Dr. Scott Hahn on how the The holy Eucharist made him Catholic!

dr. hunt is currently a professor of theology and scripture at Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio where he has taught since 1990 and is the founder and director of the st. Paul Center for biblical theology and in 2005 he was appointed as the inaugural chair of biblical theology and liturgical proclamation at st. Vincent Seminary in our own Latrobe Pennsylvania and as most of you already know he's also a star on EWTN television network so without further ado I give you the man of the hour dr. Scott Hahn [Music] thank you Father thank you father Peterson thank you brothers and sisters in Christ for joining me this day it is a great joy and honor for me to be able to come out and it's also a great joy but a smaller one to be able to get up at 4:30 in the morning to make it in time to the Pittsburgh Airport to be here I route 22 towards Pittsburgh I grew up in Pittsburgh and so it's always kind of fun like coming home but it was reminding me of another trip I took the Pittsburgh a couple of years ago to visit a friend who was in the hospital but the problem was he was in Mercy Hospital and growing up Protestant in Pittsburgh all I knew was where Presbyterian Hospital was so I went off assuming that I could find it because it was downtown and then I got lost as soon as I arrived I drove around the block two or three times and finally got enough enough courage to do what most of us men find it so hard to do I asked for directions I said where is Mercy Hospital and the the guy looked at me he said you're almost there and I said I realized that but I'm lost he said well just turn down pride and you'll find mercy and I'm thinking smart aleck hippo what's he talking about he walked away and I look up and the street sign reads Pride Avenue and so I turned down pride and sure enough I found mercy I love to reflect upon that because when I got up to father Ronald's room I told him how I found him I had to turn down pride in order to find mercy he looked at me he said Scott that's the story of my life as a priest and I would have to say it's the story of mine as well it always reminds me of another story in fact it's my favorite story in the Bible if you have a Bible turn with me to Luke 24 and if you don't just look on with the Protestant sitting next to you or the convert as the case may be I'm on a campaign to teach cradle Catholics the true meaning of BYOB that's right it's Bible not beer right well even if you don't have a Bible I think you know the story well enough to kind of follow along here are these two men Clovis and his friend and they're walking from Jerusalem on the road to Emmaus and they're walking and they're talking and they're very dejected suddenly a stranger meets up with them and of course we know who it is but they don't they were prevented from recognizing him we read and so he asked them what are you talking about are you the only one who doesn't know about what about Jesus of Nazareth a prophet mighty in word indeed and they go on to describe the events of the last few days how he was arrested he was tried he was executed and we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel besides all this it's the third day and some women from our company came back and told us they'd found the tomb empty so he is going along with them walking on this long winding road I've been on that road it's about a seven mile trip but it's a long and difficult journey so they probably had lots of time and as Jesus is listening as the men described finally he gets a chance to respond and he responds and rather startling terms he he said to them foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things before he entered into his glory and so beginning with Moses in the law and all of the prophets he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself that is a talk I wish I could have heard that as a talk I wish could have been televised and taped and distributed but alas they drew near to the village of Emmaus he was going on they convinced him to stay and join them for a meal and when he was a table with them he does something he actually does four things the four verbs that Luke tells us are familiar he took the bread he blessed it he broke it and then he gave it to them and what happened suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized them at once and suddenly he vanished out of their sight they said to each other did not our hearts burn within us as he opened up the scriptures and they got up a tower and walked all the way back to Jerusalem found the eleven and reported to them what had happened their hearts had been burning within them as he opened up the scriptures but they reported our eyes were opened in what the breaking of the bread that phrase breaking of the bread is a very important phrase because it means more than a meal later on when Luke writes his sequel to the Gospel the book of Acts in Chapter 242 and several other places for example in acts 20 breaking of the bread becomes the formula for describing what the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and so it is that here in Luke 24 we get a sense of what was happening that the scriptures were open the law and the prophets and Christ was showing how it all pointed to him but still for hours presumably they were prevented from recognizing him until what until their eyes were open in the breaking of the bread and if I were to kind of summarize ten years of my life experience I couldn't find a better way than to apply the same story to what I experienced shortly after experience in the grace of conversion I was what you'd call a juvenile delinquent and I don't want to go into the details my mother always appreciates that when I'm quiet about what I did but I got out of juvenile court and very shortly afterwards I I found the Savior I went on a retreat and I heard the most amazing good news I had ever heard in my life this speaker explained that Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay and who wouldn't want a cash-in on that only it wasn't about money it was about the free gift of salvation it was free but it's wasn't cheap it cost our savior's life and so I wanted an exchange and out of gratitude to give our Lord my life and so I did and very soon afterwards I embarked upon scripture study I began just reading it privately and I was told by my youth minister that that is really fine that the private interpretation of the Bible the Holy Spirit moves individuals and so I began reading it but I must admit I got confused because I wasn't exactly sure how best to read it and so when I heard about a Bible study I eagerly enrolled I went every Wednesday night down the street about two miles to a Bible study with about 25 people and we were studying the last book of the Bible the book revelation the prophecy of John concerning the Antichrist the rapture the end of time or so we were told and so we were coming week after week kind of programmed to expect the prophecies to be fulfilled in a matter of days if not weeks maybe months but probably not years and so while we were reading the apocalypse we were also keeping her eyes glued on the TV for the 6 o'clock news and the headlines because we were quite certain that the Antichrist was right around the corner and we wanted to be ready for the rapture we wanted to be taken up to the clouds so we wouldn't have to suffer 7 years of tribulation which was what all the unbelievers would experience because they would be left behind you recognize those words unbelievers left behind including you Catholics I'm sorry to say at least that's what we were taught and so for my own private reading of Scripture I dove into the prophecies of John in the last book of the Bible and after months of this I realized that nothing had happened not that I was eager to see the Antichrist but I was ready for the rapture but none of that happened summer came I to play baseball and to be honest I forgot about the rapture in the Antichrist that fall I I found out about another another Bible study and so a couple of my friends and I would drive down about three four miles and sure enough guess what book in the Bible they were tackling in a different church with a different teacher the same prophecy of John and the apocalypse and so we heard a different take on the Antichrist and the rapture in the Battle of Armageddon in the Second Coming and all the rest and after a couple more months I grew quite honestly discouraged and disenchanted because not only had the prophecies not been fulfilled but I discovered there were serious differences in contradictions between two men who were obviously very spirit-filled and very sincere and yet there they were giving us their private interpretation of the scriptures and they flatly contradicted each other so I moved on I found greener pastures to grazing we call them the four Gospels oh I wanted to read Matthew Mark Luke and John and just go back to the basics and so I did in fact what I decided to do about a year after my conversion was to read through the Bible beginning in Genesis not revelation and and so I did it took about a year but I was enthralled with what I was studying but still confused by what I was reading and so before I graduated way back in 75 I read through it a second time I actually began a third time when I went off after graduation played guitar and a band for three months a tour the thirty-five states in all of Europe and I got music out of my system so I could really get serious about scripture I went off to college to study theology philosophy and since my father was paying tuition I added economics as a third major he wanted something practical and employable at the end but you know but I had a dream come true in