Pints With Aquinas - Christmas with Dr. Scott Hahn | Tracing the Fulfillment of Prophecies

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

To most, the Incarnation is so familiar that we have lost touch with what a scandal the manger would have been in its time. In this Advent and Christmas episode, Matt Fradd welcomes Biblical scholar, Dr. Scott Hahn, to examine prophetic texts of the Old Testament that lay the ground for the arrival of the Christ child, covenants that prepared the way, and the earth shattering reality of God becoming an embryo. Together they uncover the layers and depth of the Christmas scriptures and God's plan for you, while exploring typology, the significance of Mary's role in salvation history, and the meaning of the manger. Ep. 00 - - - Today's Sponsor: Exodus 90 - Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-Day free trial or visit https://Exodus90.com/matt to learn more. - - - Get 40% off the Ignatious Catholic Study Bible now HERE: https://stpaulcenter.com/store/ignatius-catholic-study-bible-old-and-new-testaments - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How widespread was the expectation that a Messiah was to come around that time? In the first century, no matter what sect of Judaism you belonged to, you knew that Daniel's clock was reaching midnight. But what God does in becoming a zygo, an embryo, an infant in the manger, and then a victim on the cross, I mean, that's new wine that bursts old skins, no matter what vintage you have. Jesus doesn't say, you know, you're so logical. You just are assembling the prophetic passages in the Old Testament.

Just right, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. He says, no, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. This episode of Pints with Aquinas is brought to you by Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge starts January 5th. Download the Exodus 90 app to begin your 14th. day free trial or visit exodus 90.com slash matt to learn more. Dr. Hahn, thank you so much for coming out to Nashville to be on our special Advent slash Christmas episode. You're welcome, but thank you for the gracious invitation and Advent

and Christmas blessings to you to Cameron and the kids. I want to begin with a quotation from Pope Benedict the 16th and have you comment on it. This is beautiful and that you began this in your book. The history of salvation is not a small event on a poor planet. in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation.

Everything is created so that this story can unfold the encounter between God and His creature. You know, as we approach Christmas, I think we have childhood memories that sort of block our view of where we are in history or what he would say,

Benedict, salvation history. We get so locked in that we need to step back and we need reminders that what happened 2,000 years ago is still changing the world today, one heart at a time, one family, you know. And that's why, you know, in beginning the book, Joy to the World, how Christ coming changed everything and still does, it just struck me as being so appropriate to have him help us look through these lenses of the Old Testament and the new to recognize just how much we take for granted. And frankly, it's sort of amazing how unamazed we are at what we profess and celebrate.

And so a conversation like ours, I hope, will afford us the opportunity to kind of blow off the dust and sort of reimagine things. And so we can be re-amazed at were. Oh, I love how you put there, how unamazed we are at what is truly amazing. I want to start from a 30,000-foot view and just... try to see if we can be amazed at this. God, the creator, became a zygote, fetus, baby.

In 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1, St. Paul talks about the scandal of the cross, which is a stumbling block for the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. And I was thinking about the scandal of the manger. And I was reminded of St. Augustine's great, or St. Augustine, I'm living in Florida now, so I go, St. Augustine's words, he says, he whom the heavens cannot contain the womb of one woman bore. She ruled our ruler. She carried him in whom we are. She gave milk to our bread. Can you just speak to that to try to maybe reamaze us that God became man and why? Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up because it's not just the scandal of the cross that St. Paul speaks of in 1st Corinthians one and two. It's also the scandal of the incarnation, that God becomes man, that God becomes

a zygote, that God becomes an embryo, a newborn child, God in the manger, you know. And I can hear my Christian friends saying, so, what's the problem? You know, and I would suggest that they ought to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and maybe stop by Bethlehem because you're surrounded by Jews and Muslims. And if you're just wondering, you know, what's the scandal of God becoming flesh, God becoming a baby in the womb of the Blessed Virgin? You know, look at it through their eyes because the idea that Allah, you know, we're not even made in his image and likeness according to Islam. And we need to be faithful and accurate in identifying what we share in common and where we differ. Jews, of course, recognize that we are made in the image of God. But at the same time,

the idea that God would become man, oh, my goodness, he's too immense. And I think what we have to do is begin the process of rethinking what we mean by immensity. Because if God were to suddenly take on the proportions of a planet, we might say, well, that's more fitting. You know, but a planet or a solar system or a galaxy. I mean, that's the same thing as a speck of dust or a subatomic particle to God. His immensity is so much more infinite than the things that we can measure.

You know, and it's not just immensity in terms of power and knowledge, but also goodness and love. And so we recognize in the Christian faith and especially in the Advent season leading up to Christmas that we're dealing with a God who is personal, who is concerned about us as persons. And it's like, well, again, that's not, that almost is not fitting for a God that immense to be concerned.

And yet you have to balance the immensity of God's power, his omnipresence, with the intensity of his own personal love. And not only is he a person, but we believe in a tripersonal God, that the father sent the son to be born of the Blessed Virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit. You know, and so the immensity of God has to be balanced by the intensity

of how personally invested he is in us and also in himself. You know, when we meet a dignitary who actually pays attention to us, we're sort of amazed, you know, but when we encounter divinity, we sort of assume, you know, what's my brief life? I'm a speck on a planet. And as you began reading that quotation from

Pope Benedict, which was there in a homily he delivered on the importance of the word of God and the life of the people of God back, I think, in 2010, it's just a reminder that, you know, what we see is not all we get. In fact, it's a tiny little piece of what is real. And so we've got to rethink reality. And there's no better time than Advent and Christmas, and there's no better way than to recognize that a God who is infinite, who could fill the universe to overflowing, he's omnipresent, but he's also present in the immaculate womb of the Blessed Virgin as a fertilize, as a embryo, as an embryo and a newborn child. Yeah. And the trajectory, of course, is going to lead to the cross. And then ultimately to the empty tomb. and to the deification or the divinization of the humanity of ours that he assumed, from which he got nothing. You know, when the father sends the son that by the power of the spirit, he will be conceived and born of the Virgin Mary,

he suffers, he dies, he rises again. And he doesn't end up getting any more glory than he had before he came. So what's the point? Well, again, this is the immensity of his love and his mercy, and how intensely he is invested in us in a way that would just explode our brains if we could ever even try to get around it, you know. And yet this is to share his life,

his own glory with us. I mean, that does more than just cause us to scratch her heads. Again, we ought to be amazed how unamazed we are. We sing amazing grace, but the grace is infinitely greater than our minds our little brains can wrap themselves around. I often think that it's much easier to think of God as one who loves us as a collective, as a sort of blob of humanity.

The way a beekeeper might love his bees or, you know, he doesn't know me individually. He just loves humanity. Can you speak to that and maybe how you've wrestled to experience that personal love of God the Father? Okay, two or three thoughts, just crowded the intersection of my mouth. I'll try to get one truck through at a time. First of all, I struggle with that all the time, you know, that God is my father as well as our father and that he is invested in me, like I'm invested in my six kids and our 24 grandkids only more by infinite proportions.

Like I can affirm those truths, but I don't feel them, you know, 24-7. I just don't. And I need, you know, another thought that I have, though, is that when I'm talking to you or when I'm talking to my students, I'm speaking and I'm speaking words about his power, his goodness, his love, and his mercy. And I'm thinking to myself, God, do they have any idea how much you love them? Because I feel like the copper wire through which this divine current is passing. And I just feel like he whispers, no, no, they don't. Yeah. But neither do you.

and so you're not just copper wire and it's like okay let's talk about that later you know but the very fact that you use a beehive that's such a good illustration because we tried in our backyard at the bottom of our terrace gardens to have a hive or two you know Justin helped us and then we just failed you know and I think we do see ourselves as loved by God collectively that's right the human race he takes on human nature you know and for us as Catholics we might think okay but he is personally concerned about the Queen Bee, the Blessed Virgin. And we can return to that later because he most certainly is. But if she's a mother, she's concerned about every member of the hive as much as she is about

herself. But I don't think it's easy for us to get beyond the collective. You know, for me, one breakthrough came when I became a father for the first time, 42 years ago, when I'm holding a newborn, my little boy, you know, the two became one. And the one we became was so real that nine and a half months later we had to name him and hold him and change him and all of that. And I remember burping him and he vomited down my back in the middle of the night and I didn't care. It's like you feel better. I feel clammy, but you feel better. And it was just like God invaded my space and just said, do you think you love your child more than I love my

children? And I'm like, well, no, you know, that's impossible. I'm a first time father. And then I realized it wasn't a pop quiz at 3 a.m. It was really like, I love you more than you love him. And I had to sit down in a rocking chair. An hour later, I finally laid him down. And I mean, God had used my newborn, my firstborn, to rock my world. And he still does. But it takes a lot to break through because, you know, we often say, you know, how you

doing? Oh, I'm fine under the circumstances. Well, we should not be under the circumstances. We need to pray such that we rise above them. And I can give a pep talk to anybody about that sort of thing, except for one person. That is me. I find it so challenging to pray as well as I teach people to pray well. And so it's physician, heal thyself.

