Dr. Scott Hahn talks about the Early Church and the Eucharist

talk about a new book that has been recently released entitled consuming the word the New Testament and the Eucharist in the early church and Here I am alone but I also assume that there are other people all of you out there and I'm going to be taking your questions but for the first 15 or 20 minutes or so what I'd like to do is to talk about the book and the kind of contextualizing against the other titles that I have done and cover some of the main points but then in a in a little bit I'd like to also begin answering some of your questions so the first thing I'd like to do is just to explain a little bit about this book called consuming the word the New Testament and the Eucharist in the early church it's my twelfth book with Random House Doubleday image and I'm really grateful for that because going back about 15 years ago I wrote my very first book called the lamb supper the mass as heaven on earth and in that book I tried to tie together two things that I'm also uniting here in that is Sacred Scripture and our liturgical worship or more specifically the New Testament as the fulfillment of the old and then the Holy Eucharist as the context in which that fulfillment occurs so it's not just back in the first century that Christ fulfilled it it's in the 21st century still that through the power of the Holy Spirit this fulfillment continues in our own life experience in our own life together when we gather to assemble and worship but consuming the word is different than the lamb supper the lamb supper I wrote primarily for Catholic readers whereas consuming the word is for Catholic and non-catholic readers and the reason why I did that is because over the course of the last five or ten years I've had a lot of conversations in the context of friendship but in particular I was teaching at st. Vincent's seminary for about six years driving back and forth from Steubenville Ohio to Latrobe Pennsylvania and reconnecting with an old friend of mine from high school and it's interesting because well let me just take a step back and uh and situate this because a few years ago I was in an airport which I'm I'm off in an airport I ran into a fella who recognized me and we started talking and I thought well maybe he's singing at EWTN or whatever and then suddenly I realized no we graduated from high school together back in 1975 and Chris was sort of eager to tell me something that had changed since then and that was he was no longer a cradle Catholic he explained to me Scott I've been looking forward to the day when I could tell you I am now an evangelical Bible Christian and I said to Chris well I'm now an evangelical Bible Catholic Christian and that he was rather shocked and after we exchanged greetings and all of that we ended up reconnecting on the phone for the course of well actually for several months we ended up having conversations that I would have while I was driving to seminary when I was driving to st. Vincent's in Latrobe I was about an hour and 20 minute drive and for at least an hour each week Chris and I would connect and he was sort of eager to turn the cafeteria tables around on me so to speak but asking me the questions I used to put to him and to his fellow Catholic friends back in upper st. Clair high school one question in particular I remember he kind of threw at me he said okay Scott we're in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the mass he said because what I'm now convinced of is what you used to show me and that is the mass is a meal the sacrifice is what happened to Jesus on Calvary so how do you answer that now that you're an evangelical Bible Catholic Christian and I said well the first thing Chris is to recognize our common ground because as Christians whether we're Catholic or Protestant we share so much more in common than where we differ you know sometimes we tend to fixate on our our differences and forget the fact that we have about at least 80 to 90 percent of our faith in common I said so first of all let's affirm what we share and that is what happened to Jesus on Good Friday at Calvary was in fact the sacrifice and he looked at me and he said Hugh you know I thought there for a minute you really were a Catholic wait a minute now I am but I mean this is something that Catholics and Protestants affirm that the sacrifice of Christ it really is consummated on Calvary on Good Friday but I said the second thing I'd like to show you is sort of what the early church fathers showed me and that is if we had been there at Calvary on Good Friday witnessing the crucifixion has developed Jews that have been following Jesus over the last you know two or three years we would not have gone home that evening and recounted to our family members and friends that what we had witnessed was a sacrifice and he asked me why so well for one simple reason because as devout Jews we would know that a sacrifice can only take place inside of Jerusalem inside the Jerusalem Temple on top of an altar where a Levitical priest would be standing there ready to preside at the liturgy of sacrifice whereas Jesus was crucified outside the walls far from the temple where there were no altars with pretty stunning bye ready to offer a sacrifice what we would have gone home and recounted to our family members and friends would not have been a sacrifice it would have been a Roman execution plain and simple at a rather brutal and bloody one at that I said so of course the real question for us as Christians is this how did a Roman execution suddenly get turned into not just a sacrifice but the supreme sacrifice of all times one that retires all of the animal offerings in the Old Testament and I stopped just to let the question sink in and he was sort of like whoa I'm like I know I mean that that's the question that the early church fathers put to me how does a Roman execution suddenly get turned into the supreme and holiest sacrifice of all and I said the only answer that the early church fathers had was one that they got from st. Paul when Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 5 or 7 he said something that they really picked up on namely Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the face and in the subsequent chapters there in 1st Corinthians the feasts that he's talking about is what he subsequently explicate sin terms of the Holy Eucharist I said that's the key I think that we have to recognize that the only way to see what happened to Jesus on Good Friday is to look at it in the light of what he was doing with the sight Bulls on Holy Thursday because what was he doing in the upper room the night before what he was celebrating the Passover the Passover the Old Covenant one last time but that's not all he was doing he was fulfilling as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world as we read in John 1:29 but that's not all he wasn't fulfilling the Passover the Old Covenant for the purpose of retiring he was fulfilling it precisely by transforming