Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - 07/21/26

[00:00:00]Iranian attacks over the weekend.

[00:00:02]Archbishop Timothy Brolio said, quote, "I express heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones have been killed or are missing in action, most recently in Jordan." At the same time, he said, "I urge all men and women of goodwill to pray for peace among nations and a quick resolution [music] to the current dispute. May there be no more innocent victims on either side so that all peoples might enjoy security and tranquility." And tropical storm Bertha is headed toward the Gulf Coast. The storm's about 100 miles souths southwest of Panama City, Florida with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. For more news with [music] a Catholic perspective, visit EWTN.com.

[00:00:39]Call to Communion with Dr. David Anders starts now.

[00:00:46]>> What's stopping you from becoming a Catholic?

[00:00:50]>> Why can't women become priests? 1833288 EWTN >> I don't understand why I have to earn salvation >> 1833 2883986 >> What's stopping >> Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest?

[00:01:05]>> What's stopping you?

[00:01:08]>> This is Call to Communion with Dr. David Anders on the EWTN Global Catholic [music] Radio Network.

[00:01:16]>> Hey everybody, welcome again to Call to Communion here on EWTN. We're live on this Tuesday afternoon. Would love to uh answer your question about the Catholic faith, especially those of you who are not Catholic. That's why we do this program to give you a venue, if you will, to get those questions of yours answered in a u you know, clear and concise way. Here's our phone number, 833288 EWTN. Call or text 833-2883986.

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[00:02:06]And of course, you can always send us an email. The address for that, CTCWTN.com.

[00:02:14]All right, here we go. Pedro Keelles, our producer, Matt Kabinsky, handling phone screening. Ace McKay is on social media. I'm Tom Price along with Dr. David Anders.

[00:02:23]>> Tom, how are you today?

[00:02:23]>> Doing very well. How are you, sir?

[00:02:25]>> You know, uh, we're hanging in there.

[00:02:26]Doing all right.

[00:02:27]>> I'm glad you're hanging in there. We're going to lead off with a, uh, question received overnight from the EWTN listener comment line.

[00:02:36]>> Hi, my question is, how come we don't get the wine at communion? I feel like we're not getting the full blessing.

[00:02:42]We're just getting the Eucharist at my church. I remember when I was a child, the priest dipped the Eucharist into the chalice to get a little wine on it and give it to you. But now we're not getting anything. We're not getting the full blessing. Could you please answer my question? This is Patty from Babel, New York.

[00:02:58]>> Yeah, Patty, thank you so much. I really appreciate the question. So, um, your question would seem to imply that, you know, if we receive the consecrated host, I don't know, we're getting like 50% of the grace, and then we have to get the consecrated chalice to get the other 50%. And fortunately for us, that's that's not how grace works, and it's not how the sacraments work. Um, so [clears throat] here here's how the sacrament of the Eucharist works. And one way to go about this is ask the question why does the Eucharist exist in two kinds? Because if it were just about say the quantitative distribution of grace, well, you know, clearly Jesus could have packaged the whole thing into one of those little Tylenol capsules. You know, we could just be handing out grace pills at church and everybody get their supply of grace for the day. You know, that's not the reason that Christ gave us communion in two kinds. And and why give us bread and wine for that matter as the as the as the matter in which the the s sacrament is consecrated? I if it was just if it's just about, you know, trying to get some sort of means of distribution of some quantitative packaging, you could get that anyway.

[00:04:09]But there's a there's a logic to the fact that it's bread and wine. There's a logic to the fact that there's two kinds. You have to understand this to really get at the answer to your question. And so, you know, when Christ institutes the Eucharist, he says, um, this is my body, holds up the bread.

[00:04:28]This is my blood, holds up the wine, and [clears throat] then he exhorts the disciples to consume it. Okay. So, what's going on there? Why uh why body and blood? Why body here, blood?

[00:04:42]Why consume it? Because other sacraments we don't take in by eating, right? We you baptism we get by getting wet.

[00:04:49]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:49]>> Um you know sacrament of anointing we get by getting greasy you know [laughter] but but in this one we eat it. Why? What's going on there?

[00:04:57]>> So the there is a symbol there's a symbol to the Eucharist. Eucharist is more than a symbol but it it does contain symbolic elements. And what's symbolized is the separation of Christ's body from his blood. Right? That's why he doesn't give it all to us in one package, right?

[00:05:17]Because that if you're if you're trying to evoke awareness of the body and blood of Jesus, um you could do it in one thing, but if you want to evoke awareness of the body and blood of Jesus separated, i.e. what happened on the cross when he was killed, he bled out, right?

[00:05:35]>> Uh then you give it two kinds. And the double consecration evokes our understanding of the death of Christ. It memorializes the death of Jesus. And the mass says that it calls the mass the memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It it memorializes what took place at Calvary. And because it memorializes what took place at Calvary, the Eucharist is itself a sacrifice.

[00:06:02]Church teaches it doesn't just remind us of a sacrifice that took place 2,000 years ago. It is itself a sacrifice and one which contains the very same victim who died on the cross albeit in a different form. Now he's transubstantiated in the elements. So we don't actually kill him but we memorialize the death took place that took place 2,000 years ago and we present the same victim to God the father. Now think about that for a minute. None of that requires eating, right? So you can be present at the sacrifice just by watching the consecration. And the church says exactly that that by being present with an understanding of the rights and having the intention to offer Christ the mediator to God the father along with yourself then you fully participate in the sacrifice of the mass which is the principle reason that we have the mass so that we can have a perpetual offering to give to God. So whether you receive communion at all the reason Christ gave us two kinds bread and wine is fully realized fully it's fulfilled in the consecration at the act of sacrifice.