You know, teacher, teach thyself. And so I look forward to conversations with you, Matt, because our friendship goes back so many years. A prayer, somebody once taught me that I think is a beautiful one to pray is, Father, tell me you love me until I finally give in and believe you. Oh, wow. Exactly. Yeah. Let's talk about the coming of the Messiah.

How widespread was the expectation that a Messiah was to come around that time? Or is this something that Christians magnify erroneously to try to give a another argument for the coming of cross. Yeah, that's a great question, because I think a lot of times when we as Christians want to map out the prophecies in the Old Testament, and we can return to this and look at it more in greater detail later on. But, you know, I remember as a kid, looking up at the stars, you know, and, oh, there's a Ryan's belt. What? There's the little, you know, the big dipper, the norm. And I'm thinking, I don't see it, you know. You're making these connections. You're

connecting the dots and you're calling them things that they aren't, you know. And I believe that sometimes we as Christians, you know, out of a good and noble apologetic motive, want to put together proof texts from the Old Testament that will point to the North Star, that will point to the Messiah, that will lead people to Christ. And, you know, that's not wrong. That is right, but it's incomplete and it's inadequate because you. If you just are looking at the New Testament and then going back to kind of cherry pick the old, it's going to be superficial.

And I learned that from the early church fathers. You know, Justin's dialogue with Trifo the Jew, you know, Justin was himself raised in Samaritan, Israelite religion, so he knew better. And the other fathers did too. You know, and so what I think you have to do is to look at the Jewish roots. The Old Testament root might be a better way of saying it, because then you begin to sense that, yeah, it was widespread for a good reason. You know, and you can trace the trajectory all the way back to what we call the first gospel, Genesis 315, that after the serpent has

crushed the first couple, Adam and Eve, getting them to commit mortal sin, to cause them to suffer the death of the soul, to lose divine life, as it were. That's what we mean by original sin. The promise that through a woman and her seed in the Hebrew, Zara, in the Greek, sperma? You don't associate sperma with the woman, but the man, but a woman will have the seed, and they will crush the head of the serpent. And so even in ancient rabbinic interpretive traditions, you have a clear sense that this is pointing to the Messiah. And as you trace the seed prophecies through Genesis, and really into Exodus, Leviticus, especially Numbers 24 with the prophecy of the star. I mean, King Herod shows evidence that he was well aware of the fact that the star

prophecy of Numbers 24 threatened his own kingdom because, you know, he was from the people of from Edom. And that's, you know, in Numbers 24, the star, the Messiah will crush Edom. So he slaughtered the innocence to kind of a preemptive strike. So it was widespread, not only among the Jews, but the one who was claiming to be the king of the Jews. And then, again, we can come back to it later, but you see in Deuteronomy 18, 15 to 18, the prophet like unto Moses, that they were eagerly awaiting.

Even up north in Samaria, they were believing in a coming one who would deliver them. And as this grows over time, you begin to sense that these aren't just stars that we arbitrarily connect in some random fashion and call them constellations. No, this was in plain view. Now, while we can look more closely at how to interpret the messianic prophecy, because on the one hand,

quantitatively, there are over 100 messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, or what Jews would call the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, they're not all created equal. You know, you have to understand them typologically, contextually. You have to look at them closely in their context, which might take a semester. We can't do it, you know, today. but once you do you realize okay yeah it's widespread but it's not monolithic there isn't a unitary expectation you know and so the zealots had a clear sense the messiah would come and bring about

a revolutionary victory on the other hand the sadducees ah they were so wealthy so corrupt as priestly aristocrats it was waning in their hearts apparently you have the ascines if that's who we're looking at in the Dead Sea Scrolls and then Qumran, oh, a fever pitch. You look at the Pharisees, and they, of course, also had a very strong sense. But it was a spectrum of belief from revolutionary violence to a Mamby, pambi, Sadducean. Yeah, maybe we'll see, you know. And so the one thing that really set the clock was this oracle that the angel Gabriel gave to Daniel and Daniel 9. in response to Daniel's penitential prayer,

where he basically says, Jeremiah said 70 years of captivity, but that didn't bring about repentance. So we're going to reset the clock to 77, 70 weeks of years, 490 years. And so in the first century, no matter what sect of Judaism you belong to, you knew that Daniel's clock was reaching midnight.

You knew, and this is, again, why John the Baptist preaching drew crowds because they're trying to figure out, are you the Christ? Okay, you're not. Are you Elijah? You know, because Elijah was to come as the prelude to the Messiah. And so you'd get a sense of expectancy that was at a height that we can barely reproduce in our own imagination. You know, but what God does in becoming a zygote, an embryo, an infant in the manger, and then a victim on the cross, I mean, that's new wine that bursts old skins, no matter what vintage you have as a first-century Jew. And so this is why when Peter finally begins to get it in Matthew 16, you know, Jesus doesn't say, you know, you're so logical. You just are assembling the prophetic passages in the Old Testament, just right, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And he says, no, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. The gift of faith is just that. It's a gift. It's the most precious gift we've been given. But if we take credit for what we believe, I mean, on the one hand, there is a rational justification for making an act of faith in Christ. That comes from the Word of God in Scripture, tradition, the old and the new. But there's no rational proof for the mysteries of faith, or they wouldn't be sacred mysteries. You know, and so when we look at the incarnation of the Eternal Son, when we look at the at the eternal trinity, when we look at the immaculate conception, her virginal conception, her virginal birth, you know, again, as Catholics were tempted to say, what's the big deal? I mean, what's your problem? Why can't you check the boxes? And you want to say, because they're not boxes. Sometimes it takes an outsider who is not only a Protestant like I was, a Presbyterian pastor, but a vehement anti-Catholic. You know, I know what it looks like from the outside. The U.C. you're worshipping a wafer, you know, you're calling her the Mother of God, the Ark of the New

Covenant. Where do you get off, you know? Show me a passage in the New Testament, which proves that, you know. But I've discovered over the years that if all you know is the New Testament, you don't know the New Testament. Because the New Testament is unintelligible apart from the old. All of the promises, the oracles, the prophecies, and the covenants. We generally avoid those, you know, and so we're looking at the new, which provides all these answers to questions that we never really bothered to ask ourselves, whereas if you're only reading the Hebrew Bible, the law and the prophets, the Tanakh, you're reading a story that's in search of an ending. You're reading about promises that seem to be either unfulfilled or post-owned, you know,

and so you need to supplement the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, was something. And if it's not the New Testament, it might be the Mishnah, it might be the Talmud. you know, it might be Hasidic teachings from the Havad, you know, or from the Riva, you know, from Rabbi Schneerson or other people. You can understand why it is that well-meaning Jewish people are still looking for the fulfillment of all of these promises. And we want to enter into something more than a debate. We really want to enter into a dialogue and listen to them and allow them to listen to us and not just say, you know, if I want your views, I'll give them to you. That's a dialogue of the deaf. We have to listen to each other and learn from each other. And if we do,

we'll understand why did Pope Pius the 11th say to Catholics spiritually, we are all Samites? Well, the key, of course, is spiritually. Spiritually, we are Summites. We wouldn't be Christians in the new, apart from the fulfillment of the old. They really do kind of converge. The new, as we hear, is concealed in the old, and the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new. But if all you know is the one, you don't really know even that.

