shut him up um yep yep i know the text thank you all right so actually i think you're confusing two different passages that are similar but not identical so in mark chapter 3 verse 21 we read when his family heard about this they went to take charge of him for they said he is out of his mind now there's no specific mention of the blessed virgin mary in that text now in matthew chapter 12 we read while jesus was still speaking to the crowds his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him someone said look your mothers and brothers are standing your mother and brother stand outside wanting to speak to you but jesus replied who is my mother who are my brothers and he points to the disciples and says these are my family right so they're similar but the only one that actually says that the family of christ thought that he was out of his mind fails to mention the blessed virgin mary so i don't i don't think we can conclude that the blessed virgin thought that jesus was out of his mind now clearly some of his cousins did clearly some of his cousins thought he was out of his mind um all we know about the blessed virgin mary is that she wanted to speak to him this is not the first time she wanted to speak to him uh and she could be quite persuasive persuasive you know in john chapter 2 she goes to him they have no more wine woman what is this to thee and to me you know and then she turns to the servants and says do whatever he tells you right um so she clearly believed that christ had authority uh and power to solve the um the alcohol problem at the wedding all right but no indication that she thought he was out of his mind now of course his cousins are going to think he's out of his mind of course they're going to i mean can you imagine you know you grew up with baby jesus down the street you know you probably played stickball with him or whatever our kids play and he never got mad and he was always obedient right on time and you probably were getting quite irritated you never be around a perfect cousin he does nothing wrong oh yeah you know i know this i know and then and then the next thing you know he's he's showing up on street corners and saying repent for the kingdom of god is here he's going to give the family a bad name you know and and he did from one point of view right that's why that's why saint simeon said to the blessed virgin a sword will pierce your soul your heart too because the suffering of christ would redound to the rest of his family in particular to his mother and uh but some of them came around you know saint james came around he ended up being an apostle yes indeed appreciate that jacob thanks so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn looks like two lines open at the moment eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six it is called a communion with dr david anders on this wednesday afternoon here on ewtn radio going now to alex in houston listening on guadalupe radio hey there alex what's on your mind today hi howdy howdy well question question about uh i'm lately i've been really looking for finding appeal in the catholic church um my wife has some issues with it uh she she's telling me that you know churches you know the older churches like you know our catholic church the eastern uh churches that they have statues and icons and she feels like you know when you walk into these churches those types of things take away from the glory of god and and how she says if you want to have those things in your home privately that's fine but inside of a church nothing should detract from the glory of god and the focus of on on god and and i was a little stumped when she said that i was just telling her you know how pretty you know these things are and and how i kind of understand how people want to venerate you know brothers and sisters that have died and you know that live right and she's like well that's fine but it just seems like it takes away from focusing on god if you're in there venerating other things yeah i think i can help you i think i can help you so alex can we see god's glory directly no no no no we can't see god's glory directly we don't see god but the psalms say that the heavens declare the glory of god right the work of his hands um when i when i go out and look at a tree i can see the glory of god reflected in the tree not in god himself but i can my only access to the glory of god is through the things that he made right now which is and that would include a white-washed bear-walled church so if i walk in a church that has no adornment at all it's just a solid blank wall covered in white paint does a solid blank wall covered in white paint reveal the glory of god a little bit because god's responsible for the being of the bare white wall a tree may be more so when i see a tree i see the intricacy and the beauty and the inherent organization and the sort of the self-organizing dynamic living aspect of it that's all beautiful and attractive it's more manifest god's glory now which is more glorious which reflects god's glory more a tree or the holiness of a mother teresa mmm the tree's pretty good you bet i'm big into trees you know i'm from alabama i got a lot of trees i moved away you know for college when i was a young man and ultimately ended up in the midwest and they didn't have any mountains to speak of by my standards they didn't have any trees to speak of by my standards i felt starved for topography you know it's one of the reasons i came back home although the