the Passover of the old coven into the Passover the new covenant and he did this by celebrating what was very familiar to all of the twelve disciples and that is the Passover but I said you know it's important to recognize what the Passover was for all first century Jews because it wasn't primarily a meal it was primarily a sacrifice and the meal aspect was really a sacrificial communion upon the lamb as it was going all the way back to Egypt as you read in Exodus 12 and so the sacrifice of the Passover was the Passover the Old Covenant and then the kneel is a sacrificial Communion and this of course would have been what the disciples were expecting and that's what they would have been getting up until one point when suddenly we read in Luke 22 where Jesus at the beginning of the meal took the bread and said these words that we know so well take and eat this is my body which will be given for you and they must have wondered what was that you know he just improvised he just embellished he added something they'd never heard before nobody interrupted and asked him why because he was back on track and then later on near the end of the Passover we read in Luke 22 verses 18 through 20 what he does near the end with the chalice of blessing the third cup of the Passover and that's where he takes this chalice and says this is the chalice of My Blood the blood of the New Covenant the blood of the New Testament poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins do this in memory of me you know there he goes again just kind of adding some sort of rhetoric some sort of ritual we never recognized as having been done before and then they might have been wondering why or what it meant but nobody asked him because in just a few minutes they were walking to the Mount of Olives where he prayed in the garden to Gethsemane and then of course he was arrested and taken off for torture execution but when you're looking back on Good Friday and looking at it in the light of what Jesus said and did on Holy Thursday the Eucharist that he instituted in the Upper Room as the Passover of the New Covenant to fulfill the old just as the Passover when the old was not just a meal primarily but of sacrifice so likewise the Passover of the New Covenant is presented is initiated is instituted precisely as a sacrifice this is my body which will be given up for you this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament poured out for you and for many you know is he just saying it no he was doing it and suddenly they realized he wasn't losing his life on Good Friday their Calvary if he had already freely laid it down as a gift of love for us on Holy Thursday when an incident of the Eucharist he wasn't he wasn't a victim of Roman violence and injustice as much he was he was a victim of divine love by giving himself as a living sacrifice by instituting the Eucharist I said to Chris you know if the mass is just a meal then Calvary is just an execution but if in fact the mass is the Passover of the New Covenant then and only then do we find the light that illuminates the dark tragedy of what happened to Jesus on the cross and suddenly we realize it wasn't just rhetoric it wasn't just ritual he really was making his body a gift he was pouring out his blood as a sacrifice and what he initiated in the upper room is precisely what he consummated there at Calvary if the mass if the Eucharist that he instituted is the Passover of the New Covenant then we find what the early church fathers found and that is the key that unlocks the mystery of how what would appear to be a Roman execution is in fact the climax and the consummation of the sacrifice of the New Covenant and so I said you know if you really want to look carefully at the question where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the mass I think you have to recognize again that if the mass is just a meal then Calvary to the execution but if the mass is understood as st. Paul told the Corinthians and first means five or seven as the early church fathers all taught then we really have the key that unlocks the mystery that he's not losing his life he's really giving it as a gift of love but I sent a second thing that we need to do actually this was a this was a conversation he had another week or two later I said a second thing that we had a look at to really answer the question we're in the New Testament you find the sacrifice the mask is the language that we use when we speak of the New Testament because once again this is common ground just as all Christians agree that Calvary is the sacrifice but only because the Eucharist is where it starts I think all Christians also agree on what we mean by the New Testament and yet I pointed out to Chris that when you look carefully at the New Testament you discover that nowhere does it ever call itself the New Testament what does the New Testament referred to as the New Testament well the only time Jesus ever used that phrase the New Testament is in Luke 22 verse 20 when he's instituted the Eucharist he says this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the new testament the new coven in the greek the term is hey Canadia thinking which can just as easily translate a New Testament or new covenant but notice what he says this is the Cup or the chalice of My Blood the blood of the New Testament poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins do this in memory of me do what we'll do the Eucharist and what is the Eucharist the Eucharist is what Jesus calls the New Testament in fact it's the only time in all four Gospels that Jesus employs this momentous phrase the New Covenant or the New Testament it's when he has instituted the Eucharist as the Passover of the New Covenant and he says this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testaments and then he says do this in memory of me this is the Eucharist the Eucharist is the New Testament said Chris the new test it was a sacrament long before it started to become a document according to the document according to Jesus own usage of the phrase the New Testament as you read in Luke 22 20 but also you find it in first Corinthians 11:25 and in fact when Paul was writing for Corinthians that's the earliest reference we have to the phrase the New Testament anywhere in the New Testament because Luke hadn't gotten around to writing his gospel just yet but when Paul was right in to the Corinthians there in first corinthians chapter 11 what is pointing out is the institution narrative that is when Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist and there again we find st. Paul saying the same thing the Luke shows us that Jesus did and that is this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Covenant the blood of the New Testament poured out for sins and then he says do this in memory of me and what I pointed out the curse is with the urban church fathers pointed out to me drawing from the words of st. Paul as well as the Evangelist Saint Luke and that is Jesus only uses the New