The Lamb's Supper: The Mass As Heaven on Earth

Rating:
Summary: An emotional supper!
Review: As someone coming to the Catholic church, this book answered many core questions about mass that I have felt in the years I have attended with my "cradle Catholic" wife, but never was sure of. The beauty and awe of what occurs in what some feel is a mundane hour or so on Sunday is poured out in the mass that Dr. Hahn calls "heaven on earth".

Rating:
Summary: Glorious Interpretation
Review: Dr. Scott Hahn is a blessing both for Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. His skill for demonstrating a Catholic belief structure in a way that will not scare off the Evangelical brethern is a talent that few have. In this volume, he demonstrates this talent perfectly by explaining the most misunderstood practice of the Catholic faith, the Mass, while explaining the most misunderstood book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, in the light of the mass. It is an eye-opener to say the least. This book should be required reading for both Catholics and Protestants alike -- for Catholics, it reinforces the ritual we go through every week; for Protestants, it will shed light on all those "bizarre" and "confusing" practices that Catholics perform. Either way, the reader will only come out strengthed and better for reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Escaping the Real Absence, or the Mass for the Masses!
Review: There are a few reasons to read this book.

1) Hahn does a great job in tracing the Church's teaching on the Eucharist and Christ's real presence, starting with the Scriptures and a detailed account of the earliest Christian writers and texts, many of which are of a liturgical nature.
2) The connection between the Passover and Christ's own sacrifice are clearly presented. He then ties this into the nature of our own participation in Christ as our only Passover lamb Who we must eat just as the Israelites ate theirs when the angel of death visited Egypt.
3) He gives a very detailed account of the nature of sacrifice in the Jewish cult as a precursor and type of Christ's own sacrifice.
4) He draws explicit connections between the Mass and the book of Revelation, allowing the reader to gain a deeper understanding of both, including the role of the saints, the angels, and chiefly the new Eve, Mary.
5) There is a detailed bibliography of sources cited, something sorely lacking in many of Hahn's other books!

I was not too surprised to find little made of the Holy Spirit's work in the mass. While Hahn draws on the Eastern Orthodox tradition in this work, he fails to make note of the epiclesis, or calling down of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and wine and the congregation to make them the very body and blood of Christ. Even so, it is a great read!

Other books of interest may include: "For the Life of the World", "Introduction to Liturgical Theology", and "Liturgy and Tradition" all by Alexander Schmemann; "The Eucharist Makes the Church" and "Sacrament of Salvation" both by Paul McPartlan; "Eucharist" and "Liturgical Piety" both by Louis Bouyer; Macy's "The Banquet's Wisdom: A short History of the Theologies of the Lord's Supper"; "The Shape of the Liturgy" by Gregory Dom Dix; Shea's "This is My Body"; and for some Eastern Orthodox liturgical texts that you may find very devotionally useful, "The Lenten Triodion" and "The Festal Menaion" edited and translated by Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware. ENJOY!

Rating:
Summary: A model of good scholarship and accessible popular writing
Review: When all is said and done, can there be a more fundamental and central framework within which to situate the whole order of liturgical theology and practice than that of the sacramental invocation of the Kingdom of God? This growing conviction was brought home to me recently by this book, "The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth," by Scott Hahn of the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Hahn's book is a model combination of good scholarship and accessible popular writing.

Rating:
Summary: Biblical Basis of the Mass
Review: It is very important for apologetical reasons to provide Scriptural foreshadowings, as well as fulfillments, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass -- the center of Catholic worship. This Dr. Scott Hahn does expertly, as is the case for nearly all his prolific writings.
Another book that takes up the topic of Scriptural prefigurements for the Eucharist is "Why Matter Matters: Philosophical and Scriptural Reflections on the Sacraments" (authored by Dr. David P. Lang with a Preface by Dr. Peter J. Kreeft, published by Our Sunday Visitor). Chapters 2 and 3, titled respectively "Why Wheat Bread?" and "Why Grape Wine?" are particularly relevant, but also Chapter 4, part of which covers the amazing symbolic association between wheat bread and olive oil forecast in the Old Covenant as a prefigurement of the Consecration in the Mass, where olive oil represents the action of the Holy Spirit in effecting transubstantiation of wheat bread into the Body of Christ. Both books are highly recommended -- along with Patrick Madrid's "Why is That in Tradition?" and Mike Aquilina's "Mass of the Early Christians" (both from OSV).

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: Quite simply, this book has changed my life. It is a must-read for all Catholics - it can transform your faith.

Rating:
Summary: Live Scripture, attend Mass
Review: As a "revert" to the Church this book was very helpful. It helps a person to see Mass in the light of Scripture and Scripture in the light of Mass. I heard many false accusations about the Mass while I was away from the Church Christ established on St. Peter. This book, written by a former anti-Catholic Presbyterian who converted to the Catholic Church, really opens your eyes to not only the Scriptural basis for the Mass, but to the historical continuity of the Christian faith as expressed in the liturgical worship of the Mass.

Rating:
Summary: Why Demons Tremble When You Go to Mass
Review: 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. 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Lamb's Supper
Review: The book offers new insights into the liturgy of the Mass. It also shows that the Book of Revelation (the last book of the New Testament) is not as ominous as many have interpreted it. It intergrates the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with parts of the Book of Revelations. It is truly inspirational.

Rating:
Summary: "A Profound Study of Revelation and the Mass"
Review: Scott Hahn, a professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, and also a frequent guest on EWTN, has written a scriptural based work which brings to light the similarities of the Mass with the book of Revelation. Along with Scripture, Hahn authoritatively cites from the works of the Church Fathers and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In reading this work a variety of new insights, with regard to the book of Revelation, will stand out to the reader and leave new and interesting impressions about the mysterious book; and these insights will no doubt compel further study. Hahn also briefly overviews the order of the Mass and draws striking comparisons with elements found in the book of Revelation. And at last, Hahn challenges the reader to enter the Mass wholeheartedly with humility, conscience, enthusiasm, and love for our brothers and sisters. Anyone who reads this will certainly have a more profound understanding of Revelation and more intimate conception of the Mass.