What kind of Messiah were the Jews expecting in the first century? Well, I mean, the default position is, you know, a political deliverance, you know, from Roman occupation. And I think sometimes that's slightly exaggeration. rated or overblown, because, you know, on the one hand, everybody knew that the Messiah would come from the line of David, and everybody knew that David was the one who had finished the conquest of the promised land, and everybody knew that he was a great warrior, you know, not just as a youngster with Goliath and the, you know, the five smooth stones, but he was the one who really

secured Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5 and brought up the ark in chapter 6 and made it his capital in chapter 7, but then the spiritual center of all the 12 tribes and eventually all of the nations too. But when you really study David's life, you understand that David's messanic line should also include the fact that he wrote the Psalms, the prayers, the Psalms of Zion, you know, sort of like the hymnal of the Old Testament that the church still praised 24-7. And that he also reorganized the Levites, as we read in First Chronicles, so that you have choirs of perpetual adoration and praise of God before the ark of the covenant. I've written a book called Kingdom Come that's coming out in the spring. You know, the focus is on the vision that you find

in First and Second Chronicles of David in First Chronicles, of the Son of David in Second Chronicles, and you're like, this is a liturgical empire. It's the temple more than the palace. It's the Levites in worship and praise more than the military in celebrating their victories. And so, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls, do we become aware of the fact that there were Jews in the first century who sincerely believed in the Messiah who would bring about a conquest

every bit as big as David's, you know, but not just military, not just political, not just economic prosperity, but some sort of spiritual transformation that we need more than economic prosperity. And so I have to believe that we've got to recognize that when we go through the four Gospels and we tend to relegate the Jews who are missing out on the Messiah, well, they're just looking for a politician, you know, a military hero.

Well, they were, and some of them were looking for that and nothing more. But, you know, I tend to think that a lot of Catholics today think of the second coming in similar terms, you know, no more Mr. Nice guy. you know, the gloves come off, and, you know, he's going to take out his pound of flesh on all of you unbelievers. When, you know, the scene at the end of the Bible is hide us from the wrath of the lamb. It's almost like Monty Python, the wrath of the lamb, you know. And so I think the judgment of God is almost invariably something that we don't fully understand, that when the Messiah comes, He's not coming back in order to get back at us for our sin.

He's coming to get us back home to the Father. And when you read it that way, the law and the prophets begin to pop off the page and you realize, you know, pious, the 11th was right. Spiritually, we are all Semites, or else we're colorblind. We're tone deaf as Catholics. We're missing out on the symphony.

You know, the world keeps telling us that freedom means doing whatever. we want, whenever we want. But here's what I've discovered. True freedom isn't about following our own will. It's about aligning ourselves with God's will. It's for worship, sacrifice, and love. Now, if you are tired of being held back by all the comforts and distractions that, yeah, keep us comfortable but spiritually numb, I want to tell you about Exodus 90. Now, this isn't about manning up or proving how tough you are. It's about encountering the love of God the Father in a way that actually changes everything.

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And of course, the founder of Exodus 90, Jamie Baxter. So join me and tens of thousands of other men who have found uncommon freedom in Christ through Exodus 90. Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-day free trial or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt to learn more. That's Exodus 90.com slash Matt. The Exodus 90 challenge starts January 5th. Download the app today and become the man God created you to be. You quoted St. Augustine earlier where you said the New Testament is concealed in the old. The Old Testament is revealed in the new. Could we talk about typology a little bit? Typology being the study of person, places or events in the old, which for those of whom, which foreshadow a greater reality in the new.

How did that work for Jesus Christ? How is he the new Adam, maybe the new Moses, et cetera? Yeah, I mean, I want to just pause for dramatic effect because, you know, as we pivot to typology, you know, it is a hobby of mine. You know, it's a hobby of many people, but it needs to become something so much more than a hobby. It needs to become something that, you know,

I'm going to have an eye appointment soon to see what my vision is. you know spiritually we need an eye exam because typology is how we need to view not only sacred scripture in the living tradition but we really need to view our world this way reality not just back then and there but but here and now and so i i want to just kind of give an advertisement for typology one of my favorite writers an expert on the early church fathers jean danyalue cardinal Doniolu was a great Catholic church historian in the 20th century, and he wrote a book from shadow to reality. And actually, the original title was Sacramentum Futuri. And so the English translation might be a little misleading. But in any case, about halfway through the book, he said something

that I had to reread and re-read, and that is that prophecy is nothing other than the typological interpretation of history. Full stop. mic drop, say what? Prophecy, we tend to reduce to messianic predictions. And so like our kids in a restaurant might connect the dots while they're waiting for their dinner, you know, on the placematous. We connect the dots, you know, in terms of the messianic prophecies you find in Micah or Isaiah or, you know, and that's good, you know, especially if they're hungry for dinner. But at the same time, what we have to recognize is that scripture becomes symphonic when you listen to the voices of the prophets.

One other thing that I want to say, I'm a professor, and so my default is to stay at 30,000 feet, and to try to map the world in a few minutes with you, which is so unfair to you and everyone else. And yet, I think one more thing would be helpful, and that is we tend to think of the Bible as, okay, we've got these 73 books in this section called The Prophets,

the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets, the book of the 12. Well, in 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verses 19, 20, and 21, I'll just encourage our viewers, our listeners to check it out on themselves. Peter reminds us that no prophecy of scripture is subject to one's own private interpretation. And when you read it closely, you realize that all of the hagiographers, all of the sacred writers, were actually empowered by the spirit to bear the word of God, literally, that's what he's saying. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, was empowered to bear the word made flesh.

That they don't fully comprehend exactly what they're saying. I mean, they say what they mean, what they say, but they say more than they realize, because they're prophets. And not just the major and minor prophets. This is why rabbis still refer to what we call the historical books as the former prophets. because you can't understand history from God's perspective apart from the gift of prophecy. Again, say what?

Yeah. I mean, if you listen to people who discuss Western civilization or the future of America and Europe, you know, you realize that they're basically expressing their own views in what facts they select, you know. And so you look at the historical books and you realize they really are the former prophets. Joshua, judges first and second Samuel, first and second kings, show us that when you absolutize politics, it's the rise and the fall of Israel. But when you absolutize worship and religion and the love of God and neighbor as yourself, then you begin to realize, okay, but most people default to politics. So most prophets in ancient Israel were false prophets. And the ones who

were true prophets like Isaiah, who gets sawn in half, Jeremiah gets thrown down a well, they're targeted by the false prophets because they're delivering a message that is not just we're going to solve our problems before the next election. It's like we're going to have to wait and repent and wait some more. Oh, thanks a lot. And when he comes, he'll be a servant, he'll be the son of God, he'll be the son of man, but it'll also have to suffer and die. No, no, no, no. you know, those messages. But when you begin to realize this, you begin to sense that not only is all of scripture prophetic, but typology is not simply how the New Testament readers, the New Testament writers want New Testament readers to read the Old Testament. It's not only how

Jesus understood the law and the prophets on the road to Emmaus, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things before entering into his glory. And they're saying, who are you, stranger, until their hearts are ignited, and then their eyes are open in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. But what Jesus is doing is not a novelty. You go back and you study Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Matt, what you just said a few minutes ago is what they were saying, that when Isaiah is looking forward in time, and, you know, sometimes the future seems further away than it is. Other times it just seems far more, you know, far closer. But I mean, Isaiah is describing the coming of the Messiah as bringing a new heavens and a new earth. What does that imply?

That we're going to have a new creation. Not God saying, behold, I make new things, but I make all things new. Okay. A new heavens, a new earth, a renewed creation. Well, what that would open the door for would be a new Adam, because our first father failed us so badly. well if there's a new Adam there might be a new Eve and thus a new covenant and you fast forward and you realize that at the end of the book of Revelation John wasn't making this stuff up he's describing the new heavens the new earth the new Jerusalem as the bride of the lamb in effect like a new Eve Christ is the new Adam but this is already in the old covenant that the prophets are giving us messianic prophecy and what is prophecy it's nothing other

the typological interpretation of history. And creation isn't the only mountain peak you look at as you survey the Old Testament. The Exodus is as well. And already Moses is identifying the Messiah in Deuteronomy 18 that there will be a new Moses, a prophet like Moses. Well, in that case, there'll be a new Passover.

