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Can You Choose the Wrong Husband or Wife? In this video, Jimmy Akin explores this question and explains how God wants us to use our gift of free will.
Transcript:
Um, I&#8217;ve discerned into marriage and proposed to my girlfriend. Problem is, I&#8217;m experiencing cold feet and severe stress with a chance I picked the wrong person. Told myself, just trust God. If He wanted me to be with someone else, He’d move my heart in another direction. But since many have tried to tell me God doesn&#8217;t have a particular individual planned out for anyone, i.e., a soulmate, not sure God will ever intervene. Should I be expecting help from God?
Okay, well, um, I would say that what people have told you—that God doesn&#8217;t have a single individual who&#8217;s like destined for you and you either get that person or you miss forever—I would say those people are right. This idea of a soulmate is not something that&#8217;s found in the Bible. And we see, um, people like the patriarch Abraham—he was originally married to Sarah, but after she passed on, he got married to a woman named Keturah. And as far as we know, they had a successful marriage. Moses had more than one wife too, one after the other. And so, um, it&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s this one and only person out there for you. You&#8217;ve got options.
And so I would say if, uh, you&#8217;re having cold feet, well, that&#8217;s understandable. I remember when I got married, it—you know, there was a certain moment when we were actually saying the vows, and we got up to the &#8220;I take you to be my spouse&#8221; part, and I&#8217;m starting to say that, and all of a sudden, I&#8217;m getting really weak in the knees. Um, and actually, I&#8217;m told if you watch videos of people, um, getting married, sometimes you&#8217;ll see one of the two parties just faint on the spot as they&#8217;re saying the vows, because you&#8217;ve got that adrenaline going with the fight-or-flight reflex. And what that does—when you have the fight-or-flight reflex—is it, um, will suck blood away from your head in order to enable you to run. And sucking the blood away from your head can cause you to faint.
Um, so that is something that, you know, one can experience. I&#8217;ve experienced that. I&#8217;ve been—I&#8217;ve had butterflies, uh, regarding, &#8220;Do I want to say these vows or not?&#8221; And in fact, um, I&#8217;ve been told that about a third of all marriage licenses that get taken out end up not getting used. So, like, a lot of people do get cold feet.
Um, whether and what to do in your situation—I would say divine revelation is always a gift. It is, and it is not to be presumed. So I think it&#8217;s fine for you to ask God to give you a sign. And it needs to be a notable sign, not just, &#8220;May the sun come up tomorrow.&#8221; It needs to be something really unexpected. And I would name the sign that you want, because otherwise, you leave anything strange that happens open to, &#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s the sign, that’s the sign!&#8221; Um, no. Name it. If you&#8217;re going to ask God for a sign, name the sign, and it needs to be something rare.
Um, so you can ask God for a sign to give you guidance one way or another on this question. But do not expect the sign. God may or may not choose to give it. And God&#8217;s not in the business of giving signs that often. So if it happens, great. But don&#8217;t expect it.
What do you do in the absence of God, um, giving you a sign? Well, you fall back on human reason. He gave you your gift of reason to guide you through this life, and He expects you to use it. So use your reason to look at the situation and say, &#8220;Is this person someone that would be good to be married to for the rest of my life, to hopefully raise a family with?&#8221;
Um, if you see major warning signs now, I would say listen to those warning signs, because people are on their best behavior when they&#8217;re trying to get married. When they start slacking off is after the vows have been said, and they don&#8217;t have to worry about, &#8220;Am I going to catch this person or not?&#8221; You&#8217;ve already been caught at that point. So people are on—it&#8217;s like a job interview. People are on their best behavior when they&#8217;re in the job interview. And so if you see danger signs now, then you should appropriately consider those.
On the other hand, you shouldn&#8217;t expect a perfect marriage where it&#8217;s going to be bliss every minute and you&#8217;re never going to—you&#8217;re never going to have frustrations or get mad at each other or things like that, because that&#8217;s not life. Um, even good marriages have difficulties that the partners have to go through. So don&#8217;t let a few difficulties scare you off. That&#8217;s just part of life. That&#8217;s going to happen whether you get married or not. So don&#8217;t be afraid of difficulties. But if you see major warning signs now, take them seriously.
Use your own intellect. And since your emotions are wrapped up in this, you&#8217;re not necessarily the best judge one way or the other, because your emotions, on the one hand, are pulling you to want to marry this person. But your fears are also pulling you to want to not marry this person. I would—I would talk to people who know you and know your prospective spouse, like maybe your parents or friends or things like that, and say, &#8220;What do you think?&#8221; Swear them to privacy, because you don&#8217;t want to undermine what, uh, you know, what your spouse is thinking. Um, and don&#8217;t go probing into, &#8220;Oh, maybe my fiancé has been having similar conversations.&#8221; Leave those things to the privacy of your fiancé, and keep your own privacy.
But, you know, think about talking to people who know both of you and say, &#8220;I just wanted to get your perspective on this. What do you think?&#8221; without trying to prejudice it one way or another, and get their ideas as well. Because they have—they&#8217;re coming from a position that&#8217;s less emotionally invested, and therefore, um, they may have some additional insights or perspective that you would otherwise miss.
How&#8217;s that for marriage advice, Matt?
Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, great stuff. Um, I appreciate that. I mean, going back to the—the idea of a soulmate, I just have a hard time believing God doesn&#8217;t care who I marry, because He cares what—oh—which occupation you pick. So why wouldn&#8217;t He help you out, or why wouldn&#8217;t He have a preference with a arguably more important decision in marriage?
Who—who says God cares what occupation you pick? You could be a doctor, you could be an engineer, you could be a lawyer, you could flip burgers—you could do any number of things to glorify God by doing work in the world. Now, He may have given you certain talents and opportunities that make it logical for you to pursue a particular career, but that&#8217;s not the only one. You could do lots of things. People change careers throughout their lives.
I kind of compare it to buying bread in the store. You know, there&#8217;s—at least here in America—there&#8217;s a bunch of different kinds of bread, and they all work. And so you&#8217;ve got a choice. It&#8217;s not like God really wants you to pick the Wonder Bread rather than the Oroweat bread, you know? God doesn&#8217;t really care about that. Um, God wants you to have adequate food. But what food you buy is up to you. And so, um, what career you pick to glorify God is up to you. He&#8217;s got a bunch of options for you.
Similarly, who you marry and who you glorify God by being married to—that&#8217;s up to you. He&#8217;s got a bunch of options that are just fine. And so, just like there&#8217;s not one person you&#8217;ve got to marry, or one career you&#8217;ve got to identify, or one job you&#8217;ve got to get, or one loaf of bread above all other loaves of bread that you&#8217;ve got to buy—it just doesn&#8217;t work that way. God gives us options, and we glorify Him by using our free will among those options.
With that, the, uh, Jimmy Marriage Advice Line will shut down right there. So, thank you so much for your call. Uh, we&#8217;re going to go to our break, and when we come back, we&#8217;ll continue more with &#8220;Ask Me Anything with Jimmy Akin.&#8221;
&nbsp;

