Product Description

A fresh and enlightening new perspective on Mary, Mother of God, and her central importance in the Christian faith, from the author of the highly successful The Lamb's Supper.

In The Lamb's Supper, Catholic scholar and apologist Scott Hahn explored the relationship between the Book of Revelation and the Roman Catholic Mass, deftly clarifying the most subtle of theological points with analogies and anecdotes from everyday life. In Hail, Holy Queen, he employs the same accessible, entertaining style to demonstrate Mary's essential role in Christianity's redemptive message.

Most Christians know that the life of Jesus is foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. Through a close examination of the Bible, as well as the work of both Catholic and Protestant scholars and clergy, Hahn brings to light the small but significant details showing that just as Jesus is the "New Adam," so Mary is the "New Eve." He unveils the Marian mystery at the heart of the Book of Revelation and reveals how it is foretold in the very first pages of the Book of Genesis and in the story of King David's monarchy, which speaks of a privileged place for the mother of the king.

Building on these scriptural and historical foundations, Hahn presents a new look at the Marian doctrines: Her Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, Assumption, and Coronation. As he guides modern-day readers through passages filled with mysteries and poetry, Hahn helps them rediscover the ancient art and science of reading the Scriptures and gain a more profound understanding of their truthfulness and relevance to faith and the practice of religion in the contemporary world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16578 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-19
• Released on: 2006-09-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385501699
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Scott Hahn, an internationally renowned Catholic lecturer and apologist, is a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. His books include A Father Who Keeps His Promises; Rome Sweet Home, the bestselling story, coauthored with his wife, of their conversion to Catholicism; and, most recently, The Lamb's Supper. He lives in Steubenville, Ohio.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
My Type of Mother

THE LOVING LOGIC OF MARY'S MATERNITY


Mothers are the most difficult people to study. They elude our scrutiny. By nature and by definition, they are relational. They can be considered as mothers only in their relationship with their children. That is where they focus their attention, and that is where they would focus ours.

Nature keeps mother and child so close as to be almost indistinct as individuals through the first nine months of life. Their bodies are made for each other. During pregnancy, they share the same food, blood, and oxygen. After birth, nature places the child at the mother's breast for nourishment. The newborn's eyes can see only far enough to make eye contact with Mom. The newborn's ears can clearly hear the beating of the mother's heart and the high tones of the female voice. Nature has even made a woman's skin smoother than her husband's, the better to nestle with the sensitive skin of a baby. The mother, body and soul, points beyond herself, to her child.

Yet as close as nature keeps us to our mothers, they remain mysterious to their children. They remain as mysteries. In the words of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, "A thing can sometimes be too close to be seen."

As the Mother of God, Mary is the mother par excellence. So, as all mothers are elusive, she will be more so. As all mothers give of themselves, she will give more. As all mothers point beyond themselves, Mary will to a much greater degree.

A true mother, Mary considers none of her glories her own. After all, she points out, she is only doing God's bidding: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). Even when she recognizes her superior gifts, she recognizes that they are gifts: "All generations will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48). For her part, Mary's own soul "magnifies" not herself but "the Lord" (Lk 1:46).

How, then, are we to approach this elusive subject, if she must always be relational? How can we begin to study this woman who always deflects attention away from herself and toward her Child?


Let's Get Metaphysical

To understand the Mother of God, we must begin with God. All Mariology, all Marian devotion, must begin with solid theology and firm credal faith. For all that Mary does, and all that she is, flows from her relationship with God and her correspondence to His divine plan. She is His mother. She is His spouse. She is His daughter. She is His handmaid. We cannot begin to know her if we do not, first, have clear notions about Him--about God, His providence, and His dealings with His people.

And that's not as easy as some people would lead us to believe. We, after all, are dependent upon language that engages our imagination, that makes invisible things understandable by comparing them to things that we see: God is boundless, like the sky; He is illuminating, like a fire; He is everywhere, like the wind. Or we contrast God's qualities with our own: we are finite, but He is infinite; we are limited in our power, but He is all-powerful.