people in colorado are all laughing at me now you know you call those mountains you know that's nothing anders but i love that stuff and yet i recognize that a mother teresa right reflects the glory of god even more than the beauty of a tree because his beauty of holiness of course i don't have any access to the glory of god but by reflection on the things that he has done and that's why the psalms constantly and these are the book of israelite worship they are they're really the model for how you are to worship and praise god constantly reflect on the goodness of god manifest in both nature and in persons and we are admonished to recall the great works of god in history how he delivered israel from the egyptians how they went across the red sea uh how he promised to bring the messiah how the lord was born in bethlehem of the blessed virgin mary the great acts of god in history which all took place in people that's how it happens reflect the glory of god so i think your wife's intuition that worship is a place to reflect on god's glory is true we should reflect on the globe but how in what manner well the way we reflect on god's glory is to see it manifest in his works and the greatest works of god in in our world are precisely the lives of the saints that he sent christ to make holy and so it's like if you said well you know um tom price is a fabulous sculptor well can i see some of his artwork no that would detract from his glory i'm just going to tell you about i'm not going to let you look at the artwork right well what is god's glory in his church well it's that he makes saints and so we are actually reflecting on god's glory we're venerating christ in his members so i agree with the intuition not with the not with the argument okay sounds good and uh alex thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn we do have one line open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 jack is listing in cleveland right now on am 1260 the rock hey there jack what's on your mind today sir oh thank you thank you for taking a call i'm looking at the glorious mysteries today and going down to the fourth one it talks about the assumption of mary and then the scripture at the bottom reads john 14 3. i look at that section and i don't see mary in there anywhere and i'm just wondering uh does that is that okay let me ask a question because i'm gonna make sure i follow you what what is the document that you're reading that cites john 14 3 in reference to the assumption it's the bible oh it's a bible it's a bible okay okay sorry i missed that all right and so your question is why would they cite john 14 3 as a as having some sort of relevance to the assumption uh yes okay right so i don't know what was in the mind of the editors i really don't i can't i can't speak for the editors uh on on my show when people ask me about the assumption of mary i don't think i have ever pointed to john 14 3 as having anything to do with the assumption of mary right only in this respect i think i mean i could maybe make a stretch i mean i wouldn't i myself would not argue this way but i'm trying to be generous to whoever the editors are uh in so far as this indicates that there is a place for those who love god in heaven right that we can think of it in terms of a place that has been prepared by god that would be where the blessed virgin mary is wherever that is right uh but it certainly is not a proof text for the assumption right and i i don't really think the bible offers a proof text for the assumption i don't think that the doctrine of the assumption is based primarily on holy scripture but rather on the tradition of the apostles who knew mary after the ascension of christ and honestly this only became a real active part of reflection on mariology some years after the composition of the bible i mean there was a historical memory of her assumption but it really only became a liturgical feast and a subject for devotion uh you know some centuries later so i i wouldn't really try to argue from scripture on this just exclusively okay and we appreciate your call jack call to communion here on ewtn matthew is in oklahoma listening on oklahoma catholic radio in tulsa this is an email we received from matthew could you briefly explain the sacrament of holy orders to a person who is not familiar with the term along with its special significance in catholicism yes absolutely so weak what we call holy orders many other christian groups which simply refer to as ordination and i think not all but most protestant denominations have some concept of ordination which is that individuals are set aside and consecrated for ministerial purposes now they they differ in what they think that means but everybody has some way of doing this now you know that there is a pastoral office in the church is evident we have uh first and second timothy and titus which are called the pastoral epistles and they are instructions in sacred scripture about how ordained clergy are to function and and carry out their duties uh in acts chapter 14 i believe it is uh we read that the apostles appointed presbyters for all of the churches that they founded they'd go out and evangelize gather a bunch of christians and then they would ordain a man to the priesthood put him in place there that was what the apostles did so the fact that it exists is manifest in the new testament um the origin of this ordination is actually the upper room on holy thursday when christ instituted the holy sacrifice the