Women of Grace with Johnnette Williams - January 28, 2022

with you today we love to spend this time with you as you well know monday through friday as we discuss issues of importance to your life and your faith as we share the good news of our lord jesus christ and help others to share that good news as well we love to use these airwaves why we love to use them to build up the body of christ and in this day and time we need to be together to be able to do that so i invite you to join with us right here you can do that by calling us let me give you the toll-free number for you to use if you're in north america it's 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 all you need to do is punch those numbers in and there you are you're connected with us and we've got our call screener waiting for you today eager to receive your calls is he so please be certain to give us a call we're also available for you out there on social media land ewtn radio's youtube channel and facebook page is the way that you can join us there there's a chat feature there and if you use that chat feature and put in your question or comment your inside inspiration or word of encouragement then rich jesse in for jeff berson today we'll get out there retrieve it and put it up on the board we've got michael mccall out there call screening be sure to give him a big old howdy hay when you call eight six that's 833-288-3986 three three two eight eight e w t n well there's all kinds of good things happening and i'm always glad when i'm part of those good things that are happening and i'll bet you are too and i do want to let you know that today is our live show on ewtn television at 1pm eastern time and steve wydenkopf is my guest and we're going to be talking about the various crises that the church has faced in the past and how god's used them to greater advantage there's so much that's going on both in the world and within the church today that sometimes we you know get ourselves all in a tailspin over things but the lord says no hang on i am with you always he promises us that do we believe it though and do we act in the knowledge of that as opposed to the anxiety and the stress that you know those those evil angels those rebel angels want to impose upon us in our human condition sometimes we fall victim to the anxiety to the stress to the fear to the the uncertainty to all that could knock us if you look at it knock us really off of our off of our our our life of faith but no indeed god says i am with you always and that is the important thing to know that he is with us always so today we're going to be reminding you about that and we're going to be open for your phone calls today on television as well so i'm inviting you to join us at 1 pm eastern time today right there on ewtn television now to join us live here again it's 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 i want to give you some other good news i know that valentine's day is coming up it certainly is and we are offering you a very special way to celebrate valentine's day this year in advance on february the 12th from 9 a.m eastern until 4 pm eastern my husband jack williams and i are presenting an online marriage retreat and the theme is falling in love and staying there we've got a great schedule worked out for you there we tell you all of the talk titles as well so all you need to do is to get out to ewt excuse me all you need to do is to get out to women of grace.com that's where it is it's at womenofgrace.com all you need to do is to get out there to womenofgrace.com and click on on those areas on the home page there that are featuring this retreat it'll take you to a landing page it'll explain the schedule to you it'll give you the talk titles and all of that being said the best thing of all is that you can register right there online so i am personally inviting you to join us now it is set up for for those who are married uh but it's also very good for those who are preparing to be married so we invite you to join us for this very special day saturday february 12th 2022 9 a.m to 4 p.m eastern time an online marriage retreat with myself and my husband jack williams the theme of course is falling in love and staying there i think you're going to really enjoy it it's going to be interactive it's going to be a lot of fun and we are looking forward to having you with us i'm also looking forward to having you with us right here as we proceed through our radio program today 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 today is um one of those days when i just really want to hear from you a whole lot and we'll see how the lord leads us and guides us throughout our time together so if you need prayer call if you have a question call if there's a comment that you want to make or an inspiration that you've had please call phone lines are open for you again it's 833 e wtn you know as i was preparing for the live show today on television and reading uh steve wydenkoff's book yeah i was really struck by you know all the challenges that the church has faced throughout our history and i'm sure that you can name some of them just tick them off you know in your own mind and we've heard about a lot of them without really delving into knowing the nitty-gritty of those days in time but it does remind us of the fact that this this reality of the holy spirit guiding us and leading us through all things is is very real it's very true and as you go through and and you look at the history of the church it becomes very evident that the church never could have made it through all of these harrowing times from the enemies who assailed her from without as well as the enemies who assailed her from within she never could have made it if she was not guided by the holy spirit when you think about the fact that our church our catholic church was founded by our lord jesus christ himself right