There'll be a new Exodus. So again, Matt, you just said it so well that what we mean by typology is this not here, a type, they're a type, everywhere, a type, you know. No, it really is more of a wave, almost a tidal wave, a kind of spiritual tsunami that if you have the eyes to see, it'll carry you along. So you realize, okay, Moses was sent to save the people, but the Savior needed to be saved from a tyrant named Pharaoh who targeted him like Jesus was sent to save, but he was targeted

by Herod. And so the Savior needed to be saved. And back then, there was a man named Joseph who was doing it by taking the Holy Family down to Egypt at the end of Genesis. Here we have Joseph taken the Holy Family to Egypt to save the Savior. And then at the appointed time, Israel comes out of Egypt through the water. At the appointed time, Christ came out, passes through the Jordan. Israel goes into the desert. Moses fast for 40 days. The Spirit leads Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. into the desert where he fast for 40 days? It's like, wait a second. You know, this is what Mark Twain once said. History does not repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme. And typology is the poetry of scripture. Typology is how prophecy really is a sort of love poem that God has been writing

in slow motion. You know, if you're eternal and you want to enter time, you better do it slowly. And so God patiently reveals in the law and the prophets, not plan B, C or D, not some kind of backup plan because of how your first parents blew it so bad. You know, as a professor, I can speak of, you know, who's first in the class. Well, it might be the first person who got there or what they really are most interested in terms as first in terms of rank. So what was first in history was creation. the heavens in the earth, Adam and Eve. So what will be first in rank will be the new creation, the new heavens, the new earth. That's plan A. Likewise, the new Moses, a greater Exodus, a greater Passover, a greater salvation, not only for Israel, but Egypt too. Egypt will gain salvation

through the new Moses, the new Exodus. And the highest mountain peak of all in the Old Testament is probably Zion, which surpasses Sinai. They never returned to Sinai. But Zion is a divine mountain where the kingdom of God touches down to earth. The son of David is the first person to be called Son of God. He's anointed, Mashiak Messiah, christened, he's the Christ. You know, and the temple, not the palace, worship, not warfare. You know, and so you have persons, places, events, but also institutions that God designed as a blueprint or a scale model. You know, our St. Paul Center is now up and running our new headquarters for the St. Paul Center in Steubenville. We had blueprints. We had a scale model, but we didn't fit inside the model. We don't fit into the Old Testament. The scale model,

the blueprint, is showing us what God the Father has in his mind and his heart for his sons and daughters, and it's what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 2.9, that eye is not seen, ear is not heard, it's never, ever even entered into the mind of man what God has in store for his children. And what is Paul doing? Quoting Isaiah. What else is Paul doing? Typology. But the New Testament doesn't invent it. You find it in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the minor prophets, new creation, new exodus, new kingdom, you know, at this point, our hearts ought to be burning within us because Advent, Christmas, this is the season for us to rediscover our legacy, our birthright as Christians. As Catholic Christians, it is so much more than cable news, you know, with all due

respect to the networks. It really is good news that is not merely human but divine. And I'm sorry. I feel as though I'm a fire hydrant for you as I always am in my classes too, you know. No, no, don't apologize. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, too, that typology is not something that was imagined in the Middle Ages to justify certain Christian or Catholic teachings. Exactly. Paul talks about Christ as the new Adam. Peter in 1st Peter 3 is it, talks about Noah's Ark as a type of baptism. And the flood is the type and baptism is the antitaphysm.

So not just Jesus, but the sacraments, you know, not just Jesus but Mary, not just Jesus as the new Moses, but Moses appointed 12 princes, so does Jesus. And likewise, Moses anoint 70 elders, so did Jesus. So it's not just individualistic. It isn't just collective either. It's both Moses and all of Israel and the nations who form the kingdom, but it's also a new covenant, a new humanity, divine kinship, the son of God becomes the son of man so that sons and daughters who are human can become sons and daughters of God? You know, it's like the good news

suddenly starts to become too good to be true unless it's the truth. And it's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But this is what the Catholic gospel is. This is why conversion can't simply be what happened 40 years ago when I came into the church at Easter Vigil in 86. It has to be something that is ongoing because I feel like, you know, I might come off like a deep sea diver, you know, to you and to others, but I feel as though I'm more like a water skier. I'm really still skimming the surface. When you read the fathers, the medievals, you go back and reread the Old Testament prophets and you realize those prophets were masters of typology, you know, And it's an invitation not to feel intimidated.

It's an invitation into a kind of divine playground where you can't get hurt as long as you kind of follow the Lord. Didn't you say as you journeyed towards Catholicism, not wanting to, dragging, being dragged maybe, that you were reading the fathers and were shocked to discover that they had these insights well before you did? Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, I know I'm coming off like some professorial know-it-all.

On the other hand, I know myself to be the midget, the proverbial midget on the shoulders of giants, you know, only I feel like a mutant midget. I just feel so teeny tiny because, you know, I, um, when I began to read the fathers, I was getting rid of to graduate at the top of my class. You know, if I didn't know me, I might be impressed. I have never, you know, I've never been impressed with myself. I'll put it this way. that isn't true i'm not much but i'm all i think about it but you know when i when i began to read the fathers i began to realize that unlike my favorite professors you know who taught me the old who taught me the new and a few of them would gesture toward the bridges between the old and the

new to get us excited but never really deep into it but when i began to read the fathers with the help of de lubeck and and donya loo and ratzinger as well it was just like you know i know i knew there was gold in them there are hills that they used to say, you know, but they're diamonds, rubies, and I mean, precious gems. And so I went in search of more of that, but I began to realize that so much of it is Christ is centered, but they were finding Christ in the Holy Eucharist as the true manna, as the Lamb of God, as the bread of the presence that was there in the presence of God and the Holy of Holies. And it's like, they're not making this stuff up.

You know, the fathers just do this in a way that's almost second nature. And it becomes instinctual, habitual, but it sure wasn't that way for us. So as I went in my search for more, it ended up becoming a search for a church that matched what I was finding because I was studying the bread of life.

I was trying to master the biblical menu, you know, but then you begin to realize that whether Catholics know it or not, it's one thing to study the menu. It's another thing to enjoy the meal. The Holy Eucharist, the bread of life, the marriage supper of the lamb. How much of a stumbling block was the Catholic teaching on the Holy Eucharist to you as a Protestant and how did maybe how the fathers helped teach you the scriptures? How much did that play a part? I mean, in a certain sense, that's the $64,000 question because for me in high school and college, worshiping a wafer just seemed to be the most debased form of idolatry. I mean, as a Presbyterian, I was pretty sure the Methodists

were wrong, but they weren't that wrong. The Catholics just had this unique capacity to scandalize Protestants, you know, especially with the Eucharist, but also with Mary and the Pope and purgatory, and you have six other sacraments and, you know, but it was the Eucharist because I wanted the Lordship of Jesus Christ to be alive in me. I wanted to submit to that through the Word of God. But then you discover that in the early church, and even later on for 1,500 years, there's really no dissenting voice. There's no disagreement that you love Christ. He is your Savior and Lord. The Eucharist is Christ. It is a metaphor. It isn't a figure of speech. He eats my flesh and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. My flesh is food indeed. My blood is drink indeed. He's scandalizing those people

who are hearing him. And the apostles don't claim to understand what must have seemed to be extraordinarily esoteric teaching. But Peter says, you know, we have come to believe that you're the holy one of God. You know, we don't know what you're talking about in the bread of life discourse in John 6, but we assume that you do fast forward one year later and the last Passover he's fulfilling all of that and so when i'm finding it in the fathers but not in my favorite professors i'm in search of a church the last place on earth i ever expected to find it the last place on earth my close friends ever expected me to go was the roman catholic church but then you discover that the catholic church is Catholic. It's not global. It's not international. It's not planetary. It's Catholic, which

means universal. So it's not reducible to its earthly institutions. The center of the Catholic Church is not in the Vatican. Christ is the head of the mystical body. You know, the Pope is the head of the mystical body on earth, the church militant, the pilgrim church, for a time. But only one of the three states of the church. The church is Catholic. heaven on earth and under the earth where they're being prepped through penance and purgation, purification to enter into the glory of heaven. And when you find that out, you're like, my brain is like old wine skins. I need to learn how to rethink it all. And so I applied to Notre Dame and Marquette for a PhD to study under Catholics. At the time, in the mid-80s, it was weird.

I got a full ride offered at Notre Dame, but there was really no professor of theology or scripture. They were saying, you come here and you'll learn what is traditional Catholic teaching. They were just all dissenting from John Paul, and I didn't want to be the lone ranger having to defend your Pope. So Marquette had what they called the gang of five Jesuits. And so I went to study under five Jesuits for those two years, but even more than the Jesuit professors and the ones too it was the early church fathers this little midget up on their shoulders kept finding more until i finally broke down i'm like okay i'm going to go to a mass a basement chapel on a weekday at noon i'm going to skip lunch i'm just going to be there as an observer in the back i felt more like a

journalist just jotting notes and observations but when the mass unfolded i knew and i knew that i knew that i knew this was what i was finding in just and martyr in the second century This is what I was finding in the apocalypse of St. John. When I heard the Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God, I knew when he held up the host, I, you know, when he consecrated the chalice, I was drooling with a kind of holy thirst for his precious blood. That just expedited everything for me, you know. But at the end of that day, you know, I knew that it would mean for me becoming Catholic, you know, in the mid-80s, That was 1985.

The chances of that happening to me were about equivalent to Ronald Reagan, you know, who was president announcing that he was defecting to the Soviet Union. It was that unthinkable. And yet now I couldn't think about anything else, you know, except submitting to the Lordship of Christ and the Word of God, no matter what it meant. You know, and it meant the loss of all things. But as St. Paul says in Romans 8, what you get instead isn't even worth comparing to what you give up, you know.

