First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity - Softcover

Hahn, Scott

 
9780385496629: First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0385496621 ISBN 13: 9780385496629
Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Scott Hahn has the rare ability to explain the essential teachings of Catholicism in a totally accessible manner. Rather than burdening the reader with difficult or arcane references and arguments, he writes of familiar feelings and situations and allows the theology to unfold naturally. In First Comes Love, Hahn turns his attention to the search for a sense of belonging, revealing the intimate connection between the families men and women create on earth and the divine family, the Holy Trinity.

Delving into the Gospels, Hahn shows that family terminology--words like brother, sister, mother, father, and home--dominates Jesus' speech and the writings of His first followers, and that these very words illuminate Christianity's central ideas. As he explores the fatherhood of God, the marriage of the Church to Christ, and the all-enveloping role of the Holy Spirit, Hahn deepens readers' understanding of the sacraments, teaches them how to create a family life in the image of the Trinity, and demonstrates the ways in which the analogy of the family applies to every aspect of Catholicism and its practices--from the role of "father" embodied by the ancient patriarchs and contemporary parish priests, to the comfort and guidance offered by the brothers and sisters who comprise the Communion of Saints, to the nurturing embrace of Mary, the mother of all Christians.

Through real-life examples (both humorous and compassionate) and quotations drawn from the Scriptures, Hahn makes it clear that no matter what sort of family readers come from--no matter what sort of "dysfunction" they have experienced--they can find a family in the Church. Reaching out to newcomers and to lifelong Christians alike, First Comes Love is an invitation to discover a true home in the divine.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

SCOTT HAHN, an internationally renowned Catholic lecturer and theologian, is professor of Biblical theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the director of the Institute of Applied Biblical Studies and president of the St. Paul Center for Applied Biblical Theology. His books include A Father Who Keeps His Promises; Rome Sweet Home, coauthored with his wife, Kimberly; The Lamb's Supper; and Hail, Holy Queen. He lives in Steubenville, Ohio, with his wife and their six children.

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Scott Hahn has the rare ability to explain the essential teachings of Catholicism in a totally accessible manner. Rather than burdening the reader with difficult or arcane references and arguments, he writes of familiar feelings and situations and allows the theology to unfold naturally. In "First Comes Love, Hahn turns his attention to the search for a sense of belonging, revealing the intimate connection between the families men and women create on earth and the divine family, the Holy Trinity.
Delving into the Gospels, Hahn shows that family terminology--words like "brother, "sister, "mother, "father, and "home--dominates Jesus' speech and the writings of His first followers, and that these very words illuminate Christianity's central ideas. As he explores the fatherhood of God, the marriage of the Church to Christ, and the all-enveloping role of the Holy Spirit, Hahn deepens readers' understanding of the sacraments, teaches them how to create a family life in the image of the Trinity, and demonstrates the ways in which the analogy of the family applies to every aspect of Catholicism and its practices--from the role of "father" embodied by the ancient patriarchs and contemporary parish priests, to the comfort and guidance offered by the brothers and sisters who comprise the Communion of Saints, to the nurturing embrace of Mary, the mother of all Christians.
Through real-life examples (both humorous and compassionate) and quotations drawn from the Scriptures, Hahn makes it clear that no matter what sort of family readers come from--no matter what sort of "dysfunction" they have experienced--they can find a family in the Church. Reaching out to newcomers and to lifelongChristians alike, "First Comes Love is an invitation to discover a true home in the divine.

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CHAPTER 1

The Oldest Story in the World

Few are the powers that can lure a college student away from his cafeteria. The undergraduate male sustains an enormous and primal appetite for food--even institutional food. And I was as undergraduate and as male as any other student at Grove City College.

Yet, one autumn day, I discovered a force of nature that trumps even food. Her name was Kimberly Kirk.

I spied her playing piano just outside the dining hall. The music was beautiful, but music--even at its finest, and her songs were dazzling--ranks relatively low with the undergraduate male.

At a distance, I could see that the young woman at the keyboard had a cute, sassy haircut--and a sassier smile.

I made my way over and, between songs, tried to make casual conversation. She was, I found out, very active in theater and interested in literature; her major was communication arts. She played a piece she had written, and it was magnificent. Then she sang to her own accompaniment, and I thought to myself, She could do this for a living.

I knew I had better move on, and quickly. Scott Hahn was not about to fall for another woman. You see, not too long before that encounter, I had made a firm decision to quit dating. After several relationships, I concluded that the dating scene was an emotional trap, an extended battery of mind games--hurting and getting hurt. I'd had enough. Besides, I was already triple-majoring in economics, philosophy, and theology, and working as a resident assistant. I just didn't have the time.

So, that autumn day, with a polite "Nice to meet you," I turned my undergraduate-student body back toward the cafeteria.