“Did I Choose the Wrong Wife?”

<div>My sister’s son—my nephew—had surgery three years ago and identifies as a “transgender woman.” He’s now thirty-two. They’ll be attending another relative’s wedding soon. Should I go to that wedding, since my nephew will be present as “a woman”? Also, I don’t want my grandchildren exposed to this yet. They’re ages eleven, nine, and seven. Thankfully, they are not invited to the wedding, but what about summer? We each have cottages on the same lake. </div><div>In attending this wedding and interacting with your sister and your nephew at the event, you’re not promoting your nephew’s transgender identity. If he were attempting “marriage,” or was having a “coming out” party as “Audrey,” participating in such an event would be morally problematic, because you’d be at least condoning his actions by your participation. 
But that’s not the case. 
Instead, your nephew is going to be one of many guests at another relative’s authentic wedding. 
Boycotting the wedding because of your nephew’s presence would not be a good witness to the couple getting married, or to your nephew and sister. Nor would attending the wedding and shunning both your nephew and your sister. 
Your sister and nephew shouldn’t be shunned, as you correctly have concluded. Our true and ultimate enemies are fallen angels, not mere human beings (see Eph. 6:12). Your nephew is a human person made in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26–27), and so deserves to be loved, as Jesus witnessed in dying on the cross for everyone. Your nephew and your sister are candidates for conversion—and we are all in need of God’s mercy for one reason or another. 
In that light, I’d continue the course you’ve taken. Continue to love your sister and nephew, which you understand necessarily entails <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-churchs-position-on-transgenderism-0">not supporting them</a> re: his transgender identity. That gives you a lot of room to talk, and hug, and otherwise convey your love, as he and his mother (your sister) need people like you in their lives. 
Regarding exposing your younger grandchildren to your nephew, that is a prudential matter, and one for which you can provide input to their parents. 
With the permission and cooperation of your grandchildren’s parents, you could help explain to your grandchildren that your nephew is confused, struggling with his identity, and needs to be authentically loved. 
In that regard, if your grandchildren do have interactions with your nephew, I’d monitor the situation with their parents, speaking with your grandchildren afterwards about such interactions, so that your nephew doesn’t try to coerce them into a misguided sympathy about his transgender identity, or at least doesn’t succeed in doing so. I don’t want to presume bad will by your nephew in this regard, but it’s also important not to be naïve. 
In summary, for your direct part, I would encourage you and your spouse to maintain good communication with your sister and your nephew, because, again, they need faithful Catholics like you in their lives, as they might not experience the gospel truth in word and deed from anyone else. 
</div>