mass and gave the apostles the command to do this in memory of me right he instituted the sacrament of holy orders because in the catholic understanding the job of a priest is yes there's a pastoral function as a teaching function but the but the most august noble and important function that the priest performs is to celebrate the sacraments especially the sacrifice of the mass the holy eucharist do this in memory of me so that is the power that christ gives through ordination to the priesthood principally the power to celebrate holy mass to offer the sacrifice of the mass and along with it comes a particular grace grace to perform that sacrifice worthily okay it doesn't guarantee they do it worse yeah but they have grace they have no excuse not to do it worthily matthew thanks so much for your call actually your email here love to hear from everybody uh listening to us in a moment we're going to talk with emily in baton rouge mark in perrysburg ohio angel also in baton rouge lots more straight ahead on call to communion with dr david andrews stay with us why do we need to pray we don't pray because god needs our prayers we pray because we need god's grace and every day when i face the day i realize i have no idea what i'm doing and i need god to walk me through my day step by step giving me the grace the counsel the love the encouragement that enables me to glorify him in everything that i do and become the person he wants me to be prayer is my lifeline and now the ewtn family prayer with father joseph family a prayer that we pray together is a powerful prayer so please pray together with me our ewtn family prayer today we pray for those who are suffering with parkinson's disease [Music] lord jesus christ consolation of the afflicted you are our refuge we pray for those who are suffering the effects of parkinson's disease as they lose their physical strength and abilities increase their spiritual strength and abilities renew their inner spirit day after day and through their share in your sufferings give the grace of conversion to sinners and their weakness reveal your strength give peace and joy to those who care for them amen called to communion is on youtube search youtube to find the ewtn youtube channel so you'll never miss an episode of our show or any of your favorite ewtn radio [Music] shows hi this is psychedelic later today on catholic answers live give up worry for lent gary zimac is our guest kath kantz who's live 6 pm 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 with dr david anders a couple of lines open right now and if you do call right now we can probably get you on today's show and then you can get your question answered you won't have to wait around till tomorrow 833 288 ewtn is that number 833-288-3986 here now emily in baton rouge listening on the ewtn app hello emily what's on your mind today hello um so my husband's uh youngest brother passed away last week very tragically unexpectedly in a car accident and i'm just kind of struggling for what to say to them how to comfort them so they're non-practicing catholic family um so i just like to know what in general can i say to them and also specifically in regards to the very tragic death and uh disfigurement of his body and you know that's really affecting them sure yeah i appreciate the question so i think the most important thing uh when confronting someone else's grief is not to try to give them answers right not to try to reason with them or give them reasons where they should or should not feel or think certain things but simply to be present to them with profound empathy and compassion as they are as they are comforted and as they have need of that you know to sit with a person and tell them that they matter uh that you are tragically sorry for their pain that you don't understand uh but you're there for them and you're with them you know those are the things that that are going to be the most meaningful right i don't think this is the time for a theology lesson or to proselytize right unless they have questions about that for which they come to you you know if they come to you and say we want you to tell us we want to understand why this happened why did god allow this where is he now you know you're a religious person what do you think then you can speak but i wouldn't speak unless invited to it their initiative now if that happens i think we should reasonably say we don't know why this happened we don't know why it happens true that's true we should agree that it's tragic uh we should not try to interpret the experience well you know this happened for the good because we don't know the we don't know that because only god knows that because that's right and then we can of course reliably say that god's merciful and he loves this person you know i i would never say see i don't even say of myself well you know i know i'm going to go to heaven i don't know that we nobody knows that that's really god's determination it's not mine so i leave the judgment of souls up to god and i say you know i believe god's merciful i'm going to pray for your son i'm going to pray for you i don't know why this happened uh and i'm so sorry emily thank you so much for your call david let me just ask you this do you think that this can fall along gender lines as in a man sees a problem he wants to fix it whereas a woman i'm over generalizing here a woman may want to just process it talk to her girlfriends stuff like that you think something like this might fall along