[00:07:17]Now communion is another thing communion is the sacrament wherein I consume Christ. Why why give it to us through eating? Why not again why not anointing?

[00:07:29]Why not, you know, dousing us in water or shooting us with squirt guns or something? Why eating? Well, the the action can communicate something, namely how necessary Christ is as sustenance for our souls, right? We don't eat the Eucharist because we need physical sustenance. We take it in to to evoke within us an awareness of how necessary he is to the maintenance of our souls.

[00:07:55]And that that signification is fully realized in the action of eating just the consecrated host which contains or which is the body and blood of Christ. So Christ's body and blood are are represented as separated but they're not actually separated. You get all of Jesus in the consecrated host.

[00:08:17]All of Jesus in the consecrated chalice.

[00:08:20]And so you're not only getting you're not just getting 50% of the grace or 50% of Christ. you're getting the whole Christ and all the benefit provided you come properly disposed.

[00:08:29]>> Thanks for your call to our EWTN listener comment line which is open 24 hours a day. But in a moment we're going to get to the phones to talk with Lee in Clarksville, Tennessee. Hopefully you as well. 833288 EWTN. Call now.

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[00:08:59]Today, >> this is Life Issues with Victor Naveves, president of Life Issues Institute.

[00:09:06]>> Each year, CNBC publishes their list of the top 10 worst states to live in. This year, states like Tennessee, Alabama, and Texas ranked at the top of their chart. This may seem weird to the average American considering [music] that states like Texas have seen a steady influx of people moving there for lower taxes and more economic opportunity. So why does CNBC think that these are such bad states to live in?

[00:09:32]Well, one of their key metrics was quote reproductive rights aka abortion.

[00:09:38]According to CNBC, these states are bad to live in because it's more difficult to murder an innocent child in the womb.

[00:09:45]Did they bother considering what states are best to live in for the unborn baby?

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[00:10:20]>> It's Call to Communion here on EWTN.

[00:10:22][music] We are live on this uh Tuesday afternoon here on uh on the network and we [music] are waiting for your phone call at 833288 EWTN. You can call or text 8332883986.

[00:10:38]Uh you may be an audiobook listener. A lot of people uh enjoy, you know, and when they're driving around enjoy listening to audiobooks. I know that we do. And uh the big platform, of course, is Audible. And what you may not know is that EWTN radio programs are also on Audible. Weekday shows from the Sunrise Morning Show all the way through a Maria in the afternoon, plus a lot of our weekend programs as well. You can find it all on the Audible app. Another reason why EWTN is everywhere. And if you're ready now, let's go to the phones at 833288 EWTN. Here is Lee in Clarksville, Tennessee, listening on WGIC.

[00:11:20]Hello, Lee. What's on your mind today?

[00:11:23]>> Yes, sir. I thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me?

[00:11:26]>> Yes.

[00:11:27]>> Yes. Go right ahead, Lee.

[00:11:29]>> Okay. When the woman with the issue of blood touched the hymn of Jesus garment, he said, "Who touched me? for I for I feel that virtue going out gone has gone out of me. What did he mean by that?

[00:11:42]>> Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate the question. So, you're reading from an older English translation. If you read the same verse in a more modern translation, they would switch the word virtue to power. The underlying Greek word there dunamis means is used many times in the New Testament. It can mean power like you know physical force or military might. Many times it's used to uh to convey the idea of a miracle or a mighty deed. Um and so that's what that's what the word is. So it's not it's not virtue like the habit of justice or charity or something. It it really means in this context it means a force of power miracle working ability that sort of thing. And so when the woman touched Christ in fact a miracle did occur, right? She was physically healed.

[00:12:30]>> Yeah. And Christ was aware of that fact.

[00:12:33]He was conscious of the fact that that his divine power had in fact healed someone. Lee, thanks so much for your call from Clarksville. That opens up a line for you at 833288 EWTN. You can call or text 8332883986.

[00:12:51]Before we go to our next caller, David, got to bring you this. Uh, this is a an email we received yesterday. Uh, my name is William. I called in your program to ask if I should meet with my grandfather's Baptist pastor. You may remember that call, David.

[00:13:07]>> Since I didn't get to thank him after his answer, I wanted to write just to thank Dr. Anders for taking my question and for the wisdom he provided. I sincerely appreciate listening to your show as a new Catholic and I pray for future successes in helping others. May God bless William Mloud.

[00:13:26]>> Well, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Very, very nice. Let's go now to uh John Michael listening in Columbus, Ohio. And John Michael's listening on the great St. Gabriel Radio. Hey John Michael, what's on your mind today?

[00:13:40]>> Good afternoon. I'm just yeah, really curious to know what the origins are for the four symbols of the gospel writers, the eagle for John, the bull or ox for Mark, so on and so forth. I've always loved seeing the imagery of them throughout various sanctuaries and Catholic churches and I'm just curious what the the original so uh to be honest with you uh I I can't tell you when they first appeared in history. Um I think St. Jerome me mentions them in the 4th century. Uh so they're very old associations. Um and uh you know to be honest with you I I don't know when they first appeared. I mean the Catholic encyclopedia I'm ass sure we'll have an article on this and that's what I will go consult at the end of the show you know >> it is delightful imagery though isn't it?