Analogy and contrast are as far as most people go in their consideration of God--and these are true, as far as they go. Yet they don't go far enough. God is pure spirit, and all our earthly analogies fall far short of describing Him as He really is.

Theology is the way we approach God on His terms rather than our own. Thus, though there's no easy way of going about it, we can't go deep in our faith unless we're willing to take on the task of theology to some degree.

The ultimate truth about God cannot be dependent on anything other than God. We cannot define God in terms of something contingent, as in analogies with creation. God does not depend upon creation for His identity. So even His title of creator is something relative and not absolute. Though He is eternal and He is the creator, He is not the eternal creator. Creation is something that takes place in time, and God transcends time. So, though creation is something God does, it does not define Who He is. The same goes for redemption and sanctification. Though God is redeemer and sanctifier, these titles do not define His eternal identity, but rather certain of His works. The terms "creator," "redeemer," "lawgiver," and "sanctifier" are all dependent upon the world--upon something that needs to be created, redeemed, ruled, and sanctified.

What's-His-Name

Then how can we know God as He is? Primarily because He has revealed Himself to us. He has told us His eternal identity. His name. At the end of Saint Matthew's gospel (28:19), Jesus commands His disciples to baptize "in the name" of the Blessed Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Notice that He does not speak of these as three titles, but as a single name. In the culture of ancient Israel, one's name was equivalent to one's identity. This single name, then, reveals Who God is from all eternity. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now, you might reasonably object, those titles are dependent on creation. Are not "Father" and "Son" mere analogies with earthly familial roles?

No. In fact, that's precisely backwards. Rather, the earthly roles of father and son are living metaphors for something divine and eternal. God Himself is, somehow, eternally, perfectly a family. Pope John Paul II expressed this well: "God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love."

Did you catch that? God, then, is not like a family; God is a family. From eternity, God alone possesses the essential attributes of a family, and the Trinity alone possesses them in their perfection. Earthly households have these attributes, but imperfectly.

Divinity Is As Divinity Does

Yet God's transcendence does not leave creation completely without a clue. Creation does tell us something about its creator. Artwork always reveals a hint of the character of the artist. So we can learn more about Who God is by observing what He does.

The process works in reverse as well. We can learn more about creation, redemption, and the works of God by studying them in the light of His self-revelation. Because the Trinity reveals the deepest dimension of Who God is, it also reveals the deepest meaning of what God does. The mystery of the Trinity is "the central mystery of Christian faith and life," says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 234). "It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them." Thus, our understanding of God as family should also profoundly affect our understanding of all His works. In everything that exists, we may discern--with the eyes of faith--a familial purpose, what the theological tradition calls "the footprints of the Trinity."

Reflection on the mystery of God and the mysteries of creation, then, becomes mutually enhancing. Says the Catechism: "God's works reveal Who He is in Himself; the mystery of His inmost being enlightens our understanding of all His works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions" (no. 236).

Traces of Love, Long Ago

We catch glimpses of God not just in the world but also--and especially--in the scriptures, which are uniquely inspired by God to convey His truth. The Catechism goes on to explain that God has revealed "His Trinitarian being" explicitly in the New Testament, but also left "traces . . . in His Revelation throughout the Old Testament" (no. 237).

The whole of the scriptures, then, can be viewed as the story of God's preparation for, and completion of, His greatest work: His definitive self-revelation in Jesus Christ. Saint Augustine said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New. For all history was the world's preparation for the moment when the Word was made flesh, when God became a human child in the womb of a young virgin from Nazareth.

Like Jesus Christ, the Bible is unique. For it is the only book that can truly claim to have both human authors and a divine author, the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, fully divine yet fully human--like all of us, except without sin. The Bible is the Word of God inspired, fully divine yet fully human--like any other book, except without error. Both Christ and scripture are given, said the Second Vatican Council, "for the sake of our salvation" (Dei Verbum 11).