and and that it has persisted through all of these years in the midst of great tragedy in the midst of great setback in the midst of all kinds of turmoil in the midst of all kinds of misgivings when you look at that reality and you see that it is persisted it lets you know that it must be divinely inspired now that doesn't mean that every person who has ever been a catholic has been good has been true has been honorable has lived the life of our lord no indeed that is certainly not the case uh you know steve mentions in his book he says you know the church is comprised of fallen people who are redeemed you know we are redeemed by the blood of the lamb as the old charismatic song goes uh and and we appreciate that and acknowledge that but we make errors the beautiful reality though is that god takes the crooked lines and he makes them straight and i'll bet he's done that in your own life i'll bet he's taken a crooked line and he's made it straight for you he certainly did that in my own life at a given point in time when i went from being a hippie to being a yuppie you know and and and really wanted to acquire everything that the world said without a thought about it acquiring grace the lord kind of knocked me you know right off of my horse right out of my realm and presented himself to me in a magnificent way that was taking a crooked line and making it straight so we do want to hear from you 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six we're available for you right here on ewtn radio brought to you by so many good affiliates don't forget to support your affiliates we wanna hear from you too if you're in social media land right now ewtn radio's youtube channel and facebook page is available for you use the chat feature we've got michael mccall on the phones today we have rich jesse sitting in for jeff person producing the show and also grabbing your questions out there on social media we are open for business right here on women of grace live today again it's 833 288 ewtn we're coming right back stay with us [Music] ewtn uses the power of radio to reach people whenever and wherever they're searching for answers to questions about their catholic faith ewtn radio is heard on over 500 domestic and international am and fm radio affiliates for a complete list of programs and how to hear ewtn radio visit ewtn.com and click radio ewtn the global catholic network the most original catholic content is on ewtn radio hey i'm michael o'neill the miracle hunter this week on the miracle hunter i'll talk with eric mataxis author of is atheism dead about how science proves god's existence the miracle hunter with michael o'neal tomorrow afternoon 1 eastern on ewtn radio this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan when it comes to screens in our kids there are two common pitfalls we as parents can fall into we often give our children technology before they're ready for it because it's convenient you know give the baby a phone to play with turn on a movie it's easy right but convenience should not be the primary motivation for giving children and teens a screen on the other hand it can be tempting to ban all technology in the home especially smartphones it's one less headache to deal with right but the problem is it's our job to prepare our children for life someday they will need to learn to navigate the web or use a smartphone and it's our job to teach them that so when a child is small ban technology from them they need time to grow but as they become older you have to start building christian maturity in them and that means giving them freedom while teaching them how to use tech wisely so they can build virtue to download our free and updated resource on screens and kids visit us at messyfamilyminute.org encouraging women in their gift of authentic femininity here's more women of grace with john ed williams well welcome back everybody it's so good to be with you today on this friday in the lord and i'm inviting you to give us a call here we've got a couple of lines remaining open just two eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six as i was sharing with you earlier michael mccall is on the phones today so be sure to say hello to him rich jesse is in for jeff berson he's producing the program he'll also retrieve your questions out there at ewtn radio's youtube channel and facebook page and i was also reminding you that at 1 pm eastern today women of grace seen on ewtn television is a live show it's an hour live show we'll be receiving your calls there i've got a great guest coming up we're going to be talking about some of the crises that the church has weathered historically and why that should give us some hope for this day and time when we still have those issues that need to be worked out we're available for you it's a free form friday that means you call in with any questions that you have on your mind happy to see that you are doing just that i'll give you the number again it's 833-288-3986 we've got ray calling us from lowell massachusetts today eager to hear from you ray how's it going oh you jeannette jeanette i'm well thank you listen are you caught up in that nor'easter that's coming through that area well yeah it's it's not just it's not manifesting itself right now but they're saying within the next 12 or 13 hours or so we could get up to and i know this sound you know it was in if you were reading it in the newspaper you'd say it's probably a misprint they're saying some parts of massachusetts could get short of four just at the point of 40 inches of snow so oh dear heavens my gracious i'm disabled i walk with a cane so i'm not really looking forward to that you know no of course not well listen i'm just going to ask all of our listeners right now and everybody gathered together today here listening to the program you know let's pray for all of these people that are about to get that