Catholic for a Reason II: Scripture and the Mystery of the Mother of God Book

I liked some of the essays here more than others (to the point of eyes glazing over for a couple, and deciding that life is too short). However! I have a feeling that I may give those eye-glazers another chance at some point in the future.

I hadn't read Scott Hahn before. He and his wife, Kimberly Hahn, are former evangelicals converted to Catholicism, and in the first essay in the book, Scott Hahn describes how Mary was a stumbling block for him in becoming Catholic, and how he overcame that in part by praying the rosary. The essay reads like a pulpit testimonial, and it's both personal and universal, very well done, as are his other two essays in the book.

As I'm writing this, I realize that I liked the essays best that drew comparisons from Old Testament figures to Mary, and that showed how the writers came to their personal understanding of Mary. Not so much the essays working at proving something that's already infallible anyway.

The gospel reading last Sunday was Matthew 13, including "55 "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren't all his sisters with us?" - which struck me more than it might otherwise have, since I was reading this.

The explanations for this passage seem a little like insisting that the herd of striped equids in Africa are really black horses with white stripes painted on. Or possibly white horses with black stripes painted on. But certainly not zebras.

Thanks to firstreads for the chance to read these essays, most of which really were quite illuminating.