gender lines okay so you know i have the pastoral and clinical sensitivity of you know of a of a garden gnome okay of a newt right exactly so you know i am not the guy to ask these questions but am i in my humble you know kind of uh trollish caveman alabamian experience i think that it conforms to the picture that you that you place there you know the guys i know typically they're you know they're the ones that are getting under the hood trying to figure out how the car works oh here's the problem you know the women are the ones that are beautifying the car and making it look wonderful right there you go okay emily thank you again for your call and we're very sorry for your family loss there call to communion here on ewtn do have three lines open at the moment call now and we'll probably get you on the air on today's program eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six we're gonna stay in baton rouge and go to uh angel now angel is listening um not seeing it on my screen here click standby there it is on the ewtn app angel what's on your mind today good afternoon um dr anders i've been listening to you for a long time and and i've learned quite a bit about my faith and i am a cradle catholic so thank you for that um i was at a party this weekend and i was discussing some stuff with a psychiatrist there and he was telling me that i needed to look into the um book of the gospel uh according to thomas and i um i said well the gospel quran and thomas is not in the bible it's not part of the kaminico books from what i understand and um he said well there's a reason why it's not in there so i did a little bit of research and i think it just confused me even more can you expound on that for me so i can understand yeah sure absolutely so the gospel of thomas uh is not canonical because it was not among the gospels circulated from the apostolic era and universally accepted by the catholic church throughout the world now when when people who are kind of uh tend towards conspiratorial thinking and sort of malicious interpretations of catholic history have this idea that the catholic church in some early century it kind of depends on the way they tell the story uh was rather like the spanish inquisition of the monty python skit you know that we had this very well-developed hierarchical government with shock troops and secret spies that went around you know oppressing people and stealing their copies of the bible and putting their eyes out and burning them and things like that and which is just completely false to history um first of all like the church had could not if it had wanted to possess that kind of coercive power for centuries and centuries and centuries right in the second third fourth century uh well up until three twenty five oh well of 3 10. no when was the edict of milan 305 i think so okay up until the beginning of the fourth century um the church didn't even have was a persecuted minority right they weren't the ones that were putting people to death they were the ones being put to death so the church just just never exercised that kind of coercive authority at the period of canon formation right so this had more to do with the question of at the popular level at the level of what christians were actually reading and praying and circulating upon among one another the texts that were widely acclaimed and understood to be apostolic would would later coalesce into what we now know as the canon through a process that yes it did eventually receive hierarchical stamp of approval right but it didn't begin with some all-knowing all-seeing all-powerful pope declaring by fiat to cast out all these wonderful gospels and only impose his little you know his little spanish inquisition version right that's a caricature of the way the canon came into formation now um there were competing versions of christianity in the early centuries and in we read about them in the bible itself right so in the god in the epistles of saint john for example uh there is a group that we now call docetists or docetus being a pronunciation they were called docidus or docetists from the greek word that means to seem because they claimed that jesus was not a human being that he only seemed to be one okay now that in that tendency to deny the humanity of christ and to think of jesus as a kind of spirit who came from another realm to reveal secrets to us rather like the l ron hubbard of the first century right that that way of thinking about christ um uh later developed into a more sort of fully orb tradition called gnosticism and basically the idea behind gnosticism is it's the world's ultimate conspiracy theory all right because the gnostics believed that everything in our material experience is a is an illusion by evil overlords seeking to oppress us and make us forget our true our true divinity right wow and so it's not just it's not just the government's the government the church you know the planets the trees the rocks the entire material universe was kind of big mistake and all sort of an illusion and they imagined jesus who did not have a physical body but came uh from another world to reveal to us our inner nature as spiritual beings and yank us out of this world uh into another one if in fact we could you know exceed to his uh to his uh gnostic doctrines and that's kind of all gnostic sex more or less have that in common okay now um uh they uh they were rejected that position was rejected by the church fathers for the very evident historical fact that