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'Sacraments are something God does for us,' Hahn says
archived from: 2004-05-13
by: Chuck Moody

Dr. Scott Hahn, considered to be the best-selling Catholic author in the United States, is set to speak at 8 p.m. Friday, May 21, at St. Richard Church in Richland Township in a talk sponsored by Aquinas Academy. The discussion is free and open to the public.

Hahn, a former Presbyterian minister, will speak about his latest book, “Swear to God: The Power and Promise of the Sacraments.”

Hahn is founder, president and chairman of the board of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He has more than 1 million books and tapes in print worldwide, including: “Lord Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession”; “First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity”; “Hail Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God”; and “The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth,” all published by Doubleday.

He is also the author, along with his wife, Kimberly, of “Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism.”

In addition, Hahn is a professor of theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Hahn and his wife live in Steubenville, Ohio, with their six children. Hahn answered some questions from the Pittsburgh Catholic.

CATHOLIC: Why do Catholics need a book on the sacraments?

HAHN: Because partaking of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, is perhaps the thing Catholics do the most and yet think about the least.

We tend to think about the sacraments as something we do. I go to Mass. I take Communion. I go to confession. But really sacraments are something God does for us.

And what he’s doing in the sacraments is every bit as miraculous and historic as the miraculous events we read about in the Bible — the parting of the Red Sea, the feeding of the Israelites with manna in the desert.

I also don’t think that most of us realize that when the priest pronounces Christ’s words at the altar, “This is my body,” or in the confessional, “I absolve you of your sins,” that he’s not just saying something, he’s doing something.

The words we use in celebrating the sacraments — words drawn from sacred Scripture — are divine “speech-acts.” They actually do what they say they’re doing. Again, what happens in the sacraments continues what God has been doing since the beginning of the world. He said, “Let there be ...,” and the world came into being. It’s the same in the sacraments. When the priest says, “I absolve you ...,” your sins are forgiven.

This is amazing. And it’s a pure gift from God, given to each one of us personally to bring us into the family of God.

CATHOLIC: You used to be a Protestant minister. How do you view the sacraments differently now that you’re a Catholic layman?

HAHN: My big objection to the way Catholics approached the sacraments was that I couldn’t find the word “sacrament” anywhere in the Bible. How could sacraments be so important to Catholics if it wasn’t even important enough to be mentioned in the Bible?

But the more I studied Scripture, I found a pattern — a consistent way that God has of dealing with his people. He makes “covenants” with them. He swears an oath to be their God, and they in turn swear an oath to be his people. These covenants are all sealed with outward signs — the rainbow with Noah, circumcision with Abraham, for instance. The covenants all included ceremonial acts of worship — the offering of a sacrifice, the sharing of a sacrificial meal — think of the Passover before the Exodus. But the oath was always primary: “Both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant” (Gen 21:31-32).

Later, I discovered that the Latin word for “oath” is sacramentum. And the Catholic way of thinking about sacraments all made sense.

CATHOLIC: The relationship you see between sacraments and oaths will come as a surprise to most readers. How are the two related?

HAHN: The sacraments are sacred oaths that bind us in our new covenant with God — just as the covenant rituals of ancient Israel celebrated the chosen people’s belonging to God’s family. In the Old Testament, the covenant rituals either established that family bond between God and Israel (think of circumcision) or restored it when it was broken (think of the Temple sin offerings).

Jesus intended to carry over this way of thinking in the sacraments. Baptism brings us into the family, the Eucharist nourishes us, penance restores us to the family when we fall. All the sacraments share this family.

CATHOLIC: How does this book relate to your other work, and especially your work with the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology?

HAHN: At the St. Paul Center we’re trying to give priests and lay people the tools they need to understand — and to live out — the biblical worldview, which is the Catholic worldview.

The sacraments are essential to that vision. The pope has been urging this, and there’s an incredible hunger for it. Our SalvationHistory.com Web site is one of the most popular Catholic sites on the Web now. We have close to 6,000 people registered for our on-line classes — from 20 nations.

We just returned from a large pilgrimage to Malta and Rome, and in July we’ll be leading a great educational cruise to Alaska.

What we’re about is lifelong learning in the mysteries of the faith. That means going deeper into the heart of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

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