[00:14:28]>> It is very delightful imagery. I mean it's a it's one of those standard tropes of of Catholic iconography and >> you know where these things come from. I mean they bubble up from popular imagination and I I don't know who the first person to come up with that idea was.

[00:14:42]>> John Michael, thanks so much uh for your phone call. Here is John in Maryland listening on SiriusXM channel 130.

[00:14:48]Hello, John. What's on your mind today?

[00:14:51]>> Yeah. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. I absolutely love the show and listen uh very regularly, almost every day if I can.

[00:14:57]>> Thank you.

[00:14:57]>> My question is in reference to living in a simulation.

[00:15:02]>> I know Plato and Decart have considered things like this, especially with AI getting stronger and stronger. For me, I've never questioned whether there is a god because there has to be a beginning, the alpha and the omega. So, okay. I I certainly 100% believe yes, there's God who created everything. But how do we disprove or how do we know that we ourselves aren't part of a simulation created by people that God created?

[00:15:31]>> Right. Sure. So, it is of course possible to spell out any number of purely theoretical, cosmological or metaphysical constructs that commit no logical fallacies. Right?

[00:15:45]I mean, there's no there's there's nothing in logic that would prevent such a reality from existing. Um, there's just no good evidence to think that that's the way reality works, right? I mean, you know, I mean, I I the problem of other minds is an analogous problem.

[00:16:03]That is to say, how do I how do I know that solypism is false? How do I know that that I'm not the only conscious uh being? And Tom Price, who's staring at me right now, is actually a figment of my imagination or some sort of automaton.

[00:16:16]Granted that Tom seems to exhibit a lot of behaviors that I associate in myself with conscious states.

[00:16:25]Uh, you know, I I can't actually experience his own interiority. I I'm not I'm not privy to his subjective consciousness. So, I'm just making an inference that he's actually conscious and he's not just pulling the the wool over my eyes. Um but uh but I don't know that I can have I certainly can have direct intuitive knowledge of his interior states. Nevertheless, it seems perfectly reasonable for me to function with the assumption that Tom is actually conscious.

[00:16:53]Right? I mean so I guess what what one one takeaway from that is that rationality is not the same thing as as operating from a position of perfect mathematical certainty. And that was probably one of Daycart's errors, right? I mean, Daycart had a lot of great things to say and he's a very brilliant mathematician. And the fact that he was a mathematician colors the way he did philosophy, but he started out with the with the presumption that in order to to move forward with a rational philosophy, I have to question everything that can possibly be questioned and arrive at a set of propositions that cannot in principle be doubted. Well, I don't know that was I don't know if that was a rational way to go, right? I mean, I think a better model of rationality, but a way to understand what rationality is is the ability to revise my opinions when presented with contrary evidence. I mean, that's, you know, so you can be a very intelligent person, highly intelligent, and be deeply irrational.

[00:17:53]And I think of, for example, I'm sure you've met uh some sort of oddball conspiracy theorist who has a highly elaborate explanation for events in contemporary history that that seemingly can explain everything. Um but uh but is uh but is inoculated against criticism because anytime you bring a question, he's he's already thought of a way to work that defeater into the system. So that you know what he what he winds up with is a deeply implausible highly counterintuitive scenario that of course can't in principle be disproved but which is obviously nuts right and and it's possible to come up with any number of those based on some intuition someone has and they they contradict one another. I mean like different conspiracy theories have different starting points >> and and you it takes a lot of intelligence and brilliance to come up with that >> but they're you know they're the fact that they are immune to evidence and contradiction demonstrates that these are very smart but deeply irrational people you know >> and uh and you know St. Thomas says that the rule he objectively evaluated and I just don't think there are good reasons to thinking that you know that the universe we inhabit is let's say you know a bubble universe inside another universe that's you know run by a character on a Douglas Adams novel or something. Wow. John, thanks so much uh for your call. We do appreciate that.

[00:19:18]Lines are open for you at 833288 EWTN for Call to Communion. Dr. David Andrew here to answer your questions.

[00:19:26]Call or text 833-2883986.

[00:19:32]Here is a question now from Noel. A text that just came in. Noel is in Winnipeg and he says, "Why does Jesus always talk in parables?" I love this question.

[00:19:42][laughter] This is one of my favorite questions. So, so I'll tell you a funny story about that. When I was in grad school, I was part of a team of of of graduate students that were teaching assistants for a very large undergraduate course called the uh the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was one of the most popular courses in the university because the professor who taught it was a deeply charismatic fellow who was a great lecturer and always got tons of freshmen wanting to take his class. So he had to employ a lot of grad students and we were all from the department of religion at the University of Iowa and which meant we were from different fields. So there were New Testament scholars, there were historians of Christianity like me, there were people studying Indian religions, there were people studying Judaism, there were people studying, you know, Chinese religion. So you didn't have to be a specialist in Christianity to be assigned as a TA to the Judeo-Christian course, right?

[00:20:32]>> Okay. And the head TA was not a Christian by upbringing and whose field of study was u was indology you know indigenous Indian religions and you know very good scholar and wonderful person but like not just wasn't her ball of wax to study the new testament one of our jobs was to come up with uh the exam questions that we would give out for the students and we always had multiple choice exams and you'd have a question you'd have four possible answers and uh you what we would do is we First we'd write the question, then we would write the correct answer as a team, right?