How to Love Trans Relatives

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.”
How is Advent different from Lent? On the surface, we might point to things like violet vestments and no flowers, interrupted by a single Sunday of rose; a dropping of the Gloria in Excelsis in Advent as well as the Alleluia in Lent. Both are seasons of waiting. In Lent we prepare for the feast of the Resurrection, the central fact and foundation of our faith, so the penitence and fasting and discipline are focused on preparing our hearts to understand and experience the mighty acts of redemption that we walk through ritually in the Sacred Triduum. In Advent, obviously, we’re preparing for the great feast of the Nativity. And the readings, especially in these early weeks, present a similarly sobering assortment of reminders that we do not know the span of our life, or of history.
With Lent and Easter, I think, this penitential emphasis makes sense to us because we know that the climax isn’t just the Resurrection, but also the cross. Easter is a reminder of God’s victory on our behalf, and the penitence of Lent helps us confront the horror of Good Friday and all the ways that we need that divine victory over sin and death. That is the basic sense of Easter. Despite the best attempts of the market, Easter has never been commercialized quite as successfully as Christmas, because it is hard to make a generic secular message out of the theme of Christ trampling down death with death and bringing life to those in the grave.
With Christmas, though, there’s a baby, and a birth, which seems so much more normal and innocuous. And so over the years it has morphed into that generic celebration of life and family and consumerism that we all know and love. But none of this makes a whole lot of sense with the message of Advent and Christmas as the Church actually presents it. Somehow, if we’re to take the texts seriously, Christmas is about joy, yes, and comfort—but also judgment, the Day of the Lord, the end of the world. It is about the dissolution, as St. Peter writes, of the world in fire and loud noise.
Being a child of the ’80s, and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/celibacy-and-the-priesthood">a parent of small children</a>, I’m fond of the classic Mr. Rogers song: “I think it&#8217;s very, very, very hard to wait / Especially when you&#8217;re waiting / For something very nice.” On a practical level, that obviously applies to Christmas. Usually around this time in Advent we start getting presents in the mail from extended family. They’re wrapped. They’re visible. But they must not yet be opened. That’s hard. And so usually we just hide them, because small children are not actually very good at waiting. And I think as well of the countless people who just cannot wait to put up their Christmas decorations—whether it’s at the stroke of midnight after Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or December 1—or any number of other dates. Certainly, in these times of international anxiety and deep social division, I understand the longing for Christmas cheer. But what are we actually celebrating?
Is Christmas “something very nice,” in the words of Mister Rogers? Well, yes and no. It’s the appearance, in the flesh, of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is cause for joy, as the angelic hosts proclaim. But it is also cause for fear and trembling, as the angelic hosts also proclaim. For a baby, like the Lord, comes in the night as a thief. And his arrival is a cause for terror as much as joy.
In a way, I think every parent knows this. I have six children, and at the birth of each one, I burst into tears. I really have no idea why. It’s not as though I was the one doing the real work. It just happened. Yes, they were happy tears. But they were also tears of fear and sadness, and confusion, and just being overwhelmed by the gravity of life and death and everything.
Like any other birth, the birth of the incarnate God is a judgment on us. It’s not a simple gift of cupcakes and flowers. It is the embrace of a hard, demanding love, a love that goes beyond death. And so Advent is not just waiting, as in waiting to open our presents; it’s waiting so that we can be ready to receive the challenge that is the God incarnate, the challenge that is God entering our lives and giving us the grace to do his will.
Returning to our epistle reading in 2 Peter, the idea of the elements melting and being dissolved in fire is a favorite prooftext of a certain Protestant contempt for creation that was once, at least, quite common in the evangelical world—the idea that it doesn’t matter what we do with this world, because it’s all going to burn. But such an emphasis neglects the actual climax of the passage, which echoes that of Revelation: according to Peter, “we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” For Peter, as for John in Revelation, it is exactly because this world is passing away that we must take it seriously.
This world isn’t a trial run. It’s not a beta test. We get to do it only once. It is the real preparation of the world to come, and this preparation has an end point that we do not know. And so this waiting isn’t just a test of patience and resolve; it’s a process of transformation, in which we open ourselves, over the course of the Christian year, over the course of a lifetime of Advents, to the life of the new kingdom that Christ brings. We receive the gift of Christ anew each Christmas because, unlike most human gifts, he is the gift that not only keeps giving, but keeps taking. He doesn’t just want you and me from that magical Christmas when you were seven; he wants you and me this Christmas, next Christmas, every day, every hour. We are human beings, not boxes of fudge, and to give ourselves in love for real involves fidelity over time. The sacraments aren’t financial transactions; they are food that nourishes us to grow.
As John the Baptist calls us over the next couple of weeks to new repentance, to a preparation for the Lord’s coming, God help us to heed his warnings and forsake our sins, to “cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light,” judging ourselves as we will one day be judged, so that when the Lord does come—whether at Christmas, or at the end of the world, or even today at this altar—he will find us, as one old prayer says, a mansion prepared for himself. Amen.