My mind, however, was another matter. A few days later, I was walking across the quad and I caught sight of Kimberly Kirk a half-quad away. Watching her walk, I thought, Boy, is she pretty. Then I thought back to our encounter in the dining hall: And she's really intelligent and musical . . .

Still, my stubborn will remained. I couldn't ask her for a date. Dating was out of the question at that point in my life--even dating a young woman so radiantly beautiful, so witty, and so talented. No, I couldn't do it.

So I did the next-best thing. I asked her if she would consider joining me in Young Life, a youth-ministry program I was helping to run at a local high school. She said yes, to my delight, never letting on to me that her dad had been one of the founding leaders of Young Life, some two decades before!

In this shared ministry, I really saw Kimberly Kirk. She had faith and an evangelical zeal that surpassed all her other gifts. I never tired of her company. Soon we were spending four, five, six hours a day together, punctuating our work with snowball fights, long walks, long conversations, and music, sweet music.

Within a month, my rash vow had expired. I was a goner. Kimberly Kirk and I were falling in love.

I don't mean to bore you with personal details. I know that there's nothing exceptional about our story. We met; we were attracted to one another, yet determined to tough it out alone; so we resisted the attraction till we could resist it no more. Boy meets girl: It's quite literally the oldest story in the world.

One Is the Loneliest Number

When Christians and Jews tell the story of the human race, they begin "in the beginning," with God's creation of a man named Adam. "Adam" is the name of an individual, the founding father of the human race, but it is more, too. Adam is the Hebrew word for "humanity." This is something like the way Americans use the name "Washington" to mean the first president of their country, the capital city of their country, and the government of their country. Washington's story is, in a sense, America's story. Yet Adam's story is even greater than that. It belongs to all the nations of the world and to everyone. Adam's story is our story: mine and Kimberly's, and yours.

Let's revisit that story at the beginning of the Bible. The Book of Genesis begins with the account of God's creation of the universe. In six consecutive "days," God created everything: night and day; the sky and the seas; the sun, the moon, and the stars; the birds and the fish; and the beasts of the fields. After each act of creation, God looked at what He had made and pronounced it "good." To crown His work, God created man on the sixth day and gave him dominion over all the earth. Only then did God look at His work and declare it "very good" (Gn 1:31).

We see in the next chapter of Genesis that God furnished the whole world for man's delight. "And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food" (2:9). God gave Adam this lush, fruitful garden to till and to keep (2:15). Thus, Adam lived in a world custom-made for his pleasure, a world without sin, suffering, or disease--a world where work was always rewarding, a world that, Genesis tells us, was unstintingly good.

Yet God Himself looked upon this situation and, for the first time in the Scriptures, pronounced that something was "not good." He said, "It is not good that the man should be alone" (Gn 2:18).

What a remarkable statement! Remember, this took place before the Fall of humankind, before sin and disorder could enter creation. Adam lived in an earthly paradise as a child of God, made in God's own image (Gn 1:27). Yet something was "not good." Something was incomplete. The man was lonely.

God set out immediately to remedy the situation, saying, "I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gn 2:18). So God brought all the animals to man and asked him to name them--to exercise authority over them.

Even so, things were still "not good": "for the man there was not found a helper fit for him" (Gn 2:20). Though Adam could rule over the beasts--though he could enjoy fruitful, rewarding labor--he was still unfulfilled. For God made man on the same day as the animals, but He made man different from the animals. Only man was made in God's image and likeness. Thus, even with all the animals in the world, man was alone upon the earth.

What comes next in Genesis is the heart of every love story:

"So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said: 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man' " (2:21-23).

Adam's world had seemed complete. He had a good job, a beautiful home, dutiful pets, and plenty to keep him busy. Yet he was incomplete. Even as the "image of God," he was only complete when the woman, Eve, joined him in life. The man and his wife became "one flesh" (Gn 2:24). "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Gn 1:27).

Adam should never have known loneliness again, because he had Eve by his side in a perfect world. He could see, now, that there was more to life than fruitful labor, more to life than a beautiful house, more to life than power. There was truly human love. Nor would Adam's good company be limited to the perfect match, the "helper fit for him." For "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth' " (Gn 1:28).

The image of God was made complete with the creation of the family. Only then was Eden truly paradise.

From Garden to Grove

Boy meets girl. Adam meets Eve. Scott meets Kimberly. You know the story. It's the stuff of most...

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Verlag
PRH Christian Publishing
Erscheinungsdatum
2006
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385496621
ISBN 13 
9780385496629
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
CMN Printpool Inh. Mathis Neumann
https://www.also.com/ec/cms5/en_6000/6000

Friedrich-Karl-Str. 9
Hamburg
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Deutschland

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