those four years because I finally had a chance to study Greek so I could read the New Testament in the original language my friends and I all took beginner Greek after a year they dropped out I went on I ended up taking advanced Greek studying under this Oxford tutor who my fourth and final year turned on me and she said for your senior project I want you to translate the entire book of Revelation twenty-two chapters of some of the hardest Greek and so I went at it week in and week out until finally after months I translated all 22 chapters only to discover that the word Antichrist never appeared a single time in fact the rapture doesn't either even the phrase the Second Coming doesn't occur once in the entire book I didn't understand exactly what it meant but at least I knew what it didn't mean I mean the Battle of Armageddon is only mentioned once near the very end of the book and so all of these sensationalistic private interpretations that promised us that we were the ones lucky enough to be alive at the end of time proved to really be broken promises empty and so I was considering at the time going off to seminary to prepare for ministry I was already falling in love with the most beautiful gal on campus and I decided to do something very daring proposed marriage we were graduating together and so I was hopeful I'd like to say that God sometimes gives sight to the blind and takes it away from those who see because she accepted my proposal we graduated together got married that summer and after our honeymoon honeymoon in Florida we packed up a u-haul and drove off to Boston where we both began a master's program in theology at gordon-conwell seminary which is one of the finest seminaries in the world and there I had a second dream come true because now I could learn Hebrew so I could read the Old Testament in the original language just like I had with the new but I also discovered a much more serious way of studying Scripture because besides private interpretation and prophecy I had learned something else in our youth group and that was called proof texting we had memorized about fifteen or twenty verses of the Bible for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God for God so loved the world that he and all of these other texts these texts we would use in evangelizing unbelievers including you Catholics because we consider all of you to be stuck in superstition stuck in a lot of error that wasn't found in the Bible and so I'd have to say I was very very anti-catholic it wasn't bigotry or prejudice it was actually the result of studying Scripture but also accepting profound distortions of what the Catholic Church actually taught but I didn't know that they were distortions I thought they were an accurate reflection of what in fact Catholics really believed and I have to admit my Catholic friends didn't help a lot because when I would approach them and say where do you find Mary in the Bible where do you find the Eucharist where do you find the Pope you know that shrugged their shoulders and just kind of changed the subject and so proof texting was for me the way that you would reach unbelievers including these Catholics but in seminary we heard a professor say something rather disturbing I think about half of us in that seminar we're a little taken off we were caught off guard because he said and I'll never forget this that a text taken out of context and used as a proof text is a pretext and I thought back to the dozens of verses that I had learned I had memorized I had shared dozens hundreds of times but without ever really looking closely at those texts in context and only in seminar did I discover that we would often import meanings to those texts that would be useful for sharing that weren't necessarily part of the context at all so I was divested of this approach that was rooted in my own private interpretation that would often kind of fixate on prophecy but would always kind of gravitate back to proof texting and so I was wondering well what do you do when it comes to reading the Bible how do you read the text in its context does that just mean backing up a chapter No one of my professors insisted that what it really means is studying any given text in the context of the whole New Testament and he even went so far as to say you gonna have to read the Old Testament because that's what the New Testament writers were immersed in and I'm thinking what a tall order how do you begin because all of my favorite professors world-class scholars not only Bible teachers but preachers who could really make the texts come alive all of them were either Old Testament experts or New Testament specialists so my third and final year I was really delighted to find a group of writers from the early church known as the Fathers of the Church who weren't New Testament specialists or Old Testament experts they seemed to really read the whole Bible whenever they were looking at a given text they would step back and look at in its context I remember for example san agustin looking at Jesus and showing how Paul explains our Lord's redemptive work in terms of Adam's sin said agustin points out that the word in Romans 5 verse 14 describing Adam was type Hass that Adam was a type of him who was to come so for the early church fathers studying the types in the Old Testament that prepared for Jesus in the new was really the key the master key that would unlock all of it and I was curious and so what did that mean well for st. Agustin it was quite clear that Jesus came not only to undo what Adam did but to do what Adam should have done and so agustin opened my eyes to something that I should I should have known I should have seen the connections but I hadn't until the early fathers kind of showed me that just like Adam went to a garden so Jesus went to a garden and just as Adam was tested in the garden so was Jesus tested in the garden the Gethsemane but where as Adam failed miserably by going to the wrong tree and sinning and releasing the curse Jesus of course passes by going to the right tree the cross is called the tree in the New Testament the father's called it the Tree of Life Wow and so he undid what Adam did he did what Adam should have done when Adam sinned he triggered the curse which was what well it was sweat it was thorns it was the dust of death and so st. Agustin showed us that in the garden what the Jesus do he sweat great drops of blood and after his arrest he wore a crown of what thorns that was no accident and then he was delivered to the dust of death naked as it were and so Jesus was bearing the curse of Adam but you really couldn't grasp what the Evangelist were saying no matter how many times I'd read it until you recognize what they were doing they were seeing Adam as a type a type Hoss of Christ who was to come this was called typology the study of how the New Testament is concealed in the old as Agustin said and the Old Testament is revealed and fulfilled in the new and as soon as I discovered this I realized this is what I've been looking for this is not taking texts out of context and using his proof text this is reading the whole context of Scripture but they weren't done I was keeping notes in a notebook really studying not only Agustin but st. John Chrysostom Saint Ephrem st. Jerome st. Cyprian and they were all completely fluent in this way of reading the old and the new they seem to be experts in both but in connecting them as well and another another key event besides creation was the Exodus when Israel came into existence out of Egyptian bondage this was really that this was like the next major mountain peak that the early church fathers drew from in order to explain Jesus I couldn't believe how I knew both sets of stories but I had never seen the convergences or parallels I mean everybody knows that when God sent Jesus he sent he sent us a savior but when Jesus was born the Savior needed to be saved why because of the Imperial decree of Herod that threatened not only the infant Jesus but all of the Hebrew male children there in Bethlehem well for the early fathers this wasn't a first this was a second you go back to the 1400 BC and there you will find God sending a savior to save Israel from Egyptian slavery named Moses but when the Saviour was born the Savior needed to be saved because of the Pharaohs Imperial decree they're not only targeted infant baby Moses but all of the Hebrew male children as well so what did God do well back then he found a man named Joseph who was just who had dreams and so he made provisions for God's family Israel where of all places in Egypt and so the early fathers kind of connected that with a set of dots that there was another man named Saint Joseph who's described as being just who had dreams and who made provisions for Mary and Jesus the Holy Family where of all places in Egypt and so when the Pharaoh died Moses led Israel God's family out of Egypt through the water with the Spirit guiding they went into the desert where he proceeded to fast for 40 days and 40 nights that's what Lent is all about and then suddenly you go back to Matthew's Gospel and when Herod dies what happens the Holy Family is brought out of Egypt Jesus goes through the water of the Jordan the Spirit leads him into the desert where he preceded a fast for forty days and forty nights I knew both sets of stories I just never connected the dots for the early church fathers this was an advanced theological research these were Sunday homilies these were what ordinary Catholics were getting week after week for months for years their whole lifetimes in the first five six seven centuries they were immersed in scriptural preaching that was both the old and the new and I discovered just like Jesus and Adam so with Jesus and Moses there were even more parallels not