First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity [Hardcover]

Scott Hahn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2002

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Scott Hahn, in First Comes Love, uses the idea of family to explain Catholic thought about the Trinity. Hahn believes that the relations among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a model for the relations among every nuclear unit composed of father, mother, and child. And he believes that the family of the Church helps people emulate the Trinitarian family and can heal them when they fall short of such holiness. Hahn moves easily from personal anecdote to Scriptural analysis, making his case that Jesus understood all of humanity as part of one family when he called his followers brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. First Comes Love makes the salutary point that neither romance nor parenthood alone can give us a sufficient sense of belonging. "God built us all to live in a much larger family, to experience a much larger love ... a love that extends infinitely." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly

Beloved Protestant-turned-Catholic writer Hahn (The Lamb's Supper, etc.) gives us his most sophisticated book yet, an extended meditation on the Trinity. Theologians and scholars from Miroslav Volf to Eugene Rogers have been paying more attention to the Trinity in recent years, but Hahn is one of the first authors to produce a book designed to introduce a general audience to the theological resources of Trinitarianism. His central point is that God exists as a Trinitarian family, and that living in God's image means modeling our lives and relationships on God's three-in-one relationship with himself Although he reveres the institution of the family, Hahn powerfully warns against making an idol out of human relationships, insisting that the Trinity is "the home we have desired," while marriage is but "a living, embodied analogy that points the way to something greater." The book is not flawless. Hahn's effort is slightly marred by the cutesy subheadings with which he insists on cluttering all his books ("Children of a Lesser Good," "Re-flesh My Memory" and so forth). The brief foreword by the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy's Ronald Lawler doesn't add a thing. Some readers especially those who know that other contemporary theologians find in the Trinity ballast for liberal programs like racial reconciliation and acceptance of homosexuality may quibble with Hahn's socially conservative ends: for him, Trinitarian life translates into heterosexual marriage and calling God "father." But readers who either share, or can set aside, Hahn's conservative theology will consider this a riveting introduction to the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Religion; 1 edition (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385496613
• ISBN-13: 978-0385496612
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Scott Hahn was born in 1957, and has been married to Kimberly since 1979. An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Hahn has delivered numerous talks nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics related to Scripture and the Catholic faith. Hundreds of these talks have been produced on audio and videotapes by St. Joseph Communications. His talks have been effective in helping thousands of Protestants and fallen away Catholics to (re)embrace the Catholic faith.

He is currently a Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990, and is the founder and director of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. In 2005, he was appointed as the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Scott received his Bachelor of Arts degree with a triple-major in Theology, Philosophy and Economics from Grove City College, Pennsylvania, in 1979, his Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biblical Theology from Marquette University in 1995. Scott has ten years of youth and pastoral ministry experience in Protestant congregations (in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Kansas and Virginia) and is a former Professor of Theology at Chesapeake Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1982 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Virginia. He entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, 1986.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is radically orthodox & profoundly revolutionary!, May 7, 2002

By 

Dr. Peter Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy (Boston College (Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity (Hardcover)

Our civilization is in crisis largely because its most fundamental building block, the family, is in crisis. Therefore, Divine Providence has raised up two great theologians of the family today (the deeper the crisis, the profounder God's response): Pope John Paul II and Scott Hahn. "First Comes Love" is John Paul's Biblical theology of the family in layman's language. Deceptively simple, this book is both radically orthodox and profoundly revolutionary.

53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep & engaging, this is Hahn's best & most important book, May 18, 2002

By 

Carl E. Olson (The National Catholic Register) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity (Hardcover)

This is arguably Scott Hahn's best and most important work in print to date. In previous books, the popular speaker and theologian has traced the theme and reality of covenant in Scripture ("A Father Who Keeps His Promises") and examined the covenantal nature of the Church's liturgical worship ("The Lamb's Supper") and Mary's spiritual motherhood ("Hail, Holy Queen"). Now, in "First Comes Love," Hahn plunges even more deeply into the supernatural foundation of the New Covenant -- the Trinity -- and shows how the Triune God is the source and sustainer of both human families and the Church, the family of God. Hahn shows how the Trinity, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church" describes as "the central mystery of Christian faith and life," is inexahustible but not unknowable.