Testament with reference to the Eucharist the Eucharist is the New Testament and so the New Testament is a sacrament long before it starts to become a document according to the document and that's why Jesus didn't go on to say this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament write this in memory me he said do this and as a matter of historical fact that's what all the disciples went out doing after the death and resurrection they were proclaiming the gospel they were baptizing new believers but they're also celebrating the Eucharist they were doing this as the New Covenant as the New Testament when as I also as a matter of historical fact over half of the twelve gathered in the upper room never ended up contributing a single book to the collection that we now call the New Testament but not because they were disobeying orders but because Jesus didn't say write this in memory of me he said do this and they all went out doing the Eucharist as the New Testament when as a matter of fact you know only about less than half of them ended up contributing books to the New Testament but this is also how this also helps us to understand why it is the case that the you know for the first 5 10 15 years the first Christians weren't sitting around waiting and wondering what do we believe why won't these disciples sit down and start writing Gospels or epistles so that we know our beliefs because the beliefs of the early church were based upon the proclamation of Jesus who never wrote anything as well as the of the Apostles he said go out and preach the word teach them to observe all that I commanded you and that's exactly what they did along with the celebration of the Eucharist which was the New Testament you know and so 15 maybe 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus we find Paul writing first Thessalonians in the late 40s around 50 you know the New Testament books were begun years after Jesus death and resurrection but by then the beliefs and the practices were already in place because this is the family of God it is not primarily a classroom looking for a text it is a family celebrating this new life this new covenant and I also pointed out the Kris that you know again as a matter of historical fact the New Testament books weren't completed until near the end of the first century probably around 95 or 96 ad and so when you're looking at the New Testament books and you're recognizing that the New Testament was referencing the Eucharist in the first half of the twenty first half of the first century the New Testament books weren't even finished until the second half of the first century one last thing I discovered that I shared with him was that you don't find these books actually being gathered and called the New Testament until the second half of the second century the earliest reference we have is around Oh 190 AD Tertullian and one or two others like Melito of Sardis they refer to the New Testament but they actually are calling his book the books of the New Testament they're not even calling the New Testament yet and why well because the New Testament since the first half of the first century refers to the Eucharist that's what Jesus called the New Testament and since these are the books that were written by the Apostles to be read when Christians gathered on the Lord's Day in preparation for the celebration of the Eucharist as part of the preparation and the first half of their worship you'd read from the Old Testament the law and the prophets and then you'd read about how Christ fulfilled the old in the Gospels and the epistles and since these are the books that prepare us to celebrate the Eucharist and since the Eucharist is the New Testament by around 190 AD we hear people referring to the books of the New Testament but even then it isn't until the third and fourth century that they just abbreviated even more and just referred to them as the New Testament the New Testament was a sacrament long before it started becoming a document according to the document and when the document finally emerges it's called the books of the New Testament and even then it's because the document was itself a liturgical document meant to be read in a liturgical setting on Sunday morning as preparation for the celebration of the New Testament that is the Eucharist and I was just pointing out the Kris that if we really want to be New Testament Christians we've got to be Eucharistic we've got to recognize that this is his body that this is the cup of his blood and the blood is the New Testament the New Covenant its Christ himself if it's just a meal Calvary is just an execution but if it is the Passover of the New Covenant then we can see how an execution is transformed into the holiest sacrifice of all time and I also pointed out to him over the course of weeks and months that if Holy Thursday is what transformed that execution into a sacrifice on Good Friday that Easter Sunday is what transformed the sacrifice into a sacrament now because his body is no longer bleeding it's no longer buried it isn't just resuscitated his innocence isn't just vindicated his body is glorified his body is deified his body has been transformed by the Holy Spirit so that it is now distributable it is now communicable we can do this in memory of him and receive nothing less than his resurrected body which is not only deified but do you find us to the extent that we receive it with faith with hope with love with a real openness to the power of the Holy Spirit transforming us like it transformed the corpse of Jesus and raised him from the dead and ascended him up to heaven as well where he presides as the heavenly high priest over this amazing liturgy now you know I have just squeezed into about 20 minutes what took about Oh 15 or 20 weeks of conversation and it went on for the next two years or more as a matter of fact Chris and I became better friends in this conversation than we were back in high school but there was a moment Oh more than a moment there was more like a month or two a silence right I kind of began wondering if I push things a little too far because I didn't hear from him in a long time and then suddenly when I did you know he was calling me from his car on a Saturday afternoon he was all excited I wasn't sure why and then suddenly he told me that he and his wife were coming back from going to confession for the first time in more than 30 years and I'm like and you're in a good mood you said yeah I read your book lord have mercy the healing power of confession and it's like it's like what you said it's free healthcare it's it's comprehensive coverage it's like a divine healing it's a glorious gift and he said but what really excites us is that tomorrow morning Sunday we're going to receive First Holy Communion for the first time in more than three decades and he said that's really worth celebrating since that time Chris and I have not only become better friends than ever in fact he just flew up the Pittsburgh we had dinner together this uh