very inclement weather especially for our caller ray as he unfortunately might be deluged by snow later on and i hope i can i hope i hope i can give you a listen as a little bit of a laugh we get a lot of snow here in massachusetts in the winter months and several of the churches over the past couple of winters have set on their display signs out in front of the church after a big storm they're saying if you're praying for snow we're impressed but please stop [Laughter] there is a limit right our god is a very generous god we pray and he just wears it out right i'm sorry to say okay thank you lord his cup overfloweth for sure i have a question sure go ahead i'm speaking with a lady not right right at this moment but i'm speaking with the lady about uh the catholic faith and um i had heard there was a program on listening on 10 60 a.m out of the boston market a pro a program before yours is mother miriam i don't know if you're familiar with that show yes i am okay mother mary and my i get a lot of inspiration from her even though i myself am not a woman a woman of grace i i do you listen to i do listen to your show you know we always say that real men listen to and watch women of grace the question the question i had and i'm hoping you or mike is it could address this or uh and thank you to your call screeners and everybody that's in support of your program and to the listeners thank you the question the question i had was about maybe two weeks ago i was listening to the mother mother miriam power and she um seems to know her stuff about the catholic faith and uh seems seemed as i am i'm in my 70s so very old school you know what we used to look what we used to learn in school and stuff like catholic school but the question came up uh on one of her callers said something about and this left me in the doctors i am not aware of this she said mother mary and herself said this um she said addressing a caller's question she said there's no such thing in the catholic church as a eucharistic minister she said churches all throughout the world have them she said but it is not approved he said because only the consecrated hands of a priest can give you holy communion now i brought that up one time with a eucharistic minister and she said where did you hear that and i i told her but i've been someone looking for something you know catechetically in the catechism or through some other source that you may be able to recommend or might might be able to recommend where would the um where would that be found and what would mother miriam base and she was very emphatic and she was not hedging and hemming and harry at all she said no there is no such thing as a eucharistic minister she said only the consecrated hands of a priest can deliver holy communion so i'll get off the phone and god bless you and your listeners and i'll hopefully hear the answer on the radio okay all right well i'm going to do the best that i possibly can for you uh and it may be a matter of semantics but this is what i want to recommend you and anyone else listening to you go out to ewtn's website ewtn.com and search for eucharistic ministers and there will be an article that comes up and it will give you precisely what the church teaches on this on this issue now what is the matter of semantics that i refer to well eucharistic minister is not the appropriate title for this particular function it is an extraordinary minister of the eucharist all right not eucharistic minister but extraordinary minister of the eucharist and i'm going to read you just a little bit from the article that i suggested you go out and take a look at at ewtn's website and it says there are various circumstances in which a lack of sufficient ministers for the distribution of holy communion can occur and then they list them one during mass because of the size of the congregation or a particular difficulty in which a celebrant finds himself two outside of mass when it is difficult because of distance to take the sacred species especially in the biotic especially in biaticum to the sick in danger of death or when the very number of the sick especially in hospitals and similar situations requires many ministers now it goes on and says therefore in order that the faithful who are in the state of grace and who with an upright and pious disposition wish to share in the sacred banquet may not be deprived of the sacramental help and consolation it is seemed appropriate to the holy father to establish extraordinary ministers who may give holy communion to themselves and to other faithful under the following determined conditions and here is where i would say a slight abuse has come into the practice of extraordinary ministers and the function that they are to perform and here are the following determined conditions local ordinaries have the faculty to permit a suitable person individually chosen as an extraordinary minister for a specific occasion or for a time or in the case of necessity in some permanent way either to give the eucharist to himself or to other faithful and to take it to the sick or confined to their homes now note that in every case there it's talking about situations where there is a necessity for specific occasions or for a period of time the only way in which this was to become permanent was in the case of some necessity all right some real necessity and today i would question to what extent do we have that real necessity now there are some parishes throughout the united states that do not have a priest able to come to them for the celebration of the mass on on a sunday so they they occasionally are able to have the mass celebrated but they can have the eucharist so we look at something like that but in the context of our ordinary parish where we do have mass daily and on sundays this is to be something that is only used on an occasional basis for a specific reason or for a very