And I know that I'm voicing something, you know, that my classmate, Marcus Grody, and all of the people he's interviewed over the years on the journey home, we thought there might be dozens of others who would follow us, you know, back in 91, when we founded the Coming Home Network in Steubenville. There are thousands. We can't even keep track, you know. And to be clear, you're talking about not just individual members of Protestant churches, but pastas. Pastors, professors, missionaries, you know, ministers, we're talking about thousands.

And it isn't as though, well, we have to give up the gospel to become Catholic. It's like, no, we take the good news. We don't just add a few things like dessert. You know, the good news is not just, you're not just adding things. It's more like multiplication to an exponential degree. You know, it becomes unbelievable. And yet, once the gift of faith is enlarged, you realize this stuff is reality. It isn't just truth, not just truth that you check off, you know, if you check the boxes.

You know, we profess the 12 articles of the creed, you know, divided up into the three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and I believe in the Holy Spirit. That's why I believe in the Holy Catholic Church and all the rest. You know, but each and every one of those are like the 12 precious gems on the high priest breastplate as he approached the almighty and the holy of holies. God was saying you, the 12 tribes are precious to me more than you can imagine. And you've got to see yourselves through my fatherly eyes. And Christ the high priest will enable us to do that. And why else am I on the planet than to discover this treasure and the sheriff? Well, I want to get into the details of the Christmas

story. Yes. But I also want to tell people about a beautiful biblical commentary that you spearheaded, which was just released, which is taking the Catholic world by storm. Tell us about that. Oh yeah. I brought it with me. I wasn't sure if we would get to it, but since you brought it up, this is, you know, there are a few things that I work with a group of people on for 26 years. You know, I mean, Kimberly and I have spent more than that much time raising our kids, but, you know, back in December of 97, I was approached by Ignatius Press and asked if I would serve as a general editor for a Catholic Study Bible. And I just spent the previous week looking at study Bibles, Protestant and Catholic. There were probably 50 or more Protestant study Bibles, and it was a Protestant study Bible that had basically ignited my fiery passion for script. through back in 10th grade when I first converted as a former juvenile, former juvenile delinquent.

And so I knew the value of a study Bible, but when I was looking at Catholic study Bibles, they were sowing the seeds of doubt in questioning the historical truth of certain events, especially in Genesis, but throughout all of Scripture and using historical criticism in a way that was just lopsided. I mean, I had studied historical criticism. I had learned about source criticism, form, and redaction criticism. But, you know, you know, you come to recognize that there's a difference between historical criticism and reading scripture from the perspective of faith. It's faith and reason.

It's spiritual as well as literary and historical. But if you reduce it just to the critical, the way so many study Bibles were doing, you know, it's sort of like being trained to be a coroner. You know, you learn to dissect and perform autopsies. But I wanted to be trained as a surgeon, you know, to perform. surgery, you know. And so if you're performing an autopsy on your mother, you're going to show great care. But if you're performing surgery on your mother, it's a different act altogether. And so to apply what Pope Benedict called the hermotic of faith is looking for the human

and the divine like you find it in the word incarnate. He's fully human. He's fully divine. He's got DNA. You know, he's got a blood type. He's got all of the things that are human. but it's not a reduction to the merely human. And if that's true for the word that is incarnated in Christ, it was also true and still is for the word that is inspired. And so that's why I said yes. I also wondered how long will it take. Well, I flew to Nashville with Father Fesio in December of 97

to discuss with the staff at Thomas A. Nelson. They published more study Bibles for Protestants. So they were in a good position to advise us. They said, you know, 20 years minimum. We're like, oh, no, it'll take us that long. And so it did. It took us 26 years, which they said was pretty standard. That was average.

And we hired Curtis Mitch, an amazingly gifted, teacher, scholar, student, writer, you know. And with him and then we assembled a number of other people on the team, you know, John Bergman, especially, Andrew Swofford. I could go on and on. And together, we worked. done this for 5, 10, 15, 20. And the New Testament came out in 2010, and everybody kept asking, when's the Old Testament going to appear? We joked among ourselves that instead of the four last things, you know, death, judgment, heaven, hell, we have the five last things, death, judgment, heaven,

hell, and the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. And then a year ago, just in time for the greatest Christmas gift of all, this arrived. Everything we've been talking about, talk about, you know, squeezing an ocean through a funnel. This is what the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible represents. It's close literary analysis. It's all so historically researched by scholars, but it's ordered to the spiritual, to the theological, not just for academics, not just for scholars, them too.

I remember Father Kurtz at Marquette, one of the five Jesuits. I walked in in his office years after I graduated. And he was like, I'm using your Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, New Testament. In my grad seminar, I can't believe you'd walk in. When's the Old Testament going to come out in like a few more years? And this was like seven years before it did. But it's not just for scholars.

It's not just for students. It's for the rank and file. The Hoyt-Palo. Even a Protestant podcaster who is examined, I think, 50 or more study Bibles, has put in his top three, I'm told, this Catholic study Bible. because it does what the Protestant study Bibles do, but it does a whole lot more. But it's not anti-Protestant. It's building on all of the common ground that we share,

plus the seven Deuteroconautical books, plus the living tradition, especially typology and all of the material that goes into seeing how the new is concealed and the old is revealed and fulfilled. Well, I was honored. You gave me a copy and I started reading one chapter every day. So I would read, like Genesis chapter one, and then I'd read the notes. and it's incredible. I want people to get it.

So we'd like to put a link in the description. Okay. And while stocks last, they tell me they'll have it for 40% off. So I hope people, if this has been something of an appetizer, but if they want the main course, they can get this program. Yeah, okay. Thank you for reminding me of this because a quarter of a century ago, we founded the St. Paul's Center.

And Curtis Mitchell was one of the founding board members as well because we were working on the study Bible. We realized, okay, we want to leave a legacy that is larger than the study Bible. And so the St. Paul Center was founded. We have now over 40 full-time co-workers who are so gifted. It's amazing. But at the same time, the St. Paul Center wants to promote biblical literacy for laypeople,

biblical fluency for the clergy and the educators. But all of us are learning how to read scripture from the heart of the church, the heart of the liturgy. You know, that the new is concealed in the old and the old revealed. and the new, but the new lectionary that came out over 50 years ago in 1970 multiplied the amount of the Old Testament by almost 400% that we hear every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. But there wasn't much instruction about how it was all convergent, how it was all coordinated, how the gospel and the new are concealed,

and then the old is revealed. This is what we're trying to do here. And this is why, you know, in Advent and Christmas, We have made it available at 40% off, which is our cost. But we're aware of the fact that there are profits that go beyond the bottom line and the spiritual profits. I know that Ignatius Press was so willing to do this a quarter of a century ago, but they weren't sure how it would sell. Well, a year later, they tell me that I think they were hoping to sell 25,000, 45,000 copies. it's closer to 125,000 copies, and now a new printing, and I think more are coming.

And so supply creates demand, Laffer taught us, and, you know, others back in the 80s. And so to supply the faithful with a Catholic study Bible that will make the Word of God explode our brains, you know, it's so exciting, but also ignite our hearts. did not our hearts burn within us as the scriptures were opened and all of this is really ordered to the main event when the priest takes blesses breaks and he gives just like the two disciples there at the table in ameus their eyes were opened and he vanished he wasn't playing some kind of disappearing act he wants to get the eyes of faith to have 2020 clarity that the resurrected body is in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread as much as it was walking on the road to Emmaus for those seven miles and those hours. Well, I want to do that right now. Let's jump into

the specifics of the Christmas story. Okay? I want to begin in Luke's gospel. And maybe you can kind of give us a foretaste of what we should expect in your study Bible. I'm looking here at verse 32 where the angel announces the good news to the blessed virgin Mary. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. I want you to comment on that and maybe talk about if Christ is the new David whose kingdom will have no end, a bit about the Blessed Virgin Mary being the new great lady, the Geberra. Yeah, and the Ark of the New Covenant too. Yeah, okay, let's just take a step back,

take a breath, and just point out the obvious that angels do typology too, that the angelic intellects are radiant with the light of Christ and how that light was casting shadows back into the Old Testament. Going back to creation, this is what God had decreed from all eternity, from the beginning, and also the Exodus, the Ark of the covenant that Moses had them consecrate. But especially the Davidic kingdom, the only kingdom in human history to be established by a divine covenant, and the only divine covenant that God made. I mean, he made covenants with Adam and Eve. We called marriage, with Noah, with Abraham, Moses, but only the Davidic covenant established a kingdom, and only that kingdom is called the kingdom of God. And in 587 BC, the Babylonians

destroyed it. It lasted almost five centuries longer than any other dynasty in recorded history, and yet it didn't last forever like we thought God said it would. And so press pause for how long? Oh, 70 years. Or 70 times seven. Okay, there's pause, and then there's unplugging it. And so what you have when the angel Gabriel is sent by God to a city of Galilee, to a virgin betrothed, to this devout Jewess, who has already been filled with grace, the Holy Spirit, from her conception in preparation for this moment, so that her fihat, me he secundum verum to it, be it done unto me according to thy word, is going to finish the covenant bond so that you have now one who is truly divine assuming humanity and one who is truly human

assuming divinity bearing the word made flesh in her womb again it's just too much good news to be true but it's the good news and he will be great he'll be called the son of the most high well I mean, that goes back to El El Yon in Genesis 14, to God Most High, to Melchizedek, who was a priest of El El Yon, the first man to be called a priest, whose first sacrifice is not cattle, sheep, goats, or turtle doves, but bread and wine, you know. And so the throne of his father, David, and his reign over the house of Jacob forever. Now, again, press pause, just to think, because at Mount Sinai, we had Moses. At Mount Zion, we have David.