just the birth and the deliverance from Egypt not just the walking you know going through the water and then being led into the desert fasting for 40 days and 40 nights they just kept coming up with more and more and I just kept keeping track and jotting them down in my notebook I remember another homily where Gustin went on to show how after fasting for 40 days and for forty nights during which time Israel was tested Moses gave them the law Jesus fasting for forty days and forty nights he too was tempted but he passed those tests that Israel had failed and why will I knew why because he quoted the Bible but Agustin pointed out so to the devil but Jesus didn't just quote from the Bible he didn't just take a text out of context Agustin opened my eyes to the fact that Jesus went straight to Deuteronomy chapter 6 through 8 all three times he answered the devil's temptations he quoted from Moses where Moses had corrected Israel for having failed because man doesn't live by bread alone not it's the miracle bread we call manna you live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and you should worship the Lord and him alone not that golden calf you made while I was atop of Sinai and you shall not put the Lord your God to the test Moses said and Jesus quoted especially when the Lord God is in the process of testing you Jesus seemed to know exactly where to go and what to quote and the early church fathers had the New Testament text and the Old Testament context and it was fluent it was something that was so natural it was almost matter-of-fact the way they would preach it and teach it and yet I had straight A's I was about two months away from graduating at the top of my class having studied under specialists in the old and the new with ebrill and Greek and yet these dots were still mostly unconnected for me and for my friends as well I remember sitting down with my with my brother-in-law who's a Baptist minister now and we would talk about this and wonder why we had never really spent much time reading the father's he was busy with a job I had more spare time and so I spent every spare minute reading the father's keeping track of how they would make the Bible come alive even more than my favorite preachers and teachers but I was getting closer to graduation bill had another year left and so I was feeling the pressure because in a matter of weeks I was going to have to get up every Sunday and do what preach and I was hired by Trinity Church in fair fight Virginia and when I sat down with them and they told me what they expected I was told point blank you will preach for at least 30 minutes every Sunday and preferably 45 to 50 and by now you can tell that isn't very difficult for me but I wasn't sure back then exactly what I'd preached but then it occurred to me I've got to keep reading the father's and sharing with my congregation what I'm learning but I was still a three or four weeks away from graduation still reading these sermons still keeping track still finding myself getting excited more and more I remember you know Moses after 40 days of fasting God got the law of God the law of the Covenant on top of Sinai and then agustin points out the obvious I never seen it that after 40 days of fasting during which time Jesus is tested and he succeeds at the end of that he gets the law of the New Covenant just like Moses got the old and he gave it to all of the people and we call it the Sermon on the Mount there's a new mountain there's a new Moses there's a new law there's a new covenant and as he says in Matthew 5:17 the new doesn't abolish the old it fulfills it and it was that pattern of promise and fulfillment that found I just found it so engrossing and then a gust that would go on Jerome to Ephraim I was reading Cyprian and others - I can't even keep track back then and I can't recall exactly who said what but I was just so eager to find more connections that the fathers were showing me that even after Moses got the divine law on top of Sinai he still needed assistance and so he was it was inspired to choose from the 12 tribes 12 Prince's to assist him in governing Israel well when Jesus is done with the Sermon on the Mount and there are thousands of followers what does he do he chooses assistance in how many 12 what a coincidence even told them you'll sit on 12 Thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel you know it reminded me of what Mark Twain once wrote history said does not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme a lot and it was that rhyme scheme that I was hearing for the first time and just seeing the old and the new come together in Christ in a new way in an exciting way so even with the help of the twelve Prince's Moses still found it difficult so on one occasion he appointed seventy elders he anointed them with His Spirit to assist him in the twelve and then the father showed me what I should have seen before but I hadn't that Jesus says the harvest is plentiful the laborers are few so on that occasion what does he do he appoints how many huh seventy additional disciples anointing them with the spirit to assist him in the twelve and proclaiming the gospel and they come back even the demons are subject to us in your name so Jesus is a new Moses this is a new covenant a new law there's a whole new Israel and so as I was following this another sermon explained how even with all of that help Moses grew weary he had to pray we all do so on one occasion he went off and spent a day alone in prayer he climbed a mountain but he took three who were close to him and on one occasion a DAB a by who and his own brother Aaron went up where Moses was in the presence of God and they witnessed the spectacular transformation of Moses face he came back later they encouraged him to put on a veil it was so hard to look upon his bright countenance well what does that remind us of obviously Jesus also had to recharge his batteries he had to spend time in prayer on one occasion he spent the whole day climbed the Mount but he took what three who were closest Peter James and John and they witnessed the Transfiguration and they also happen to witness the appearance of Moses and Elijah the law and the prophets pointing to Jesus Moses gave Israel the law Elijah the greatest of Israel's prophets and the only two men to have fasted for forty days like our Lord so there they are on top of the mountain and st. Jerome pointed out a Gustin also what were they talking about well there is Peter saying let's build tents let's make it a weekend let's just stick around Jesus is like don't mind him you know he doesn't get it but here's Jesus talking to Moses about his departure which was soon to take place in Jerusalem the Greek word for departure used by the Evangelist is Exodus you don't even need one semester of Greek to hear that one you know here is Jesus talking to Moses not about the old exodus from Egypt but about an imminent exodus from Jerusalem that had to get Moses wandering at least that's what I thought I mean who else is Jesus talking to but mister Exodus himself you know and if Moses had bothered the check his notes he would have seen how many parallels and convergences you know he might have said well I I perform signs first before the Exodus and I turned water into blood the water of the Nile the water of the the stone jars in Exodus seven nineteen but a Gustin pointed out that Jesus first sign was what to turn water into wine the water in the stone jars the same term used in Exodus seven for Moses sign now if Moses said well I turn into blood I remember ruining agustin agustin seemed equip well keep your eyes on that wine Jesus is not finished with that yet by the time the new Passover rolls around that wine will be blood and I never thinking whoa wine blood that almost sounds Catholic you know wine is wine you know whoa you know and so while I was trying to recover from that kind of crypto Catholic shock you know I began to bump into more examples of that kind of thing where the early church fathers seemed to interpret the Scriptures in a much deeper and more coherent way but you know as I was getting closer to graduation I noticed two or three other things coming up Catholic and I was a little disturbed but hey it's just too good I'm I'm more Pro Bible than I am anti-catholic so I'm not gonna write them off just yet I remember after graduating packing up a u-haul again moving to Virginia beginning to preach Sunday after Sunday I let it rip I let loose on them when I had been learning myself and within three or four weeks you could see it on their face it was like we've never heard the Bible put this way and I explained it in the first seven centuries they never heard the Bible put any other way it was always the old in the new it wasn't just private interpretation it wasn't just proof texting it wasn't just focusing on the end of time and the book of Revelation it was the old and the new and so as I was trying to stay ahead of the game I was always kind of like a week or two ahead in my research than I was in my preaching but I remember these parallels between Jesus and Moses got a little disturbing I mean I noticed the parallel from Jerome that you know here is Moses multiplying the loaves the manna to feed the multitudes in the wilderness and what is our Lord do he feeds the 5,000 with twelve baskets of leftovers well that signifies that's a symbol of the 12 tribes of Israel and on that occasion the people even recognize this is the Prophet like Anna Moses but on that occasion in John 6 I ran into what felt like a brick wall and I won't go into great detail but if you have a Bible turn with me to John 6 because on that occasion Jesus is saying in effect that Moses gave your father's the manna but I am the true bread that comes down from heaven the