Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - November 30 , 2021

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 the 1-833-288-3986 global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn radio this is indeed the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters those of you who want to get answers to questions that may have been floating around in your head for decades let's get those things taken care of here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's now if you're 833-288-3986 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 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 where we're eager for them see ctc at ewtn is the address ctc at ewtn.com charles berry is our producer matt gabinski is our phone screener jeff burson handles social media for the program and if you want to send us a question via youtube or facebook live we can take that question of yours right now just put it in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend you know i'm doing decent thank you starting to uh put up advent items in our home we said the first uh well we blessed the candles yesterday before the meal and uh it's it's actually happening fantastic hard to believe number one it's hard to believe that it's 2021. i still haven't figured that out and already it's advent you know i was reflecting the other day on how many advents i might potentially have left in my life oh gee and you know it's a it's a finite number it's a finite number well thank you for leading off with a with a morbid and you know i mean i i think you know i don't i don't have quite enough fingers and toes to hit the statistical like actuarial probable number right but i thought you know with with this few to go i had to concentrate on making sure that each one is lived well that is the challenge yes yes indeed so we're going to lead off with an email that uh kind of raised an eyebrow around the radio office today i remember shooting it over to you shooting it to charles and and you were like well yeah let's let's tackle that this is an email from a person identifying here only as tj on a recent show dr anders answers a woman's question by saying in part quote there are christian denominations that say it's okay to kill your parents if they become old and burdensome please identify this so-called christian denomination by name and where i can double check this teaching in 40 years of participating in many true christian churches and study groups i have never heard this claim and i truly doubt it's referring to an authentic christian that is christ following denomination with all without let me speak to that okay okay so uh i just doing a little research on my own today yes i i found out that the uniting church of victoria tasmania voted to permit euthanasia in their own agencies so i imagine i could find other examples but i just pulled that one off of the internet this morning so there's at least one christian's nomination in australia uh allowing for that in their in their agencies at least according to this article that i read now the context of the remark was a person had called in and said is there really a difference between being a catholic and being some other form of christian does it matter it's all just flavors of ice cream right right and my point was no there are substantive differences between the catholic presentation of the faith and other denominations presentation of the faith and it's easiest to see with respect to beginning and end-of-life moral questions questions around marriage and and childbirth and the end of life now i think there are many denominations if you will that might not overtly uh promote euthanasia but you will find upon survey data that the majority of their members approve of euthanasia and that a kind of uh well if you will soft euthanasia is often practiced uh quietly within families and uh you know i don't want to get too graphic or step on too many toes but i mean as i was looking into end-of-life questions for members of my own family and these questions are very salient to me it uh uh and reflecting on you know the death of my grandparents and things like that my own father yeah um i realized that there are there can be say you know moments of decision that are never gonna it's never gonna rise to the level of like you know the uh the church council uh you know the presbytery uh the pastor but people are having to make decisions in the here and now that do affect end of life and while it may not you know come out it might amount to an overt support of euthanasia passively it makes it amounts to the same thing i'll give you an example uh the cardiologist friend of mine that i know you know him too he's actually a catholic deacon as well who who is routinely called upon routinely called upon in the hospital and he refuses to comply by the way to come turn off people's pacemakers because the family judges well you know we just don't really want them to have to suffer any longer if we turn this thing off then they'll you know then they'll kick off and their body will be the happier for it and of course he he refuses to comply he won't comply because there's no you what you're trying you're asking me to do is to actively facilitate this person's death now that he may not he might say we don't need to install a pacemaker you know it because the burden of the operation and the likelihood of success is such it's not proportion it doesn't make good sense that's different once you've got one in place i'm not going to go in there and take an action the purpose of which is to make this person die okay i think many people if they don't have access to the wisdom of catholic bioethics might not actually conceptualize that as a kind of euthanasia activity and so there's a kind of ignorant passive euthanasia i think that often goes on among people who don't know better and they need the light of catholic wisdom and tradition to shine on the dignity of the human person and the dignity around end of life issues to help illuminate those