three nights ago but he's also now taking all of his evangelical Bible formation that he got back into the parish back into his friendships and you know and basically doing what I'm doing and that is you know four years as an evangelical Bible Christian who had I wasn't just a non Catholic I was sort of anti-catholic because I bleh it wasn't prejudice or bigotry I just had some really deep convictions that they were wrong on these sorts of things but after going to Mass after studying Scripture after reading the father's after so many things kept coming up Catholic way back in 1986 I became a Catholic and that's where I discovered you know in a certain sense I had been studying the menu and then I discovered the meal that the New Testament was like a sign that pointed beyond itself to something even greater than this document namely a sacrament that Jesus instituted so that he could give his resurrected body to us to empower us to live a whole new life through the the power of the Holy Spirit and I want to why don't I want to say one thing too before I start feeling these questions and that is when you subordinate the the document to the sacrament I don't want to suggest that Riyaz Cathal somehow devalue the New Testament by saying oh the sacrament is the New Testament and only secondarily is the document because in a real sense when you recognize that the New Testament is a sacrament long before it's a document according to the document you end up in downing the document with an even greater value because you discovered that Scripture is is a sort of sacred gift that it possesses a sort of sacramentality that when you read the Bible from the heart of the church when you read the old in light of the new and the new in light of the old as the church does every single Sunday you hear the promises in the old that are fulfilled by Christ in the new you realize that fulfillment didn't end in the first century the fulfillment is precisely what we're about to celebrate in the Holy Eucharist which is the New Testament suddenly the book comes even more alive for us as Catholic Christians and you know not to win an argument with non Catholics you know that's not the point the point is to really show that the New Testament is our common ground and what a gift that is from a heavenly Father but when we study the New Testament and discover that it's a sign that points beyond itself to the Eucharist as the New Testament that's where I really believe we're going to end up understanding this book in a much more United Way and I remember when I was a Protestant pastor you know I was in a denomination that was a break off of another one you know and any historian of religion can point out that you know Protestantism since it was founded back in the 1500s has produced well over thirty thousand denominations all of which have been founded by sincere men and women who were really convinced that they were getting the Bible right but when you take the Bible back into the liturgy and read it from the heart of the church I think you're finding its natural habitat you know and that's where I find not only a United meaning but also a power that is released in our lives so that 1.2 billion Catholics who all come from different backgrounds and races and all of that share the sense that they really are the family of God precisely because they were new not a contract with a with a with a master but a covenant with Abba Father and and you know they side believes not only spiritually more satisfying it's also scientifically superior that is to say when you read scripture from the heart of the church when you read the New Testament document in light of the sacrament and discover okay the menu and the meal go together in the most powerful combination you know I think what you discover is the the proper context you know you wouldn't you wouldn't look you wouldn't respect a botanist for example if he took a plant up by the roots and then took it into his laboratory and began studying it under the lights wondering why is this wilting why is it dying well any botanist will tell you that once you take a plant out of its natural habitat it's going to begin to wilt and die when you take scripture out of the church when you begin to read it in a purely academic way or an individualistic way you're going to end up with thousands of divisions in this sort of thing but when you take it back and read it from the heart of the church in the family of God I think you're going to find a fullness of faith that is precisely what we receive in Christ himself in the Holy Eucharist that's why for instance the Catechism says that Catholic Christianity is not a religion of the book that's how Islam described itself Judaism also and I think that's how I understood my faith as a Protestant but the Catechism says Catholic Christianity is not a religion of the book but it is a religion of a word but the word is a person a divine person the Word made flesh the word incarnated and when you read about the word incarnated in the word inspirated scripture again is pointing to yond itself but not just to a past event in the first century but to a sacramental presence that is real in the 21st century and again I just want to encourage all of my my viewers to kind of take God at His Word and to recognize that word became flesh dwelt among us suffered died and rose for us but comes to us again and again to renew this family covenant with us in the Holy Eucharist now I look at the time and I realize I've gone like 25 26 minutes I apologize but you know I don't see you and so it's kind of hard to know exactly when to break and to take questions and besides if any of you talk to my students or if any of you have ever had me for class you know I'm like a fire hydrant and so I don't know when to turn myself off but I'm going to do that right now I'm going to look at the questions that I have on my computer screen and I want to I want to I want to address those if you don't mind okay first of all how does consuming the word relate to the lamb supper well in some ways I already addressed that question the lamb supper I wrote about 15 years ago and I wrote it primarily for Catholics whereas consuming the word I've written for Catholics but also for non Catholics it's much more gentle it's much more patient I spent a lot more time on the common ground of Sacred Scripture and in the early church just to show how it was in the first 50 100 150 200 years that the Bible really emerges from the church's liturgical life and sacramental worship but I would say this that consuming the word is really the climax of a trilogy it's not just the sequel to the Lamb Supper it is that but after the Lamb supper came out around 1999 I came up with another book called letter in spirit I have it here letter and spirit from written text to Living Word in the liturgy and I kind of took the lamb supper to the next level and I dedicated to my seminarians because that's when I was beginning to teach future priests future homilist and I wanted