bread of life which is given for the life of the world is my flesh whoa verse 51 that seemed a little out of place and not surprisingly in verse 52 the Jews then disputed among himself saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat well that seemed to be a reasonable question because in the Old Testament that was not right that was shocking that was offensive that was contrary to the law of Leviticus little did they know what our Lord was complaining to do with Levitical laws and so here he was speaking in a way that shocked and offended these people who heard him but I'll be honest I must have read that text dozens of times but it never struck me before I was trying to work it out to figure how am I going to preach this in a week or two I was already into John 5 okay how can this man give us his flesh to eat so jesus said to them truly truly I say to you I'm only speaking figuratively well no truly truly I say to you I'm using mere symbolism that's what I had expected was that was a hoping he would say but what he actually said was truly truly I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you here they were taking him literally and he had an opportunity to adjust it and say I'm only speaking figuratively and he could have adjusted he would have if that's all he intended and he should have if he didn't mean it in a plain realistic and literal way and so I'm trying to figure out okay wait a second they just asked you how can you give flesh to eat and you just up the ante you've made it even harder to swallow and then the next verse he eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day a third time my flesh is food indeed my blood is drink indeed a four time he eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him now I heard probably two dozen sermons on what it means to be born again that's what Jesus says in John 3 but he only said at once here in John 6 he said four times my flesh is food my blood is drink eat my flesh drink my blood I'll raise you up with the last day I never heard a single sermon I never even heard a lecture all we were told is this is ritual symbolism and everybody knows that Presbyterians and Baptists and Methodists except those Catholics you know they take it in a kind of superstitious way and I never really wrestled with before I was suddenly forced to and so I did what I was now habituated to do I turn to the fathers for help surely they can help me out on this one but they only made it worse san agustin st. jerome ephraim cyril Cyprian they all seemed to assume that jesus said what he meant he meant what he said and i was trying to figure it out i could really relate to the disciples in verse 60 many of his disciples when they heard it said this is a hard saying who can listen to it they couldn't even put up with him at that point it was not shocking and offensive and so what does Jesus do he goes on to explain you know and I thought well here in verse 63 the flesh availeth nothing it's the spirit that gives life ah that's the proof he's talking about the spirit he's not talking about his flesh but as Saint John Chrysostom said he said four times eat my flesh drink my blood eat my flesh my flesh is food indeed he says the flesh availeth nothing he doesn't say my flesh human flesh doesn't but this flesh of the god man this is the mystery of the Eucharist I even bristled at the word we called it the Lord's Supper we didn't refer to it as the Eucharist what am I gonna do with this you know Augustine to the rescue he says so straightforwardly that you can't understand what Jesus means until you notice when Jesus speaks because in John 6 verse 4 we do John tells us that it was during the Feast of the Passover that all of this takes place it is at the time of the Passover so Gustin says you've got to understand the Passover like Jews did well how true that is because for Jews the Passover is like you know Christmas and Easter and the 4th of July all rolled into one but for me it was still sort of like you know an Old Testament ritual so I read up on it and agustin was preaching up on it and so I just kind of followed along how in Moses brought about the first Passover it was very plain and simple you found a lamb without any blemish and slaughtered it then you sprinkle the blood because bloodshed was essential but the third and final step was the climax you ate the lamb you had it roasted you gathered as a family around the table with your loins girded ready to flee to freedom under the leadership of Moses in Exodus 12 you had to eat the lamb and that communion meal was the climax of the sacrifice because it showed that God the Father was restoring his family and feeding them through the sacrifice and so as I began to sift through it it occurred to me as agustin was preaching this that it wasn't enough to slaughter the lamb it wasn't an for the blood to be shed you had to eat the lamb it was not an option whether you like lamb or not if every member your family voted against it mama just makes them bread in the shape of a lamb you'd have awakened the next morning and the firstborn would be dead you had to eat the lamb and so for a Gustin Jesus is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world and so he has to die his blood must be shed but guess what one more thing remains you have to eat the lamb and so one year from now Agustin explained to me Jesus knew what he'd have to do at his last Passover he'd have to die and shed his blood but he'd have to make provisions for a communion and he did that when he was celebrating the old covenant Passover for the very last time he wasn't simply celebrating it he was fulfilling it as the Lamb of God as the firstborn son who was to take away the sin of the world he was not only celebrating and fulfilling and he was transforming it into the new Passover we call it the Eucharist who maybe you do but I did so for a Gustin eating a mere symbol would never be enough in the old or the new Wow I was wondering what on earth you know I could really relate to in verse 66 after this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with Jesus because one year earlier how is this going to make sense so Jesus turned to the twelve and he says straightforwardly do you also wish to go away he didn't turn and say come on you guys know I'm only speaking figuratively he knows that what he said was potentially as shocking to the twelve as it was to the thousands who departed that day it struck me Jesus was not backing down he must have said what he meant he meant what he said and he would risk even losing the twelve I love Simon's response Lord to whom shall we go it's like we've been thinking about it can you recommend some other rabbi huh and it goes you have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you're the Holy One of God in other words Jesus did not hear Peters say look those outsiders don't comprehend but we're the insiders we do hold still while we chew your arms and legs you know Peter didn't have a clue as to what Jesus meant one year before the ultimate Passover but it was enough for Simon to put his trust in Jesus I assume I trust that you know what you mean and that's good enough for me and I was wondering is that good enough for me I got off the next Sunday and announced from the pulpit that I was going to terminate the series in John's Gospel at the end of chapter 5 I hadn't been there two months and I will I didn't want to be fired you know and we had a baby coming into the five more months and I had a mouth to feed I had a paycheck I I didn't know what to do but I'll be honest I had to admit that the early church was unanimous there was an absolute consensus for the first seven centuries and they all said Jesus said what he meant he meant what he said and in the Holy Eucharist you don't have mere symbolism you have the reality of the Lamb of God this was a new Moses a new Passover a new coven in a way I had never imagined I began looking elsewhere as I began preaching besides John I went to Matthew's Gospel and there in Matthew you not only find Adam and Moses you also find a lot of typology rooted in the kingdom of David and in the son of David Solomon because Jesus is prefigured by Solomon Solomon is the son of David Jesus is called the son of David what did God announce about Solomon I will be his father he will be my son and so here's Solomon the king of Israel like geez the king of kings here's solomon giving wisdom to the gentiles like jesus did as well and so i could see not only in adam at creation and moses of the exodus but solomon with the kingdom prefiguring jesus and so i wasn't a matthew's gospel forgot about john and made all of that come alive and then after a couple of months i got a strange phone call a local seminary would you teach a course for us this fall on the Gospel of John I said what about math you know what we need John and so I came up with an excuse I said you know I would only teach John if all of the seminarians had at least a year of Greek they do well there was my excuse gone out the window so I said okay reluctantly I agreed we got through the first five chapters and then that fateful week I prepare them by photocopying sermons from the fathers that I had been reading months before I photocopied the Greek New Testament so we could deal with the text in the original language the next week we got together and we got down to it for two and a half hours we worked through John six eat my flesh drink my blood we had Presbyterians Baptists Methodists the whole gambit and at the end I asked them if they had read Augusta and the other materials they all had and so I said I want you to spend a week thinking about this then when does Jesus sacrifice really begin is it at Calvary think about that in this hand shuttle but no think about it spend a