jesus had a body yep okay now so if you are if you are inclined to gnosticism then you are basically saying you know i don't think jesus had a body and i'm really strongly attached to this idea that the world that i am experiencing right now the tea that i'm drinking the the tree that my kid is climbing you know the cat that i'm petting that all of this is an evil delusion sent by a malevolent deity to help me forget my true inner humanity my true inner divinity is making me dizzy it's rather like the matrix you know that yes so so like that this idea that the gnostic texts present us with some profound wisdom that we need some some useful stuff for living and that we're being denied something deeply valuable is well only if you think that like you know spacemen and conspiracy theories are what we need that that's really the heart and soul of gnosticism now the gospel of thomas is not entirely in gnostic text okay it has sayings in it the in common with the canonical gospels okay it has other sayings that are not in common with the canonical gospels and it doesn't have much by way of a narrative of jesus's life it's kind of a series of apothecams little maxims some of which are sort of gnostic in flavor and some of which seem to fit better with the canonical texts our copies of the gnostic gospels excuse me of the gospel of thomas today come from an archaeological find from egypt when a large collection of gnostic texts were uncovered many of them full-blown gnosticism and then the gospel of thomas was thrown in there so whatever its origins it clearly was a text that was known in love by the gnostic communities right now um should people read these texts for historical purposes of course for historical purposes you know i'm a catholic i'm not a hindu i read the bhagavad gita because i want to know what hindus think not because i want to worship krishna or shiva but because i want to know what hindus think you know i'm going to read the dao tai ching so i know what taoists think i'm i'm going to read the gospel of this or that of the other thing from nagamadi in egypt i'm going to read these gnostic texts as a historian so i can know what elaine pagels thinks you know who's a modern gnostic all right or uh april um what is her name i want it doesn't matter i'm thinking about another famous contemporary gnostic uh i'll read them for historical purposes but i'm not going to read them for insight into the flesh and blood jesus who walked in the holy land right because they're predicated on denial and dying that there was such a person okay april uh angel is that helpful for you yeah it's very helpful and um one follow-up real quick i had read um what you had said about where they were found and i had read all of that basically online about it being an archaeological dig and also that there was an article i believe i don't remember the catholic website but that the modern diagnostics are are quite a threat to to the church um i don't know how much you know about that and that's another topic for another day but i didn't even realize that there was um you know movement like that until until this question was asking me so i'm kind of glad i researched it and i'm glad i called it sure thanks so i i don't think that many of us are in grave danger of becoming valentinians you know or joining some second century ancient gnostic sect i don't think that's a very high likelihood however i think that um what the heart and soul of gnosticism is a kind of a basic conspiracy theory it's the idea that the world that we see the cultural religious political natural world we see is an illusion meant to confine us and to deny us our true humanity right that's the core of the gnostic worldview now if you if you remove all of the crazy gods and emanations from gnosticism and you remain you regret you keep that basic orientation of suspicion and and and conspiratorial thinking that i think is a profound threat not just to the church but to but to civil society into the world and it's never gone away and we find it all the time all right and you can find it in the political sphere constantly right sure you find it on the left and the right i know extremists in both parties that think that the other side is involved in a great conspiracy to conceal the truth about whatever the thing is that they think they're trying to conceal in order to oppress us and to take away our rights or whatever you know i think versions of gnosticism are everywhere everywhere everywhere and and you know we all crave certainty we want to feel like we have the magic key that can open the box and give us the answer to everything and the attraction of ideological thinking is you know if you grant me this one thesis you just grant me this one thing right namely that this politician or that religious leader is really a blizzard alien from out of space just grant me that and i can explain everything to you and so it has a profound attraction particularly for disaffected people who feel alienated from culture or from centers of power they want to have that so they can feel special and like they have a lock on reality problem is it actually alienates them from reality of course do we do appreciate hearing from you today angel thank you so much for your call for from baton rouge it's called a communion here on ewtn tom price reminding you to join us for mass the holy sacrifice of the mass from our lady of the angels chapel right here on the ewtn campus we broadcast it for you every day at 8 