Around the year 95, the Roman government banished a Christian to a rocky penal colony in the Aegean Sea for the capital crime of prophesying.The sentence did not have the desired effect.
From the isolated island, Patmos, the Christian, a man named John, went right on foretelling the future. Only now, instead of addressing small bands of hiding church members in hushed and rushed meetings, he had time to write out full accounts of his offending visions. These centered around the return of a deceased Jewish man -- an obscure, itinerant religious teacher who had been tortured and executed as a criminal six decades prior -- as king of all creation.
The particulars of his visions, which John said had been delivered to him by an angel, were by turns terrifying and glorious. Passages on murderous, multi-headed beasts alternated with descriptions of docile cherubs adoring the Almighty; inconsolable wailing over deadly plagues preceded joyful flourishes from triumphant trumpets.
Apocalypses, or revelations, were not new. The Hebrew Scriptures and oral traditions were steeped in them. But where those had been carefully guarded by elders and high priests, John made it clear that his revelations were to be read immediately by the addressee churches (seven congregations in Asia). His goal in writing seemed to be exhorting his brothers and sisters in the Christian faith to persevere no matter how severely they might be persecuted for their beliefs and practices.
That didn't mean John made the precise significance of his letters obvious. He had to couch some of his visualizations in code language because despotic emperors of the day demanded to be worshiped as gods by citizens and subjects alike.
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John would have been swiftly silenced had a Nero, Caligula or Domitian discerned that he was referring to them when he wrote of evil monsters raging against their own creator. (Using the numerical equivalents assigned to Hebrew letters, the name Nero Caesar can be converted to the number 666.)Two millennia later, a Scripture scholar with the heart of a detective picks up the text, peels away the layers of subterfuge, dusts off the misconstrued meanings assigned John's cryptic prophecies over the centuries and lifts into the light a finding only remarkable for its everyday familiarity: the Catholic Mass.
But for Scott Hahn, a former Protestant minister who followed scriptural and historical clues all the way into the Catholic Church, identifying Revelation as a cloaked playbill to the Mass is only the beginning. Digging deeper, he unearths an essential aspect of the Mass long embedded in Catholic theology, but largely overlooked at the popular level by even the most devout Catholics in the present day: The Mass mirrors the activities going on now and eternally in heaven.
"We go to heaven when we go to Mass," writes Hahn, a theology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville. "This is not merely a symbol, not a metaphor, not a parable, not a figure of speech. It is real."
With this, his third book, Hahn, whose speaking voice is familiar to thousands, seems to be hitting his stride as an author. On these pages, as in his live presentations, he relays even the most esoteric scriptural minutiae with the enthusiasm of a sportscaster calling play-by-play at the big game. His command of the material is such that he could have written an occasionally groundbreaking scholarly commentary. But it's clear he's not interested in attracting accolades from academic circles. Instead Hahn, whose passion for teaching plainly flows from an ardent love of learning, has set his mind to imparting the riches of his findings upon hungry hearts.
The result is a shot of spiritual adrenaline for those about to attend Mass. "When Jesus comes again at the end of time, He will not have a single drop more glory than He has right now upon the altars and in the tabernacles of our churches," Hahn writes. "God dwells among Mankind right now because the Mass is heaven on earth."
Is the average, rank-and-file Catholic aware of this Church teaching? Not likely, else the mute daydreamers wouldn't outnumber the vocal participants in so many parishes. Having observed this phenomenon in light of the exuberant Protestant tradition he left behind, Hahn seems to have perceived that many regular Sunday Mass-attendees -- the ones who show up out of a dry sense of duty -- are intuitively aware of the wonder of it all. They only want for information.
Well, here it is. Richly sourced from writings of popes, theologians and Church fathers, Lamb's Supper dishes up everything Catholics need to know in order to savor the Mass as a vivid and revitalizing experience.
The Mass-enrichment program this book provides is so worthwhile and edifying that this reviewer is loath to point out any of its minor shortcomings. Nevertheless, it does have one distraction that would have made for a wise editorial extraction. Hahn's winking subheads, chuckle-out-loud amusing as some of them are, are incongruent with his enlightening text. It's a case of the sublime getting stung by the silly.
Fortunately, when you're scaling the Alps you don't fuss over a few bees buzzing around base camp. Thanks to Hahn's joy of discovery, you're approaching Mont Blanc.
"I want to make clear that the idea behind this book is nothing new, and it's certainly not mine," writes Hahn. "It's as old as the Church, and the Church has never let go of it. ... [Yet] this idea, that the Mass is `heaven on earth,' arrives [today] as news, very good news."
So does this book. Don't miss it.
David Pearson is features editor of the National Catholic Register.
