Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - March 2 , 2022

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 [Music] global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question about the catholic faith and uh maybe it has something to do with ash wednesday maybe it has something to do with lent why do catholics believe this and do they believe this other thing well we can answer questions of of that nature here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 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 ewtn.com is the address ctc ewtn.com all right charles berry is our producer matt kabinsky is our phone screener jeff burson handles social media if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live you can do that just uh go to the comments box put your question in there jeff will see it he'll send it to us here in the studio and hopefully we can get it answered on today's program i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today i'm well and a very happy and peaceful lent to you my friend thank you so much i appreciate that you began the day by giving a talk at the cathedral on what yes so at the cathedral of saint paul here in birmingham alabama i work for the diocese when i'm not here at ewtn so our diocesan office is putting on a catechetical series the theme is the catholic faith as a wisdom tradition hmm the idea is you know there are a lot of ways to approach the catholic faith they're all good i mean there's like there's no bad reason to become catholic right right so you take for example church has this massive system of hospitals all over the world yes catholic church is a medical care provider you could you could come to the church to get your surgery in a sense that's not an appropriate reason yeah church is the largest educational institution in the world you could you could send your kid to the catholic university you know or catholic law school to so they can learn a trade learn a profession that's that's not a bad reason to come to the catholic church uh you can also come to the catholic church because you want to go to heaven and that's a supremely good reason to believe become catholic yeah but and here's the emphasis in the talks you can also become catholic or you can come to the catholic church because you want to discern how to live a good human life now that happens to be connected to getting your surgery and getting educated and going to heaven yeah but it's you know conceptually i can isolate that aspect of the faith that the catholic faith is not just a way to get from here to eternity it is that but it's also a way to live this life well pope benedict talks about the christian life as a life of simple human goodness and so that's what we're investigating what can the catholic faith tell us about how to live life well now and and if you think of jesus as a teacher of wisdom it's amazing what you can learn from him don't be quick to make vows and promises and take o's settle with your adversary don't try not to go to court you know my father was an attorney a good one too but he said at the end really only the attorneys win well you know and it's true in the lawsuit business you know uh don't leave your wife jesus says uh you know don't don't don't let your eye wander stay with the woman of your youth this is good human wisdom that we learn from jesus i think often of uh the great words of archbishop fulton sheen what did he say every show life is worth living uh life is worth living and it can be made more worth living yes indeed like life can become more meaningful more purposeful more coherent more sensible and the catholic faith is a great vehicle for achieving that sense of purpose and coherence and meaning are you going to be doing any more of the talks uh yep every other wednesday fantastic from now until may and we're going to post them to the diocese of birmingham social media and and various web pages so people who want to get a hold of them will be able to go to the diocese of birmingham and find them sounds like a plan well thanks for sharing that with us we're going to lead off here with a text that we receive from michelle what are some resources for a catholic who believes they do not need to confess sins to a priest well i think a really good one would be the catechism of the catholic church it's a good start right that'd be a good start because the doctrine on confession would be there also sacred scripture is not a bad place to go given that christ is the one that gave the the apostles power to forgive sins read about in john chapter 20. um you know so uh i mean look you can't beat those two sources the bible in the catechism there you go michelle thank you so much for your text as we're heading to break here in about a minute and a half or so today is ash wednesday you're going to see people wearing ashes even non-catholics which i just think is fantastic father benedict groeschel of happy memory used to talk about his favorite new york city cab driver a non-practicing jew who never missed getting his ashes every ash wednesday that's fantastic it's fantastic you know we we have one thing in common with everybody on the planet yes we're all gonna die well yeah and that's what the ashes of ash wednesday are meant to remind us from dust we came and to dust we shall return talk about wisdom practices the the meditation on death this is not just something that catholics do this is something that wise people of all generations have done live your life in light of your mortality if this were the last day you were alive what would you be doing what would you be doing differently um you know how much more netflix do you want to watch before your death for example yeah you know maybe that's not how you want to spend all your time it occurs to me one of the big uh phrases of the last i don't know five years or so is uh virtue signaling and uh you know getting your ashes on your forehead don't consider that virtue signaling because that's not the point the point is we're all going to die uh are you you know is your house in order today yes not virtue signaling it's virtue doing yeah well it's meant to elicit that in other words for sure that's the point remind myself of my mortality so that i can strive for virtue yes indeed all right in just a moment here we're going to get to the phones uh phones are already coming in we've got three lines screened thanks to mr gubinsky there dave in florida is ready to roll also trey in kentucky john in vancouver washington all standing by to come on this edition of call to communion with dr david anders but we have six lines coming into the room here so three plus three means that we've got three open lines right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 call to communion on this ash wednesday on ewtn the ewtn home video highlight for march is christendom journey back to a time when christianity formed every aspect of people's lives known as the age of christendom this glorious era produced great achievements in art music agriculture medicine and science order your dvd at ewtnrc.com 24 hours a day seven days a week or call 1-800-854-6316 tomorrow morning on the sunrise morning show we'll help you start your day a better way with guests and topics that look at a variety of aspects of what it means to live our faith in everyday life from scripture catechesis and church history to news weather and sports we're here to help you begin the morning in prayer and with god's help tackle whatever the day might throw at you hope you can join us the sunrise morning show tomorrow at 6 a.m eastern on ewtn radio [Music] he is honored by the church as a saint with the title of the seraphic doctor matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church one of the greatest theologians and franciscan mystics in church history bonaventure also wrote a biography of saint francis that was commissioned by the franciscans themselves it took a saint and true mystic to understand a true saint and mystic he died in 1274. for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com [Music] call to communion on this wednesday not just any old wednesday but ash wednesday here on ewtn radio with dr david andrews if you have a question for dr david we have one line open right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 well you know what you can prepare for the church's holiest season with something really wonderful lenten meditations by father peter stravinskis this collection of meditations by father peter stravinskis leads readers on a spiritual journey from today ash wednesday through easter sunday the meditations show that while there is no salvation without bearing one's cross you know what the repentance and penance of ash wednesday lead to genuine easter joy father stravinskis spells it all out for you and it's a great book it's available right now at ewtnrc.com free standard shipping on online orders of 75 or more so you may want to combine that book with some other items get some free shipping do check it out ewtnrc.com if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with dave in florida listening on the ewtn app hey there dave what's on your mind today sir yeah uh i'm a cradle catholic uh and i go to mass five times a week communion i say the rosary but my question is to dr david i don't think i have the passion most converts have and i was wondering if what he thought about that oh i think that's a very good thing that you don't have the passion that's a very good thing that you don't have the converts passion you have instead a kind of equanimity a kind of steady determination to doggedly pursue your catholic faith regardless of how it makes you feel and i think that is a much surer path to virtue i think that's a fantastic thing what you've already told me about yourself is that you're very devout you're a daily communicant and you regularly pray the rosary and you're serious about your faith and yet you have that kind of conviction even though you don't have this tremendous upsurge of positive emotion that's driving you the honeymoon period yeah exactly and so it sounds to me like you're you're on a much surer path than the than the self-assured sort of cocky convert who's anxious for everybody to know all that he's learned and look i've been that convert so i know what i'm talking about you know um something i mean look look there this doesn't characterize everybody okay but it i can definitely speak from experience the catholic faith is vast i mean it's just vast if you grow up in a protestant denomination i mean your data set is 66 books it's the bible pretty much i mean they're you know they have their theologians and stuff too but i mean by and large you have to master the contents of that book when you become catholic you realize the data set is just enormous and and it's not only the amount of material but the conceptual complexity and the elaboration of catholic tradition over the centuries is just is an awe-inspiring and so you want to have the sense of sort of diving into an ocean that you can never master but everywhere you put your foot you know every place you taste is just sweet and delicious and so there's kind of a the attraction of novelty and the convert just can't believe all the good stuff he's finding and so he's driven by that by that love of novelty well you know the fathers of the church were pretty unanimous in condemning curiosity which is mere curiosity as a as a motive for the spiritual life and there's a lot of that that drives the convert then the convert who who falls in love with his own knowledge and and knows so much more seemingly about you know what the texts say than some pious old catholic woman who praised the rosary faithfully in the front pew at mass every day for you know for 70 years and so he gets a bit cocky and he thinks well you know i've read augustine and i've read thomas and i mean i met a convert one time i said how did you become catholic he said i read the summa theologica i said the whole thing he said yes the whole thing i said cover to cover page by page he said yes cover to cover page by page dang you know good grief you know that's a that's an accomplishment right there but you know as much as i love st thomas reading the summa from cover to cover won't make you holy it might be the occasion of your becoming holy but it won't be the cause of your becoming holy holiness is a matter of charity and charity is most certainly not a feeling so i would say uh sounds to me dave like you are doing great yeah yeah cut yourself a break dave it's okay appreciate your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn two lines open at the moment eight three three two eight eight 288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn radio going now to trey in kentucky listening on the great holy family radio in the louisville area hey there trey what's on your mind today sir hi uh first time long time uh we were discovering we're discussing the bible at work uh we had some questions about the first four verses of genesis chapter six yes we were wondering uh who are the sons of god that have children with the daughters of men and uh are the nephilim related to that union and then uh when did the nephilim come into being was that before paradise or after the fall okay sure sure sure thank you appreciate the question so how you understand this text is this particular text is going to have huge implications for how you understand the whole chapter and it boils down to how literally you want to take the passage okay now if you take this text more or less literally then it is impossible that the sons of god refer to angels or to any kind of celestial being okay because angels don't have bodies nope right so it is not possible for a spirit to mate with a human being that is not possible all right and so uh the most of the fathers who interpret this passage recognizing the impossibility of humans mating with angels um say it can't mean that it must mean the sons of seth and that is the predominant opinion among the church fathers that it refers to the sons of seth that was augustine of hippo's opinion for example okay and many other fathers as well athanasius those are the greats they they thought it was the sons of seth and that's still a safe interpretation there are some fathers that claim that it referred to the mating of angels and humans which is metaphysically impossible ambrose if milan took that position as did tertullian of carthage now totally in left the catholic church but he's still a important catholic writer from the second century now here's what you have to give up if you take the second line and say well this refers to some sort of celestial being encountering human women then then it is necessary to take the entire passages and as mythology right now by mythology i don't mean false i just mean this is a wholly imaginative story meant to evoke some kind of spiritual realization but should not be taken in any shape form or fashion as any kind of literal history at all right that's the only conclusion you can come to because like angels can't mate with people period so if you think the text says that then you might as well start the chapter with once upon a time angels mated with humans you follow me no there are fathers that take that line right they'd say well this may be how it's read but if so it's going it's definitely going to color how you read the rest of the passage all right now what does the new testament have to say new testament kind of splits the difference to be honest with you when when st peter looks back at the episode of noah and the ark which is what this is all leading up to um he he doesn't he really kind of presents entirely from questions of literal and historical and he goes straight to the moral or the spiritual interpretation of the passage which is that the flood and the ark and the cleansing of the world through through water is an allegory for christian baptism and that the proper interpretation to draw from this text is nothing about ancient history but rather my need for interior purification and my need to make the pledge of a good conscience towards god now today the catholic church says when interpreting any passage of the bible but especially obscure texts of the old testament you must keep in mind the four senses of sacred scripture there is the literal sense which does not mean what happened in history it means what did the sacred writer intend to convey right or we might just talk about the grammatical sense of the words okay that's the little then on top of that there is the spiritual sense which is how does this apply to me today in my interior life and one thing that it certainly does not mean is i don't need to go around you know with a stethoscope examining people to find out if they're nephilim right that's not the significance of the text rather this is teaching me as the new testament says a a moral truth about my own interior life and my need for purification so that's the moral sense of the bible it points to christian baptism right which it connects me to christ that's the allegorical sense of the passage and it raises in me the hope of redemption right which is the energical sense of the bible and so there are many passages of the old testament that are on the face of it quite obscure some of them drawn from cultural traditions that are very remote from us today and their origins lost and the the historical part we'll never know but it doesn't make the bible unfruitful for us because we can always read them with the mind of christ by the spirit in the spiritual sense discerning moral anagogical and allegorical truth trey thanks so much for your call hope that's helpful for you call to communion here on ewtn two lines open at the moment and if you call right now we can probably get you on today's show 833 288 ewtn is that number 833-288-3986 here now john in vancouver washington listening on the great modern day radio hey john what's on your mind today oh thanks for taking my call a great show year in and year out thank you um two brief questions number one it's flint i am really unable to find any explicit reference and explanation of lent in the catechism can you direct me to the proper section paragraph 540 paragraph 1095 paragraph 1430 three references to lent in the catechism of the catholic church okay john well that's the first question and i i hope that's that gives a detailed explanation i'm a cradle catholic from 78 years ago okay then can you comment on the significance of jesus uh during his passion on the cross invoking psalm 22 and is he despairing and is he is he modeling despair for the rest of us when the suffering is overwhelming thank you yes i really appreciate the question so uh when jesus dies on the cross it is the hour of liturgical prayer in the synagogue in the temple and this is the hour of the day when jews everywhere would be praying the psalms and it's highly significant that jesus expires during this this liturgy of the sacred word and so at the moment of his death he unites himself in his spirit with the entire people of god with the people of israel joining with them in the prayer of the psalms which is the way the jews prayed they would recite the psalms he himself joins in this prayer of the psalms by quoting from memory this this psalm of dereliction now you know that the book of isaiah says that the messiah the suffering servant will be a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering that he will bear the sin of many right we will regard him as afflicted by god and rejected by him but that god will not in fact reject him and through him uh he will see the light of life and redeem many so the the suffering servant of isaiah enters into israel's experience of alienation and waywardness is treated as an outcast in a criminal and so experiences precisely that sense of exile and alienation that was israel's punishment now in christ it is no punishment it is a voluntary is a chosen uh uh uh accompaniment jesus chooses to step into the position of wayward israel to experience the alienation and the loss and the rejection that was israel's lot and he unites himself to that sense of alienation and that exile mentality that was the common experience of judeans at the time by praying this psalm of dereliction at the moment of his death which is also the moment of liturgical prayer so rather than being an act of despair on his pla on his part it is a confident statement of hope right as he is conscious himself of being precisely that suffering servant who will redeem many all right hey john thanks so much for your call billy is watching us on youtube right now he kind of wants a little uh compare and contrast on one hand saying to somebody hey i'm having a mass said for you i devoted my adoration hour to you i'm fasting for you and your family versus praying in private rewarded and private fasting and private rewarded and private your thoughts on that uh sure yes jesus's admonition on this is don't do what you do in order to be seen by men so if that's your motive don't do it however if your motive is to encourage someone and let you know you care about them that's a different motive so the key there is is know your audience i think you know yourself no yourself no your motives absolutely you know you talked earlier in the show about virtue signaling yes and we we can do that as catholics we can definitely i cranked off this many rosaries for you look at what a holy guy i am oh yeah and christ says well you know you just got your award in full i will tell you something on myself here then i and i caught myself on it and i've tried to never do it again but it's like please pray for so and so because they just uh you know catholic gossip catholic gossip holy gossip masquerading as a request for prayers holy gossip and as soon as i realized that i thought you dodo yeah i can't believe you were doing that but you know i mean i don't know if we should take comfort for this or not but jesus most of a lot of his ministry was about calling out hypocritical forms of religious practice where people felt justified in their in their pettiness and that's not something that only the pharisees did like we all do that yeah it's everywhere as chicken man used to say it's everywhere it's everywhere all right very good in just a moment we're gonna get back to the phones here at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 uh first up when we come back is karen in st louis we'll also talk with paul in the beautiful savannah georgia also john in st louis larry in kenosha wisconsin two lines open at the moment 833-288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders on this beautiful ash wednesday here on ewtn stay with us [Music] ewtn the global catholic network prayer is the only truly creative power in the world god is the only one who can create something out of nothing and when we pray we welcome god into our hearts and once he's there he's going to do something he's going to change things he's going to transform us he's going to make something out of the nothing that is me that's the power of prayer for me it's the only power that's guaranteed to change my life and the only way i know to make that happen is through prayer [Music] a message from ewtn ukraine dear brothers and sisters i am father alexander zelinski i am responsible for ewtn ukraine and i am in our chapel in kiev where is our office of ewtn ukraine we want to thank you for all of your prayers for us for all of your support we don't know what will be our future but we believe that we are in the hands of god we as ewtn ukraine try to preach this good news thank you brothers and sisters please pray for us we want to trust in god that he will help us to come through these difficult times may god father the son and the holy spirit god bless you amen want to be notified when call to communion with dr david andrews goes live on facebook follow ewtn radio's facebook page and click the bell icon to be notified we'll help you start your day a better way with guests and topics that look at a variety of aspects of what it means to live our faith in everyday life from scripture catechesis and church history to news weather and sports hope you can join us [Music] hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about that here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders our phone number two eight eight 833-288 that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six two lines open at the moment all right going now to karen in st louis listening on the great covenant network hey karen what's on your mind today hi good afternoon i am such a huge fan dr anders i listen to you all the time half for years um i am a catholic chaplain in a faith-based hospital i've had my masters in catholic theology so i really get into what you talk about but i could not find an answer to this question to hear from that diocese i'm being the only catholic chaplain in this hospital i took the position that i wanted to give the blessed ashes which were dropped off by the priest to all the catholic patients my lutheran and methodist colleagues were distributing these ashes to their to anyone who asked for them very many protestants but my question is would it have been appropriate for one of the protestant ministers to distribute ashes to catholic patients i took the position that it was not so i was able to see them all but do you have any insight into this okay thanks so obviously from the point of view of the protestant minister the protestant ministry is not subject to the jurisdiction of the catholic church and so he or she can go out and put ashes on anybody they want to and from the point of view of the catholic church the catholic church has no jurisdiction over these people and so i i the catholic church i mean my my bishop is has no authority to tell some protestant minister what he can or cannot do his authority stops at catholics within his diocese right so the church can't uh and shouldn't and won't try to dictate to protestant ministers how they carry out their ministry now when it comes to the catholic patient is the catholic patient somehow barred from having ashes put on his forehead by a protestant minister under under the law i don't know of any law in the catholic church that would prevent this um you know the ashes are not sacraments they are sacramentals they're not sacraments uh there are sacraments that a catholic should only receive from a catholic priest uh the sacramentals are a different story now as a matter of prudence as a matter of prudence however i think it is appropriate for a catholic to receive ashes from a catholic minister or someone who's been delegated by the church to do this because of the the connection of all of the sacramentals to the sacraments and ultimately to the sacral office to the ordained priesthood because the foundation of all sacramentals is the priestly blessing and the priestly blessing is reserved to the ordained clergy of the catholic priest or the ordering clergy of the catholic church and so i think it's appropriate as an act of piety for a catholic person to say i'll wait for the catholic chaplain thank you very much i'd like my ashes to be those that were blessed by the catholic priest because i know those are genuinely sacramentals you know a protestant minister does not have the power to create a sacramental you know through through a blessing in the way that a catholic priest does um so even though it's not a sacrament and i don't think there's a law on this as a matter of prudence i think what you did was pastorally appropriate okay does that make sense that's helpful yeah thank you so was it was it you uh that that shared the ashes with the other uh chaplains there karen yes the the priests who come and do the anointings left a whole box full of ashes and they were just taken by any and they knew that the protestant chaplains were going to be sharing so i just took it upon myself to make sure that i saw all of the catholic patients i feel a little bit better knowing that the ashes were at least blessed by the catholic priest there you go you know karen thanks so much for your call all right we're going we're going to stay right in st louis and go now to john listening in st louis on the ewtn app hey there john what's on your mind today hey um do a great job joy listens to you every day and i got a question cradle catholic 67 uh made my confession back in about 61 too and the way the church was then first it is now we we grew up with the venial mortal sins things like you didn't go to mass on sunday mortal sin they analyst the mortal sin back then yeah and so now uh with looking at it i'm really working on myself to go to confession more often and and i hear the things like well really being your sins you're pretty much confessing them every time you go to mass which i try to go to every day so you do have the mortal and the vino and i know dr enders he keeps things so simple things like the eucharist well jesus said it i believe it that's pretty simple and i know jesus said you know that the priests forgive sins but nowhere did jesus say and here's venial and here's mortal and i'm thinking somewhere along the line i'm guessing somehow the catholic church sort of differentiated the two and i was just curious what the history is on that and what he thinks in terms of things like well he didn't make it a mass mortal sin i mean who who makes those decisions okay yes thank you first of all i would disagree that jesus makes no mention of this i i don't think that's true now uh jesus does not use the terminology he doesn't he doesn't use the terminology of mortal sin and venial sin and we also remember that jesus said and did a lot of things that are not recorded in sacred scripture but which are conveyed by sacred tradition and so i think that we can trace this distinction to jesus through a sacred tradition because from a very very early stage in the celebration of the sacrament of penance which of course is of christ's institution the church made a distinction from the very beginning between those sins that had to be remitted through the sacrament of penance and those that could be remitted simply through the prayers of the liturgy of the rest of the liturgy like the eucharist for example that is a that is that is a very very very early tradition in catholicism very very very early we find it both in scripture and and in the apostolic fathers and the fathers of the second century and these are people who knew the apostles firsthand they were not making this stuff up right they were getting this from the apostles now jesus is the one that gives the instructions on when to excommunicate and when to use the sacrament of penance to readmit people and you find that in matthew chapter 18. so although christ doesn't speak explicitly in terms of mortal and venial sin he does talk about the conditions under which someone should be excluded from the church's fellowship and forced to do penance before they can be readmitted right and that's basically the sacrament of penance and also potentially excommunication and we know from the apostles who walked with christ and knew him personally that they did not do this for every peccadillo so if you look for example in first corinthians paul's letter to the first corinthians he is upbraiding the corinthians because they have factions right they have factions with one another and they're they're they're arguing in church over stuff and he says that's totally inappropriate and and you can't live that way and you're not really it's not charity but he doesn't excommunicate them for it now there's a fellow who was sleeping with his stepmother paul excommunicates him and he does so because he's following christ's admonitions from matthew 18. so i think that implicit in christ's teaching is this distinction in that sense now also in jesus as he confronts individuals jesus pastorally treats sins differently and he may he may actually sort of add them up with a different calculus than we're accustomed to today the sins that jesus seems to take most seriously are pride and hypocrisy those are the ones that really get his attention that's when it's woe to you scribes and pharisees and teachers of the law it's going to go hard with you on the day of judgment with everybody else jesus seems to take kind of a light touch even with the woman caught in adultery or the fornicating woman the samaritan woman in john chapter four jesus kind of gentle with those people he said come on back let's get this thing straight but he doesn't jump down the throats the pharisees he jumps down the throats and then he lays out these conditions for penance and absolution in matthew 18 we see that developed in sacred tradition now the rest of the bible also confirms this distinction so st james for example distinguishes all those little ways in which we said he says all stumble in many ways but the man who can control his tongue is a perfect man so presumably slips of the tongue these are venial faults but then james also turns around and says weep and whale you know oh you rich people who don't share from the you know from your table with the poor so he also has this distinction although he doesn't use the terminology st john uh in his epistles first uh first john now starts using the terminology he says there is sin that leads to death i immortal there is sin that does not lead to death i.e venial yeah so i do think it's in christ both in scripture and in tradition i think it's it's implicit in the church's disciplinary practice and i think it's elaborated in the rest of the new testament and is course codified into dogma uh through through the development of the tradition in the middle ages john thanks so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn radio i want to tell you about uh some wonderful programming that we have coming up this week as we begin the holy season of lent i i heard matt swaim this morning on the sunrise morning show he said this is the season i feel most like a catholic because we're all in this together two of the great programs that we have for you include lent a season of grace with father cedric passana you've probably seen him on ewtn television heard them on the radio you'll hear that sundays all the sundays of lent at 8 pm eastern also a program that just came off the off the griddle here and that is lenten reflections from the united kingdom that's coming to you every sunday at 6 a.m and 11 30 p.m eastern here on ewtn radio and also throughout the day we've got some wonderful daily lenten reflections from father benedict groeschel and that is called lent today you'll hear them dropping various times throughout the day starting today all the way through easter sunday right here and only here on ewtn radio let's go now to uh paul in savannah listing on siriusxm channel 130 hey paul what's on your mind today hey good afternoon dr andrews uh i appreciate all of your your wisdom your depends on us every day my question is in your thoughts on jerome i think jerome and his position on the deuterocannon my daughter is doing a thesis on the defense of the deuterocanon and it seems like from the protestant point of view that's the only person they can really point to who seems to be against it though later in his life he writes a letter saying i'm just paraphrasing just supporting or pointing out the the jewish position and i defer to the authority of the church um can you elaborate a little bit on your understanding of jerome and his position on the deuteronomy sure absolutely so first of all jerome is wrong all right jerome is wrong um and you know i i had a debate one time casual debate with a protestant minister who was a patrologist he was an expert in the fathers and i am not a petrologist my specialties in reformation history so this guy knew his stuff he knew more about the subject than i did and he was keen to debate deuterocannon and in our conversation which happened over a dinner table it was a social gathering he whips out a notebook and he starts going down the list and quoting all these patristic authorities uh trying to make a case against the deutero cannon and i was rather impressed with his er edition and you know this he knew this council and that father and all the other guy kind of knows his stuff and so he gets to the bottom of his list and he sort of looks at me confident that he's sort of he thinks he's wiped the floor with me i suppose and i asked him a single question so let me ask you a question i said do you think that the contents of the canon are an article of faith in the christian religion he says what do you mean i said well you know an article of faith is something that we're bound by divine authority to believe so like the trinity is an article of faith the incarnation is an article of faith do you think you know a declarative list of books belonging to the bible do you think that that list is itself an article of faith in the christian religion such that if you are a christian you are obligated by divine and supernatural faith to believe in this list and he said well i suppose so otherwise we wouldn't have certainty in our rule of faith i said okay where did god reveal the list where did god reveal the list oops and in other words like your your interesting curious historical arguments are really not determinative here because the only way to definitively answer this question is if it's an article of faith which catholics hold that it is and some protestants hold not all protestants some prophets then we have to actually have divine revelation on that subject because we don't determine the content of christian belief by taking a vote from antiquity that's not how it works right right god has revealed it now how does god reveal these things well god reveals things to us in a lot of ways he reveals things to us in sacred scripture he reveals things to us in sacred tradition and he reveals things to us by the authoritative declaration of the church now you have already pointed out this true fact that from sacred tradition the the preponderant attitude among the fathers is that they will defer to liturgical use and in first second third century the text of the old testament that was read in the churches was the septuagint and this included the deuterocannon and saint augustine is explicit about this in his book de doctrina christiana which if your daughter hadn't read that when she needs to read august non-christian doctrine because this is the the first book in the catholic tradition explicitly about about hermeneutics and the text of the bible and augustine says well when we have debates about uh versions of the old testament how should we settle these debates and augustine says we have to go with the greek text we have to go with the septuagint why because it's the ecclesiastical tradition it's the ecclesiastical text that's why right this one the apostles used so that's what we have to go with um so uh that that's how they decide now when it when it is still raised as a matter of controversy as it was in the 16th century then the magisterium has to get involved and issue a binding declaration a formal infallible declaration they did so at the council of trent and formally defined the deuterocanon to be part of the canon of the bible so we have it coming and going both ways now i should also add that the new testament cites from and alludes to the deuterocannon now it'd be pedantic of me to list instances for you but you should get on google and look up new testament citations of the deuterocanyon you're going to find dozens and dozens and dozens of them i will give you a couple that i've always struck me as really compelling one of them is read the first chapter of the book of romans and then go back and read the book of wisdom it's quite obvious that paul that paul is is speaking right out of the book of wisdom as he writes romans chapter 1. it's very obvious the 11th chapter of the book of hebrews is uh it mentions the um you know those who were sawn in half uh out of their devotion to to uh the word of god that comes straight out of the deuterocanon um in revelation chapter five the depiction of the saints offering the prayers of uh of the church to god as incense comes it's an image drawn straight from the book of tobit i mean you can kind of do this all day so the new testament cites it the church uses it the church reads that text and uh the apostles use that text and of course the counsel of trent defines that text was it unanimous among the fathers no neither was the doctrine of the trinity right i mean like there's there's no catholic dogma that hasn't been contested in some quarters right um origen who was you know the the great catholic exegete and biblical scholar of antiquity uh and and the the the fourth and fifth century church oh more to origin than any other single figure was really squirrely when it came to his christology and uh and and and you know and his doctrine of the afterlife so i mean like none of the fathers had it all together all the time but as a college you know as a collective yeah they are they are a witness to the truth of the catholic faith that is that is uh inc invaluable and we have to defer to them in sort of in the collective so that's how you approach it in my judgment paul thanks so much for your call let's go to larry in kenosha wisconsin right now listening on wsfi larry what's on your mind today good afternoon gentlemen i was counting on a calendar today and i come up more more than 40 days between uh ash wednesday inland i mean in easter sunday my second thing is if you can answer it i've gone to and i used to be a practicing catholic whenever i used to go to church uh the platinum used to follow the priest from his hand to the mouth from the back to the hand again to the mouth now and that was to protect every every even a speck of the host hitting the floor i don't see that when i went to some funeral messes they maybe still be doing it but i don't see it with everybody at uh at every mass and the last thing i got i was a little offended with your opening comments when you said why do i want to be catholic and you made it sound like becoming a catholic you said because you want to go to heaven and that to me as a non-catholic means that i'm not going to go to heaven unless i'm catholic okay great i appreciate all these so first of all uh i've been doing this show since 2014 i think right never in the eight years we've been on the air have i ever made the claim that non-catholics can't go to heaven i've never made that claim nope and if i made that claim i'd be putting myself outside the catholic faith because the catholic church teaches this is doctrinal truth of the catholic faith that non-catholics can go to heaven that is a fact now does that mean that being a catholic has nothing to do with going to heaven that's not what it means one does not get to heaven because one is catholic one gets to heaven because one lives a life of charity one is united to god in charity one has the virtues this is how one gets to heaven now the catholic faith is the ideal form of life for acquiring the virtues and living in charity that doesn't mean that other people can't have charity and live and live virtuously they can and they do but the catholic faith it's like you know you can go to the gym and work out on your own or you can hire a good personal trainer the cast the catholic faith is like the world's greatest personal trainer for your soul i mean yes you can go to the gym on your own and you can get a lot of work done maybe you'll make it but you'd rather have the trainer you better that's a metaphor for understanding the relationship of catholicism to the life of heaven okay never said that non-catholics couldn't get there just saying the catholic way of getting there is the easy quick way quick way of getting there right that's the easiest the easier way of growing in virtue now uh when it comes to the questions about the patent patent not patent not not the general but no patent right yeah we have patents we do we've got them i mean at last when i go to mass i get them every week when uh our our church saint barnabas every week right now there may be uh priests who do not have an altar server to hold the patent that's possible uh but yeah yeah so i mean the instructions from the church from the usccb and from the vatican are that the patent is is one of the instruments that is to be used in mass i mean this is now as but as tom says there may be occasions when that for some one reason or another seems not very efficient to do so but that is the that is the standard practice for catholics and they use the patent every time i go to mass now the other question was about 40 days well 40 days takes us to the beginning of holy week it doesn't take us to easter sunday it takes the beginning of holy week okay very good larry thank you so much for your call let's go now to patrick a first-time caller in cleveland all right uh patrick is listening on am 1260 the rock hey patrick what's on your mind today sir hey how y'all doing today howdy um i'm well i'm calling i want to ask a question pertaining to mary so this easter i'll be confirmed into the church like dave i am i'm a former protestant and recently i've been looking into mary and my question is i've heard that the that such things like the perpetual virginity of mary and immaculate conception my question is did they ever denounce those beliefs later on in their life yeah but yes i can answer that yeah there was a little cut out there but he was talking basically he has been told that the early reformers were not as oppositional to marian dogma as protestants are today and what did i think about that well there's some truth in that but not as far as you were claiming so for example on the immaculate conception none of them affirmed the immaculate conception they all denied the immaculate conception um luther had a higher regard for mary than calvin did calvin would would have affirmed uh he definitely they all affirmed the virgin mirth of christ that's that that they all affirmed uh many of the reformers affirmed the perpetual virginity of mary on the strength of of the tradition in the ancient church defending the doctrine so they were they were defenders of her perpetual virginity there were also defenders of her title theotokos or mother of god uh now calvin got a little bit of cold feet on that he didn't deny it was theologically true that she was the mother of god he he was he was a bit hesitant to to refer to her you know homiletically in sermons and so forth by that title because he was afraid that it would spur his congregation to acts of catholic devotion and of course he was very right about that it would inspire them to execute so when asked if he thought it was appropriate to refer to mary as the mother of god he sort of hemmed and said well theologically that's true but i prefer to use a different title so what they really were opposed to uh was less the dogmas themselves and more the devotional practice of catholics offering prayers to the blessed virgin mary that is what they couldn't abide neither one of them wanted to have devotion to the saints as any part of their churches so um there was a more kind of deference to mary in early reformation but not not all the way and by the time you get to the late 17th century it's pretty much dissipated in most protestant circles and today you'll find protestants that you know just come fly out and say the most irreverent things patrick thank you so much for your call we don't have a time for any more uh emails or calls or anything else but i do want to put in a little bit of a plug for our ewtn programming that we have lined up for you we were talking about that a little bit earlier uh tune in throughout the day you'll hear uh short messages from our very dear priest of happy memory father benedict groeschel with the great little segments lent today and he's got a different one for every day of the season of lent from today ash wednesday all the way through easter sunday and of course the other wonderful programming that we've got lined up for you here's the best way to find out what exactly is coming up go to ewtnradio.net and click on the little box that says schedule and that'll open up several things and then just click on the lent box that's all you have to do ewtnradio.net dr david andrews 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 i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion god bless the most original and exclusive catholic content is on ewtn radio my life is split between the search for the supernatural and the retelling of the credible and verifiable accounts of true instances of miracles i think that people are inspired hearing these stories and it bolsters

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,060

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

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Length: 54min 20sec (3260 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2022