week oh I hate that when students do this you know like what is it Johnny said it's obvious professor Hahn the sacrifice didn't really begin at Calvary it's a Passover sacrifice is the Lamb it began in the upper room when he was celebrating the Passover and fulfilling it and instituting the Eucharist but that's right you don't need a week okay then think about this when does the Passover really get fulfilled was it when they left the upper room think about that and his hand shut up again I was going to ignore him only he began that groaning and moaning even louder everybody was looking back at him nobody at me I'm like okay what is it John he said this is obvious he said the sacrifice the Passover didn't end when they left the upper room the Passover didn't end until Calvary and I'm like okay you got it two others see it they were all nodding you can see then that the Eucharist and Calvary are one and the same sacrifice and his hand shut up again we were over time at this point I hadn't asked a question I was intent on ignoring him Oh professor hah what was I to do what is it this time he said that's exactly what I learned when I was a kid from the Baltimore Catechism well you know what he was talking about but I didn't I never heard of the Baltimore Catechism I said you mean the Westminster catechism and I assure you that's not what it teaches he said I was raised Catholic and the nuns used the Baltimore Catechism and that's exactly what we learned and I'm like mopping my brown leg I assure you that's not what you learn he said you ought to look into it well I wasn't found me a copy of the Baltimore Catechism he was dead right and I was dead scared I couldn't believe it they had it exactly right the old and the new just like the fathers it creeped me out and yet at the same time I must admit I was excited because I was anti Catholic but I was so much more in love with our Lord in His Word that I would learn yes even from Catholics if I had to but the Baltimore Catechism whoa it was humiliating so I went through the rest of the course in the Gospel of John and we saw how all seven of the Jewish festivals that give you the outline of John's Gospel are fulfilled and they could just see the Liturgy of the old coming alive in a life and death of Jesus but it was the Liturgy of the Eucharist that the early fathers were showing me and them is where the fulfillment really takes place I got a call one evening from the chairman of the board of trustees of the seminary I knew there'd been a board meeting and he asked me out to lunch and he was gonna pay and so I think I'm thinking to myself I'm in trouble you know the word is help you know this guy's a closeted Catholic I'm being outed as it were you know so I get together with this guy named Steve we're at a really swanky restaurant I'm thinking what is this a huge wonderful lunch three-course meal we have dessert I'm thinking it's like the Mafia you know before they rub you out they fatten you up I you know I didn't want to be terminated this way but why not go out in style I thought you know so at the end he turned to me and he said you know we had a board meeting on Wednesday I know he said we had it we had a vote and it was unanimous and I'm thinking unanimous I thought I had at least two supporters on the board they turned on me and he said we discussed the need we have for the Dean a new dean of the seminary we'd like to extend an offer to you to be the Dean of the seminary and I thought it was joking I thought this is sick humor you know I'm like you got to be kidding he said no I'm not kidding and I said I'm I'm not even 27 years old I don't have a doctor II what we talked about that but you're teaching the Scriptures is making you come alive our enrollment is up the students are excited in a way we never seen before I'm like I can understand so my but I mean I would need a PhD to be a Dean he said we talked about that as well I'm like where would I go he said well there's only one doctoral program in all of DC where you can get a PhD in scripture I'm like where is that if it Catholic University and I'm like no I don't want to go there and so I just heard myself say Steve I thank you I can't believe the honor but I have to say no he said would you at least think and pray about I'm like okay no I can't explain why but I think I know I have to decline the offer when I went home Kimberly who expected me to get fired was praying for me she was waiting at the front door when I walked in she braved herself what did what did he say when I told her that he had extended the opportunity to be you know inviting me to be Dean she was delighted what did you say any when I told her I had to climb the offer I thought she was gonna slug me you said what why and I said because right now I don't know what to teach it keeps coming up Catholic and I someday I'm gonna have to stand before Jesus and give an account for what I taught the people he suffered and died for and I won't be able to hide behind my professors and say I just taught my students what I learned when I was a student and right now I don't know what I'm gonna tell our Lord I don't know what to teaches people and instead of slugging me she came over and gave give me a big hug and she said I respect your integrity but what does this mean well within less than two months I had resigned from the past I had stepped away from the seminary we packed up a u-haul we moved back to the college town where we had first met and fallen in love to make a long story short of landed a job in the administration for two years I worked 9:00 to 5:00 and left all my evenings free after dinner we'd play with the now two kids we had and and then from about 8:30 p.m. until about 1:30 p.m. I began a study program for more than two years were systematically read through about 300 books by authors whose names I never heard of before though I graduated with straight A's von Balthasar Daniel Lu Doo Lu Bakken guard Gehrig you LeGrande Schaben and others all of these catholic authors of the 20th century seemed to read the old and the new like the fathers they seemed to apply it to the Eucharist like the father's they seemed to see that the Scriptures home is in the liturgy they seem to see that Christ is a new Adam a new Moses a new Solomon and this was sort of like matter-of-fact and I didn't even hear this from the best and the brightest of my professors and preachers after 2 years I began to think the Presbyterian Church is not my home forever I've got to find something that is that has tradition that has liturgy one night I came out and I read a passage from Father Louie buiiets book on the spirit and forms of Protestant camera it was like that's amazing that just sounds like you're preaching a year ago I miss your sermons I'm like well thank you but this is from a Catholic priest about the Bible and the liturgy I feel as though God is asking me to consider joining a church with a liturgical tradition like the Episcopalians her eyes got wide she's like Episcopal Scott I remind you I was born and raised to Presbyterian my dad's a Presbyterian minister my uncle and so is my husband burst into tears and I went 200 she's pushing me away I'm like whoa I'm not gonna do that again you know well several months went by I forgot the lesson I was reading the vac that was reading the documents of Vatican two I was so caught off guard I was swept off my feet this document lumen gentium on the church I came out and began reading it to Kimberly she's like that's that's like you're preaching I oh not this again and like just name the author you've got your master's in theology guess what I'm reading from and she does I'm sure you'll tell me and I said this is from the documents of Vatican to Kimberly I feel like God is asking me if I'd be open to the possibility of becoming Catholic someday she looked at me dead serious she could couldn't we be Episcopalians at that point I knew this is really tearing us apart it was breaking her heart so when I told her that I had applied to Marquette and Notre Dame for the doctoral program she was supportive I got a full scholarship to both I chose Marquette we packed up a u-haul again and moved to Milwaukee but not before she extracted the promise for me at least five years you won't do anything rash for you might know of course I've got to do it I've got to make it look intellectually respectable you know so 85 90 at the earliest then maybe then I'll become a Catholic and so it was all theoretically possible hypothetical but again to fast forward to make a long story short I found myself in the fall semester of 85 immersed in doctoral coursework with the early church fathers the ancient liturgy it was amazing all of them the eastern fathers the Western Latin fathers the Syriac fathers the new Adam the new Moses the new David that the church is a whole new humanity it is the new Israel the Eucharist is the new Passover the church is the new kingdom with Jesus as the new Solomon raining from the I mean I was so amazed at how they could make so much a scripture really coherent profound I began to wonder how much if any of this is still left in the Catholic Mass I had never gone I never wanted to go we considered it a desolating sacrilege to recruit I Jesus the way you Catholics claim little did I know that was not what the church has ever taught but Lorraine Buettner and this book that I had read way back in high school had assured me that that's exactly what the mass was it was sacrilege scree crucifying Jesus so you know I didn't want to go but now I was wondering how much if any of this is still around so in the in the winter in the spring semester of 86 I got a campus bulletin and I noticed there was a weekday Mass in a basement chapel and again to make a long story short I didn't tell a