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Finding the gospel of Jesus Christ reflected in Mary may help us pursue the unity of spirit and mind that Paul sought: Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that . . . I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents (Phil. 1:27-28). Side by side, of one mind and spirit, let us fight for the Faith against all opposition, testing the spirit of Marian doctr …

My teens always looked forward to the homilies of a particular priest, because he made the truths of Catholicism exciting and substantial. He inspired us to think about our Faith, and one way he did that was through a simple piece of philosophy. He said, “If we want to know what is real and true, we must always ask, ‘What is the nature of a thing?’” Another way to put it would be, “What is this thing and what is it made for?” These questions unlock the force …

“What you people do is child abuse! You should be ashamed of yourselves!” a woman screamed at me while I was engaged in evangelism at a college campus.  I was genuinely confused so I asked her, “What exactly should I be ashamed of?” She fired back, “Hell! Telling little children they might go to hell traumatizes them!”  I’ll admit this scares me! It’s almost too difficult to imagine the possibility of being in agony not just for a while, …

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 …