[00:21:06]>> Yeah.

[00:21:07]>> And then the difficult part was spitballing around the room to come up with plausible wrong answers.

[00:21:12]>> Like bad e like really stupid wrong answers were easy, but come up with wrong answers that would >> that would attract that would attract interest for people who hadn't really studied, right? So we're um we're we're coming up with some questions on the gospels. We got that part to the got to that part of the course. And so one of the questions was well that question was [clears throat] why does Jesus teach in parables?

[00:21:33]And so they had TA goes well let's just knock out the right answer right away and then we'll come up with the wrong ones. And like kind of not thinking she goes well you know he teaches in parables because they're easy to understand.

[00:21:43]And all of the New Testament scholars in the room were like um no that's one of the plausible wrong answers. [laughter] Uh he actually says that that is not the case and he teaches in parables because they are difficult to understand. Right.

[00:21:58]And uh and then that was that was a kind of a funny I'll never forget that that class in the TA but um anyway [clears throat] he says he teaches in parables excuse me because they're hard to understand.

[00:22:11]>> Well do what? Like how do you make sense of that? Well, the way I make sense of it is that throughout the teaching of Jesus, he rarely teaches by way of just laying out moral [clears throat] or theological propositions and says, "Believe this."

[00:22:27]>> That that's not how he functions. What he does instead is all of his teaching, whether it's his parables, whether it's his provocative actions, whether it's his visiting with the sick or the poor or the tax collectors, >> is designed to evoke an awareness in [clears throat] his audience of the ways in which they need to change morally, >> right? So he, you know, uh, take the parable of the, um, of the good Samaritan for example.

[00:22:58]Sometimes you hear the parable of the good Samaritan taught as if the point of the parable was to teach the abstract moral duty that you should be kind to strangers.

[00:23:07]It's absolutely not a parable about the abstract moral duty of being kind to strangers. And the Jews didn't need such a parable. Why not? Because the law of Moses had said be kind to strangers.

[00:23:17]They knew that one. They knew that one.

[00:23:19]The point of the parable was to get them asking the question about themselves.

[00:23:24]Am I in fact being kind to strangers?

[00:23:28]To provoke the realization that actually no, I'm not. Now, if he had just stood up and said, "Be nice to strangers," they would have been like, "Oh, yeah.

[00:23:37]We're down with that. We'd do that one, you know. All day long. Twice on Sabbath." Or not twice on Sabbath. Twice on the day before Sabbath, right?

[00:23:44]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:44]>> And uh the point of the parable, as all of Jesus' actions, was to say, "You're actually not as righteous as you think you are. Let me spell out some scenarios, get you to put yourself in these situations where you might see about yourself that you're not as righteous as you think they are. Think about his very first miracle.

[00:23:59]Man with the withered hand in the synagogue. Jesus stands up and says, "Is it right to heal on the Sabbath or not?"

[00:24:05]If he just wanted to heal the guy, he just said, "Buddy, meet me out behind the synagogue after services and I'll heal your hand." No, he wants an object lesson. He's putting them on the spot to make them declare themselves to see whether they are actually living in accord with the higher principles of the law. And of course, they don't want to take the bait. They keep their mouth shut.

[00:24:23]>> Uhhuh.

[00:24:24]>> Because they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Right. All of his teaching is like this.

[00:24:28]>> Well, there you go. And thanks so much for that text, Nell in Winnipeg. We're going to u tell you what, let me let me do one more question here and then we'll take a quick break. This is a text from Jim in Melbourne, Florida. What can you tell us about the Ethiopian Bible?

[00:24:45]>> Well, I can tell you the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has the most expansive cannon of scripture. It has more books in it than any other Christian tradition, including interestingly the book of Enoch.

[00:24:57]>> Wow. [clears throat] >> Which is a I apologize. I just keep coughing my head off today.

[00:25:02]>> We do have a cough switch.

[00:25:03]>> Yeah, I know. I'm I'm gonna use that just a second.

[00:25:06]>> There we go.

[00:25:07]>> All right, I'm back now. Sorry about that.

[00:25:09]So uh book of Enoch is a uh an apocryphal text a a a pseudapigria apocryphal text means it's not written by the person who says it's written by because the actual Enoch is you know thousands of years before that >> right >> um that uh that has all kinds of visions of and heavenly beasts and so forth but it was a very important part of second temple Jewish imagination and it it absolutely informed the thought world of Jesus's day and it's quoted in the New Testament It's just not part of the biblical cannon in the Catholic Bible, but the Ethiopians have it.

[00:25:43]>> And there it is. Glad we could answer that. Jim in Melbourne, Florida. Thanks so much for your text. In a moment, we'll be talking with Christina in New Hampshire. Couple lines open for you at 833288 EWTN. Call or text 833. Now I'm doing it. 833-2883986.

[00:26:03]Call to communion. and it's uh live on this Tuesday afternoon here on EWTN.

[00:26:08]Stay with us.

[00:26:12]>> Hi, I'm Doug Kek and this is an ETN bookmark brief. We're speaking with the one and only Dr. Ray Garreni about his book being a grandparent just like being a parent only different and of course it's going to be different. You you wrote it. So let's talk about the overview. How is it similar and how is it different? It is similar in the sense that we don't have the responsibility of parents. So we have more opportunities to enjoy.

