Foreword by Scott Hahn

Foreword

Once upon a time, we all believed our lives to be part of a larger story. It’s a natural thing. When I tell the story of my life, I see a narrative arc, with clear high points and low points. I see cumulative development—emotional, intellectual, and physical growth. I assume that I came from somewhere specific and that I’m going somewhere—that I have a goal, though I glimpse it only dimly.

Civilizations also have stories. They need stories. Caesar Augustus knew this, so he hired the greatest poet of his time to write a backstory, a grand narrative. If Rome were to replace Greece as the world’s dominant power, it needed an epic poem that could stand alongside The Iliad and The Odyssey. So Virgil produced The Aeneid.

Educated Greeks and Romans knew that these backstories were largely fictional. The myths made no corresponding demands on the people’s everyday lives. They proposed virtues, such as patriotism and fortitude, but they enshrined no morals.

Biblical religion was essentially different from this. It ascribed its story not merely to human poets but to a God who is Creator, Redeemer, Lawmaker, Judge, King, and Guide. For Jews and Christians, the great story encompassed both the civilizational and the personal. It narrated the history of the people and the person. And they believed it to be history indeed—history that could be confirmed by the documents and monuments of the world. If they saw allegory in the biblical story, they saw it not merely in the words but in the events the words describe.

God writes the world the way human authors write words, and he composes creation and history to be a revelation of his life.

I came of age in a thriving evangelical Christian subculture, and I think its apostolic success came largely from its ability to tell the Big Story in a way that was at once universal and personal. We had four spiritual laws that outlined the narrative of creation, fall, and redemption. So it was intellectually captivating, and it was relatable. We pondered ways we could convey the story quickly—in the course of a plane trip or even an elevator ride. Even when I was a teenager, I saw adults change their minds and their lives because they suddenly came to an understanding of their past and future as part of God’s plan.

Fr. John Riccardo understands this deep human need, and he recognizes that we live in a moment when every proposed alternative narrative is falling apart. Democracy and science can be good and great things, as far as they go, but they cannot save us. Their horizons are limited. They cannot supply us with a moral code. They are, moreover, dependent on metaphysical assumptions they cannot account for.

This book provides the simple account that’s needed right now. The New Evangelization, heralded by popes since St. Paul VI, can go forward only by grace, but only insofar as we can tell our story in a compelling way. Fr. Riccardo does this. He distills the biblical narrative in a way that is simple but not simplistic. He implies the richness of Catholic tradition, which includes all the relevant sciences, and he sets up a conversation that can lead to a robust engagement of modern culture.

The key is at once very traditional and startlingly new with this book. It is the phrase Fr. Riccardo received one day in

prayer: “ambush predator.” When people stumble over the Christian story—now as in ancient times—it’s usually because of the cross. “Nothing is so far above the reach of human reason as the mystery of the cross” (Roman Catechism I.4). How could this happen to almighty God? Where is the saving power in such abject weakness? Fr. Riccardo recovers the understanding of the first Christians, explaining how Jesus “will enter into Death and, from the inside, destroy its power. Jesus on the cross is not the poor, helpless victim, and he is not the hunted. Jesus on the cross is the aggressor and the hunter” (see page 114). In apparent weakness he lays his trap. He is himself the bait.

Our author marshals an impressive array of early Christian witnesses for this interpretive key: Irenaeus, Melito, Ephrem, and Maximus. And he lets them show us how to tell the story. Thus we learn not only from a master of modern preaching but also from the very voices who converted the world the first time around.

Though we sometimes wonder why God allows so much sickness, suffering, and evil, we take a look at the cross and we see the greatest evil ever perpetrated, the greatest suffering ever endured, and then the greatest gift God has ever given— the salvation of the human race.

We live at a moment when all other monuments are falling. We live in a time when so many other ancient documents, alas, are going unread or actually being banned for their civilizational associations. In some senses, this is a disaster to be mourned. At the same time, we must see it as an opportunity to be embraced. We have been created for this moment and called for this moment and so we will be empowered for this moment.

Ours is the story of Jesus Christ, and it is a story that encompasses all others and surpasses all others. It is a monument that will stand when all others have fallen. It is a narrative that will hold together when all others have unraveled.

It is the story told in the pages of this book, and I pray it will be retold by the readers of this book.

Dr. Scott Hahn, founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and Fr. Michael Scanlan professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville