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The four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are our principal sources of information about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For two thousand years, they have nourished the faith of Christians across the world. In our own, skeptical age, the Gospels still have a unique place. Even those who don’t regard Jesus with the eyes of faith acknowledge that he is the most influential man ever to have lived, having left a major mark on history, culture, and language. There is tremendous confusion about the …

Filling in the Gaps about the Eucharist We read of Jesus instituting the Eucharist in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. John gives us something different, which is not surprising: John wrote his Gospel long after the other three, and he assumes you’ve read them already. His Gospel is meant as a sort of “gap-filler,” covering important moments in the life of Jesus that nobody else had written down yet. He offers us the “t …

As the number of Christian books grew, so did the need for the Catholic Church to discern which were truly authoritative, which were merely helpful, and which were positively harmful. This resulted in a process that gradually clarified which books did and didn’t count as Scripture.The guiding principle for Christians was Jesus Christ himself, so the question became which books he would consider authoritative. Since he presented his ministry as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, this …