to get them excited about proclaiming the word but when I wrote consuming the word I kind of situated between the lamb Supper and letter and spirit so that it is a little easier to grasp it could be a first-time book for anybody ok the next question is this how do we consume the word as Catholics well I would say we consumed the word as Christians not only by studying the scriptures and seeing how Santa gets them put it well the New Testament is can see it on the old and the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new so all the promises and the prophecies and the predictions are precisely what Christ comes to fulfill as the new lamb as the new Moses to bring us a new covenant but that fulfillment again is precisely what we receive in the Holy Eucharist that's why I point out in the book Ezekiel wasn't have given a scroll he was commanded to eat it likewise John the seer in the book of Revelation chapter 10 is given the scroll well it is told to eat it and why because when you taste and see that the Lord is good you realize that he gives us his word but that word is not just a book the book points to something that is meant to be eaten in the Old Covenant we have it all beginning when God said do not eat or else you will die whereas the New Covenant comes and says take and eat this is my body which will be given up for you there's so many there's so many senses in which the new goes beyond the old but not against it and I think that's the key for us as Christians learning how from the scriptures we can really consume the word and that God has not done giving himself to us until we literally do what Jesus said he eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I on him alright let's see here are some more questions um let's see when we hear the words the New Testament what should be the first thing that comes to our minds well I think by now you probably know how I'm going to answer that question when we hear the words the New Testament what should come first to our minds is what first came to the lips of Jesus what first came to the ears of the apostles in the Upper Room that the New Testament really is a sacrament long before it started to become a document according to the document and that when we read the document in light of the sacrament both end up in this powerful one-two combination they're mutually illuminating their mutually reinforcing it's almost as though you can't understand either one without the other but they're they're meant to be inseparable United fused as it were alright the next question is why is reading Scripture through the lens of the early church necessary for evangelizing in a modern world well I would answer that by pointing out what a lot of people recognize and that is the emphasis that has been placed in recent years especially in the Catholic Church upon what is called the New Evangelization this was first coined by John Paul back in 1979 taken to the next level in 1983 and then it's really become sort of the highest priority for the church you know for the coming century or more and this is where I think the New Evangelization has a lot to learn from the old evangelization because when John Paul launched the New Evangelization one of the things he said I remember I remember vividly reading this article in the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and the the article was a talk that he had given in Rome and the title was just simply based the New Evangelization on the Eucharist well that's precisely where the New Evangelization is a perfect reflection of the old evangelization because when the Apostles and the early church fathers proclaimed the gospel I mean they had the same four spiritual laws that bill bright Campus Crusade and all Christians still share number one God loves us number two we've sinned number three Christ died for that sin and number four we've got to choose to believe to accept that gift and live that life that Christ has given us but that's not the end of the trip that's just the first stages of the journey those are like the first steps of the prodigal son on the long journey back home to the father's house just as evangelizing is not just a personal relationship but a covenant relationship in the New Evangelization that's the way it was in the old so when you were evangelized the proof that you were a sincere convert was that you enrolled in the catechumen where you learned the Creed the Our Father and the customs of the early churches the family of God but all of that was ordered to getting baptized and then confirmed and then receiving the Holy Eucharist so that you could renew your own personal covenant with Christ it's a lot like what happened to me about 35 years ago when I fell in love with Kimberly you know I didn't just fall in love we also grew in love and then we decided to stay in love by entering into a covenant and so through courtship we entered engagement enduring engagement that's where I discovered the truth of that old maxim that when you marry a gal you don't just marry her you marry her whole family so likewise evangelizing catechizing and sacramental izing is about falling in love it's about growing in love but it's also about staying in love and this is why I'm convinced that the Eucharist is the basis for not only evangelizing leading people beyond a personal relationship into a covenant or communion into an inter personal bond of life-giving love that's why the Eucharist is called the marriage supper of the lamb in Revelation 19 nine as well as in the match every single day and so I'm going on more than four minutes I I was told to try to keep it the format that's probably five or six but in any case I think this is precisely how evangelizing today can really reflect the Eucharist on the one hand and also draw lessons from the old evangelization on the other all right um could you talk a little about the Oracle of Jeremiah how important is it for understanding the New Testament I think the Oracle that the questioner has in mind is Jeremiah 31:31 because that's the only place in the Old Testament where the phrase New Testament or New Covenant is found and Jeremiah is pointing out that the days are coming when it's not going to be like it was in Mount Sinai when God gave the law and then the Israelites broke the law because the law is going to be written on hearts it is going to be internalized the holy spirit is going to take that law and give us a new life a principle of love and so in Jeremiah 31:31 we have the Oracle of the great prophet Jeremiah pointing to how it is that the New Covenant is going to go beyond the old but not against it how the new is going to fulfill the old precisely by being kept and not broken and by being rendered unbreakable by Jesus but how is that the case once again Jeremiah says it'll be written on the heart why because the New Covenant is going to be internalized indeed when the New Testament becomes the Eucharist and we consume the Word made flesh suddenly Jeremiah's Oracle is fulfilled in a