limited period of time now this is when the faculty may be used now and i i want to tell you that this also place under saint john paul ii now it says this faculty may be used whenever there is no priest deacon or acolyte i've outlined that already these are prevented from administering holy communion because of another pastoral minister ministry or because of ill health or advanced age the number of faithful requesting holy communion is such that the celebration of mass or the distribution of the eucharist outside of mass would be unduly prolonged picture here when you're having a very special mass that may be held in a stadium and you've got thousands of people that are gathered there it's saying that in that case because there are so many and the distribution of communion would be so prolonged that extraordinary ministers of communion may be used it goes on and it gives us some other special occasions here but again you can see in all of these instances that the extraordinary minister is meant to be precisely that an extraordinary minister not an ordinary minister of dispensing communion and i have seen in many parishes that the you know priests will come in right before communion to help distribute communion you have deacons that can help to distribute communion so in most cases the use of laity as as extraordinary ministers of communion for a normal sunday mass is absolutely unnecessary and so i think that this might be the semantical difference that mother miriam uh might have been referring to but that is what the church teaches so you can read all about it at ewtn.com uh just go out there and look up extraordinary ministers of communion the article should come up for you that way you can also do a search uh you know out there online and it will reference that among others and read it and see what it is and this is not a castigation against those good people that want to serve in this capacity it's just that we don't want to see an inordinate use of something or an ordinary use of something that's meant to be extraordinary so i hope that that helps you ray and and puts it into a context that you can take forward with you and share with others whenever the issue comes up let's go to mary mary is in south bend indiana today we're inviting you to give us a call here 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 399 good morning mary from south bend how are you good good morning i'm fine janet thank you for taking my call i've been reading and praying with divine intimacy this this year and i'm curious i know that was the pre-vatican ii calendar so i noticed tomorrow in divine intimacy it's the feast of saint um um de sales um francis de sales thank you we already had that this earlier this week i believe so why is there differences why did the church move some of those days well you know this all took place um i think it was right after vatican ii or during vatican ii i don't know who the individuals were that worked on the calendar but in some cases there were saints that were actually eliminated from the calendar and other things that were added to the calendar uh some uh saints that that we acknowledged uh with great fervency of heart uh you know were lost their feast day altogether as i was saying so that required some kind of reorganization of the calendar and so that's i think the reason why it took place um but you know whether we use the old calendar such as divine intimacy is oriented around or whether we use the new calendar and many of the great inspirational books that are available to us that reference that calendar uh you know our life of faith persists regardless of the date on which a saints uh uh life is celebrated and it i think if if i'm not if i'm incorrect somebody call in and tell me so but i think that the the ordinary way in which that's fixed has to do with the date of their death so they try to get it as close to the date of their death but you know a lot of people die on the same day so so i think sometimes that might well have been an influence that switched that calendar around okay thank you for clarifying i appreciate it you're welcome mary and god bless you and divine intimacy you know that's one of those books mary i cannot recommend it highly enough it is absolutely beautiful written by father gabriel of saint mary magdalene who decades ago went on to his eternal reward but he offers us i i call it spiritual direction for every day through these beautiful writings that he has for every day of the year that were offered originally to women religious so oftentimes it can be a little specific to a consecrated woman but most of the time we can find ourselves in it too and the colloquys are beautiful they're prayers that were uttered by some of our great saints but also prayers that i know father gabriel composed so you know you can get out to ewtn's religious catalogue wtnrc.com and you can purchase a copy of divine intimacy there thanks mary for your call today god bless you thank you take care bye bye bye now and we're inviting you to call us 833 288 ewtn we have some phone lines open now since we have addressed some of our callers so i welcome you to populate that spot 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 it's a free form friday here we're taking your questions and also offering an opportunity for prayer for you anything that's on your mind or heart today we're wide open to let's go to paul he is calling us from howell new jersey today hey paul how are you good morning janet how are you i'm well thank you uh i'm a little disappointed i'm a second time caller and i i'm a little disappointed that i don't get to hear the bell rang for me but that's okay i'm gonna oh you know what's going on there you go here i'm going to give you a second ring [Music] [Laughter] one for each time my question is i i've been a catholic all my life and i've had 16 years of catholic