The ability to believe and trust God is a gift, given to us by the Holy Spirit, who uses preaching and the sacraments to give us that faith.

Good works are important in the Christian life, but are a gift from God to us, not us to God.

The Bible presents two, mutually exclusive ways of righteousness—either by perfect obedience or by trusting in a savior.

When we trust Jesus to save us, he willingly takes our sin from us as if it were his own and, in exchange, gives us his perfect obedience as if it were our own.

Heaven is so glorious that it can only be expressed to us through vision and metaphor, but what makes heaven truly wonderful is that we will be with God.

God offers us comfort in death, promising us that in death we will be with our Lord in spirit and, one day, in body as well.

When God forgives our sins, he doesn’t simply forget that they happened, but he marks them legally paid for, so that we can never be judged guilty again.

The communion of the saints refers to the fact that Jesus shares all he gained as our Redeemer with us and calls us, out of that reality, to share the gifts we receive with each other.

When we say “the Holy Catholic Church,” we mean the one universal and invisible church that Christ has called to salvation out of all places, peoples and ages and belong to him for all eternity.

The Holy Spirit is our companion through the Christian life who unites us to Jesus, assures us that we are God’s children, and guarantees us that we will one day be in heaven.