The Christmas Gift that Keeps on Taking

One of the banes of modern liturgies is worship songs that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-problem-with-bad-church-music">fail to reflect</a> the beauty and truth of the Faith. In the worst cases, these songs undermine the Faith through dubious if not downright heretical lyrics. The U.S. bishops even have <a href="https://www.usccb.org/resources/Catholic%20Hymnody%20at%20the%20Service%20of%20the%20Church_0.pdf">a document</a> on the subject, “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics.”
<h2>All Are Welcome</h2>
One hymn that serves as an excellent case study in applying the document’s message would be “All Are Welcome” by Marty Haugen, which was at one point <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260195/diocese-bans-all-are-welcome-other-hymns-from-catholic-masses">banned in some dioceses</a>.
Whenever you say “All Are Welcome” is a bad hymn, you get accused of being . . . well, not welcoming. But this song makes it sound as though we are trying to recruit people into our club to boost membership, not call people to repentance to receive the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. Here are some of the lyrics:
Let us build a house
Where love can dwell 
And all can safely live 
A place where 
Saints and children tell 
How hearts learn to forgive
Built of hopes and dreams and visions 
Rock of faith and vault of grace 
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions
The hymn keeps repeating the phrase “let us build a house,” which makes it sound as if we sinners create the Church instead of the Church creating us. The USCCB doctrinal committee agrees with this and calls the hymn objectionable on ecclesiological grounds.
It also makes it sound as though God died on the cross, and now it’s up to us to grow the Church, so we need to make sure everyone feels “welcome”—which, for some people who love this song, means not sharing any teachings on things <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-truth-about-sex">like sexuality</a> that could remind them of sins they must reject because then they might feel unwelcome.
<h2>Bad Hymns and the Eucharist</h2>
But the hymn gets even worse when we get to how it describes the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith:
Let us build a house where love is found 
In water, wine and wheat 
A banquet hall on holy ground 
Where peace and justice meet
The USCCB says, “Someone who sings this song frequently would have a hard time imagining that the Eucharist can be and is worshiped or is in any sense a ‘sacrifice.’” Instead, the song, like many bad hymns, treats the Eucharist as a common meal whose purpose is to gather us into one place, from which we will then go out and do works of social justice or something.
In fact, the most common reason a hymn is theologically bad is because it pushes a false view of the Eucharist. The USCCB doctrinal committee gives three principles to keep hymns from pushing eucharistic heresy:
<ol>
<li>
<blockquote>Language that implies that the elements are still bread and wine after consecration should be avoided.</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Language that implies the bread and wine, still bread and wine, are merely symbols of another reality or person should be avoided.</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Poetic license should conform to customary usage of Scripture and liturgical Tradition. “Bread,” “Bread of Life,” etc. are scriptural synecdoches for the Eucharist itself, and so are permitted.</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
A synecdoche is a figure of speech that uses a part to refer to the whole. For example, if a military officer says, “We have fifty boots on the ground for the mission,” he means there are fifty soldiers for the mission with the boots representing the whole soldier. Likewise, a hymn can in some cases use the word “bread” to refer to the entire reality of the Eucharist, which has only the appearance of bread. However, as the USCCB goes on to say,
<blockquote>“wine” is not used in the same way, and to call the consecrated element “wine” gives the impression that it is still wine. This, in turn, has an impact on the way the word “bread” is heard, so that legitimate uses of the word “bread” are heard differently, not as a synecdoche for the Eucharist as a whole, but as a reference to the element which remains bread. Scripture speaks of the “cup,” not of “wine” (see 1 Cor. 10.16-17).</blockquote>
A few hymns that commit this error include “God Is Here!”, which says, “Here as bread and wine are taken, Christ sustains us as of old,” and “Three Days,” which says, “The dead do not arise, yet he walks among us, and with our own eyes, we’ve seen him at this table, we’ve shared his bread and wine.”
<h2>All Are Welcome, All About Us</h2>
The other common trait in most of these songs is that they are all about us. We are singing about how good we are, how God uses us, or what we want God to do for us, instead of just singing the praises of the Almighty God. “All Are Welcome” puts the emphasis on those of us attending church. This is especially prominent in Haugen’s other well-known hymn, “Gather Us In”:
We are the young, our lives are a mystery 
We are the old who yearn for your face 
We have been sung throughout all of history 
Called to be light to the whole human race
I spend the whole week hearing about the young and the old and all the people of this life who think they’re so important. Is it too much to ask that for one hour a week, I just sing about the greatness of the God, whom our society almost never talks about?
Many bad hymns are essentially humanist tracts dressed up in God language. Their message is that God should just help us be nice to one another and not upset anyone, especially with religious talk.
<h2>Ugly Art Hurts the Faith</h2>
In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkgDoQtRCIA">previous episode</a> on my channel on why <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-death-of-liberal-catholicism">liberals love ugly art</a>, I said it is because ugly art turns us inward to glorify human traits, like subverting expectations, whereas truly beautiful art lifts us up to the divine. The same is true of banal, ugly music: it keeps us focused on ourselves instead of lifting us up to the divine. That’s why the Second Vatican Council said, “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116).
Ironically, worship songs that focus on glorifying God and exhibit the objective traits of beautiful music will be appealing to all people . . . and let them know, as human beings hardwired to pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful, that “all are welcome” in this sacred space.

