Scott Hahn [Hahn - Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots

Other Books by Scott Hahn
The Lambs Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments Letter and Spirit: From Written Text to Living Word in the Liturgy Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei Understanding the Scriptures: A Complete Course on Bible Study Scripture Matters: Essays on Reading the Bible from the Heart of the Church Understanding Our Father: Biblical Reflections on the Lords Prayer A Father Who Keeps His Promises: Gods Covenant Love in Scripture Rome Sweet Rome: Our Journey to Catholicism (with Kimberly Hahn) Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians (with Mike Aquilina)

To Veronica Margaret Hahn,
my first grandchild

Contents

I

.....

II

....

III

......

IV

...

V

....

VI

.....

VII

......

VIII

.....

IX

.. Introduction

S IGNS OF L IFE

No matter what line of work were in, no matter the circumstances of our personal life, we all come to days when we face a walla wall too sheer to climb, too high to vault, too strong to topple. These walls can arise, for instance, as problems on the job or in relationships. We try everything humanly possible to get over, around, under, or through them. But we reach a point where theres nothing left to try.

Ive faced many of those moments, and one I recall vividly. I was a young scholar, with a young family. I was working on my doctoral thesis, the crowning work of my studies in theology, and I came upon a problem in the interpretation of a certain verse of the Bible. It was a small passage, but it was a big problem, and the verse itself was a key to my argument. So I had to work out all the interpretive kinks before I could defend my thesis before the interrogators on my doctoral committee. In fact, unless I worked out the kinks, I was almost sure to fail.

I read all the available commentaries and found nothing usefulnot a single glimmer of light, except the sympathy of scholars who had faced the same wall before I did. I dithered and puttered and pondered and pacedfor monthsbut I couldnt find a way forward. This was a real problem, as I had already invested several years in my research. If I abandoned the project now, I faced a long, hard, and humiliating trek back to the beginning of the thesis-approval process.

Then the wall got even higher.

My adviser, a Jesuit priest, called to inform me that he had been transferred to Rome, Italy, to the Gregorian University. I had to complete my dissertation immediately, he said, or search out a new adviser, who might or might not find my thesis plausible.

I stopped sleeping and intensified my efforts, poring over tomes and making late-night calls to scholars I had never met.

Nothing. The wall loomed higher now than ever. On the far side of the wall stretched a professorial career the possibility of tenure open doors for honors, jobs, and publications. On this side, at least as I saw it: professional ruin.

I put myself through several weeks of this when something truly remarkable happened. My adviser called again. He just wanted to make sure I was prepared for anything that could happen when I showed up to defend my thesis. And so he went through a list of potential difficulties and obstacles I had not considered before, but that I should expect to encounter on the big day.

I recognized defeat. But I could not admit it. I was too proud. Yet I recognized that, too, as a problem. On top of all that, I was sleep deprived and overcaffeinated, which made my mind a tangle of moral and academic problems of biblical proportions.

There was nothing left for me to do. So I had to do something .

C ROSS P URPOSES

I had been Roman Catholic only a short while by the time of this crisisa little less than a decadebut my memory and imagination were already stuffed full of incidents from the lives of the saints, as any ten-year-olds should be.

Please dont get me wrong. Im not saying Im a Francis of Assisi or Ignatius Loyola. Nor am I trying to turn up the melodrama. In the great sweep of history, my thesis mattered little. In my professional life, however, it was make or break. The biographies of the saints, Ive learned over the years, are made to serve as models for precisely this sort of crisis.

The wall was very high. Yet, very late one night, and quite suddenly, I knew of something much higher than that wall, and I knew what I must do. I put on my jacket and set off into the night, not even bothering to comb my hair.

The neighborhood streets were still and dark. The quickest way to the campus where I teach is straight up the street and through the woods, so thats the way I went.

My goalthe thing so much higher than my wallwas always before me on the horizon. Towering above the dorms and library and labs of Franciscan University of Steubenville is a sixty-foot steel cross, illuminated and visible from the interstate highways, and even from across the Ohio River in West Virginia.

I made my way hastily across the silent campus. If anyone had seen me, they would surely have concluded that too much studying had made me crazy (see Acts 26:24). My mind was surely vexed, but probably as sound as it had ever been, as I found myself at the foot of that shining, colossal cross.

There I didnt have to think hard. I knew what the saints of history had done. I needed to do something. I needed to do what they did.

I kissed the cross, and then I lay flat, face down at the foot of the cross, and I cried.

By then I had filled myself up with all the best the world had to offer. I had consulted the most respected research libraries and personally called upon the top rank of scholars. None of that was enough. And I told that to Jesus: my wall was far too high. Yet I knew, no matter what I was going through, his cross was still higher.

For he had at his disposal a lot more than I had. Nevertheless, even though he was God , he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:68).

Lying there with my face in the dirt, I gave him everything, in the way I knew from St. Francis and countless others. I told him that if I had to fail, so be it: I would be emptied as he was.

H ERES M UD IN Y OUR E YE

What happened next?

Ill get to that in a few minutes. First Id like to stop and consider the beauty of the Catholic life.

Sometimes we find that weve arrived at a wall. Sometimes we find that weve just hit the wall, at high speedand weve left our crash helmet at home. When that happens, something in our nature cries out to us: Dont just stand there. Do something! God created us that way. He created us with bodies built for action, and he set us to work in a world full of things to do.

All through history, he has acknowledged this natural tendency and given us things to do. When the people were thirsty, God instructed Moses to strike a rock so that water would gush forth. Why did he do that? Not because he needed to. He could have dropped canteens from the clouds, or installed a great lake in the midst of the desert, or even had angels serve up pitchers of margaritas. Yet he knew human nature, and he knew our need to do something . So he gave Moses something to do.

Next page