00 a.m eastern on ewtn radio and television so do join us next time around here is david now a first-time caller david is in looks like iowa so david is listening on kmmk hello david what's on your mind today sir hello thanks for uh taking my call sure so i am not a catholic but uh i've been some kind of disillusioned with a lot of things in the churches i have attended and i find myself agreeing with a lot of catholic doctrines lately but i am really hung up on both purgatory and marriage mostly because i can't find any like anything in my bible that supports her as an intercessor necessary or purgatory existing at all i was just wondering if you could sure sure sure i will help you with the bible mary and purgatory i will help you with that before i do however i i've got to address the premise of your question right the premise of your question is to to really have a lock on the christian faith i need to be able to find it by exegeting it from the bible i got to go to the bible find a text see that the text coheres with this assertion and then i can believe it if i find it in the bible so that that reflects the protestant doctrine of sola scriptura right that protestant doctrine of soul scripture says you can't hold anything as an article of faith unless you can find it in the bible okay so here's my question to you is the doctrine of sola scriptura taught in the bible uh not that i've ever seen ab you're absolutely right the doctrine of solo scriptura is a human invention a human tradition does not have divine authority not an article of faith in the christian religion this doctrine of soul scripture is the brainchild of martin luther right not something that saint paul taught not something that jesus taught in fact jesus and paul taught the exact opposite st paul says the tradition that i received from the lord i hand on to you jesus said to the apostles go into all nations and make disciples teaching them everything i've commanded you all of which was oral tradition and ritual none of it written down right so the basis for our understanding of the christian faith is the oral tradition of christ and the apostles handed on by sacred tradition with christ's promise of divine assistance i'll be with you to the end of the age and whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven so the the christian way to discern the content of the christian faith is not to start with can i find it in the bible but what is the sacred tradition what has tradition taught and what does the church teach that is the attitude that is actually faithful to christ not can i find it in the bible now having said that we can find it in the bible [Laughter] all right okay so let me show you let me let's let's start with the intercession of the saints okay so the scriptures clearly teach that god will hear the prayers of the few on behalf of the many the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous we find this way at the beginning of the bible so genesis chapter 18 god's gonna wipe out sodom abraham says will you please spare all these wicked people if i can come up with ten righteous folks god says absolutely for the sake of the ten i'll spare the many flip over the book of exodus episode with the golden calf god says i'm wiping out israel moses says god don't wipe out israel i know they're a stiff neck nasty people but don't forget your promise to abraham isaac jacob he says moses i'm going to start with you again he says don't start with me fulfill your promise to abraham preserve these people don't wipe them out god says okay moses because you asked because you asked i won't wipe them out all right job job look at the end of the book of job all of job's companions have really ticked off god and god speaks to them and says i am not happy with you and i will not hear your prayers but if you ask my servant my servant job to pray for you then i will hear you but job's got to intercede with you for you before i will do this thing now i'm going to flip over to a book that is not in your protestant bible because the protestants took them out because it taught the intercession of saints that's why they took it out they didn't like it because it has catholic doctrine in it second maccabees uh chapter 12 second maccabee's twelve we find i'm sorry second magazine's 15 i'm coming back to 12 in a minute second maccabees 15. uh the prophet jeremiah who is right and truly dead appears to judas maccabees and says i'm up in heaven praying for you guys so take heart and go out and do what you need to do now flip over in your bible to revelation chapter 5 verse 8 and you will find the saints and the angels in heaven not only praying for the church on earth but offering the prayers of the church on earth it's not just them saying hey god you know take care of tom and dave he's saying god we are we are interceding for tom and dave and make in presenting their prayers before you right that is the picture that sacred scripture gives of the unseen world so there is a profound biblical tradition of the righteous praying on behalf of the unrighteous interceding for them in this life and the next including sort of handing on their prayers to god now that's why that the tradition of venerating the relics of the saints and seeking their intercession predates the christian church and can be found in second temple judaism and was always found in christianity from the beginning so now i'm going to open the door a little bit to sacred tradition and if you will look at a