First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity Book

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.

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. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.