[00:26:34]>> It's different in that there has been a pretty strong shift away from parenting styles.

[00:26:42]>> Most of human history you parented like your parents parented.

[00:26:45]>> Well, because of the culture, because of the onslaught of the experts, there's some pretty radical differences, not only in parenting style, but in religion >> across generations.

[00:26:54]>> Okay, really good. Dr. Dr. Ray Garreni.

[00:26:56]Being a grandparent just like being a parent only different published by EW10 and available through our EW10 religious catalog. Of course, check it out. I'm [music] Doug Kick. This has been a bookmark brief. Thanks for stopping by.

[00:27:08]We'll see you next time.

[00:27:10][music] Experience God's mercy and love.

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[00:27:26]>> The 12th annual Deino Nino Festival will be held Saturday, September [music] 5th at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hville, Alabama. This familyfriendly event [music] which celebrates God's word becoming flesh as the divine child includes mass, bilingual talks on the child Jesus, a eukaristic [music] healing service, and much more. Individuals, families, and groups are welcome. For more [music] information, please visit oolamshrine.com.

[00:27:56]>> Matt Swain here tomorrow on the Sunrise Morning Show. We'll celebrate the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to [music] the Apostles, plus all the latest news, weather, sports, and more.

[00:28:06]Now, back to Call to Communion with Dr. David Anders.

[00:28:16]Still time for your [music] phone calls to EWTN's Call to Communion with Dr. David Anders. That number 833288 EWTN. You can call or text [clears throat] 833-2883986.

[00:28:30]Hey, this week let's uh celebrate the EWTN radio affiliate group, and they are big.

[00:28:37]the Guadalupe Radio Network with 48 stations serving Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Alabama, including right here in Birmingham, uh, Florida, Washington DC, Virginia. They've been with us now for an incredible 26 years. Congratulations to Toya Hall, Sammy Rodriguez Jr., and the GRN team from your friends here at EWTN Radio. Let's go now to Christina in New Hampshire watching us today on YouTube. Hello Christina. What's on your mind today?

[00:29:10]>> I have a relative who is elderly and really appears to be on her, you know, on her way on her way out.

[00:29:19]>> She is a lapsed Catholic and has received all of her sacraments of initiation, but I would say that the last time she attended mass or practiced her faith is probably in the decades.

[00:29:30]Obviously, I'm not I'm not totally sure.

[00:29:34]I have taken it on to visit her tomorrow um with the hope of trying to get her to accept last rights. So, I have everything staged as it were. I've gotten in touch with the dascese. We have a priest kind of on standby.

[00:29:50]any advice as to what I can do other than pray a lot to try to open that door where she would accept that sacrament.

[00:30:02]>> Well, that's a that's a great question.

[00:30:05]Um, >> and God bless you, Christina, for for taking this on.

[00:30:09]>> Absolutely. So, obviously, I don't I don't know the relative, and so I don't know what her particular hang-ups are.

[00:30:16]Um I uh uh you know what I have is an intuition that I'm sure you share and that is you have to come with so much gentleness, so much love, so much affirmation um that um that she would be drawn to want this because of the warmth of your personality.

[00:30:40]um you know the minute you come with a a kind of sensorious tone that that ends it that's the end of the discussion right there um so you you know there's a there's a beautiful passage in a in a sonnet by Shakespeare and and the bard writes how can I hold thee but by thy granting meaning you know there's a lot of things I can compel you to do I can put a gun to your head and make you do almost anything except love me The minute I try to force it, I I ensure that I won't get the outcome I'm looking for. And uh and this is something we want to see born of love. And so the best way to illicit love is to be love.

[00:31:25]>> Is that helpful for you, Christina?

[00:31:29]>> Yeah. And if I could ask you in all sincerity to pray for >> uh to pray for my relative. She actually is my godmother >> to be open to receiving this sacrament.

[00:31:40]And I would sincerely ask that anybody who is listening to pray for this relative to be open to receiving this sacrament.

[00:31:47]>> Sure. Thank you.

[00:31:48]>> Be assured of our prayers, Christina, for uh for you and for your godmother as well. Call to communion here on EWTN. We have some lines open at 833288 EWTN. You can call or text 833-2883986.

[00:32:03]Here's a text that came in from Patrick in Kentucky listening to EWTN radio online. Patrick says, "When it comes to doctrinal texts, what is it that is infallible?"

[00:32:16]>> Yeah, thank you so much. So, it's not the texts that are infallible. It is the doctrine that is proclaimed.

[00:32:26]uh and it may come in the form of a text but it could come in in different >> media. uh and what makes it infallible is first of all one of the organs of infallibility must pronounce it and that is to say it has to be the pope it has to be an ecumenical council in communion with the pope or it has to be what's called the church's ordinary magisterium which is essentially the consensus of Catholic teaching uh of of popes and bishops and and and doctors and saints down through the ages even though it It may have never been formulated in a precise definition before. So those are the organs of infallibility. Okay?

[00:33:09]>> And and the agent whether it's the pope or the ecumenical council has to intend to define it.

[00:33:16]>> So it'll be a it'll be a propositional statement a dogma articulated like say for example God is a trinity.