‘All Are Welcome’ to Avoid This Hymn

How, according to Albert Einstein (and later, Pope Benedict XVI), did science point to a Divine Intelligence who created the universe? And is this claim refuted (or supported) by quantum physics?

Why Einstein Thought Science Disproved Atheism

Cy Kellett engages with Trent Horn as they dive into a thought-provoking discussion about the requirements of Catholic practice and the nature of belief. Charles from Texas shares his unique perspective on faith, blending elements from various religions while expressing admiration for certain Catholic beliefs, like the intercession of saints. Trent responds with clarity, exploring the significance of Church attendance and the richness of Catholic tradition.
Transcript:
Cy: Why are you not a Catholic?
Caller: Pretty much just no time. And you guys require to be in church every single week and certain days throughout the whole year. And I don&#8217;t understand why you would have to have all that to believe in God and to be a part of a church.
Trent: Okay. Charles, can I ask you a question? Do you identify as having religious beliefs right now?
Caller: Well, I was raised. I was raised kind of. I don&#8217;t know. I was raised to believe in God, but I kind of winded off and I was. I&#8217;m kind of a mixture. And I believe in. I believe a lot more than any religion out there because I studied religion for probably 15 years.
Trent: Okay.
Caller: And comes at the conclusion that they&#8217;re all wrong. And I believe in a lot of what Christians believe. I believe a lot of what Wiccans believe, but I also believe a lot of what Catholics believe. Oh, what part of no religion out there.
Trent: Okay, I&#8217;m just curious, Charles, what part of what Catholics believe do you also believe?
Caller: I believe that saints watch over you and you can talk to them and they&#8217;ll talk back to you or whatever. And I believe, you know, I mean, I like the rosary and I believe in. I believe that Mary watches over me because I&#8217;m. And like St. Christopher. I&#8217;m a truck driver.
Trent: Yeah. In all your travels.
Caller: I&#8217;m traveling all the time.
Trent: Yeah. Do you believe that Jesus is doing that same thing? He&#8217;s resurrected in heaven. And that&#8217;s why all those saints can do that, because Jesus is watching over you and cares for you.
Caller: Oh, yeah.
Trent: Okay. So we believe Jesus is in heaven. He&#8217;s risen from the dead. To me. Well, I would just put it this way. If God created us, and he created us to know and love him, what percent of our lives should we be prepared to give him? If God created us, loves us, wants us to be in heaven with him, what percent of our lives should we be prepared to give back to God?
Caller: 90% of it.
Trent: Want to get an A. That is. That is. That is. That is commendable. Good. I personally probably would answer that 100%, because if God gave me everything I have, existence, everything I have in life, I should give him back everything I have.
Now, that doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m going to be in a church for an entire week, praying nonstop. Like, I give back to God by going to work, by providing for my family, by spending time with my kids, by taking out the trash, doing what I have to do. But our life that we give back to God is more than just the work we do in this life.
That&#8217;s why actually one of the Ten Commandments, God gave us one of the commitments like he gave us in the Commandments. Don&#8217;t murder, don&#8217;t steal, don&#8217;t commit adultery, don&#8217;t work on the Sabbath like for Him. It&#8217;s that serious. And it makes sense because God wants us to have a day of rest.
Because if we get consumed with work, we get poured into ourselves and into this life and not realize we have to take time just to give worship to God and recognition to God and say, God, you are great and wonderful and I just want to adore you and thank you and want to become more holy just like you.
And so God wants us to set aside at least one day a week to do that. And at one hour is where not only do we praise and worship God as Catholics, we believe that Jesus is watching over us. We receive him in the Eucharist, that it&#8217;s bread and wine, but it&#8217;s the body and blood of Christ so that Jesus can dwell within our bodies to give us his grace, give us his very life.
So I guess for me, Charles, I know if you&#8217;re a truck driver, you&#8217;re driving a lot, spending nights at truck stops, and it&#8217;s a lot of hard work. But if you have one day off a week, I would just consider stopping by a Catholic church where you&#8217;re driving. You&#8217;re going to come across one somewhere, take some time out of your rig and go sit down in a pew and pray.
And if you&#8217;re there for Mass, that&#8217;d be awesome. And give God that time. Because this reminds me, people who say they don&#8217;t have a lot of time for God. There is a passage in the Gospels, in the Bible where Jesus, he went into the garden of Gethsemane and he prayed before he was crucified. And it&#8217;s called the Agony in the Garden.
And he was praying, understanding everything he was going to go through to die for our sins. But then when he went back to the disciples, this is what Matthew 26:40 says. It says, and he, Jesus came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour?
I think we can give God one hour a week. One hour going to Sunday Mass, worship and praise him. And if you&#8217;re Catholic, in a state of grace to receive him in the Eucharist.
So, you know, I hope you&#8217;ll consider that. And I hope, you know, you&#8217;ll keep driving, keep listening to Catholic Answers and call back again. We&#8217;d love to answer some of your questions, but thanks for calling in. Thanks, Charles.
Cy: Pretty soon we&#8217;ll have books on tape for you. I know that&#8217;s coming soon.
888-31-87884. The number. We&#8217;ll be right back with more &#8220;Why Aren&#8217;t You Catholic?&#8221; on Catholic Answers Live.