kinds of moral questions and prevent them from doing something that would be gravely evil all right and i think we're going to continue with uh tj's email because he he he or she uh brings up a couple of points that we did not get to and and i feel to do justice to it we're just gonna have to do that so we will do that uh coming out of the break here we'll also be talking with john in saint louis and we've got a line open for you right now here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders 833 288 ewtn is our number that's 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david andrews on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn [Music] it's really awe inspiring to know that take two with jerry and debbie has the impact that it does we know from what our listeners share on the air but also from corresponding with them outside of the show via email and social media there's no better feeling than knowing you've helped someone maybe many people at a time work through various situations and more clearly see god's purpose and plan for their lives take two with jerry and debbie tomorrow noon eastern on ewtn radio father benedict groeschel there are legitimate differences of opinion in any religion there are differences of opinion in catholicism but in catholicism you expect that people will take the teaching of its supreme authority seriously to go diametrically opposed to those teachings is to not be a catholic someone in the name of catholicism is sponsoring the destruction of human life lives of unborn children and they got the name catholic on the door the highest authority in catholicism and the encyclical humane vitae evangelium vitae is absolutely clear that no catholic can support abortion and that catholics are responsible to take serious action against legalized abortion ewtn live truth live catholic [Music] it's called a communion with dr david anders here on ewtn radio our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six we'll get back to the program in just a moment here i want to tell you about a wonderful book uh boy will this make a wonderful christmas gift for somebody maybe even for you living joy nine rules to help you rediscover and live joy every day by christophanic this book equips you with the wisdom you need to experience joy to the fullest with evidence experience and common sense chris presents nine rules that will empower you to overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from unspeakable joy you're going to learn why gratitude is the first key to unlocking deep joy why silence creates 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okay thanks so i i again i appreciate the comment a lot and i'll take that under advisement uh and take that into consideration my purpose of course was not to disparage anybody but to emphasize that catholicism is distinct as a form of christianity that's my that's my point that is my point now obviously to take the uniting church of queensland as an example evidently they wouldn't consider it disparaging if i pointed out that they voted to do what they voted to do they would consider that to be truth-telling yeah right now the catholic church would not take that decision right but my point is just there are there are distinctions between forms of christianity and those distinctions are substantive now whether you consider those distinctions disparaging really depends on which side of that divide you find yourself on you say but anyway certainly don't want to disparage anybody okay very good and then one final thing here from tj uh tj says as a follow-up dr anders often claims that because something is not specifically included in scriptures doesn't mean it is not true dogma agreed but then he turns it right around and will use a lack of a scriptural verse to argue against protestant claims he often says jesus never said that when disputing protestants to bolster his case so dr anders which is it is the bible complete or is it only used to cherry pick and bolster catholic positions oh i would be very very happy if protestants would agree to the principle that the bible does not contain the totality of christian doctrine and that we have to go outside of the bible for a comprehensive account of christian faith i'd be thrilled to death if they have that conception so that's that's what it is the bible is not a sufficient rule of faith for the church it wasn't intended to be god didn't make it to be that never said it was that bible's an inspired work uh that guides our life of prayer and theological reflection and in our community together uh but it's not meant to be the be all and indole and answer to every question about the christian faith so if i am in a discussion with a protestant and the protestant asserts to me well the bible is a sufficient rule of faith and it does speak to every question of faith and morals that we need to know then it's fair for me to say well is your own is your own belief substantiated by your own rule of faith so if you hold that your your belief can be substantiated from the bible alone then it's legitimate for me to call that into question and find out if the bible in fact supports your position because that's what you're claiming but the catholic doesn't make that claim i've never claimed i don't claim and the church doesn't claim that the catholic faith can be sustained on the bible alone we don't make that claim we think the bible's not sufficient i mean that's emphatically the catholic position it's not sufficient as a rule of faith there it is tj thanks so much for your very thoughtful email we do appreciate that i know we gave it a little extra air time here but i thought it was important and i'm glad that we were able to tackle the whole thing all right if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with john in st louis listening on the great covenant radio hey there john what's on your mind today sir hi thank you all for taking my call today dr andrews i so enjoy your show thank you very very much for doing this in the in