[00:33:24]um it'll be proclaimed by the relevant authorities with the intent to do so to set it forth as a propositional truth that has come down to us from divine revelation and that it is and that is obligatory for Catholics to hold um and uh so that's that's what it is that's what it is now you can you can find such declarations in papal documents you can find them in consiliar definitions uh but in the case of the ordinary magister um um you know it's uh it's kind of like the British Constitution.

[00:33:58]You know there's no document that that uh that uh uh that completely articulates it. It's it's um you know it's it's sort of the set of assumptions uh around the way a particular article has been lived and professed uh and believed and prayed throughout the church history history. A good example might be for example um that was redundant wasn't it? A good example for example >> hello >> yeah would be the the dogma that that priestly ordination is reserved to men in the Catholic church until the 20th century that was never questioned.

[00:34:38]>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, and yet the the, you know, 2,000-year history of of church reflection in practice assumed, took for granted, sometimes articulated this fact, >> but without the intent of formulating a dogma because there wasn't a need to formulate a dogma, right? Because it was just that was the way things had always been, right? When the question gets pushed specifically in the 20th century, several popes have answered it. the one who answered it most definitively with John Paul II in uh in a papal document ordinance Sasha Doales that comes about as close to making an infallible definition as you can get without making it and what he does instead is he basically says this is infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium and my job as the successor of St. Peter is to ensure the fidelity of the church's faith. And I point you back to this infallible dogma, you know, which it is not relevant. It's not necessary to define dogmatically because it's already a dogma and virtue of the church's ordinary magisterium. Now, those aren't his exact words, but that's the substance of the thing.

[00:35:43]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:44]>> So, that'd be an example of something where, you know, if you said, well, where is the document? Well, there isn't really the document. Um, and yet it doesn't stop it from being infallibly taught. Think about um here's another one. How about the church's practice of venerating the saints prior to the Council of Trent? Council of Trent says, "Yeah, this is a dogmatic fact. We venerate saints and they pray for us." Okay. Well, was it not a dogma of the church prior to then? It absolutely was a dogma of the church prior to then because it's what the church had done, had prayed, had reflected on, had theologized about. But you're not going to find a single document like not one, you know, not one document that says this is a dogma of the church. But you know, the fact that the church has always done it and reflected on it and thought about it and articulated and admonished it and so forth is why the council of Trent said, "Okay, since somebody's calling this into question, we're going to formulate it as a precise dogma."

[00:36:40]>> Very good, Patrick. Thanks so much for your text. We have time for a few more phone calls, and you can be one of them.

[00:36:45]833288 EWTN. Call or text 833-2883986.

[00:36:53]It is called to communion. We're live on this Tuesday afternoon here on EWTN radio. Just got a text from Sam who says, "I was wondering what is the difference between communion and baptism."

[00:37:05]>> Yeah, I really appreciate the question.

[00:37:07]Um, so both of them are sacraments of the Catholic Church. There's seven sacments of the Catholic Church found established by Jesus. What is a sacrament? A sacrament is a ritual, a gesture, uh a right that that uses um uh physical elements, natural elements like like water and oil and bread and wine and people um to evoke, to symbolize, to communicate, to teach uh the fundamental truths of the charurrima about Christ, his his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his return in glory. these fundamental facts about the person of Jesus. It communicates those things in symbolic form um in different modalities and when we participate in them the church says they also are for us occasions of channels means instruments whereby we receive the grace of God. And in fact, the mystery that is being conveyed ritually or symbolically is effectuated within us in our interior life by the action of the Holy Spirit.

[00:38:16]So let me break that down for you. Give you an example. Baptism is a symbol of the washing of sin from our souls and of our death and resurrection with Jesus. Symbolizes those things. when you participate in the symbol, the church says, "Guess what else happens? You're actually washed from sin and reborn with Christ." So, the sign teaches what's about to happen and then makes it happen. All the sacraments work that way. Um, they all say something slightly different.

[00:38:52]Um, but they all come back to the charurma about Christ. So sacrament of reconciliation obviously symbolizes uh in its words and gestures the forgiveness that we receive from Jesus and it affects the forgiveness we receive from Jesus.

[00:39:11]Um the sacrament of the eukarist is the most complex and sort of the chief of sacraments because it's not just one thing it's two. It's first and foremost a sacrifice secondly a sacrament. Let's break it down. The bread and wine which become the body and blood of Christ symbolize the separation of his body from his blood. So it's the death of Christ here that's particularly in view through through the the symbol of the double consecration.

[00:39:43]And uh how is that affected in us? Well, Second Vatican Council following 2,000 years of tradition teaches that when we participate in the Eucharist knowingly and offer the immaculate victim, Christ to God the Father, we also learn to offer ourselves. So, when you when you participate in a right that evokes and memorializes Jesus's self-sacrifice, it uh it motivates you to also make acts of self-sacrifice, which is exactly what salvation consists of. Jesus says anyone who wants to be my disciple has to take up his cross uh and follow me. Right? So the way of disciplehip, the way of holiness is precisely in the imitation of the death of Christ. And the Eucharist, this is why it's the chief sacrament, right? The Eucharist is the preeminent way that the church ritually reenacts that sacrifice and calls us to participate in it so as to make that the reality of our own spiritual lives. Um so baptism Eucharist both of them sacraments both convey grace but in different modes. Baptism is our initiation into the Christian life where we die with Christ and are raised again with him to new life. The Eucharist is the sacrament where we where we come to interiorize that aspect of of self offering, self-donation, making the sacrifice of Christ the model of our lives. Sam, thanks so much uh for your text. It is called Communion here on EWTN. Coming up tomorrow night on EWTN Live with Father Mitch Pacqua.