way that I think probably exceeded Jeremiah's own expectations that's often the case when the new fulfills the old it fulfills it in a way that is all surpassing it's like new wine bursting old skins because you know it's like so like how good can it get okay there are some more um let's see I've read that the cup offered at Passover was like a cup given in a marriage proposal Christ being the bridegroom asking for the church the bride is this an accurate analogy I would say most definitely it was already true in the Old Testament and still true today in Jewish tradition you'll find it in rabbinic tradition as well that that the Passover is understood as a kind of covenant between the God of Israel and Israel and Hosea picks up on this and other prophets like Ezekiel Jeremiah and Isaiah to that there really is a marital intimacy that God desires but that's exactly what Christ comes to accomplish and this is why the New Testament is described at the climax of the New Testament as the marriage supper of the Lamb I mean I could have said thirty three and a half years ago to my bride this is my body which is given up for you and that's what Christ is saying to the church as a groom who longs to give himself not just in a spiritual sense but in a holistic physical sense Christ's sense of the church this is my body and the bride receives the groom in a life-giving way this is not just metaphorical or figurative this is real this is metaphysical there's an ontological density to the sacraments that goes far beyond symbolism all right what does Communion mean for non Catholic Christians who practice communion in their churches well that's a good question it's a hard one to answer briefly you know I've kind of covered the spectrum in my own spiritual life I started off in a parachurch sort of organization that wasn't part of a denomination like young life and then I've also been a Baptist for a while than a Presbyterian minister before becoming Catholic and I think we all recognize the value of the Lord's Supper as it's called outside of the Catholic tradition I would say this and I'm trying to be accurate in terms of what I it is - when I was in a Baptist Church up in Massachusetts for Baptist the Lord's Supper is very special it's like a hug it is an expression of real friendship but for a Presbyterian and I would say even more for Lutheran's and Anglicans it's more like a kiss I mean it really is more than just a token of sincere and deep friendship it's a sign of deep love but for Catholics echoing the early church fathers I think the only accurate analogy is marital Union a one flesh embrace where the two become one that's why it's the marriage supper of the lamb so on the water and it's a supper but in a more in a much deeper way it is a one flesh communion and this is what Paul is alluding to in Ephesians 5 as well as parts of 1st Corinthians and elsewhere so is it a handshake is it a hug and a kiss or isn't a marital act of inter personal communion I would say that for us as Catholics it's this especially and it takes up with these other aspects as well but this is sort of the the spectrum of opinion out there in an oversimplified way okay let's see do you have any tips on how we can evangelize on a daily basis in our homes and workplaces yes I would say this that if evangelizing is ordered to a covenant relationship but not to the personal relationship then family bonds and friendship are the most the most appropriate expression for sharing the good news so for example if you go to work on Monday and you go in and you're sitting at the water cooler and it's coffee break time and you say your fellow workers you know you start talking about a a movie that you saw on Friday night that you really enjoyed or a restaurant that you went to Saturday evening and the cuisine was just off the charts or a book that you finally finished on Sunday afternoon and you just wanted to recommend nobody's going to think you're weird because you're trying to show this restaurant down or throat or some movie or book friends just share what they enjoy in life and I would say at work or at home what we ought to do when we evangelize is we don't we don't pull out a Bible and just start preaching as Pope Paul the sixth said we bear witness to the truth of God's Word as we have experienced it we are witnesses to the truth as we have personally experienced it and that's why we can say to someone you know I grew up Christian or I grew up Catholic you know I don't think I really appreciate but lately I've been coming to an understanding and it's exciting it's beautiful I'm really enjoying it for the first time in a long time nobody's going to think oh you're just shoving the Bible down my throat I mean they might not ask any more questions they might be uncomfortable but the fact is that's what friends do and that's what friendship is for to share the things that you enjoy in life and that is just movies or books or restaurants that's also experiencing the faith in a new way and I think that's the best way we can do it on the job with our co-workers but it's also the best we can do it the best way we can do it at home were their family members and I would also say this that if your family members have kind of drifted off and they're not practicing your faith as Catholics or as Christians maybe the best thing to do is not maybe the best thing to do is to avoid an argument give them a book you know you could own them consuming the word and say read this you know but let me know what you think I mean give me your honest feedback and feel free to recommend a book or loan me one so I can understand where you're coming from better because that's you know it's better to build bridges that way than the dig ditches and the kind of you know give them this book for the purpose setting them straight I mean especially adult children just find that to be a real turnoff and I don't think that's our role as parents friends or coworkers again I think I went longer than four minutes ahead way okay um let's see what is the connection between your book and how does it solidify why why we do what we do as Catholics okay I would say again consuming the word is one of those books that non-christians could read and say okay I think the faith makes better sense I think non Catholics could read and say I'm beginning to understand Catholic Christianity better but I think when Catholic Christians read this they're going to discover a new depth not only that this is true but that the truth is powerful and not just powerful but beautiful in the deepest dimensions of who we are as people as humans not just as Catholics or Christians and I would also say that this has got to connect well to what we've been doing ever since First Holy Communion really since our baptism as well you know when you grow up in a family you often take things for granted I mean I we've had we have six kids and now we have grandchild number eight on the way and you know and when our kids grew up we would gather at the table