At Sinai, you have the Mosaic covenant established with one nation to the exclusion of all the other nations, especially Egypt. And you have the tabernacle as a place of worship barely large enough for the 12 tribes. In contrast, at Zion, you have David and his son is going to build the temple. The largest precinct is the court of the Gentiles. Where Gentiles are not only allowed, they're invited. They're included. They're going to be taught the songs and the prayers of David. The songs of Zion? Yeah. Even the Babylonian captors remember those. What else? They're going to be taught the wisdom of Solomon. So the Torah of Moses, which only bound the 12 tribes at Sinai, is supplemented by the Hakma, the wisdom literature of Solomon that is going to re-enlighten the Gentiles that have been darkened by idolatry. sure enough, for one or two centuries, even Carl Yaspers speaks of this axial age around the

8th century BC, where morality and monotheism has returned to Asia, to India, to all, you know, and this is the Solomonic legacy, as it were. And then it all comes to a crashing end. I mean, if we heard tomorrow that the Vatican was blown up in some kind of nuclear event, where would our faith be the next day. Well, if you heard that the city of David, the temple of God, the dynasty of God's kingdom was demolished and was laying in ruins for, okay, the temple's rebuilt, Jerusalem's restored, but there's no Davidic monarchy for like five centuries. Did they stop believing? Did they stop hoping? No, but you're hoping against hope. And then Gabriel, the only other time Gabriel appears in the Bible is in Daniel, and in Daniel 9, that's where he says 77s, 490 years before Jerusalem will be

redeemed, 77s, 490 years before a strong covenant will be made, before sacrifices will cease, before abomination will come upon the old sanctuary, but there will be something that is everlasting because all prophecy will be fulfilled. 70 times 7, yeah. And as Pope Ben, and it points out in his third volume, when you do the math, you realize that when the Blessed Virgin goes up to Judea to see Elizabeth, her kinswoman, she's six months pregnant, all right, when she arrives, all right? And then the enunciation, you have to add nine months. And then you have to also remember the presentation in the temple, which according to Leviticus and numbers, is after 40 days.

Well, Laurent Tan and others have shown that Luke himself is a master of typology. Not only is he the only evangelist who tells us about the road to Emmaus. Gregory, the great even thought that Luke was Clopis' companion because he describes the emotional state of the two and their despondency or whatever.

But, you know, a month in the Jewish calendar is 30 days. Six months, and she arrives. six times 30 is 180. Nine months times 30 is 270 plus 40 days. And then Simeon comes. And Anna of Asher, the prophetess, they're like, now is the redemption of Israel. Now is the redemption of Jerusalem. Add it up, it's 200, it's six times 180 plus 270 plus 40.

It's the only other time Gabriel appears, you've got. 77s, you've got 4 to 90 days, you've got the fulfillment of Gabriel's other oracle. Now, this could be coincidence. And if it is, thank God for coincidences, but if it's something more, why are we shocked that God, the conductor of human history, Christ, the Lord of history, wouldn't time the rhythm of the covenant in such a poetic fashion as to have Gabriel's only other appearance? And, you know, what I want to remind you of is that typology is, a many-splendered thing. You know, it's multi-layered. It's polyvailant. So you peel back one layer and you say, oh, there's the new creation, the new Adam and Eve. You peel back another layer and you're like,

oh, there's the new Exodus, the new Moses, the Ark of the New Covenant, which is what Luke is really up to here. And then you peel back the next layer, and that is, oh, a new kingdom, a new and greater Solomon. But Solomon didn't just reign alone on the throne in 1st Kings 219. He had a throne established at his right hand so that the Gebira, as you mentioned, the queen mother, the great lady, becomes a permanent fixture in the Davidic kingdom in the Solomonic court. So that in addition to Solomon, choosing 12 royal ministers in chapter 4 of 1st kings, like Jesus, the son of David, chose 12 to sit on the thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel. He also has a queen mother. And this becomes a permanent fixture so that the prophets will say, say to the king and the queen

mother, thus saith the Lord, as Jeremiah and other prophets say. So when the kingdom comes down and there's no Davidic monarch for 500 years, now at last the son of David, the son of the most high, uh-huh, but there's also the queen mother. There's also the ark of the new covenant. The ark of the old covenant was the most sacred and holy piece of furniture on planet earth. Ask Uza, when he touched it, it cost him his life. And so you have her as the arc of the new covenant. That arc made of acacia wood for its durability, covered with gold to symbolize divinity, containing the word in stone, the tablets of God's word, the law, the Torah. But she contains the word made flesh. That contained the manna. She contains the bread of life. And so this is why the early

church fathers weren't debating whether she was fulfilling it. They were celebrating the Blessed Virgin as the New Eve already in the second century with Justin Martyr, but also as the Ark of the New Covenant because it's all here in Luke 1 and 2. The very fact that the Ark remained in the Judean Hill country way back in 2 Samuel 6 for how long. Let's see. Six months. So how long does the Blessed Virgin, likewise, six months? And there are all, you know, you have David leaping for joy before the Ark of the Covenant in 2nd Samuel 6. And John the Baptist in utero is leaping for joy before the Blessed Virgin Mary because of the contents of her womb. This is the word made flesh. And he's been given this prophetic gift. Come on. You're

Do you believe that? Well, you can't prove it by historical research. You couldn't prove it scientifically. You couldn't demonstrate it by Aristotelian logic. But again, you can provide through prophecy and miracles motives of credibility to show that to make the act of faith, you can provide ample rational justification, even if the sacred mysteries of our faith are not themselves the deductions, the law, Proofs that come from rational demonstrative. They wouldn't be mysteries of faith if you could prove them philosophically, historically or scientifically.

They go beyond reason, but they don't go against reason. Even if proud rationalists say they do, and I understand, because, I mean, I is not seen, flesh and blood, philosophical logic, even Aquinas would be the first to admit that there is no proof for the Trinity,

for the incarnation, for the immaculate, for the Immaculate Conception. These sorts of things have divine authority, and they require divine faith. But when you apply that faith through reason, and you apply it to the literary and the historical, you realize why historical criticism renders off sort of tone-deaf as music critics.

It would render us kind of colorblind as art critics. But if you have a hermetic of faith that is grounded in literary and historical reason, then the sky's the limit. You can do typology with Gabriel and the other angels and discover this really is a living legacy. This is what we mean when we say, read scripture with the tradition.

The tradition is not like what Tevi was singing about in Fidler on the roof, something that is archaic, something that appears to be dying. No, the tradition is alive. More than we are, is the Holy Spirit is the soul of the mystical body. Like your soul animates your body, my soul animates my body. The Holy Spirit is the anima, the soul of the church. When we read scripture from the heart of the church, you know, you'll want to stay up late.