soul but I thought that's so safe who would notice me a couple of old nuns so right before noon I out of my office down the stairs and I took up a position in the back pew expecting to be alone with a couple of nuns housewives with their kids for the lunch business men were coming in 30 40 50 people were there and then a bell rang a priest came out everybody stood except for me the the Protestant in the back I was just kind of jotting observations and as the mass began immediately was struck me was this is just what Justin Martyr and Hippolytus and the Liturgy of Saint Mark had shown me you have the opening right followed by the penitential right and the assurance of mercy and forgiveness and then suddenly Elector got up and read from the Bible from the Old Testament I hadn't heard the Old Testament read in our church in almost two years and then a second reading in a weekday Mass and it too was taken from the Old Testament The Book of Psalms and then everybody stood up and I heard the gospel I was sitting there thinking why are Catholics the ones standing out of reverence for the gospel how come we never heard of that before and as I listened to the gospel it struck me this is what a Gustin used to do he'd find in some Old Testament text the terms the words the promises that Jesus is talking about fulfilling in the Gospels this is a perfect match and then they sat down and listened to a homily that was over in less than two minutes leaving at least me feeling very underwhelmed I mean I could take it from here father I could show get what the early fathers would have done with that I didn't think that was appropriate and then all the action shifted away from the pulpit or the Ambo to the altar and then I realized this is a perfect match I've just sat through the Liturgy of the word the synaxis of the ancient church and now what was about to unfold as the Liturgy of the Eucharist and as I sat there listening to the Eucharistic preface and then the prayer and I heard a Catholic priest pronounced the words of consecration for the first time in my life he said this is my body and when he elevated the host it was like all of the doubts were just draining out of my heart in my mind I was at the edge of the Pew whispering under my breath my Lord and my god it's you isn't it that's you I felt like doubting Thomas and when he consecrated the chalice I found myself literally you know drooling with this holy thirst for Christ's body and blood wondering what is going on here well I was trying to sort it all out the people began chanting on cue Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world a mercy on us then a second time Lamb of God then a third time Lamb of God they dropped to their knees the priest elevated the host and a fourth time I'm hearing behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and suddenly a light came on and I turned to the back of the Bible I looked down on the pages of the book of Revelation where I knew from years of reading Jesus called many things Lord of lords King of Kings but the one thing he's called there more than all the other titles is Lamb of God Lamb of God Lamb of God in 28 verses in just 22 chapters and nobody had ever explained to me why is that the all-encompassing title for Jesus no other New Testament writer calls him Lamb except John and nobody had ever explained to me why and I'm looking at it trying to figure it out Lamb of God they're going forward to receive Holy Communion I'm turning the pages and I look down i read holy holy holy Lord God of power and mine you must have memorized Revelation for verse eight but it wasn't approved text taken out of context because as I'm looking at holy holy holy I'm seeing Lamb of God I'm seeing these presbytery white vestments where Jesus is standing and they're singing the same songs there's the Amen the Alleluia the holy holy holy the Agnus Dei the Lamb of God suddenly I'm realizing that the text of Revelation that I had struggled with for so long trying to find the Antichrist trying to find the rapture or the second coming as I'm turning the pages and all of you Catholics are coming back from Communion and kneeling I'm seeing more and more of the liturgy that I just experienced for the first time in my life not only the Amen the Alleluia the Gloria the holy holy holy the Lamb of God the white robe vestments there are candles up there like down here in the basement and then I noticed that there was also a book just like the just like the let you know that lectionary up there and it was open and proclaimed and then whoa John describes an altar up in heaven the New Jerusalem where Jesus is standing as the high priest and there are chalices there huh and John describes how they contain wine but when they're poured out they'd become blood does that either sound vaguely familiar to you have you gone anywhere you know you have white robe vestments candles and altars and books and chalices and you hear the Amen the Alleluia the glory of the Benedictus and the holy holy holy I've never been to Mass and suddenly I was trying to figure out where I was was I in a basement chapel or in the heavenly Jerusalem and then it occurred to me see both a and B are true I'm in a basement Chapel but we've been lifted up to heaven I'd heard them say lift up your hearts we lift them up to the Lord and I'm looking down in Revelation 3 and I'm seeing the spirit being sent by Jesus to lift John up from the island of Patmos where it was exiled all by himself so that he could take in the worship of the angels and saints and Jesus said write it down take it back and have them read it and by the time that people were leaving after mass was over I was so stunned I couldn't budge for almost an hour i sat there stunned I finally got up I went home I was gonna tell Kimberly you'll never guess where I've been you'll never guess what I've just seen you'll never guess what book of the Bible now makes sense she'd kill me so I went I got through dinner we got the kids down I went up to my study in the Attic I got out the Greek Book of Revelation I got out the English I got out the the early fathers and until almost 3:00 a.m. I read that entire book and it felt like the first time suddenly I realized well I'd always known the book revelation is divided into two halves everybody knows 1 2 11 12 to 22 but I never noticed until that night around 1 a.m. that in the first half of the book revelation all the action revolves around a book that is open and proclaimed as having been fulfilled by the Lamb followed by the prayers of the faithful including the martyrs who had died on earth they were alive in heaven somehow I'd overlooked that they're praying for us God is hearing them sending us help to deliver us all the action revolves around a book that's proclaimed and then the prayers the faithful and then in the second half the apocalypse in John's visions all the action shifts to an altar up in heaven where Jesus stands wearing the white vestment of the high priest with the the seven golden lampstands the menorah in the heavenly Jerusalem the seven chalices that contain wine they're poured out his blood and then at the climax of the second half the angel invites John to and all the faithful to the marriage supper of the lamb the marriage supper of the Lamb who's getting married well we know who the bridegroom is it's our Lord Jesus but who is Christ bride the church and that night had occurred to me you know when I got married I could have said the kimberlyn on her honeymoon what I'd heard that priests say earlier this is my body which is given for you Jesus was speaking through the priests to the church as his bride giving us his own body and blood to renew the new covenant the marital bond with his bride and this was the climax of the second half of the Apocalypse just as Holy Communion was the climax I found in Agustin that night the phrase marriage supper of the Lamb which I'd always taken to be a futuristic description of the end of time he said it's that but even more it's just as much a Eucharistic fulfillment every Lord's Day and he explains that John was in the Lord's Day he was in the spirit on the Lord's Day when he had all these visions that night I read in revelation 1:3 Jesus saying blessed is he who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it read now as Jesus blessing the literate and the illiterate know he was blessing the Lecter and the congregation assembled to hear it read where did Jesus intend to have all of these visions read in the context of the Eucharistic liturgy of the first century where all of these visions would come true we're in the spirit we be lifted up to heaven heaven would come down to earth the same songs that the angels and saints are singing we're singing the same prayers the same sacrifice the lamb you'll never guess where I was the next day before noon I still couldn't crack the code of your little missile let but I didn't need one I had the apocalypse you know I follow it along that day the second mass it was so cool by the time I was over by the time it was done it occurred to me these Catholics I tell you you know the fact is we all want to go to heaven don't we we just don't want to die first but what struck me is that you Catholics don't need to die in order to go to heaven all you've got to do is go to Mass and heaven is where you are where you are the angels and saints are who were with our songs our prayers and our sacrifice are the exact same Jesus gave these visions to John and had him take it back not just for a Wednesday night Bible study not just for my private interpretation not just for proof texts but for the context of the Old Covenant Passover fulfilled by the Lamb of God but that fulfillment didn't end in the first century it's going on in the 21st century in the