Scott Hahn's Kids

One reason I stopped writing my blog every day was the feeling that I just could not do justice to the ideas I was trying to express -- I always felt that what came out on paper fell far short of the beauty I saw in my mind.  I felt that other people had already said better what I was trying to say, and I sort of gave up.

This morning, however, I remembered that one of my original motivations for beginning a blog was to pass on to others the beauty of ideas that have inspired me -- that is, in the beginning, I did not aspire to be original, or to say it better, than others have said it.  I simply wanted to share with a wider audience the things that I had found to be true and beautiful and wise.  So, going back to my "first love" and inspiration, today I want to share something that follows on yesterday's entry about the table of the Lord but that is not original with me.

I was reading Scott Hahn's book, First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and in the Trinity.  I picked it up this morning because it had on the front cover a picture of Rublev 's portrait of the Trinity, my starting point for yesterday's blog.  I had been meditating this morning on Proverbs 8 and 9, where Wisdom, personified as a woman, sets her table and prepares her banquet for all who will come to be fed at her table.  Then I turned to Luke 14, the Parable of the Great Banquet, and I was thinking about writing about sitting at the Table of the Lord.  

As I was thinking about what I wanted to say, however, I clearly heard one word in my mind: READ. So I reached down to the pile of books on the floor beside my chair and found Scott Hahn's book near the bottom of the stack.  When I saw the front cover, I was intrigued and began to page through the book, one that I had started about a year ago but never finished.  Near the end of the book, I came across the perfect explanation for what I had been trying to express by "the Table of the Lord":

Scott Hahn asked himself (p. 164) how the Hahn children know they are Scott's kids and found a whole list of reasons for his children's confidence:
1. They live in his house
2. They are called by his name.
3. They sit at his table
4. They share his flesh and blood -- the family resemblance
5. Their mother is his bride
6. They were always celebrating together-- birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc.
7. They receive instruction and discipline from Scott.  (The next door neighbors or the kids in the next booth at McDonald's do not receive instruction and discipline from him.)
8. They never have to wonder if he will feed them.

Scott Hahn's reflections on the Church as the family of God on the next few pages are worth reading and reflection.  Maybe that will be the subject of another blog, now that I've overcome the thought that I should be original.