Beginning with courtship and marriage, and building on the theme of family and love, Hahn moves on to the Incarnation and then ascends to an extended consideration of the God Who is family, covenant, and love. Covenant -- the complete gift of self to another -- is illuminated by the light of the Trinity, in which the three divine Persons eternally give themselves to one another in total love: "Covenant is what God does, because covenant is Who God is." Hahn then masterfully shows how the Incarnation, the Church, and the family logically flow from the reality of the Triune life of self-gift and life-giving love.

Written in a popular and personal style, the book clearly communicates the brilliant, but often dense, writings of Pope John Paul II pertaining to family, love and sexuality. This is particularly evident in Hahn's depiction of the Fall, when Adam and Eve refused to sacrifice their natural desires for the greater, supernatural good. Sacrifice is the way to God; it "is the only way that humans can imitate the interior life of the Trinity. For God is love, and the essence of love is life-giving. Sacrifice, then, became the essential mark of all subsequent covenants between God and humankind."

Insightful, engaging and spiritually challenging, "First Comes Love" demonstrates that Hahn has few equals when it comes to explaining the complex riches of the Catholic Faith -- without watering them down or dulling their power and potency. There is no greater vocation than to be a true child of God, and "First Comes Love" is a fine articulation and explanation of that precious truth.

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wholly original & wholly orthodox, this is a remarkable book, May 7, 2002

By 

Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Cambridge University (England)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity (Hardcover)

Scott Hahn is always a surprise. You pick up the book thinking that, after a glitzy autobiographical opening (in the American fashion), this will be a re-play of an old record. But then, as you read on, the absolute freshness of the thinking rises up and hits you between the eyes.

Now he has done it for family, Trinity, Church.

If you think the beginning is schmalzy, read on. For Hahn, romance and children break down egoism, but even when our nuclear families are not spoiled by dysfunction, neither romance nor children is good enough. Our longing for love, family, home, can only be fulfilled in the DIVINE family plan -- which is where Israel and Christ, Trinity and Church come in.

He starts from Israel. The twelve tribes, Hahn argues, were "trustee-families," with "covenant" the legal, ritual way to accept new members. But that -- the Israelite experience -- was only a beginning. The Saviour spoke a family language of a new kind, a language of a Father's children, and a God who is (as we would come to say, in shorthand) "Trinity". His aim was to draw people away from even the primal families of the old Israel into a new supernatural family that would be "as big as God".

Just why such re-making was necessary, and why -- in the last analysis -- it took the Incarnation and the Atonement to make it stick, it is the job of the narrative of the Fall in the book of Genesis to explain. Here Hahn's account takes on the tension of a detective story. I will not spoil the reader's enjoyment, but limit myself to saying: Hahn's theology of the Fall is wholly original and wholly orthodox, two qualities that, in such wide-ranging biblical interpretation, are rarely combined.

The message of Jesus life and death is clear: only a blameless life given to another, for another -- given sacrificially, then -- could reverse the Fall and reveal the Trinity. The Trinity is the only family bond that can last for ever, and the proof of its reality is Eucharistic communion in the Real Presence. And so finally to the Church. The great trustee family of ancient Israel moves to the margins but Jesus's disciples are not left orphans. In the Church, Christ has a bride that is also his body -- not as strange as it sounds, for a woman was so to cleave to her husband as to become one flesh. And this bride is, through our baptism, our Mother. Or rather, it is because the Holy Spirit's mothering of believers happens through Mother Church that she -- the Church -- can regenerate in baptism. As the communion of saints, human sin notwithstanding, this is a family that is always functional. And in its context, all those domestic realities from which Hahn started -- the married couple, children, sexuality, and indeed single people, whether consecrated celibates or not -- can find their home at the sacred hearth of God.

The delicacy with which Scott Hahn reaches out in his conclusion to those who have suffered in the family circle, or suffered from having no family circle to call their own, is not the least strength of this remarkable book.