school education and i'm only just now coming to the point where i've accepted the bible as the literal word of god and i've been reading my bible now for about five years and it's like the more i read the more questions i have and um one of the things again that i'm having problems with and it feels somewhat what you were talking about earlier is i have absolute faith in christ jesus but i have questions about the hierarchy of the church and particularly the office of the pope for over the years in history and i was hoping that you could give me a little insight which would help me along to be a little bit more trustful of the of the hierarchy and the way the church is structured yeah well you know thank you paul for that very good question and i will repeat what i shared earlier that steve wydenkopf states in his book you know that the church is comprised of fallen people who have been redeemed so naturally the proclivities of of life and the the temperament of individuals the poor judgment of individuals the self-gratuity of individuals sometimes causes poor decisions to be made and this runs as a current throughout the history of the church i go back to what our lord said in matthew and he said this to saint peter you are peter and upon this rock i will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. he doesn't say that the gates of hell wouldn't try to prevail against her right so in that statement we know that we're going to come up against powers and principalities that oftentimes people unwittingly become the instruments of and then people by their own sinful nature can sin against the church and against the people of god so yes we have to be very careful and very selective on who we listen to and what it is that we then begin to take into our own life of faith but we don't throw the church out simply because she's comprised of sinners who need to be healed we'll talk a little bit more after that after the break 8 833 288 ewtn looking forward to hearing from you right here on women of grace live i'm john at williams stay with us [Music] wherever you are in the world you can access the ewtn global catholic network it's everywhere you can get ewtn's great catholic programming on your car radio at home on your tv computer or smart speaker with ewtn's app you can take ewtn everywhere on your phone or mobile device if you want your news in print turn to ewtn's paper of record the national catholic register ewtn the global catholic network this is john at williams if you missed part of today's show catch the encore tomorrow morning at 3 eastern check out the podcast anytime at ewtn ewtnradio.net and click podcasts [Music] there's a certain kind of prayer people are often afraid to say those really honest prayers the prayer of saint augustine when he prayed lord help me be pure but not yet the prayer of job when he was complaining god why did this happen to me the prayer of mary when lazarus died if you had been here lord my brother wouldn't have died where were you the prayers i find myself saying sometimes in difficult moments in life when i'm at the end of my rope lord i can't do this you gotta kick in here i think people refrain from those prayers because we think they're unholy or maybe god can't take it or maybe we think we're faking him out by pretending we have it all together and everything is great and worse pious as can be listen be honest with god you can't hide yourself from him he wants honest prayers because he doesn't just want your words he wants your heart and when you pray with all your heart the answer you might get might not be a change in your circumstances but i guarantee you it'll change you this is christophanic from reallifecatholic.com hi this is dr david anders there's only one show for non-catholics call to communion coming up this afternoon 2 p.m eastern on ewtn radio now back to women of grace with john hett williams the women of grace phone lines are open 1-833 ewtn 1-833-288-3986 [Music] welcome back everybody you are listening to women of grace live i am john at williams and you just heard those numbers let me repeat them for you we are here for you our phone lines are open we've got michael mccall call screening today 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 also inviting you to use the chat feature at ewtn radio's youtube channel and facebook page we will retrieve that question or comment and get it up on the board and we can address whatever it is that is on your heart we have rich jesse sitting in for jeff person he is producing and he is also retrieving today so he'll get that question or comment and he'll put it up for us we have paul on the line he's in howell new jersey and he was sharing that he has a hard time understanding why he should trust the magisterium in light of some of the chicanery that we see going on and even worse than that some of the crises that we have faced within the church so you know paul in answer to your question i shared with you a passage from matthew's gospel where jesus says that the gates of hell will not prevail against his against his church which indicates to us that the gates of hell will try and it's always disconcerting when you know we see that prevailing against coming from inside of the church but as i was sharing with you as well this isn't anything new it's something that's been part of the history of the church and i think in a certain way permitted by god to prove that the holy spirit is with the church that jesus founded otherwise it would have uh you know shattered by now uh we would have had a great uh difficulty not that we haven't had schisms we have not that we haven't had didn't have the protestant reformation we did but nonetheless the church remains does that mean that every person in the church is is honorable no there are some scoundrels there's no question about it what is our job our job is to ask the holy