you know it wasn't like our kids would wake up in the morning say oh wow we're family past the cereal I was just sort of laid up past the frosted flakes and we generally took each other for granted because that's what families do but sooner or later when you come to special events you know three of our kids are now married or when you come to the birth of a grandchild that's all to some when you look back and realize man have I been takin a lot of grace for granted and you want to go back and make up for lost time and I think that's what all Christians can do with this book consuming the word but especially Catholic Christians they're going to recognize it boy I've been going to Mass all my life I've been hearing Scripture and it's almost always the old of the new the promise is fulfilled by Christ but I'm going to go back and lay hold of Scripture and I'm going to consume the word and hold a Eucharist in a new way at least that's my prayer and that's my hope as well okay um other than taking communion attending Mass how can we draw close to God I would say read scripture I mean think of Luke 24 Clovis and his companion and how they related their experience of walking and talking with a stranger for hours course it was the risen Lord but they didn't recognize him but when they recounted that experience what did they say did not our hearts burn within us as they opened up the scriptures we got to open the scriptures we got to read them we got a spirit experience that same sort of spiritual heartburn where our hearts are burning within us and then we can turn around and enter into the mystery of the Holy Eucharist in a much deeper way but we can also live out our faith with more gratitude and joy and I also suspect infectiousness you know as it worked I would also say prayer prayer and prayer in the beginning of the day the middle of the day and the end of the day entering into a conversation with God that goes beyond the wrote prayers that you learn when you work you don't get me wrong I pray a rosary every day it makes the Bible come alive it really makes me know myself to be a child of God but also conversational prayer what we call mental prayer where you just open up your heart and you pour it out abba father and you really share your concerns as well as your gratitude and all of that kind of stuff so scripture prayer the sacraments and just spiritual friendship with other Christians as well they're like three or four questions I'm getting to all of these things okay let's see what was the significance of the temple veil being torn in half when Jesus died well you know Jesus said back in John to destroy this temple and on the third day raised some people think that when the temple veil was torn this kind of opened up the living way for us to enter the Holy of Holies but that wasn't how Jews understood it it was a sort of uh it was a sort of a bad thing because when the veil was torn that didn't kind of open up you know the way so that all Jews could enter the Holy of Holies what that did was in effect desecrate the temple and this is probably at least a provisional fulfillment of what Jesus said because when a temple is profaned it ceases to be a temple it has to be reconsecrated rededicated so when the temple veil is torn when the flesh of Jesus was torn I think what is happening is what the book of Hebrews calls a new and living way is opened up not into the earthly Jerusalem in a man-made temple but to the heavenly Jerusalem and a temple not made with hands which is precisely the resurrected body of Jesus the resurrected body of Jesus is the Holy Eucharist it is the high priest it is the lamb it is the order it is the temple all of the things in the Old Testament liturgy were like spokes in the wheel that converged upon Christ Christ is the fulfillment and the reality of the temple the altar the lamb the high priest and everything else as well I think that at least that's an attempt to get at the heart of your question okay what other books or resources should I read the further understand this topic I would recommend the Lamb supper and letter in spirit to books that I've done but I also recommend another book written by a very good friend of mine dr. Brandt Petrie entitled Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist you get this book and I tell you it is going to make Sacred Scripture come alive even more and it's sort of like picks up where I leave often in my books as well so Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Holy Eucharist by dr. Brandt Petrie I would highly recommend that I'd also recommend another book called the Bible you know don't ever miss out on that because of the other books that you really go back to the Bible again and again and for that matter also pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church there's never been a catechism in the history of the church as saturated in Sacred Scripture as this one don't be put off by how big it is because if you just read two or three pages a day you can get through the whole in a year and you're not only going to know the faith better you're going to be able to read the Scriptures much better as well all right um do you ever give talks to non-catholic Christians yes I have been back to Wheaton I've given talks at the Billy Graham Center three or four times I've spoken at Lutheran and evangelical seminaries and colleges and the sort of thing and again what I want to emphasize now is sort of what I want to emphasize there and then and that is we share so much more in common as Christians then you know we tend to realize and like in any family you tend to obsess with the differences in the disagreements that's okay that's understandable but let's start with the common ground and recognize that we shared the Bible we share Jesus we share the Holy Spirit we share prayer we share all of the things that we read about in the Gospels we believe that Jesus is the Son of God that he actually performed these miracles that he died for sin that he rose from the dead that he poured out the Holy Spirit that we come to share the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the key for us understanding the Word of God I mean from there we can discuss our differences you know but that old line let's agree to disagree agreeably you know I would say let's agree to disagree fraternally we know we're separated brothers but we're brothers and sisters in Christ and we got to begin and end the conversation by celebrating the gift of God or father through the sonship of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit okay what are you studying now and what is your next going that your next book gonna be about okay what I'm studying now I'm reading a father coos but God the Father in the theology of st. Thomas Aquinas I'm reading Pope Benedict's book a school of Prayer as well and Ryan toppings book rebuilding Catholic culture I usually read two or three books at once I'm also finishing up the last touches on a book that will be coming out in about a a month and a half it's not a small and light concern the word it's a real big one it's called politicizing the Bible the roots of historical criticism and the secularization of Scripture and it studies how scripture was sort of mishandled from 1300 to 1700 where the Bible really was politicized and secularized so you can look for that and I would say early to mid August I'm also working on finishing a commentary on Romans another book for image called angels and saints that will be out sometime next year I always have two or three other projects I should mention too that I've just begun a year-long sabbatical for the first time in my life I'm kind of excited about it because I'm going to be able to finish these projects but I've also just I've also sort of prayerfully discerned and decided to do something that I probably wouldn't do apart from a sabbatical and that is pilgrimages I've done pilgrimages like once every two or three years in the past but starting in January 2014 kimberley are going to be leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and I gotta tell you nothing makes Bible come alive like going to the Holy Land and then in February for the very first time in my life I'm going to have a prayer answered I'm going to be taking a pilgrimage to Guadalupe and to look at the tilma and just to really enter into that great gift of our Lord and our Lady and then in March of next year I'm going to be going to Rome to lead a pilgrimage there to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis becoming the Vicar of Christ and the successor of Peter and then finally in May of next year Kimberly are going to be leading a pilgrimage to Fatima to celebrate the great apparitions there of Our Lady of Fatima as well as Lourdes so you can you can look at my facebook page which is Scott Hahn I'm going to be posting these things or you can go to this group called 206 tours and I would recommend you know prayerfully thinking about whether you might be able to join us on one of these program which is because like I said for me on sabbatical I really want to pray I want to do another retreat I want to really grow spiritually before I just kind of go back and work hard because I I find that the roots are the key to the fruits that if we if we just work ourselves you know into exhaustion we really dry up and wither and I think Jesus is constantly reminding me Scott I I want to draw you closer to myself more than I want to use you to draw others close to me it's both and it's not either/or but it's always be a disciple first and then an apostle second and I suspect that might be applicable for you as well as for me okay how many books on on those shelves how many books are on the shelves behind okay read all of these I've read most of the ones on the shelf behind it because I'm working on a various projects and I'm teaching courses but you're just seeing my home office outside the door there's between 35 and 40 thousand books if you pick up consuming the word you'll discover it in the opening chapter that I've been consuming books for about 40-plus years and so uh this is explaining why I have such an enormous collection they're also all cataloged and computerized so that we have you know students dozens of students coming by to the library here in my basement in order to use these throughout the school year and that sort of thing let's see I wanted to also mention the fact that let's see the the trilogy that I spoke of earlier lamb supper letter and spirit and now consuming the word that's the trilogy that is sort of in the foreground in the background I wanted to also recommend some books that deal with the covenant with the old and the new covenant as well as the New Testament one that really is near and dear to my heart is called first comes love finding your family in the church and the Trinity because one of the breakthroughs for me was to discover that the Covenant is not a contract in a contract this is yours and now that is mine but in a covenant I am yours and you are mine it forges sacred kinship bonds and that's what God established with us as a father who sent his son to pour out the Holy Spirit the spirit of sonship to make us one family so first comes love I also want to mention a book called swear to God the promise and power of the sacraments because sacramentum is the Latin word for covenant oath and you just make a promise all you have is a contract but when you invoke God's Holy Name you sort a covenant oh that's a sacramentum and that book goes into how in the Old Testament the Hebrew word for swearing at Calvin is literally Chava which means 2:7 yourself how significant that the new covenant is established by Christ not with one or two but precisely with seven sacraments those are covenant oaths whereby God as a father binds himself to us through Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit and finally this book reasons to believe how to understand explain and defend the Catholic faith mostly from the scripture seeing how God is a father who through a series of covenants is fathering a family it was just a marriage in the Garden of Eden it becomes a household aboard aboard the Ark of Noah it becomes a tribe when God renews the covenant with Abraham twelve tribes that form a national family in Moses day but that national family has become an international family a universal family what is so new about the New Covenant is precisely the fact that it's international it's it's universal and the word that was used for that is khatola cos it's a Catholic family and so the catholicity of the church as the family of God is precisely the proof that God has fulfilled his fatherly plan by kind of tearing down the wall so that's no longer Jew or Greek slave or free male or female all of us through baptism are reborn into the family of God and not that I feel any excitement about this sort of stuff yeah but you know even if there's nobody in this home office of mine I I can't help but find this irrepressible sense of wanting to I want to set you on fire and just like our Lord said I came to set the earth on fire okay that's it I want to thank all of you for viewing this live streaming especially those of you who stuck with me till the end I also want to let you know that you can order the the book consuming the word from any of the online retailers or your local bookstore I really encourage you to support your local Christian bookstores and and not just for this book but for all of your purchase as well and for the bottom I heart I just want to say thank you so much for joining me in this hour and I'm just going to send my prayers out to you and please remember me and my family in your prayers god bless you dear brothers and sisters

Channel: Image Books

Views: 116,879

Rating: 4.8489208 out of 5

Keywords: Scott Hahn, Catholic, Catholicism, Theology, New Testament, Early Church, Communion, Eucharist, The Lamb's Supper

Id: bIKWtd62cAk

Length: 55min 4sec (3304 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2013