I’m Not Catholic Because I Work on Sunday…

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Is the Eucharist idolatry?

<div>How do parishes decide weekend Mass times? Are there any guidelines in canon law or the General Instruction of the Roman Missal?</div><div>Sunday Masses may be any time from 4 p.m. Saturday evening to Sunday before midnight (which sometimes happens at colleges and in Latin countries, where 9 p.m. Sunday Masses are not unheard of). That is the only norm there is, taken from canon 1248, 1 in the Code of Canon Law.  The 4 p.m. vigil time is customary, although there are those who would argue for 3 p.m. All this applies also to holy days that do not fall on Sunday.
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How Are Weekend Mass Times Set?

Luke 1:43, where Elizabeth proclaims Mary as the “Mother of my Lord,” is usually the go-to biblical text for defending Mary “Mother of God.” But did you know there’s another text that we can appeal to?
It’s Galatians 4:4. There, Paul writes, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” The key is that God’s Son is said to be born of a woman.
There are two things to unpack here.
First, assuming we accept early conciliar Christology, like that of the Council of Nicaea, God’s Son, the Word, is divine, and thus is properly called “God.”
Second, any woman who gives birth to a person is a mother to the person to whom she gives birth.
With these two things in place, we can reason as follows:
P1:  Any woman who gives birth to a person is a mother to the person to whom she gives birth.
P2:  Mary gave birth to God’s Son (per Gal. 4:4).
C1:  Therefore, Mary is the mother of God’s Son.
P3:  God’s Son is divine, and thus is properly called “God.”
C2:  Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
With the argument laid out like this, it becomes clear what a person has to deny if he wants to deny Mary as the Mother of God. Such a person would have to deny either premise one, a mother is someone who gives birth to a person; premise two, Mary did not give birth to God’s Son; or premise three, God’s Son is not Divine.
Common sense tells us that we can’t deny premise one. The very definition of a biological mother is someone who gives birth to a person. Mothers don’t give birth to anything else, like a nature or a body. The subject that is birthed is a person.
No Christian can deny premise two without denying an essential truth of the Bible, a truth that Paul makes explicit: “God sent his Son, born of a woman.”
Finally, no Christian can deny the divinity of God’s Son, the Word, lest he cease being a Christian. Recall John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
With a little help of reason to bring to light certain hidden premises, Galatians 4:4 provides a biblical basis for belief that Mary is the Mother of God, thereby providing another arrow in the quiver for hitting the target for this Marian dogma.