So when we read the Bible, we need to read it on two levels at once. We read the Bible in a literal sense as we read any other human literature. But we read it also in a spiritual sense, searching out what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us through the words (see Catechism, nos. 115-19).

We do this in imitation of Jesus, because this is the way He read the scriptures. He referred to Jonah (Mt 12:39), Solomon (Mt 12:42), the temple (Jn 2:19), and the brazen serpent (Jn 3:14) as "signs" that prefigured Him. We see in Luke's gospel, as our Lord comforted the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them what referred to Him in all the scriptures" (Lk 24:27). After this spiritual reading of the Old Testament, we are told, the disciples' hearts burned within them.

What ignited this fire in their hearts? Through the scriptures, Jesus had initiated His disciples into a world that reached beyond their senses. A good teacher, God introduced the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. Indeed, He had created the fami...

Customer Reviews

Biblical basis for Catholic beliefs on Mary
For anyone who needs to see it in the Bible to believe it, this book explains the biblical basis of Catholic beliefs about Mary. Written by a former Presbyterian minister, now Catholic; it is THOROUGHLY biblical, also easy to read, written in simple laymen's language. It is amazingly insightful and interesting, and is an indispensable tool to broaden any Christian's -Catholic or Protestant- understanding and appreciation of Mary. A must read!

If I could give this book six stars, I would!
Dr. Scott W. Hahn writes like he speaks. He uses wit and an engaging style to drive home essential teachings of the Christian faith. His ability to hold and enlighten an audience is similar to that of the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen of a generation or two ago. Likewise blessed with a strong intellect and good judgment in his use of entertainment, Scott Hahn is living proof that dogma need not be presented as dull or overbearing.

Hahn's "Hail, Holy Queen" is an important and lively book. It is important because it presents the ancient and once-universally-accepted Christian teachings on the person and role of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In AD 431, at the Council of Ephesus (the third of the generally accepted early ecumenical councils; the seventh was in AD 787), Mary was acknowledged by the proper title "Theotokos" or "Mother of God" (literally: "birth-giver of God"). Christian theology was still very much in flux and the bishops at Ephesus saw in this affirmation an important piece of the puzzle of how Jesus' divine nature integrated fully with the human in the one divine Second Person of the Holy Trinity. In his book, Hahn teleports the reader back to the fifth century, to a time of rejoicing over this breakthrough insight into the mystery of Christ's Incarnation.

Hahn delivers this and much more in "Hail, Holy Queen." God is not a slave driver but wants us to be in His family, as brothers and sisters "from the same womb" (cf. Greek "adelphos"), through a covenant of persons. Mary has a motherly role in this family, a role that is relationally derived from being the mother of Jesus Christ. She is of course a creature, but a most excellent one at that. Hahn makes all of this very clear -- and very encouraging for the reader who is willing to accept it!

And Hahn's effort is lively, because he does it with panache. Not in the least deadly dull, Hahn mixes in a dash of humor here and there to make his points. I especially enjoyed his chapter and section headings: "Cutting the Unbiblical Cord," "Maternity Warred," "Venerators of the Lost Ark," etc. I thought the Hahn couple's book "Rome Sweet Home" was really good, because I can empathize with it, but this one is even better. As they say in some circles, "It doesn't get any better than this!" Keep up the great work, Scott! Rev. Dennis J. Mercieri

Excellent way to understand how Mary fits into Christianity
For any Christian trying to understand the importance of Mary in their devotion to Jesus, this is an excellent study. Not only does this book explain what Catholics mean by honoring (not worshipping) Mary, it also explains why it should fit into the lives of all Christians as an ecumenical factor.
This book will answer many bilblical questions about Mary.
Hahn has put an excellent theological study at the fingertips of every common person. It is easy to read and understand.