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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 …

Let the entire man be seized with fear; let the whole world tremble; let heaven exult when Christ, the Son of the Living God, is on the altar in the hands of the priest.—St. Francis of Assisi A study of the lives of the blessed and canonized stigmatists illustrates some significant differences among them, but it also reveals some remarkable similarities; one of those similarities is an overwhelming devotion to the Eucharist. While this might not be surprising …

The Eucharist: Understanding Through Simple Stories My old pastor gave a homily in which he talked about preparing a girl for First Communion. Her parents had been wondering if she was ready yet, so Father asked her to explain her understanding of the Eucharist. She pointed to the large crucifix in the back of church and said, “That looks like Jesus, but isn’t. The Eucharist doesn’t look like Jesus, but is.” It’s hard to imagine a better or more succinct way o …

Protestant View on Scripture Interpretation Protestants Say: Scripture is self-interpreting; therefore, the believer’s private interpretation is what the Holy Spirit intended. Catholic Response to Self-Interpretation of Scripture The Catholic Response: This assertion is problematic for several reasons. First, the Bible nowhere says it is self-interpreting; rather, it explicitly states or shows that it is not. See for example 2 Chron. 17:7-9; Neh. 8:1-9; Matt. 13:18-23; Luke 24:27, 45; …

The Author in his own words:C.S. Lewis’s Trilemma: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis famously poses a trilemma, sometimes called the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord argument, which works like this: Jesus presents himself as the Messiah, as the Son of God, and even as God. Given this, the three ways we can make sense of him are to conclude that he was delusional (believing he was God when he wasn’t), deceptive (knowing he wasn’t God but duping his followers into believing he w …