When Paul Does Your Homework for You

Is the Trinity explicit in Scripture?

How Exactly Did Jesus Take on a Body?

<div>Can someone go to hell if they don’t partake of the Eucharist? I believe I read somewhere that we need to take it once a year at least. Why? </div><div>Catholics are obliged to receive the Eucharist at least once a year (Code of Canon Law, canon 921 §1-2) to encourage the faithful to live a truly faithful life and benefit from the great sacramental graces of the Eucharist, since we are not supposed to receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin (Code of Canon Law, canon 916).
Regarding whether reception of the Eucharist is necessary for the salvation of souls, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/is-the-eucharist-necessary-for-salvation">please see our previous answer on this subject.</a>
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Why Eucharist at Least Once a Year?

Here at Catholic Answers, we’re used to hearing (and never fail to be cheered by) stories of people turning or returning to the Catholic faith after years of wandering in unbelief or sects. Sometimes these people credit the work of our apostolate as an instrument in their conversion. And we’re used to hearing about people who make the hop from pure secularism to spirituality-without-religiosity. For a recent example, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/red-hot-chili-peppers-flea-reveals-moment-god-made-perfect-sense">bassist Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers,</a> who says he’s “not religious in any way” but does “kind of believe in God . . . like a divine energy.”
Hey, it’s a start. Maybe next he’ll start kind of believing in wearing shirts on stage.
We can get behind any conversion—from the Latin conversio, signifying a “turning around [toward God]”—however hesitating or incremental.
But some such stories do tempt my inner cynic. One is the tale of Sarah Hurwitz, former lead speechwriter for Michelle Obama who was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/02/1184875650/faith-religion-judaism-sarah-hurwitz">recently interviewed for NPR’s “Enlighten Me” series</a> about her return to her “childhood faith” of Judaism.
The general story would not be unfamiliar to many Catholic reverts. After her bat mitzvah at 13, Hurwitz said “thanks but no thanks” to the religion in which she’d been raised and for a couple decades sought, but did not find, spiritual fulfillment in worldly pursuits. Then, by seeming fluke occurrence, she found herself reconnecting with that religion and finding in it a needed feeling of purpose and peace.
Except, to hear her describe it, she didn’t reconnect with Judaism but with an NPR-sanitized version of it.
The first warning buzzer sounds when Hurwitz immediately makes it clear that her re-embrace of Judaism doesn’t involve anything so conventional as theism—“It wasn’t, ‘Oh, there’s a man in the sky taking care of everything.’ Nope.” Rather, it was “the idea of the spark of the divine in all of us.”
Now, in a sense this notion isn’t wholly incompatible with Judaism. After all, the Hebrew scriptures teach that we were created in the divine image. (And Christianity, which came from Judaism, teaches that through Christ we can be re-made in that image—divinized—by participation.) There are strains of a mystical tradition in rabbinic literature. But at root, in a plain, immediate sense, the God of the Jews is pretty darn transcendent. “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one,” goes the famous Shema (Deut. 6:4) at the heart of Jewish belief.
Or, in the words of the venerable “Theology 101” meme, “There is a God, and you are not him.” Historic Judaism is not about us but about God: his power and praiseworthiness, his wisdom, the favor he shows to his people. You can’t have Judaism, in a sense, without the “man in the sky.”
Traditional Judaism is also a religion of law and strict religious duty. But Hurwitz describes her version of it as “one big mindfulness practice” that is “calling you to notice the person in front of us and to respond lovingly and kindly and with generosity.” It’s “crowdsourced wisdom . . . about how to be a good person.” This sounds much less like Judaism and more like the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/cot-29">moral therapeutic deism</a> that has been slowly emerging as our national religion. Less “Law of Moses” and more “Church of Nice.”
I know: it sounds like I’m nitpicking this woman for the flaws in her conversion, and right after I said that conversion is always good even when incomplete! But it strikes me that there’s a difference between being on a journey and switching the street signs. Even imperfect conversion, when authentic, should leave us bound to some divine truth that has convicted us, not filtering that truth into something that works for us. Were a Catholic revert to announce that he had reconnected with the faith of his youth, and say that by that he means some universalist, low-Christology, morally libertine, highly politicized boutique wing of Catholicism, I would have the same reaction.
In fact, Hurwitz seems to recognize this very thing when she counsels her interviewer, who admitted to sampling from a “spiritual buffet,” to stop “picking and choosing the parts that move you and make you feel good” and instead to “step into [a religion] as a complete system.” Hear-hear. By God’s grace may she one day embrace the fullness of Judaism, the religion of God’s intervention in time to save his people, and then, perhaps, its fulfillment in Jesus Christ—the Jewish man who is also God.