book like peter brown's work on the cult of saints in latin antiquity or ramsey mcmullen's book on christianizing the roman empire you'll find that the practice of venerating saints and their relics is co-extensive with ancient christianity you don't find one without the other so st jerome in his 4th century book against vigilanceus says does the bishop of rome do wrong when he offers the holy sacrifice on top of the bones of peter and paul and not the bishop of rome only but all the bishops throughout the world all the bishops throughout the world noting the universality of the practice and remember what paul said in first corinthians 11 he says if anyone wants to be contentious know that we have no other practice nor do the churches of god where there is universal consensus among the christian faithful that has the weight of the church's full authority is what we call the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium of the church to use a technical term right and it would be foolhardy to go against what all christians everywhere always have done you know there was more debate in the fourth century far more debate over whether jesus was god then whether we should pray to saints there was virtually no debate about the necessity of praying to saints jesus god not sure about that let's ask a saint that's the way they operated in the ancient church now on the purgatory business uh and i'm running out of time here right which is too bad because i could really go on about this as well um the idea that we owe god a debt of reparation even after we are forgiven that forgiveness and reparation are not the same thing every parent knows this kid breaks the window and says i'm sorry you say that's okay son i forgive you now go clean it up right there this the conceptually distinct is a biblical idea look at second samuel 12 second samuel 24. two passages where david sins he repents god forgives him god imposes a penance right the idea of god imposing a penance on the forgiven is a biblical idea now that this also should have a purifying aspect to it is a biblical idea psalm 24 i believe as it is who can ascend the lord's mountain or stand on his holy hill only he who has clean hands and a pure heart jesus christ matthew 5 blessed are the pure in heart for they will see god the necessity of purification for the vision of god that's a biblical teaching any warrant for believing that there might be a post-mortem process to continue that aspect of purification yes ii samuel here's chapter 12 that i mentioned earlier where we find the church on earth the people of god on earth praying on behalf of the dead that god would be clement and merciful to them also saint paul in the in his correspondence with saint timothy in the bible prays for the repose of his soul onisiphoros so old and new testament warrant for praying for the dead the doctrine of reparation for sin and the doctrine of purification is a necessity for seeing god all biblical concepts and now i don't have time to open the sacred tradition door again but we could really go to town with that as well david thank you so much for your call if you want to unpack this a little bit further check out the podcast at ewtnradio.net we'll have that posted for you very quickly let's quickly go now to gene in california listing on siriusxm channel 130 gene we have about a minute what's on your mind okay um just a quick question um thank you for taking my call by the way um i my uh uh my children's uh grandmother in hawaii um she passed away um and they are wondering about heaven did she go to heaven i told them that they did that she did because she suffered so much from cancer and um and that she's resting peacefully with god in heaven and although i know that um until we leave earth we will not know if we get into heaven for sure my children are eight and five i and i don't want to i guess i can still worry in them and i want them to know the beautiful side of catholicism so gene if you believe the grandparent to be in heaven as a person who died with the faith and lived a holy life and suffered and bore it you know with courageously and so forth you have warrant for reason for thinking this person is in heaven then that's a reasonable thing to say if you're not canonizing the grandparent you're expressing your own hope and i think and and for pastoral reasons i think that's fine sure especially for an eight-year-old and a five-year-old that's right we're not going to get into fine points of dogma with the five-year-old and eight-year-old this is a pastorally appropriate thing to do gene thanks for your call could not get to tom in louisiana nancy in lakewood colorado or linda in bucks county pennsylvania folks if you would like please call us back tomorrow or the day of your choice and just let us know that we couldn't get to your call today and we'll put you on the day of your choice we'll put you at the head of the line how about that dr david anders thank you sir thank you tom remember we do this program monday through friday 2 p.m eastern at uh 2 p.m and then of course the encore at 11 p.m i'm tom price along with dr david anders and our fantastic team see you tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion god bless the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio i'm a dominican and

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,227

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: C3o4JMOSUl4

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022