mass through the Eucharist every bit as much and I was going back to Mass secretly day after day for two three weeks falling head-over-heels in love with my Savior in a way I never knew before wondering how am I gonna make it to 1990 I mean that was four years off I finally had enough nerve to tell Kimberly she was upset as I expected I set up an appointment with a local Monsignor brusca which he's now the bishop in Lincoln Nebraska we sat down we talked about all kinds of things especially the apocalypse I said how do you interpret the book revelation he said not like you I suspect as a Protestant like try me he said well for us it's not just futuristic the end of time it's also Eucharistic because we go to heaven and the mass I'm like where'd you find that is well I you know the book of Revelation like yeah and in the early fathers and he said but it's funny because this morning in my my morning devotional reading by Pius parsh here look at this and I read it in Revelation 4 the morning devotional reading was you know that John is describing the heavily liturgy just as it takes place on earth as it is in heaven then in every mass every Catholic goes to heaven whether they know it or not I just reinvented the wheel I'd handed ahead of the book back to Monsignor I left thinking how is it that I tried for years to read the book of Revelation to make sense out of the visions of John in terms the Antichrist the rapture the second common and yet those words aren't used and yet the only thing that you will find on every page of the apocalypse is what the Liturgy on earth as it is in heaven experienced by John in heaven as it was on earth and so it occurred to me that the liturgy is the context in which we read the scriptures and that's when I was reminded of that story because for over a decade I had what you could call a great case of spiritual heartburn I have been reading the old and the new for years trying to get my mind around it my heart was burning within me but then suddenly what my eyes were open in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread just like those two disciples it also occurred to me that's probably why Jesus suddenly disappeared he wasn't playing hide-and-go-seek now you see me now you don't once the faith of those two disciples grasped the real presence of Jesus Christ resurrect the glorified body in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread his visible presence was no longer needed his physical body would have become an impediment to the to faith growing the whole point of the Scriptures I found the old coven is fulfilled by Christ in the new but the fulfillment doesn't end back in the first century through the Eucharistic liturgy it is continuing down to the 21st century all over the earth as it is in heaven with the angels and the Saints and the martyrs and the ordinary Catholics who come prepared or not who might be bored half asleep with stinky perfume that distracts us it just occurred to me it doesn't really matter whether people don't you know I'm thinking to myself as after attending Mass secretly for a month Jesus Christ has been here all along I just didn't see him suddenly the Scriptures are now coming alive my eyes are opened but it doesn't make Jesus real presence any more real than it already was it just made it my more meaningful to me not believing it before didn't make it any less real it just disconnected me from the powerful and profound fulfillment of the scriptures in the New Covenant Passover we call the Eucharist by then I had to finally ask Kimberly do I really have to wait until 1990 she said you promised I said one night I know but would you pray about releasing me from the promise she said would I pray about it that's clever I'm like well she said no and she walked the way later that night she came back you know what I prayed about it and I'm open to the possibility of releasing you from the promise but why should I said because Kimberly it's coming true I know it's real for me to delay obedience to what I know is real feels more like disobedience everyday and she's looking she that's clever too you know so I told her and she said okay but when can you be when are you thinking about becoming a Catholic I said this Easter Monsignor will receive me into the church he said that that's less than a month I said that's right she looked at me and she said well I'm coming I want it I want to be there and see what they're gonna do to you like a car washer well yeah I wasn't sure what and so I spent the next several days giving her this crash course trying to help her cram for the Easter Vigil there's gonna be the old and the new right yeah Catholics read the old like yeah and so I told her about the Eucharist and I told her about the father's and she just could she couldn't handle that much I I went into the apocalypse and that was it I mean come on the book of Revelation what does that have to do with the mass well to make a long story short Easter Vigil came and I thought I was ready but I want I never been to the vigil mass I thought there might be one or two Old Testament texts that were read we sat there with candles in total darkness there were seven Old Testament passages read interspersed with a psalm after each one and they were all interconnected it was all typological from creation through the exodus to the kingdom and Christ fulfilling it as a new Adam a new Moses a new Solomon by the time the Gospels read on the homily was preached Monsignor went to town for not two minutes but like 2025 minutes that went by like two minutes company was holding my hands squeezing tighter and tighter I wasn't sure if he had offended her I'm like what is it she goes this is amazing I've never heard so much scripture this is beautiful like see I told you this is one oh the liturgy makes the scripture come alive even for people who weren't ready like she wasn't but even more the Scriptures illuminate the mystery of the sacraments that constitute our liturgy and so when I went forward to receive Holy Communion and I came back I gave thanks it was hard because Kimberly was already crying at that point I I prayed to Christ for her sake and I felt I'm saying you can't love her as much as she needs you to without these sacraments I love her more than you ever will but I want to give you this grace and I'm thinking Lord you're gonna have to tell her that she'll think that's clever just like all the other things I've been telling her well again to make a long story short about a month later I convinced her to have a Bible study in our home through Catholics do that like oh yeah she never heard of it I mean her Catholic friends were like mine in high school you know my Catholic friends were the only guys who could consistently out swear out drink and all I didn't know any devout Catholics much less them went to the Bible studies so we had about 12 undergraduates coming every Saturday afternoon to our living room which was directly connected to the kitchen and it was at 4 p.m. because I knew she would be in the kitchen getting dinner ready you'll never guess what book of the Bible we tackle first the book revelation and after a couple weeks she goes like they don't know their Bible I'm like yeah that's true but after 5 or 6 weeks I said do you notice anything about these kids they're so excited I'm like about what the book of Revelation and you know why she's like because it makes more sense for them than it did for us but it didn't fair we had the menu they have the meal I never thinking that is so right for years we study the menu we were memorizing the recipe with all the ingredients well you Catholics enjoyed the meal and she said boy I sure hope that you help these cradle Catholics get to know the menu better how much more they'll get out of the meal well I think God has an incredible sense of humor because when 1990 finally rolled around guess who decided God was calling her to become a Catholic yeah yeah Kimberly's impatient husband he just couldn't wait but that year Kimberly came into the church and we had the most glorious reunion together as a family and as a married couple and we're celebrating our 21st anniversary mine [Applause] but I'll be honest it really feels like you know a year ago it just doesn't get all its ever ancient and ever knew as a Gustin once put it but I want to conclude by challenging you all of you whether your cradle Catholics converts fallen away Catholics non-catholic Christians to get to know Jesus Christ the word incarnate but to get to know him by reading and studying the word inspired but not simply through private interpretation or proof texts are trying to figure out all the prophecies but discovering that the Scriptures were collected in the third and fourth centuries by the bishops who were celebrating the sacraments and the liturgy is the early church the scripture is a liturgical book and the Eucharistic liturgy is a scriptural act nothing you do will be more saturated with the old and the new every Sunday than the mass and let's face it the the only thing every Catholic is obligated to attend every week every year throughout your whole lives is what it isn't football it you know it isn't theatre it you know it's the mass every sunday of our lives from childhood through adulthood to old age and the only book that will be read and every single mass is one it isn't the imitation of christ as good as it is it isn't the latest papal encyclical as rich as that might be it'll be the Bible and it will always be the old and the new hearing the promises fulfilled by Christ in the new and the fulfillment is going on in every single Eucharist our hearts ought to be burning within us we ought to be preparing ourselves and our loved ones but we also ought to prepare ourselves for our eyes to be opened