Moral Therapeutic Judaism?

<div>Which animals does the Bible say were present at Jesus’ birth?</div><div>The Gospel writers do not directly mention animals present at Jesus&#8217; birth. Artists have inferred from the infancy narratives that there could have been a donkey (for Mary to ride during the journey to Bethlehem, since she was pregnant), oxen (since the Holy Family took shelter in a stable with a manger, which is used for feeding cattle), sheep (under the care of the shepherds), and camels (for the wise men to ride on their journey to visit the child Jesus). If we include the presentation of Christ in the Temple as part of the infancy narratives, then there were also two birds, either turtledoves or pigeons, which Joseph and Mary gave as their offering.
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Animals at the Manger

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Which Church did Christ establish?

<div>Did St. Jerome believe in the Eucharist? "When we hear the word of God, Christ’s body and blood is being poured into our ears." </div><div>What you cite is not actually from St. Jerome but a writing of Church Father Origen that St. Jerome translated. Origen <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/origens-origin">undoubtedly had his doctrinal problems</a>, and yet he also wrote very well on other subjects, including the Eucharist.
In the text you cite, Origen actually affirms the reality of the Eucharist. He does so in comparing how the faithful rightfully respond when a eucharistic crumb falls to the floor by pointing out that they need to have similar reverence when God’s living word is preached to them.
The following excerpt is taken from <a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_20020605.html">Pope John Paul II’s weekly General Audience on June 5, 2002</a>:
<blockquote>Origen, who comments on our Psalm in one of his homilies, translated and disseminated by St. Jerome in the West, actually interweaves the word of God with the Eucharist: &#8220;We read the Holy Scriptures. I believe that the Gospel is the Body of Christ. I believe that the holy Scriptures are his teaching. And when he says: he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood (John 6:53), although these words can also refer to the [eucharistic] mystery, yet the Body and Blood of Christ is truly a word of Scripture, the teaching of God. When we are about to receive the [eucharistic] mystery, if even a tiny crumb falls, we feel lost. When we are listening to God&#8217;s word, when our ears perceive the word of God and the body and blood of Christ, what great danger would we not fall into were we to think about something else?&#8221; (74 Omelie sul Libro dei Salmi [74 Homilies on the Book of Psalms], Milano 1993, pp. 543-544).</blockquote>
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Did Jerome Believe in the Eucharist?

<div>Is the Last Four Things a doctrine of the Church or a catechetical formula?</div><div>&#8220;The Last Four Things&#8221; is simply a popular expression of the final things of human existence. The Last Four Things are death, judgment, heaven, hell.  
Clearly, these are all things that the Church teaches and has doctrines regarding, but this popular general grouping is just that.  
As the <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05528b.htm">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> notes in its entry on eschatology:
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The eschatological summary which speaks of the &#8220;four last things&#8221; (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) is popular rather than scientific. 
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What About the Last Four Things?

Global vs Local Relativism: Is There Absolute Truth?

<div>Why attend Mass if one is in state of mortal sin?</div><div>Missing Mass is itself a sin, so why add another sin on top of the sin(s) already committed? If I am already sick, why would I purposely injure myself further?
Mass involves hearing the word of God, which can help move our hearts to repentance and true conversion which is something someone in mortal sin would need.
The essence of sin is a turning against God or our neighbor. By skipping Mass, we avoid both God and neighbor and solidify ourselves in our sinful state, whereas attending Mass can help begin to heal those relationships.
Attending Mass in a state of sin and being unable to receive Communion is a powerful reminder of the consequences of sin and can move us to repent and avoid sin in the future.
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Attending Mass in Mortal Sin

<div>Can a woman become a Catholic chaplain?</div><div>Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that, in the secular world, the term chaplain is used to describe someone who is in charge at that organization for a particular group&#8217;s spiritual care. In this case, it would be a situation where a layperson would be named &#8220;chaplain&#8221; by the organization itself (e.g., a hospital or prison). A woman can hold the role of a lay Catholic chaplain in such a scenario. However, neither she nor a male lay &#8220;chaplain&#8221; should ever attempt to fulfill a role that simulates the role of Catholic clergy.
No, in the sense that it would not be an official Church position. The Code of Canon Law (can. 564) defines a chaplain as a priest appointed by the local ordinary for the spiritual care of a particular group. It involves the granting of faculties and sacramental responsibility. To hold an official position as a chaplain within the Church, one must be a priest. Not even a deacon may be appointed a chaplain by the bishop.
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