[00:41:14]Father Mitch welcomes newly ordained Marinite priest Father Paul Bolas and his wife Teresa to discuss the priesthood and what goes into discerning God's call to holy orders. Also the role that Father Paul's wife Teresa played in her husband's discernment and journey toward the priesthood. Do check it out tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. Eastern on EWTN radio and television. Always a great show, EWTN Live with Father Mitch Pacqua. Here's a text we've received uh from Ellia in El Paso, Texas. What is the Neocatacumal way movement and is it part of the Catholic Church? Yeah. So, the Neo Catacuminal way is a is a [clears throat] catechetical program that began in Spain >> with the intent of revitalizing catechesus and Catholic life u that presents the faith with an emphasis on on sort of small Christian communities and regular study of the word of God. Um it is Catholic and that it is it has the church's official appribation. Um it is optional. It is not mandatory. Uh it's more popular in some places than others.

[00:42:25]>> So there you go.

[00:42:25]>> There it is. Appreciate that. And uh thank you so much for that text. Here's one that just came in from May on YouTube. A Catholic I know refers to my Protestant denomination as an ecclesial community rather than a church. He says that is the position of the Catholic Church. Is that true?

[00:42:46]>> Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate the question. So let's let's define our terms here. when when the Catholic Church uses the word church.

[00:42:55]>> Yeah.

[00:42:56]>> Uh what do we mean by that? Well, we take our cue from Jesus who said to Peter, you are Peter and on this [clears throat] rock I will build my church. And so in Christ's language, and we find this language throughout the New Testament, in Christ's conception, the church is a singular institution founded by him as the principal means of disseminating his teaching and the means of grace he establishes throughout the world. There's no there's no concept in the New Testament of something like denominationalism. That that's that's an idea foreign to the New Testament. Mhm.

[00:43:30]>> In fact, it was an idea that was foreign to the earliest Protestants, all of whom understood themselves to be participants in the project of what we would call the one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

[00:43:42]And that confession is in all of their doctrinal statements. And um they didn't they didn't much like the pope. They thought the pope had brought some nasty things into the one holy catholic and apostolic church. They conceived themselves as sort of ridding the one holy catholic and apostolic church of these of these papal superstitions and accretions that had crept in over the centuries. But they had no concept of themselves as forming separate denominations. Right? So the the the the New Testament doctrine, the Catholic doctrine, the Orthodox doctrine, the the confessional Protestant doctrine is that the church is a singular institution founded by Jesus. um that that Christians ought to belong to. That the unity that Christ desires is is is made visible and real in the association of Christians with the quote unquote church. And it's not it's not just an invisible association of people who have Christ sincerely in their hearts. It is a visible society with lines of authority. And it is possible to be admitted to it and to be excluded from it in a political sense. So when Christ teaches in Matthew 18, if you find your brother in sin and he doesn't listen to you, take it to the church, if he doesn't listen to the church, you e excommunicate him. That's a that's a that's one of Christ's teaching. Paul echoes that concept. So you can be in it, you can be out of it. I mean, you can and you know when you're out of it like it's it's you know it's there's a visible association be in or be out.

[00:45:10]Right? Now, does Christ have the idea that well, you know, any any two people that pop up and say we are the church that well, they just are that visible institution. No, he doesn't have that idea. When he uses that language about two or three of you are gathered in my name, it is actually specifically in the context of pronouncing a decree of excommunication, right? It's in a disciplinary context. It's that passage in Matthew 18. So you can't use that to justify the independent denominational churches.

[00:45:42]>> Where do independent denominational churches come from? Where does that where does that idea take hold?

[00:45:47]>> Well, it emerges in 18th century Protestantism. Not in 16th century, but 18th century Protestantism.

[00:45:52]>> Okay?

[00:45:53]>> Because within the history of Protestantism, even though Protestant denominations, to use that word, all agreed on the principle of one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic, they couldn't actually bring it about, right? Because since they got rid of the authority of the episcopacy and of sacred tradition and just went for the Bible alone, all the Protestant teachers had different reads on what the Bible was. And so they kept f founding these different communities and they kept excommunicating one another. So they they weren't tolerant towards Protestant differences. I mean Luther was pretty clear of Marberg 1528. He thought Zwingley was going to hell because they disagreed over the Eucharist. So that's that's very common early Protestantism.

[00:46:33]And they just kept doing that. It kept multiplying like mutual recriminations, mutual excommunications and you know my group only is the one holy Catholic church. No, my group only is one holy Catholic church. And eventually that division just started to strain credibility.

[00:46:47]And so in the 18th century with the evangelical revival, a movement grew up to say, "Hey, let's not worry about denominational, to use that language, differences. Let's just focus on our interior experience of Jesus. Hey, maybe that's the church. Maybe it's just all the people who have Christ sincerely in their hearts. that that's what we mean by the church. That's an invisible thing. It doesn't really correspond to any kind of physical boundaries.

[00:47:08]>> But that's an innovation of the 18th century, right? That Luther didn't think that. Calvin didn't think that. New Testament certainly doesn't think that.

[00:47:16]Um it was something that was just arrived at out of polyical necessity and it caught on. And so now there is very commonly this idea in evangelical Protestantism that the denominations are just so many different flavors of ice cream, right? They don't those differences don't really matter. And what really matters is you have a born again experience. You have Jesus in your heart and we all, you know, belong to one big church but in this kind of invisible sense.