You want to get up early. You'll want to share those with family members and friends and, dare I say, even enemies. What can we learn about the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary? and this might surprise some of our Protestant viewers, but Zwingli and Calvin were fierce defenders of the perpetual virginity of Mary. And Luther too. And Luther too. We read in verse 34, the Blessed Virgin says,

How can this be since I have no husband? Now, Mary was betrothed to Joseph at the time. She presumably knew how babies came about. So what might we take away from that line of our blessed mothers? Okay, well, okay. Let me begin again by taking a step back and letting our viewers and listeners know what you and I both know. And that is, all of this is in a book that I wrote called Joy to the World, How Christ Coming, Changed Everything, and still does. And I understand you recently went through that. I did. I recently went through, went back through it again. And so all I can do is sort of unpack a little bit. It'll feel to me like I, eyedropper, but you already positioned it just right because, you know, when the Blessed Virgin Mary is identified as sacred, she's human, she's created, she's not to be worship, she's not divine, she would be the first to say it. But she's the only creature whose son

is her creator and her redeemer. And so whatever we make of Mary, we ascribe to him. And so we want to honor her as he did, no less than he does. but also no more. I'm not sure we could honor her or love her more, and we want her to help us to love him as the Holy Spirit enabled her to do. It's really as easy as that. It is the logic of family life. It's the logic of love. It's the logic of the covenant, both old and new. But when you hear her response, you'll see why in the ancient church there was this emerging consensus that the Blessed and Mary had made a vow of virginity that Joseph would naturally have been aware of in giving consent. Well, where do you get that? Well, you just indicated. In Luke 1, verse 34, her response makes no sense. And there have been articles by scholars. There have been dissertations that I have in my library on Luke 1.34. Mary said to the angel, how shall this be since I have no husband? And the angel's response would naturally be, well, you will.

And besides that, even if she was a young teenager, Jews were aware of reproductive processes. And so the idea of, how shall this be? I also want to just kind of insert parenthetically, the response of Our Lady is an expression of deep faith, deep wonder, deep awe, in stark contrast to Zechariah. Because we have a two-fold enunciation in Luke 1. We have the angel appearing to Zechariah concerning the birth of John the Baptist. But his response is, how shall I know? He's basically saying, prove it.

Give me proof that my aging wife is going to become a mother at this point in our lives. And he's struck dumb, literally. He's mute until he writes John's name on the tablet, and then he gets it back and he sings the Benedict. to thank God for forgiving him of his own unbelief. How shall I know? That reminds me of my academic colleagues and myself so often. She is saying, how shall this be?

It's an expression of awe and wonder because she knows her virginal vow that she has been consecrated. You know, you might say, well, that's New Testament, you know, consecrated virgins. No, Dr. Brandt Petrie and others have done a great job of showing how in the book of numbers at the end of that book, and elsewhere, you have a lot of evidence that there was consecrated virginity in the Old Testament. Temple virgins, you know, when Jesus has that parable of the five wise and the five

foolish, you know, it's drawing on a tradition that though the Pharisees don't embrace this in their own oral tradition, you find good evidence that this was embraced by the ascines. and so in any case this vow of virginity is what she's asking about because she has been consecrated how shall this be since i have no husband and the angel answers her the holy spirit shall come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you the power of the most high will what episciadzane that's the infinitive form of the verb episciadzo the holy spirit overshadowed the ark of the old covenant in Exodus 40, the glory of the Lord empowered that box to become the proof of God's real presence in the midst of his people until it was taken away, as we read in Second Maccabees by the prophet

Jeremiah, and it would never be seen again, it would never be restored to God's mercy was revealed. That's what's happening. So the angel is not saying, well, you know, you and Joseph will, they won't. Well, you ought to be old enough by now to know the facts of life. She does. but what she's being told now is that not in spite of your consecrated virginity but precisely as the divine gift to thank you as a devout Jewess for consecrating yourself to me as I consecrated to you at your conception this is going to come full circle and the circuitry of divine life is precisely why the power of the most high will overshadow her as the Ark of the New Covenant.

And as a result, her virginal will not render her less bridal than women who've had sex with their partners, but in a certain sense, she is the new Eve. Jesus as the new Adam. They both are preserved from original sin. This points to what we call the Immaculate Conception, not just not having original sin, but as the Eastern Catholics would say,

Panhagia. She has, she's all holy. She has the fullness of the Holy Spirit. She doesn't take any credit for herself. She gives all the glory to God, but the Lord, who doesn't get any more glory than he had in the beginning, is completing the exchange by saying, this is why you are going to be,

the son who will be born to you will be called holy, the son of God. And so more than the box, more than the Ark of the Old Covenant, a piece of furniture that you revered. She is going to be all of that and more. The sacred mysteries are what lead us to what the literary narrative is showing us,

what the historical truth was really and truly, and yet it's also what mind cannot fully conceptualize. Men, what is freedom? Is it doing whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want, is freedom about doing your own will? That's what the world tells us. But true freedom is about commitment, sacrifice, and love. My name is Father Boniface Hicks.

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We will surrender our lives more fully to God our Father. And by taking hold of our identity as sons, we will transform our world in the love of Jesus Christ. That's true freedom. Download the Exodus 90 app today. For freedom, Christ set us free. I want to just stay on the perpetual virginity of Mary just for a little bit more.

I want to point because some Protestant, some modern Protestants, and even some un-catechized Catholics will point to two things that make them think Mary must have had other children. The first is in Matthew's Gospel chapter 1 verses 25. We'll back up to 24. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had born a son. So some people point to that word until and say, well, therefore, it proves that at some point in the future they did have conjugal relations. I argue that way. myself with my Catholic friends in high school.

And then secondly, the Bible talks about the brothers of the Lord. So slam dunk, there it is. What didn't Calvin and Zwingli and Luther understand, they might say? Well, I can't do justice to those objections. I will try to keep my injustice to be minor injustice. Okay, so first of all, that Greek term until, it's a lot like the way we use English, but we use until mostly in temporal terms that she did not know a man until and then afterwards she does all right you know you go back to the narrative that we were looking at a little while ago in second samuel six with the ark of the covenant and david in the judean hill country as he finishes the conquest and leaps for joy before the ark of the lord you also have his wife michal who was king saul's daughter that is David's father-in-law, who saw royalty like her dad, not David.

She looked with contempt upon this husband of hers dressed up like a Levite as he's carrying the ark in a liturgical procession into the new royal capital, and she despised him, and she was childless until the day of her death. Well, that doesn't mean she had a child and then died in childbirth. She was barren until her death, until we proclaim the Lord's death, Until he comes, Paul says. And from that point on, we never think of it again. No, it's the lamb slain standing as though he had been slain,

but we'll never forget what the Lord has done for us on Calvary just because he's raised and will be raised. So until is conjunctive. It's not temporal. It's not before and then longer after. And this is grammatically not something that you can try to force into the meaning of Matthew. It's something that Greek grammar would practically invite you to conclude. that it is enough evidence.

The second thing, that is the brothers of Jesus. And so I would suggest that, you know, this is what caused me to stop weaponizing those passages as a Protestant, even before I decided to become a Catholic. For one thing, everybody knows that your nearest kinsmen are called brethren. But if you don't have blood brothers, your cousins are going to be called brothers

because they're nearest kinsman. When I explained this in class at the university where I teach in Stiminole, Ohio. It's fun because I have African students, sometimes seminarians, sometimes priests, and they'll look at each other like, oh, Westerners know about this, you know, how you have a tribal way of seeing

the kinship network, and you don't have broad brothers, and so your cousins are brothers. Even if you do, you'll call them brothers, you know. But the thing that really flipped the switch for me was reading a Lutheran commentator, an expert on John's Gospel, in his two-volume commentary, E.W. Hengstenberg points out that when Jesus entrust the Blessed Virgin

to the beloved disciple in John 19, he would have done something that socially, morally, legally would have been unthinkable. His younger brothers would have automatically taken custody. That's just nonsensical unless, of course, he doesn't have blood brothers who would then take fraternal custody of Jesus' mother. And so Hengstenberg's conclusion is based upon the fact that this was something that Jerome, you know, in the 4th and 5th centuries, is just reminding, you know, against Havidas, you know, you're saying something that nobody has ever thought of, that she had other children, that she was not perpetually virgin. No, but this leads me, Matt, to a third and final. So it's one thing to address the brethren of Jesus. It's also another thing to address until. But still, I think the deeper reason in a subliminal sense that people take umbrage at this

is because what's with virginity? Yeah. You know, doesn't that imply that sex is bad? Right. You know, or at least, you know, something that is purely mundane. And for us as Catholics, that's just not true. That doesn't follow. I mean, sex outside of marriage is wrong, but sex within marriage isn't just good.