spirit to help us to discern truth from falsehood and to follow the truth so we do have to be careful uh you know what uh who we read we have to be careful uh you know the uh ideas and the concepts that we hear we have to evaluate those against the teachings of the church and against sacred scripture and then we make a decision for ourselves which way we should go but always only through an informed conscience that comes by way of knowing our faith also by way of what scripture says and also by way of what um the church gives to us through her documents encyclicals for example and the catechism of the catholic church does that help you so first you all of a sudden pope francis okay well i think it helps i hope it helps that's my hope for you paul and god bless you today and we're going to go to david david is in cleveland ohio and uh we're got you on the air here david yes good morning um good morning yes thank you um i'm calling to find out uh uh like maybe a day day or two or three three days after you make your confession and confessed all your sins and uh major uh uh your uh act of contrition and uh did your penance or done your penance that uh i don't know if it's just me or or it could happen to anyone you tend to get tempted again by satan usually uh usually uh he gives me those uh those bad uh yeah most most mostly in mostly in anger was just one or not and then i i i go back and examine my consciousness that you know i mean my confession i confessed all my sins i did my pass and my act of confession and then and then uh uh maybe a day or two later i get uh i go back to uh uh getting that temptation uh of course my question is what do i need to do if uh that happens to me again the next time i i make my uh sacramento reconciliation yeah well david this is a good question and i think a lot of people are plagued by the same difficulty and in some cases it is the evil one he's tempting us to reject the mercy of god that we received not by an outward rejection of it but by a disbelief that we were forgiven and if we disbelieve that we were forgiven when we know in our heart and soul that we tried to make the very best confession that we possibly could then we're really putting ourselves in the stance of rejecting the mercy of god that he wants for us to receive for the sins that we've committed so there's that level but then there's also another level that would lead to a type of scrupulosity and this is really the playpen of the evil one he loves to bind us up with scrupulosity and a scrupulosity is that we begin to say oh well maybe i should have phrased it this way or maybe i didn't share enough with father or maybe you know maybe um you know i didn't i i really didn't um you know express this the way that i should have expressed it and we get ourselves all bound up in those kinds of things and we also begin to think that everything that we do is a sin now in this way the evil one puts us in bondage he takes our right intention which is the intention of receiving the sacrament and being healed by the sacrament and our sin being expunged from us by the mercy and power of god he takes our good intention for that and he tries to turn it on its head and use it against us either by fearing that our confession wasn't good enough that we didn't share enough or whatever the case may be or by tying us up in scrupulosity and as soon as we see these things happening as soon as we see these things happening we know we are in spiritual battle we know that this is temptation and in some cases even more it's a type of torment that the evil one is inflicting upon us so what is our response to that well there's a couple of things that you can do and believe me i've been troubled by this myself the very first thing i like to do is go to praise of god and to praise him and to thank him for the mercy that i received in doing that i am acknowledging that i received god's mercy thereby i am not through my own uh you know uh complicity complicity and deal in in accepting that temptation uh i am i am not rejecting god's mercy rather than doing that i am saying thank you lord i praise you i bless you i acknowledge you i receive the mercy that you gave me and sometimes that's enough the evil one cannot stand when we praise the lord and sometimes that's enough for him to flee other times however he can be a little bit more stubborn about it and in those moments uh what we need to do i think is to pick up our rosary and begin to pray our rosary uh in in thanksgiving for the grace that we have received and then not think about it when the thought comes back into our mind just go back to that praise i praise you lord and i thank you for the gift of mercy that i have received and still in another way sometimes what the problem is david is that we're appalled by the actions that we performed were appalled by the sin that we committed and you know great spiritual writers tell us that sometimes we don't let go of the sin or we allow ourselves to be appalled by the you know we find ourselves in that that you know how on earth could i have ever done that and they tell us that's actually a sin of pride to think that we're not capable uh without god's grace we're all capable of terrible things so we uh really stand in the in the you know in a stance of pride before the lord when we continue to be uh you know astonished by uh the sins that we've committed so if that's the case then we want to go back to confession not for the sin that was forgiven but for the sin of pride that that that lurks within us and is causing us to hold on to that sin in a way that is unhealthy does that help you yes okay good so fine if you find yourself in there then take one of those remedies that i've suggested and employ it and see if that doesn't benefit you okay okay all right very good question from david there in cleveland ohio and i got to tell you friends you know if