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Why should I believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah? In Judaism, the Messiah has been understood a number of ways, and there is no single understanding of messianic prophecy or what the Messiah will do. Jesus did not wish to be a political revolutionary at his first coming, but the Christian faith holds that he will dramatically reorder world affairs at his second. He has already given us abundant evidence by fulfilling numerous messianic prophecies, both clear and less clear, both inside and …

In 1964, Pope Paul VI issued the Second Vatican Council’s “Decree on Ecumenism,” called Unitatis Redintegratio, which translates from Latin as “The Restoration of Unity.” Right there, we see that the whole notion of denominationalism is wrong. And to their credit, the mostly Protestant thinkers involved in the “Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry” document from the World Council of Churches would agree. As most Christians—not just Roman Catholics&md …

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) devised a way of examining our soul that moved away from looking only at the sinful thoughts, words, and deeds of our day. Ignatius’s introspection begins not with sins but with gratitude and the cataloging of daily blessings.This manner of praying later came to be called an Examination of Consciousness, to distinguish it from what was done before the sacrament of reconciliation. A different contour arises in our souls when we look primarily at the …

The phrase choirs of angels does not mean a number of angels singing, as they did to announce to the shepherds that the Savior had been born. Rather, we will be looking at different groups of angels and the hierarchy among them. The Church has nothing doctrinal, no official teaching, on the specifics of these groups of angels, other than that they exist, as named in the Bible and in Tradition. The Bible gives us the following names of the nine choirs: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Vir …

Church teaching, including Scripture and Tradition, holds that angels are purely spiritual beings. Yet we also believe that they occasionally appear to have physical bodies, as in the Scripture stories: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Angels do not need bodies for their interactions with God and one another; for that matter, they do not need bodies for their usual interactions with us, giving us spirit …