mass this morning the first reading was from saint paul's letter of the roman 10 9 which starts by saying brothers and sisters if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved and i try to engage in discussions with my protestant and evangelical friends and that's something that a number of them certainly believe that that is all that is sufficient is to do that what what can we ask what's our best way to respond that as catholics and i suspect in your background maybe you kind of believe that once upon a time also and what kind of changed your mind about that that we could use in our discussions with uh sure yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so obviously you know good protestant rule of biblical interpretation is that you have to understand verses in their context and i think you have to understand romans 10 in the context of the entire argument of the book of romans and the argument of the book of romans is that it is not only jews who were saved and jewish identity moreover is not simply constituted or expressed by obedience to the mosaic law that's paul's argument in the book of romans rather that when god called abraham he intended for abraham to be a blessing to the entire world and that gentiles are also heirs of the promise with abraham not because they adhere to mosaic law but through faith in christ they are also included in the covenant with abraham through their faith in jesus and the law the mosaic code as he says in galatians was a pedagogue to lead us to christ but not the be-all and end-all of righteousness and mere legal prescription was never sufficient to make man righteous before god rather what is required is a change of heart so that we can actually love god and love neighbor and so paul says in romans chapter 2 it's not hearing the law it is obeying the law that makes you righteous or by which god will declare you righteous an obedience that comes through the circumcision by of the heart by the spirit and then he elaborates that in romans chapter 8 and says one who has been so changed interiorly walks in the spirit and their life is characterized by love and joy peace and patience kindness and goodness these kinds of dispositions such that they obey the law as an inner principle not because it's written on stone but because it's written on their heart but then paul goes on to say that salvation requires that we engage in an ongoing cooperation with that spirit of god and so the gift of new life has been given to us but it's up to us to live it and if we turn back to fornication and adultery and hatred and factions and jealousy and murder and theft and all these kinds of horrible things we will not inherit the kingdom of god that's paul's explicit teaching that's in galatians chapter 5. and jesus says the exact same thing he says the exact same thing he criticizes the pharisees for mere outward maintenance of the law you clean the outside of the dish he says but you don't clean the inside of the dish it's not what goes it's not what goes into the body it's what comes out of it that makes it unclean unclean thoughts and fornications and adulteries and murder infections and hatred that's the thing that makes a man unclean and and and uh you should you should not you should not neglect justice mercy and faith in your account of religious faith because it's on this ultimately you'll be judged and uh and so matthew 25 jesus he doesn't refer to here it's the mosaic law as the condition for salvation but rather the works of mercy are you feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and giving drink to the thirsty and sheltering the homeless and so on and so forth that's the basis on which christ says our lives will be evaluated revelation chapter 20 says the same thing so to take that one isolated text out of context and say well all you need to do is just verbally confess jesus's lordship and you're going to go to heaven is to discount the entire ministry of christ where he says no such thing and all of the letters of paul where he puts that remark in context john is that helpful for you it is thank you very much you are most welcome that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn radio alexander is checking us out on youtube today alexander says dr andrews you are a huge reason why i came home to the catholic church however my fundamentalist pentecostal wife is still upset please pray for her she won't read or listen to anything catholic i've tried to get her to listen to dr scott hahn's conversion story too any thoughts there david yeah first of all i'm so sorry that you have this uh tension in your marriage that's really awful and i relate and i've been there and i know what it's like and it's very very difficult um first of all i would suggest that you stop trying to get her to listen to things and and don't make her feel like uh and i'm not saying that you do feel this way but don't make this a possibility for her to misunderstand that your acceptance of her is in any way conditioned on her acceptance of the catholic faith don't do that so just you know the catholic faith tells us that we're united to god by love and that our rationality is a participation in the divine logos that by being reasonable and truthful and charitable we are the best people we can be so rather than trying to convince her of those truths exemplify them be a patient reasonable kind open-hearted generous loving person towards her so the truth of your faith is manifest in how you live and let her do her thing let her do her thing and uh and and she will or won't in her own time express a willingness to hear what you think or believe or how you what you have to say but i wouldn't i definitely wouldn't try to force the question at all at all in my own case i was in a very similar situation i became catholic my wife wanted nothing to do about it and i could not get her to pay any attention to me whatsoever at all about the catholic faith ultimately it was somebody else it was father angela shaughnessy a friend says capuchin friar he used to be here at the network who who spoke to her in a completely different idiom that i would have used and was able to reach her where i couldn't uh sometimes husbands are the worst people in the world to do this you think yeah appreciate that alexander thank you so much for checking us out today on youtube let's go now to paul in ohio listening on the great annunciation radio hi paul what's on your mind today i was wondering when jesus told the apostle that only god knows the end time wouldn't you think that he would know being god the end time also sure sure yeah i appreciate the question this is a text that of course catholic theologians are aware of and they've dealt with and there's a number of different ways we can handle it you're right god of course knows the all things and christ is god so he knows all things um he could the point of the passage obviously is he's admonishing the disciples not to do date setting right but to focus on how they're living their lives now so that they are participants in the kingdom you know in a kind of prolific way they're they're on the train that's going to take them to eternity and worry about that not worry about when the train is going to get to the station prolaptic proleptic prolaptic one word well anyway sorry and uh and so that's the point of the text then he himself the son of man he says does the only father knows could mean that he doesn't have any acquired knowledge and he acquired human knowledge regarding the end of time meaning you know christ the human person grew up and grew in wisdom and stature and went to hebrew school and learned his letters like any other kid would because he was a human being and he did not you know so to speak in sunday school learn anything about the end of time so he had no privilege to access as a human person to these end of crime questions any more than the disciples did right it's not something you could exegete out of the bible for example right that was that may be one way of handling it maybe it's nothing the son of man knows that he is at liberty to reveal i mean there any number of spins you can put on the language consistent with his omniscience okay appreciate that paul thank you so much uh for your call here's one from uh mary mary is in south central illinois listening also on covenant radio hello mary what's on your mind today hello thank you for taking my call um i am a catechist for a confirmation class and i have a 13 year old student who has expressed to me that he's an atheist and when i questioned him why that would be he commented that after watching a movie with another adult friend of his father's about the crusade that this adult friend of his father was considering joining the church before he watched this movie and after watching the movie he commented to my student that he could never join the catholic church after what he had observed watching this movie about the crusade my question is how do i address this yes with this young man yes so the first thing i would do is i would invade i would encourage you to investigate the works of thomas madden of st louis university who's a catholic historian who is an expert in all the dirtiest darkest parts of catholic history including the inquisition in the crusades yeah and i would pull many popular articles that are very accessible some more scholarly books and i i don't know this for a fact but i imagine he's you probably find a good number of video resources where you could hear excerpts of some of his talks on the topic and i if this is an issue it's very salient obviously in your confirmation class i would consider trying to do some of that research and maybe bring some videos in of dr madden speaking on these issues and make those available to your confirmation class right i mean i would do that asap honestly and so give a catholic scholarly catholic response that you can present to the students um now i have a couple other thoughts on them one is that like the crusades were a form of religious warfare obviously and that's reprehensible the church doesn't prove that today i do think it's necessary to put them in context in the time you understand the crusades occurred on the heels of the islamic empire basically overrunning all of the christian middle east and decimating christian communities across the world with with designs on catholic europe and so there's definitely a defensive warfare aspect of the crusades that we better push back or we're going to be overwhelmed by this uh by this juggernaut that has expressed the intention to destroy us all right and so that's you have to take that into consideration and also take into consideration that i'm on a break here we go this is dr david anders if you missed part of today's show catch the encore tonight at 11 eastern check out the podcast anytime at ewtnradio.net and click podcasts [Music] here's one of gk chesterton's great prophetic insights he said you are free in our time to say that god does not exist you're free to say that he exists and is evil you may talk of god as a metaphor or a mystification and it's not merely that nobody punishes but nobody protests but if you speak of god as a fact as a thing like a tiger a reason for changing one's conduct then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can we are long past talking about whether an unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent it's now thought irreverent to be a believer spend more time with the apostle of common sense visit chesterton.org for more information and go to ewtnrc.com to discover more books and programs written and inspired by gk chesterton [Music] i was listening to the ewtn and you were on with one of your little snippets and you said some words that brought me back to the church i've been away for a long time you don't know how much i appreciate those words and i don't know why those particular words that day got to me ewtn helping people grow in their love and understanding of god we're streaming all your favorite ewtn radio programs 24 7 on the ewtn mobile app download the ewtn app at ewtnapps.com today [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 833-2888 we do have a line open for you right now eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six so if i could recap uh the the question here from mary in south central illinois she is a uh you know a a teacher a catechist and a 13 year old in her class told her that he's an atheist because of some movie that he saw in the company of an adult with uh you know dealing with the crusades the the adult sees the movie and says uh well that's it i'm not going to become a catholic at this point uh so how do how does mary address the issue with this young man yes thank you so i began before the break first of all to suggest that she look into the works of dr thomas madden of st louis university and maybe make some of his video resources available to the confirmation class to get a scholarly catholic approach to the crusades which is going to be far more nuanced than this probably piece of secular propaganda that they saw secondly i advise that you even though the crusades obviously like all wars contained any matter of atrocities and horrors to do understand them in context and of course the crusades are a response to aggressive islamic expansionism islam started in the 7th century in arabia and swept across what was at the time a largely christian world christian middle east of of egypt and syria and and the holy land uh and all the way into uh the chaldean regions of what is today iraq and even into persia to a certain extent were heavily christian christian lands and the diocese of baghdad at one time was the most populous christian diocese patriarch in the entire world and of course we know today christianity is in tatters in those regions and has been for a thousand years because of islamic expansionism of course they pushed all the way into andalusia uh to the pyrenees you know to um and an assaulted city of tour in france and of course we know the turks a few centuries later we push all the way to the gates of vienna and the intent was very much to conquer christian europe and subjugate it uh and submit it to the governance of an islamic state so if you're in that kind of situation and you've watched christian egypt go and christian jerusalem go and you've seen uh you know the the iberian peninsula go and you've seen the holy land go and you've seen baghdad go uh and uh and they're pushing into persia and and and they have designed they've been attacking you in france with the expressed desire of conquering you and uh and it's you know was it crew chef that said we will bury you yes you know and the the language we're gonna come bury you you know what are you gonna do about it what are you gonna do about you gonna stand there right well no so the response of christian europe was we're gonna push back unless we'd be annihilated yeah right now that's a fact that's a fact it doesn't mean that we can we have to sanction our countenance every everything that happened in warfare because that's never good that's always a last resort but that that is an aspect of the story you have to take into consideration um another thing to keep in mind is that europe and the age of the crusades was a christian largely christian civilization most people were baptized christians which means by definition all the criminals were christians true like you're not going to have a civilization without crime without sin without vice without pride without conquest without concupiscence that's just the nature of the human person and if everybody is is at least nominally christian that means all the criminals are christian so what are you gonna do you're gonna blame the church for the sins of christian civilization is that is that a reasonable way to evaluate it or should i rather say okay christian civilization like any civilization is going to have its its share of bad characters and its characteristic sins and problems like all civilizations are going to have well did christianity bring anything positive to that civilization can we give a christian account that would be maybe a little bit more praiseworthy is there something unique about christian civilization that we should single out for admiration well let me give you a thought today the idea of religious conquest is reprehensible around the world and we have a pretty robust idea of human rights and human dignity you can't go across land and see and subjugate a foreign people and force them to worship your god that sort of thing it's a pretty well understood principle in the world today the world didn't get that from genghis khan we didn't get that idea from the romans or from the muslims or from the greeks not from alexander uh where did we get that idea from well actually was the development of christian civilization see the spanish and portuguese were subjugating native americans in the new world and performing all manner of horrors now that's been the way of human civilization for ten thousand years uh tiglath palesar of assyria did not scruple about wiping out israelite towns nebuchadnezzar didn't bat an eye about besieging jerusalem never thought about it the pharaoh didn't didn't bat an eye about subjugating uh lands and and towns in in canaan right you know we established great big pillars to their own glory i conquered this many people look how great i am yeah so what was it about spanish christian civilization the dominican theologians in salamonica set back instead of glorying in the military conquests of their nation speculated maybe this is wrong maybe this is wrong what prompted them to that kind of realization was actually reflection on the works of thomas aquinas his doctrine of natural law and the christian idea of the dignity of the human person the dignity of the what aristotle would say he didn't think human beings had an intrinsic dignity like that he thought some people were naturally born to be slaves aristotle the greatest philosopher of antiquity was an unapologetic elitist in that respect but the christian faith said no the least among us may be counted the greatest and every person is a child of god made in his likeness and image maybe we should rethink this and so the doctrine of international human rights emerged out of catholic consciousness and so our very ability to sit back and critique the sins of european civilization we do using the intellectual tools that european civilization handed us namely the idea of the intrinsic dignity of every individual person and then finally i should say that i mean this kind of goes without to me this is rather obvious the question of god's existence uh whether or not there were the crusades is just irrelevant to that i mean like if god exists then he doesn't like the crusades right i mean like it's it's a non-sequitur yeah there were the crusades therefore god doesn't exist i'm sorry that doesn't follow that doesn't follow unless you hold that god necessarily has to sanction the crusades which he manifestly doesn't right is that helpful for you mary yes yes um could dr anders police spell uh dr thomas's last name sure m-a-m-a-d-d-e-n m-a-d-d-e-n mad den got it all right mary thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn with dr david andrews on this uh beautiful tuesday afternoon our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six here is a an email that we received from new nhu i think i'm pronouncing that properly hi dr andrews i love listening to your show i have a question one time on your show you talked about the second coming and of all the dead people who would raise up again my question is if a person got cremated and the ashes were put in the river how would they rise up again thanks and god bless knew uh you think god knows where those ashes are i would say so i would say so too all right well that's where we're going to leave that all right new thank you so much for your question here now is ed ed is in des moines uh listening to the great iowa catholic radio hello ed what's on your mind today sir yeah i was reading the catechism this morning i came across uh number 12 2012 and it were references of some predestination yep and so as i reference then romans 8 30. so i took it yep there it is so that kind of threw me off because i didn't think that was part of the deal yep yep okay thanks i think i can help you so first of all the way to understand saint paul's doctrine predestination is in contrast to the election of the hebrew people and god's preeminent act of predestination is predestined in christ but in time in history god clearly chose abraham god chose abraham abraham's the foundation of biblical religion he called this man out of ur of the chaldees and said i'm going to make you into a great nation leave your homeland go to the place i'm going to show you keep my covenant and your descendants will be a blessing on all the earth now did god predestine abraham absolutely he elected he chose abraham he didn't chose he didn't choose you know somebody in in sub-saharan africa or the indian subcontinent or ancient china he picked abraham why abraham well i don't know why abraham but he chose abraham for the benefit of the world that's very important to remember he didn't choose abraham so he could send everybody else to hell he chose abraham so that through abraham's seed all the nations of the world would be blessed you know it's kind of like when i'm uh when you learn how to do cpr the first thing they tell you you find somebody who's unconscious and they're not breathing the heart stopped first thing they say pick somebody out of the crowd and go you go get help and then you start doing cpr right nothing special about you you're just the guy standing right somebody's got to go with the message go get help right yeah you know in a sense nothing's nothing special about abraham but god's got to pick somebody he picks abraham i mean that's more to it than that of course but he picks abram why so abraham is is the the point of contact between god and his covenant salvation with the entire earth you got to start somewhere right but it's for the sake of the whole world now what emerged of course at the time of christ was an ideology well that you've got to be ethnically jewish to be saved you got to keep the law of moses to be saved yet be part of the israelite nation to be saved and that's what saint paul spent his whole life combating so he used to think that way and when he saw these christians running around with gentiles and eating food sacrificed to idols he couldn't abide that so he start killing christians then he meets christ on the road to damascus scales fall from his eyes the veil is lifted from his heart now he recognizes oh no these people are actually the means of fulfilling the promise to abraham christ as the seed of abraham is in fact this reconciliation of the whole world now everybody all the christians are chosen in abraham to be participants to be sharers in that in that in that uh in that covenant relationship and pope benedict does an interesting thing with this idea in his book on the introduction of christianity and he says that the purpose of being a christian is not because only christians are saved but because the christian church as the heir of abraham's promise has a vocation to be light to the world you know god called abraham to be a means of salvation for the whole world in the same way he calls the entire christian church to be a light to the nations that's actually the title of one of the documents of the second vatican council lumenjincium is there election is a predestination yes but to what end to be the means of reconciling all things in christ that's really paul's argument uh predestination the word in in greek pro ortzo means basically to mark out in advance just like god did with abraham now another really imminent form of predestination was god's choice of the blessed virgin mary before all all of time in creation god determined that jesus christ would be born not just of some woman we'll get to that when we have to i guess well it's time to pick out a virgin let's go find one in bethlehem no this virgin was specifically predestined to be the mother of god does that mean no other mother participates in redemption no all of us are like mary and give birth spiritually to christ in our hearts but she does so in an preeminent way as a as the real mother of god but then we're all called to enter into her divine maternity by imitation all right ed thank you so much for your call appreciate hearing from you in des moines call to communion here on ewtn if you call right now we can probably get your call on the radio today at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 as we mentioned uh at the top of the show we are now in the holy season of advent uh and we've got some wonderful programming cooked up for you here on ewtn radio and television you can find it by going to ewtn.com ewtn.com and if you want to know specifically about ewtn radio programs we've got that for you as well at ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net and here's something that we air not just during advent but all the time every day of the year and that is the holy rosary we air it for you with mother angelica at 5 30 a.m eastern and with father benedict groeschel at 9 30 pm eastern right here on ewtn radio a little frog there let's go now to uh hope in vero beach florida listening on siriusxm channel 130. and their hope what's on your mind today i would like to know i had a discussion with a couple of priests friends of mine and i'd like to know did jesus give judas of iscariot communion before did he institute communion before judas left and is it in the bi is there someplace in the bible that states either he left early or he got it thank you i appreciate the question we don't know we don't know the text is ambiguous we don't know yeah so that's it now i i could make a case theologically either way oh yeah so so um judas clearly was a member of the twelve he was called by christ he he participated in christ's sending when he said whoever hears you hears me go through the cities of jerusalem and proclaim the kingdom of god and cast out demons and heal the sick and all of that so he was he was definitely participating in that apostolic activity and i think that it there there's a kind of fittingness uh if if and this of course we don't know it's the big if if uh judas had actually been ordained a priest in the in the upper room and admitted to holy communion then he would kind of exemplify for all eternity the character of the unfaithful priest which is a thing i mean there's such a thing as an unfaithful priest there are priests in hell and so it would be kind of fitting for us if in sacred scripture itself there was a kind of exemplification of that character the character of the unfaithful priest as a warning to priests let me not be like judas let me not dip my hand into the offering basket let me not betray the son of god for money or for pleasure for whatever it is because you know my ordination is not a guarantee of my salvation i could end up like judas so there's a fittingness to that no you could also make the opposite case that christ foreseeing all things uh would not knowingly admit such an unfaithful character to holy orders you could make that argument as well i we don't know so either one can be an object of speculation all right very good and we thank you so much for your call hope uh we also heard today from elizabeth watching us on youtube hello elizabeth she says how can we best understand the doctrine of atonement by the catholic church yes thank you so the catholic church and sacred scripture teach that christ's death is a sacrifice of atonement and that language is used in romans chapter three and other places and the best way to understand that is to go back and look at the old testament sacrifice of atonement and see what it did and how it functioned and the sacrifices of the old testament were offerings brought by israelite worshipers as they offered something of value to god and the the value of the of the sacrifice was proportionate to the value of the gift to the notion of the gift king david would say i refuse to offer the lord a sacrifice that costs me nothing so it it atones it it it makes satisfaction it's pleasing to god not because an animal is destroyed as if god were somehow bloodthirsty but because the worshiper willingly gave something up that's this is think about it if i offend my wife and i go out and buy her some flowers and come back to make atonement i offer her the flowers what is pleasing to her about that does she rip the flowers out of my hand and throw them to the ground and stomp on them and say now i've got that out of my system or does she recognize that this is an offering of love and and she is satisfied uh that i'm sincere which is it well that's the way we understand the sacrifice of christ jesus offered himself something of intrinsic value a death of martyrdom right in defense of his doctrine and of his divine person uh refusing to to uh conquest and turning the other cheek to ungodly men who struck him in that sort of uh that sort of martyrdom is uh intrinsically valuable and pleasing to god it's not that god is somehow pleased by the death of an innocent victim so that he can expiate his wrath on jesus that's not the idea that's the that's the calvinist idea of the atonement not the catholic one now if you want a little bit elaboration great article on this topic by my friend brian cross it called to communion.com called catholic and reformed conceptions of the atonement compared and it's short maybe thousand fifteen hundred words brian cross's article much longer treatment by henry oxenham a 19th century british catholic theologian called catholic doctrine of the atonement there you go elizabeth thanks so much for your question here is dan dan is in saint louis listening on covenant network hello dan what's on your mind today hi good afternoon thanks for taking my call enjoy the service really you all give to all of us with these type of questions and i'm sure this is something you've addressed before so i apologize if i missed that but um you know we had just talked about mary and uh talked about her being pretty destined to be the mother of god and i you know in conversations with non-catholics and others i guess i'm looking for um you know some thoughts on the support of the immaculate conception in terms of mary and also maybe the if this is the case if we believe this is catholics that she was you know virgin throughout the course of her life sure okay so keep in mind that as catholics the way we reason theologically we do not think that the way we arrive at conclusion about the christian faith is simply to exegete the bible and that's the way protestants think they think that the sum of christian doctrine can be derived from the exegesis of greek and hebrew texts catholics don't think that and so we don't start with well you know what's the sum total of biblical teaching on mary and then that's the totality of our mariology we don't function that way okay now we can reference sacred scripture but there's is a broader conception of the way theology works the way christian doctrine works and so the fathers of the church held to a man to the doctrine of mary's perpetual virginity which they inferred from passages of scripture like her ignorance about the the mode of her own uh conception of christ the angel says you're going to conceive and bear a son she's engaged she's betrothed to be married to joseph and she says how is this going to happen she was a big girl she knew where babies came from right so they infer from her like her befuddlement that she had taken about perpetual virginity now that's not a lockdown you know drag out argument it's an inference that's consistent with catholic tradition had always held about her and here's the broader interpretation right so christ himself says that the highest mode is those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven that's matthew 19. and christ himself was a celibate and took no spouse and had no biological children he came not to do his own will with the will of him who sent me and paul also says that virginity is the more perfect way and so it's an argument from fittingness first of all that it is more fitting that the mother of god embodied the most perfect form of consecration to god which is which is perpetual virginity also they saw a parallel between eve and mary that eve who was our mother after the flesh and of the cause of our ruin was healed so to speak counteracted by mary who is the mother of the church spiritually not through a physical parturation but through a spiritual parturation because as giving birth to the god-man we are all reborn in christ and so but through our spiritual regeneration in faith in baptism she becomes our mother like not because we're biological descendants of jesus but because we're spiritual participants in his death and resurrection and so again it's fitting that her own mode of conception and birth would mirror the spiritual nature of her divine maternity and so there's a kind of a deeper penetration of her perpetual virginity with the whole vocation of the christian life um and so that's that's sort of the richer deeper argument now the immaculate conception sort of follows from both of those principles right that as the mother of the church and the most perfect exemplification of the christian life that she be herself saved in the most perfect way she's also saved by christ the end of grace is to preserve us from sin the angel announced that she was in fact possessing in possession of the plenitude of grace full of grace that in view of her divine maternity god had granted her this tremendous imminent gift of being saved at the moment of her conception and having received the fullness of divine grace and so she is a kind of perfect icon of christian life as well as of christian redemption dan thanks so much for your question a quick one here from lulu watching on youtube is purgatory the lesser hell or the lesser heaven the latter it's more like the antichamber to heaven or sort of like when you come to the front door back in the day when i was a kid people used to have these little spiky mats you know that you'd wipe your feet on before you went in the house purgatory is the spiky mat before you step into heaven okay very good and how about this one from james rub your soul off on that spiky map there you go uh james watching on youtube and this is a following up on something we talked about earlier didn't jesus also name judas as the one human in all of history that the world would have been better off had he not been born he didn't say the world would be better off it said it would be better it would have been better for him never to be born for him yeah and that would have been okay very very good well i'm sorry we couldn't get to anybody else today because uh you know we're just flight out of time this is a a finite thing that we have here on the radio one hour a day on ewtn radio but we do the best we can we love to take your phone calls love to get your emails love to get your texts i love it when people check in on youtube and facebook live and there's all kinds of ways you can contact the show and of course email as well at ctc ewtn.com fast move-in show here dr david anders thank you sir thank you tom and don't forget uh one more time i want to remind you that this is a very important season the season that often gets overlooked and that's the holy season of advent so to find out more ways that you can make this a fantastic advent go to ewtn.com ewtn.com we've got things for you to read prayers we've got meditations devotions it's all there at ewtn.com on behalf of our fantastic team here at the radio station i'm tom price along with dr david anders we will see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless [Music] the most original and exclusive

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,282

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: VWYus5596Cs

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021