[00:47:39]>> And so they, you know, people get kind of touchy if you say, well, you know, this group over here isn't actually the church founded by Jesus.

[00:47:46]>> But that's the New Testament doctrine and that's the Catholic position. The Catholic position is that there is a church founded by Christ. That it has historic lines of authority and visible continuity that you can trace down through the centuries. And and the essential ingredient for knowing that you belong to it is something called apostolic succession.

[00:48:04]Right? So that Christ founded apostles said whoever hears you hears me.

[00:48:09]>> Apostles founded or or established successors to their office. They ordained men after them. And that that line of succession has continued on for 2,000 years. So if a Christian community is connected to the apostles through apostolic succession, then the Catholic Church considers that to be a church in the fullest sense of the word.

[00:48:30]>> Um and uh and communities that have separated themselves from that essential guarantee of Catholic unity aren't really churches in the full sense of the word. Now to say that is not to say that the members of those communities are not Christians. We don't say that. Not to say they're going to hell. We don't say that. Uh it is to say that there's something that is essential to Christian corporate identity that is lacking to those communities and and so we have to have a linguistic way a verbal way of identifying that and the shorthand is to refer to the ecclesial communities and not the church quote unquote.

[00:49:05]>> Well there that is and we thank you uh Matt that actually came in from Matt watching us on YouTube. Appreciate your question. Call to communion here on EWTN. Let's go to Jeff in Wilmington, North Carolina, listening on the great Wilmington Catholic Radio. Hello, Jeff.

[00:49:20]What's on your mind today?

[00:49:22]>> Good afternoon, guys. Uh just wanted to call I had a uh long story short, you know, I grew up as a as a cradle Catholic in South Louisiana, which is an odd place to begin with. And uh I was very heavily involved with the church.

[00:49:36]My family was growing up. And uh uh as I got older, I I I fell away from the church. It was a it was a rough time for a while. And um my my wife currently, her mother was, you know, Catholic and part pagan. So I had been in the last several years around some of that, you know, mysticism. And I found it ultimately led me back to the church, the connections with stones and rosaries and all of the uh above. Um and so now I understand a little bit better, but I was trying to learn more about why uh mysticism has the negative connotation within the church.

[00:50:18]>> Okay. Thanks. I really appreciate the question. So the word mysticism means a lot of different things to different people. Um to some people mysticism refers to anything that is spooky or supernatural or esoteric. Um for some people mystical or or mysticism refers to things that are arcane or esoteric or hard to understand. Um there is another use of the term mysticism that's more current in the Christian tradition that means when a person has an experiential awareness of the spiritual truths that are taught by the church or by some religious tradition. And so in that sense there are Jewish mystics and there are Christian mystics and there are Islamic mystics. But the goal of mysticism in that environment is you those traditions have some sort of doctrinal position about the relationship of God and the soul. The mystic is the person who comes to realize those truths in an experiential way. That doesn't necessarily involve esoteria or the arcane or the secret or the spooky. Now maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but that's not what's essential to mysticism as such. understood in that latter definition, the Catholic Church is very much in favor of mysticism.

[00:51:40]Mysticism is in fact or mystical theology is the language we use is actually at the very heart of the Catholic tradition and the Catholic tradition would teach that a person who does not have a mystical knowledge of God does not have a saving knowledge of God.

[00:51:57]Right? It is necessary for spiritual growth that a person enter into the deep mystical truths of the faith. That is to say, their interior life must be supernaturally transformed so that it reflects the abstract doctrinal truths that the church teaches. Give you an example. The church teaches that we have to be born again. We have to die to our old sinful selves and become new people in Christ. That process gets started in baptism, but it's not completed. The completion of that project where we actually renovate our interior lives and come to have the mind of Jesus is the mystical path and you must walk it. It doesn't mean you have to float three feet off the ground or have strange visions or fall into raptures. Maybe you do those things, but they're incidental to the real point of mysticism. So we're not anti- mysticism at all when it comes to tangible objects that are used in new age ritual and I think you mentioned those >> crystals >> crystals and things like that right so so St. Augustine who's a doctor of the Catholic church made the observation a long time ago that um there's a big difference between saying here eat this herb and it will make your stomach not hurt and here hang this stomachshaped herb around your neck and it'll make your stomach not hurt. Right? One works by some sort of natural process, the other by some form of arcane signification. And Augustine's position is there's just no empirical evidence that the letter actually works. And so to hold that would be a form of superstition, right? It's trying to trying to manipulate the unseen world through through symbols and gestures.

[00:53:35]That's the church's position, right? So so crystal healing is a pseudocience that has no empirical support at all. um and therefore it would be irrational to hold it and at worst you know it's a sort of sort kind of a incantation and an attempt to invoke invisible powers other than god um but you know if there's but you know say uh radiology is not pseudocience involves invisible powers but they have a scientific basis behind them.

[00:54:03]>> Jeeoff thanks so much for your question and we'll see you tomorrow here on Call to Communion. [music] God bless.

[00:54:12]EWTN Religious Catalog has great summer reading for kids. The Magnificent Mischief of Tad Lincoln [music] is a warm, whimsical glimpse into the Lincoln White House that blends adventure with meaningful lessons. [music] Children.