in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread the fulfillment of the old by Christ and the new is going on right now every bit as much as it did back down the liturgy is what prevents us for becoming spectators in the liturgy we are participants in the dramatic work of God our Father who is fathering his family through Christ his son our oldest brother in the power of the Spirit it is the Holy Spirit's work not the priest to transform bread and wine into a fulfillment of what Christ promised if only we have enough faith to take God at His Word and we see him keeping his word in every mass we're not out to win arguments with non Catholics we're out to show our brothers and sisters in Christ for whom Christ suffered and died who often served Jesus more generously than we do who studied the Bible more assiduously than many of us we're out to win out arguments but we're out to show them where it is that they can find the Jesus Christ that they love and serve in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread and I tell you when they come home it's fun to watch 14 years ago and I'll promise to conclude with this I was giving a talk one of the first times I shared about Scripture and the mass and it was a good-sized group in Cleveland but in the front row there was a disturbing sight a classmate from seminary was sitting there with his arms folded and this smug expression like I can't believe you lost your faith or your mind or whatever you know I went through the first talk and he came up afterwards and said I came for a laugh but I'll stick around for the second after the second talk he said you have a minute we went on a walk we walked around the block a second a third a fourth time he was pouring on his heart he's like I can't believe how exciting the scripture was in these last two hours you're really dead serious about this Catholic stuff you were more anti-catholic than anybody else in seminary and then he called me about three weeks later and he kept calling and within one year's time he had resigned from his Presbyterian Church as a pastor he was unemployed he moved down to Steubenville looking for work we found him some but it was a trauma for him as it had been for me after about six months mark said to me we've got to set up a support group in case this happens to others and we did Kimberly and I worked with mark and we set up a support group we called it the coming home network back around 93 just to help others wondering if the Holy Spirit might lead other pastors and missionaries and now we have you know 13 14 15 years later we have over 800 Protestant pastors and missionaries who have come home this is Marcus Grodi this is the coming home Network and all of them all of them testified at the same thing how much they love Jesus Christ as their Savior how much they enjoy Scripture but how it all came to a level of fulfillment that surpassed their wildest dreams and overcame their deepest prejudices in the Holy Eucharist and that's the meal this is the menu and it's time we get serious about reconnecting them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Almighty God our Heavenly Father we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ your eternal son you have given us your word and that word became flesh and dwelt among us suffered and died for us rose again and ascended and was enthroned on high where he sits now at your right hand in glory and yet that glorious son of yours comes to us in that glory hidden under the appearance of bread and wine through the power of the Spirit and Lord what an amazingly glorious gift this is forgive us O God for the times that we have taken such grace for granted and help us to make up for lost time help us to take you at your word and really get the know the inspired Word and to come to a deeper bond and more intimate friendship a covenant communion with your Incarnate Word our eternal Savior he has paid a debt he didn't know because we owe two debt we couldn't pay and we thank you for inviting us to the treasure of this banquet in every mass pour out your spirit upon us enlighten our minds and Kindle our hearts and help us and hear us as we pray that family prayer that Jesus taught us our Father who art hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil oh man hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed the fruit Jesus holy Mary pray for the sinners now and at the hour of our Saint Maria Goretti breakfast the name of the Father the Son of the Holy Spirit oh man you know what I realized now I went a little over and I didn't even finish if I had time which I don't but if I did I would have gotten into the new lectionary that came out in 1970 we're reading more scripture now than we have but we're doing it just like they did in the first seven centuries in 1970 after Vatican 2 the revised lectionary came out the amount of Scripture read in the mass almost quadrupled every part of the scriptures every period of salvation history and it's all deliberately and strategically coordinated to hear the promises and the old fulfilled by Jesus in the new and I had an explanation of how it's all broken down but I just got caught up and I apologize but let me just say that all of this is available in a couple of books one is called the lamb supper the mass is heaven on earth you've read it and enjoyed it thanks be to God I this is really one of the answers to many of our prayers I've told a few of you that after it came out I was stopped at the Philadelphia Airport by a little boy said are you dr. Hahn I'm like yes he said you write the Lambs supper I'm like I did and did you read it he said two times and I said how old are you eleven and a half and I wanted to hug him but I wasn't sure whether to believe him you know suddenly his father stood up and spoke out spoke up for him he said he did he read it twice and then he got me to read it and we've been going to daily Mass ever since father and son and I just looked at him I said thanks be to God that is the answer to all of our prayers to raise up a whole generation of Catholics who love the Bible and who see Christ in the Holy Eucharist and so I just want to give God the credit for that but I also wanted to mention that there's a new book out it's been out almost a year now it's a sequel to the lamb Shepard picks up where it leaves off it's called letter and spirit from written text to living word in the liturgy where I explain how the liturgy is the most scripturally soaked experience you will find and how the scripture is soaked all the way through with liturgy from the Divine Sabbath in Genesis 1 and 2 to the supper of the Lamb and revelation and every time God appears into something great it's always in the context of God's people worshiping in the liturgy I really hope this can pick up where the lamb supper leaves off to prepare your hearts and your loved ones for each Mass better and better I also wanted to mention another book that I just finished recently called understanding the scriptures it was originally designed as a high school text archbishop Chaput wrote the foreword he'd asked me to write the book he had indicated that there hadn't been a reliable text in scripture for high school cath catholic high schoolers for four decades I I couldn't believe it but I checked into and he was right so I went to work a year later I sent off the manuscript and I wondered why are they taking forever and then suddenly they sent me this incredibly beautiful hardbound book with all of this beautiful artwork photography maps charts and diagrams and I couldn't believe the job that they had done and they kept it under $50 and you know I I was stopped on the streets in Steubenville by this guy named Mike he said what are you doing with our book there mister ha and I'm like what do you mean your book he said well that's our book I'm like why I wrote it he said you wrote that like yeah he's like I got to tell my friends me and my friends were just talking about how it's like the first book that makes the Bible really exciting and our our faith like comes alive and like oh thank you thanks be to God you know I got to tell you the in less than two years we thought that the first print run of 10000 would last year didn't quite make it a month we had no idea what an appetite what a longing there was not just in the high schools but an adult education individual study group study as well it's now I just heard last week it's in 35 percent of the Catholic high schools in the u.s. it's part of a four-year series the publisher is still trying to keep up with the demand you can't get it on Amazon new copies in the bookstore we do have some copies and I apologize for not sending enough for a group - sighs I didn't just I just didn't realize how many there'd be but I would say if you if you buy if you order one today and just to pay a couple of dollars for postage I'll be sure to sign them and send them off next week too if you're interested for your cells or for your loved ones or whoever it's just a great honor and privilege for me to be able to share this to have discovered it and then to be able to you know share it with you because however much you enjoy this I tell you I have more fun than all of you put together we're going to take a break for like five or ten minutes I apologize for going over I'll stick better to the time next next talk but we'll gather here in like five or ten minutes and god bless you you

Channel: The Catholicity Channel

Views: 379,585

Rating: 4.8171721 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Scott Hahn on how the The holy Eucharist made him Catholic!, Scott hahn, Scott hahn conversion, catholic teaching, apoligetics

Id: 67WmIGLPvEM

Length: 84min 34sec (5074 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 16 2017