Author name: Molly Hostetler

The light of the Son of God is so brilliant that it reaches throughout history, even into the far corners of the Old Testament. Just as the sun’s light is reflected by the moon, so too, where the light of the Son of God shines, that light will be reflected by Mary. In keeping with Catholic tradition, Saint Pius X taught that where Christ is prefigured in the Old Testament, Mary was usually prefigured as well: “In a word, after Christ, we find in Mary the end of the law and the fulfillment of the figures and prophecies.” One example of this is the ark of the covenant, which bore the presence of God and thus foreshadowed Mary’s bearing of Christ as the Theotokos, or Mother of God.

I recall the days when I was still in a sort of spiritual “no man’s land” between my Evangelical past and my eventual home with Rome. I could no longer honestly preach as a Protestant minister, but I still had lingering doubts about Catholic doctrine. One by one, however, my doubts fell away as I studied Catholic theology and tradition until, finally, only the Marian doctrines remained.

As an author, speaker, and scholar, Scott Hahn has spent decades teaching Catholics how to read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Dr. Hahn is not only renowned for his biblical scholarship, but also for his ability as a speaker to convey the truths of the faith clearly—and always with a good story and a good pun to go around. If you’ve ever heard him speak, you know the impact of his personal testimony and his wealth of knowledge on the Catholic faith.

We live in a world deeply hungry, even desperate, for friendship. But it seems that true friendship remains in short supply. We now have multiple social networking sites where people can claim “friends” by the hundreds, but these same people report being lonelier than ever. It is not difficult to see why.

Our Evangelical brothers and sisters have tapped into the depth of our hunger for love and happiness. When they ask, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” it seems to touch a nerve. Often Catholics are put off by this question, and yet we need to realize that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is every bit as much a Catholic issue as it is a Protestant issue, because it is profoundly a human issue.

Children are naturally drawn to adventure stories. As kids, we could spend hours reading a good book or playing the newest video game, but as we grow older, we slowly lose the desire to play and step into the responsibility of adulthood. But do we ever lose the desire for adventure?

Turn off the television. Turn off the radio. Turn off the computer. Go to the quietest room in the house. Shut the door. Sit down and close your eyes.

You can still hear it, can’t you? The irritating car dealer commercial, the endless loop of background music in the computer game, the dopey dialogue from that stupid movie that you never would have watched if anything half-decent had been on.

The core meaning of faith is belief in God and all that he has revealed: “Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself ” (CCC 1814). But faith also includes the full commitment of our lives, what the Catechism calls the commitment of our entire selves to God (1814). The implication is that true faith, as it grows and matures in us, cannot remain simply within our minds as a belief or conviction; it manifests itself in personal commitment as we entrust ourselves completely to God. “Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. . . . It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says” (150). Or as the Catechism says elsewhere, “To believe is to say ‘Amen’ to God’s words, promises and commandments; to entrust oneself completely to him who is the ‘Amen’ of infinite love and perfect faithfulness” (1064).