we do not realize that we are up powers and principality up against powers and principalities the rulers of this present darkness if we do not believe we are in spiritual battle i'll tell you what we're losing the war already because we're refusing to believe that it exists and we cannot cannot allow ourselves to fall into that kind of thinking when we do you know we become a you just a you know a pigeon sitting on a fence waiting for the evil one to come along with some great big old gun and shoot us down we have to be aware of that not overly concerned or worried about it not walking around in fear and paranoia but in an acknowledgement that the evil one wants our soul and that we have to put safeguards in place to make certain that that doesn't happen david points out a very good one the use of the sacrament of confession but that should be preceded by a very good examination of conscience and we have desensitized consciences today we live in the soup of relativism we live in the soup of materialism we live in the soup of secularism and as a result of that living in that soup some of that soup kind of clings to us you know and so it can't affect the way in which we see the world ourselves in the world what the problem is with the world and who god is and what it is that god wants to do in the world through us in many cases so we have to acknowledge the fact that we are all scathed by the culture in which we live to greater or lesser degree so it is then that our consciences can become desensitized and we need to re-sensitize them and how do we re-sensitize them we re-sensitize them by this examination of conscience that really holds us accountable and we need a good examination of conscience and there are many very good examinations of consciences that are available for you out there examinations of conscience i guess is the right way to phrase that we have one on our women of grace app the app is free you can download it it is the examination of conscience that's offered by the fathers of mercy they've given us permission to put it on our app it is an excellent one to use to help you i would also suggest that you find a you know a 1962 missile or the father lessons missile or you know a sunday missile that was promulgated before the second vatican council you will find very good uh examinations of conscience contained within them and it probes you and and and we're meant to be pro because we don't want any darkness in us we want only the light in us right we want to radiate the light and who is the light the light is is is the light of truth and who is truth jesus christ right so we want to be certain that we are taking full advantage of the sacrament of confession and that we are not leaving any stone unturned that needs to be turned over to god in that sacrament so a good examination of conscience that comes by way of these that are offered to us but in addition to that a good you know study of the ten commandments a good recollection and examination of conscience based on the beatitudes and i would also suggest that you know what the church teaches about the major issues that we're facing today and we have to examine ourselves on how do i perceive these you know have i been infected by the culture of the day the poison that is out there that would have me look at issues that we're facing today from the viewpoint of the secularist from the viewpoint of the cultural person as opposed to me looking at this as a daughter or son of the most high god informed by the church that is unfounded and desiring to live according to those statutes and those laws that are given to us because all of them are for our betterment all of them are to help us to live that abundant life in our lord jesus christ and to share it with others all of it is meant to bring us true joy not that fleeting moment of happiness that you know is is an emotional response to something that pleases us but rather something that is long standing a permanent disposition of our soul that fruit of the holy spirit that is joy so i really do want to encourage you uh you know to to take it to heart uh what david is inspiring us to do and to get to the sacrament and the more regularly you attend the sacrament the more facility you have uh with the sacrament and the clearer your conscience becomes so you know here we are we're we're on a friday we're not far away from tomorrow in just a few hours we can plan to go to confession tomorrow or even confession today if it's available in our churches and take advantage of it you know one of the things too that i don't think that we realize about sin is that when we allow sin to reign in our hearts that sin begins to propagate itself it becomes a negative type of fertility it will lead to other sin if we're living in a state of mortal sin we have lost we have lost the spiritual life within us and we can no longer judge that which is good that which is true that which is beautiful we we therefore need to get rid of that sin that we can begin to think clearly once again thinking of the passage from romans 12 2 do not conform yourself to this age but rather be transformed by a renewal of the mind so that you know what is god's will what is good pleasing and perfect know what saint paul is telling us there he's telling us there that it is through a renewal of the mind that this comes about well what is it that renews the mind what renews the mind is our effort to begin to discover what holy mother church teaches us what sacred scripture says renewing our mind according to the precepts of the church not letting into our mind any of the false constructs of the day that would seek to plant ideas or ideologies or world views that are very far away from that which only mother church teaches then we weaken our capacity to know what is god's will what is good what is true what is perfect right and it's only in the good and in the