As Catholics, we believe in the resurrection of the body. We profess it in our creed. We’re taught that to bury and pray for the dead are corporal and spiritual works of mercy. We honor the dead in our Liturgy through the Rite of Christian burial. We do all of this, and more, because when Jesus Christ took on flesh for the salvation of our souls he also bestowed great dignity on our bodies.
In Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body, Scott Hahn explores the significance of death and burial from a Catholic perspective. The promise of the bodily resurrection brings into focus the need for the dignified care of our bodies at the hour of death. Unpacking both Scripture and Catholic teaching, Hope to Die reminds us that we are destined for glorification on the last day.
Our bodies have been made by a God who loves us. Even in death, those bodies point to the mystery of our salvation.
Study Questions
About the Authors
Scott Hahn is the Fr. Michael Scanlan Professor of Biblical Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990. Founder and President of the St. Paul Center, Dr. Hahn has been married to Kimberly since 1979; they have six children and twenty-three grandchildren. He is the author or editor of over fifty popular and academic books, including best-selling titles Rome Sweet Home, The Lamb’s Supper, and Hope to Die.
Emily Stimpson Chapman is an award-winning Catholic author of over a half-dozen books, including Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body, co-authored with Scott Hahn; The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food and Faith Meet; These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body; and The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years. She also is the editor of the high school faith formation series Formed in Christ and the author of numerous studies for the women’s ministry Endow. Chapman lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, Chris, and their three young children.
What People Are Saying
The Catechism states that, for a Christian, the day of death is the end of the sacramental life and the fulfillment of our new birth at Baptism.
With this in mind: Where is your hope?
"When we know death is not the end, when we know that death is just the beginning of everlasting joy, everlasting life, and everlasting communion with the One we love, hope drives out fear. It makes us long for death."
-Scott Hahn
Reviews
Scott Hahn and Emily Stimpson Chapman have written a beautiful and important work, Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body. Fundamentally, the work is about the importance of the body, but they explain a host of interrelated areas including the meaning of death, heaven, the Sacraments, and relics. The authors cite the Church's rich tradition in making hteir points, from contemporary Magisterial teaching, to the Church Fathers and Sacred Scripture. We will all have to face death someday. That we will die, and that all of our loved ones will die, is the one thing we all agree on, and yet, so few of us are prepared for this common end. Hope to Die will help us prepare well for that final moment. Most importantly, it encourages us to live in such a way that we will be well prepared for our own death. The great strength of the book is its encouragement to hope; it shows so clearly how death really is something for which we should long. Rather, God, Whom we will encounter after death, is the one for Whom we should long. Our whole life is oriented toward that final encounter. They write eloquently on how the body itself is a sacrament; it has spiritual significance. I found the book made me want to see God and lovingly contemplate my own life, especially the mysterious parts, the difficulties that have not made sense, in the light of God's divine illumination--in the light of His fatherly providence. This is a book you will want to read and reread again.
When my wife of almost 60 years passed away, this book made a big difference. Blessings.
