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How can you tell if you have the right understanding—the biblical interpretation, Jesus’ interpretation—of the Eucharist? I’d suggest five things to look for: your beliefs should be strange, sacrificial, serious, sacramental, and shocking. First, as we’ve already seen, the proper Christian understanding of the Eucharist must be strange, and hard to accept. * Even after all of this discussion about John 6, there’s one important dimension that we still haven&rs …

All Christians accept that God is active within creation, within and throughout human history.We believe that God’s greatest and most significant act in history is the Incarnation—in the conception, birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the person of Jesus, the Divine entered history—and entered humanity—by becoming one of us. For Christians, then, history matters. Ours is not a religion based on mythical events that happened in some hazy &ld …

Once we understand Jesus’ words to Peter in the framework of their Jewish background, the meaning of the binding and loosening become clear. The Lutheran professor Tord Fornberg explains that “Peter stands out as a kind of Chief Rabbi, who binds and loosens, in the sense of declaring something to be forbidden or permitted.” In support of this interpretation is the promise Jesus gives with the authority. Not only is Peter given the ability to bind and loosen, but …

In Romans 3:23, St. Paul famously declared, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” and Romans 3:10 adds, “None is righteous, no not one.” In light of these Scripture verses, our Protestant friends will say, Mary couldn’t have been sinless as Catholics believe she was. She must have been a sinner like every other human being, and needed redemptio …

THE PROTESTANT CHALLENGE: How can the Catholic Church teach that some Christians have more authority than others when Scripture says that we’re all one in Christ?  The Catechism teaches that in the Church there are “hierarchy and laity” (873), and that the Lord wills such differences between the members of his body. Paragraphs 874 and 877 speak of the Church as having a “variety of offices” and being …