true and in the perfect it is only in knowing what god's will is and following that will that we find that joy that peace that surpasses understanding that abiding presence of the holy spirit who desires to dwell in us right so i really want to encourage you if you haven't received the sacrament in a long time i want to encourage you to receive the sacrament i want to encourage you to move forward in your life of faith to not be held back by the the maxims of man but rather by the truth given to us by god himself now i want to get to some of our listener comment calls today so i'm going to ask you richa to get one going for us here okay we're looking for that listener comment call all right well we must be having some trouble there so i'll just move forward here uh and you know this uh this beauty that can be ours is a beauty that god wants us to know and i guess basically what i'm suggesting to us is that we don't uh do anything to prohibit that movement of grace within ourselves and when we do through our own fallen nature succumb to sin that we turn ourselves around very quickly and make use of the sacrament we've got that comment call ready for us now name is richard my question is what is the difference between venial sins and mortal sins oh there's a good question for us thank you so very much for that question it's a good one so when we think about the word vino vino means slight when we think about the word mortal mortal means a disaster okay it means the taking away of life so a venial sin is a sin that wounds us interiorly that wounds our relationship with god that that in some way inserts um a a kind of of separation from god but not a total one a mortal sin on the other hand is a grievous sin it's a sin that is so grievous that that sin separates us from god completely it is so grievous in fact that it requires that we make serious amends for it and that we return to god and that we go to the sacrament of confession at every holy sacrifice of the mass we receive absolution and that absolution that we receive for our sins takes care of our venial sins but not our mortal sins so mortal sin requires a sacrament now that is not to say that we do not benefit by making use of the sacrament for venial sin because just as we know that our immune system can be affected by an assault of many different infections or viruses or illnesses at one time leaving us vulnerable to to our mortality we know that the same can happen spiritually that a propensity a lot of venial sin can so weaken our moral stamina that when mortal sin presents itself to us we become a victim of it so it's important to take care of those venial sins as well so we don't want to just reserve the sacrament for mortal sin but we also don't want to allow ourselves to put venial sin into the category of mortal sin so i hope that that helps you the church is very clear we can go to the catechism we can look at what grave matter is grave sin and we can look at what is is venial sin and that will help us to make a determination and there are conditions for both uh there's a certain level of culpability that could make a you know a mortal sin a venial sin but that gets a little intense and that should be sorted out with the priest in the confessional so i certainly do hope that that helps you and we are going to go to another listener comment call hello my name is alan my question is do catholics believe in the rapture and if not why and i am from long beach california well thank you very much for your question i can answer it very quickly the answer is no catholics do not believe in the rapture and the church does not teach about the rapture uh this is a a a a teaching if you will that was promulgated in the late 1800s it is you know a type of taking scripture out of context and creating and developing you know a whole perspective or or uh um what would i say you know a whole type of of theology that is not theology at all so catholics do not believe in the rapture the church doesn't teach about the rapture uh and you know we have to be very careful that we don't abuse sacred scripture and this goes back to paul's call earlier in the program you know yes we read sacred scripture it is indeed literally the word of god because what does that mean it's inspired by the holy spirit so literally it is the word of god but we cannot go in there and just extract a passage from here and a passage from there and begin to cobble together you know some type of of what we would consider to be essential teaching it's not the way it works everything is within context we have to read the old testament and light of the new testament and the new testament and light of the old testament as a matter of fact the old testament prefigures the new testament so you can often go to the new testament teachings and find if you will a pre-shadowing of that a prefigurement of that in the old testament it is woven together very tightly by the holy spirit himself to lead us in the way in which we should go nowhere in there does it talk about a rapture so there you have it we've enjoyed being with you today and we're looking forward to being back with you again next week wishing you a profoundly blessed weekend in the lord make use of the sacramento confession this weekend why not you're going to feel so much better after you go looking forward to being with you very shortly here in about an hour right there on ewtn television do call us with your questions for our guest today steve wyden comp until we're together again may god richly bless you bye bye now [Music] i received communion in my hands and my dad gets it on the tongue and i was wondering if it was more respectful to get it on the tongue than the hands

Channel: EWTN

Views: 1,183

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: TxJkf2o15v4

Length: 53min 40sec (3220 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 28 2022