You know, I used to say when growing up Campbell's soup was good, you know, but not marital sexual intimacy, you know, oh, it's great. No, you know, when I was a kid, Frost and Flakes were great, you know, but no, sex in marriage as an expression of covenant love is sacred. It's honorable. It really is holy matrimony. And yet at the same time, we know that in heaven will be like the angels, not in the sense that we don't have bodies, we'll have resurrected bodies, but we won't be married or. given in marriage, but not because marriage is bad, but because we'll enter into the glory of marriage, the marriage supper of the lamb, where Christ is going to draw us into a one-flesh union that will make the happiest marriage look like a garbage dump in comparison. And so we won't

have sex in heaven, not because it's bad, but because it's so good, but it's only a natural temporal good. One last thought, too, is this, that if we're saying as Catholics that sex is is bad or at least something that God will concede, you know, no, it's not. I mean, you wouldn't put yesterday's paper on the altar and say, that's my sacrifice. No, that's garbage. Throw it away. You know, you'd only lay something upon the altar if it has something, if it's something of value to you. And so you would only consecrate your virginity. Yeah. If it was valuable. If it was holy, if it was sacred. And what you're saying is, God, I love Joseph. I love Joseph. I love. marriage. I love you even more. And so I want to give consent to the supreme sacrifice of that

which is, in a certain sense, more naturally holy, to achieve a supernatural level of holiness, not just for myself, but for all of the sons and daughters that you're going to entrust to me to be their mother, too. I have to share with you two anecdotes from Dr. Peter Craft, our mutual friend having to do with this. One, he said, it's brilliant. Some Christians view sex the way airports view smoking, namely, all right, if you have to do it, will you at least do it in there, which is not at all the case? The second thing he said was asking whether there will be sex in heaven is like a child having just learnt about sex, asking her mother, okay, but one day when I do have sex, will I still be able to eat candy? And the mother says, oh, honey, you won't want to.

And what child comprehends that, you know, no one. Beautiful. Oh, thank God for Peter Christ. Oh, indeed. What a legacy. All right, let's get into the birth of Jesus, and you stop me whenever you... Okay, let me just insert one footnote. Please.

And that is the presentation after 40 days that we read about in Luke 2, verse 22. Because I won't get into the weeds or the swamp of why it's Exodus 13, 1 and 2, as opposed to Exodus 13, 11 through 13. it's not her redeeming the firstborn, it's her consecrating him. But wait a minute, you know, why an offering, her purification offering, why does she need to be purified if she is not, if she is sinless? And what I would say is, well, Jesus says to John the Baptist's cousin to fulfill all righteousness, but the technical terminology that is used for her purification in a certain sense doesn't undermine her sacredness.

it reinforces it, because when you have vessels that are consecrated for divine use in the holy temple, once they're used, you need to purify them. Not because they're sinful, but in a certain sense because they're consecrated. You don't take it home and use it tomorrow at a picnic. It's only for sacred, divine, liturgical, consecrated purposes. So even there, her purification is language that is employed to describe the vessels of the temple because that's how she understands her own body it isn't something that she tolerates it's something that god has redeemed in her more fully than he's redeemed our bodies that's why hers is assumed and that's why it will become in a certain sense at the apex of divine glory but i again if we trust the

tradition we're going to be empowered to read scripture far better you know it isn't like handcuffs that we have to wear. As Protestant William Wordsworths called her, Our Tainted Nature's solitary boast. Solitary boast, yeah. All right, stop me whenever you want to comment. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment when Quinerius, did I say that right? Corinius. Corinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be enrolled each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary his betrothed,

who was with child, and while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered, and she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Wow. We've heard that a thousand times, but there's so much in there. As I'm hearing it again, I'm almost like hearing it for the first time. It's beautiful. Let me fall back upon what we were talking about earlier, and that is the Ignatius Catholic

Study Bible, because we've been drawing so extensively from Luke 1 and 2 that here, you know, on page 1833, you have the census of Corinnius, but if you turn the page back, on 1831, you have Mary Ark of the Covenant. and a fuller explanation as to why the early church celebrates her. And as David took the ark of the old covenant up into Jerusalem, put it there in the Jerusalem temple. So Jesus takes her up into the heavenly Jerusalem. And as we read in Revelation 1119, I saw the ark of God's covenant in God's temple.

And then he goes on to describe the woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her free crown with 12 stars. She's the ark. She's the queen mother. She is the new Eve, and the serpent knows it even if I didn't know it as a Protestant. But the next page, the census of Carinius is how you're, when you began reading, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, when Carinius was governor of Syria. The reason why I want to just kind of interrupt there is because when I was in college, I had a professor who told us that he really wanted to believe that the Bible was inspired. And then it was without error, but he just came away unable to conclude that because of Carinius's

census. Then I found out he wasn't alone. There were a lot of other people who saw all kinds of historical and literary problems with what Luke is saying about Corinius' census. And in the first four verses of Luke one, Luke basically testifies the fact that he was disciplined and diligent and assiduous in checking with witnesses and sources about compiling his account. And so even secondary historians will often speak highly of Luke's historical record, you know, that there is a historiographer here at work. And so what we have in this essay took Curtis Mitch and me a long time. I mean, not hours, not even days, but weeks. And then I would say this is one of the most valuable but sort of odd contributions in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, but it's typical because so often you don't

really appreciate an answer until the question has dawned on you, and then you scramble in search of an answer. So many people I discovered had problems with camels in the Old Testament and Corinius' census in the new, that when you find the answer, the resolution is sort of like, I wish I'd heard that, you know, 19 years ago when I began to wonder whether I could trust. the Bible. And when the professors sowed the seeds of doubt and the study Bibles that I were using back then were doing the same sort of thing, you know. But this idea of, you know, Joseph goes up from Galilee to Judea, to the city of David. I mean, this is proof that Joseph is of the line of David because though he's up in Nazareth, he has to travel down to David's birthplace.

And as a result of that, you know, she ends up giving birth sort of the last place you'd expect, you know. And I would say that you're almost tempted to say, wait, there's too much happening here. You know, it's like looking at a bicycle wheel and trying to keep track of all of the spokes that are converging upon the hub, you know, especially if it's moving. You can't. There are so many aspects, literarily, historically, theologically, that are converging upon the Christ event here. that it's almost like an onion. You've got to do it one layer at a time, you know. I suppose you can just cut right through it, you know, but in any case.

So the firstborn, that is in particular something notable because doesn't firstborn imply second, third, and fourth? Well, you know, again, we can speak of first in temporal sense, the first who got the class, or we can speak of first in rank. In the law of Moses, the firstborn identifies the rank of the firstborn. So the firstborn, by law, is the heir apparent. He gets the double portion, twice as much as his younger siblings. And if there aren't any other siblings, he is still the firstborn because he's the heir apparent. He's going to inherit the authority of the father.

He will be able to kind of keep the tribe together, as it were. So when you see Jacob in Genesis 48, getting close to death. Before he brings the 12 sons in Genesis 49 to bless them, he brings Joseph to his side by his deathbed. Why? Because Joseph is the firstborn son of Rachel, which was really the only woman that Jacob wanted to marry. So he's going to give Joseph a double portion, which he ends up dividing between Joseph's two sons, Manassah and Ephraim. And it's like, what's going on here? Well, nobody needs an explanation because back then you understood what firstborn meant as the legal stature of the firstborn and the era parent in this extended covenant family.

So that question often pops up whenever I'm speaking as I was yesterday morning in Chicago with an audience that included some Protestants and some ex-Catholics there. So anything else that stands out, I mean, besides the fact, she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid them in a manger. Let's do this. Let's talk about Bethlehem and manger. All right. And Christ being the bread of life.

Yeah. I mean, that's what Bethlehem means in Hebrew. Bayeth, Beth is house. Lecham is bread. So is it a coincidence? No. Is it just reducible to the nominal symbolism of house of bread? Of course not.

But David's birthplace and the son of David, you know, this is another convergent mystery. here. And so the very fact that he's laid in a manger. Well, I mean, you eat from a manger, you know, especially the cattle and the sheep and that sort of thing. Well, I mean, already you get a sense as to why the early church fathers, again, weren't kind of mumbling, you know, debating. Should we bring out this? No, it's in their hymns. It's in their prayers. The fact that the bread of life is born in the house of bread and laid in a manger, we're all beasts, you know, the way we live our lives. We're the cattle, the sheep, you know, the goats. And so we are called upon to partake of the

bread of the God man, the bread of life. You know, and so on the one hand, you see something that is Eucharistic. On another hand, at the other level, you're seeing, you know, what the early church fathers in the Greek would speak of as soon catabasus. That is divine accommodation. It's a, it's a composite word. On the one hand, you have catabasis, catabino. where God will stoop however low he has to go to find the stray sheep. He'll stoop however low he has to go to find us, even if we're lost in darkness and sin, and we are. But the onobatic, the anabic, the onobinousis, the onabino,

is that God will raise us up, not just back to the place that we fell from before we reached adolescence and became addicted to pornography or something. No, he's going to raise us up to his own heights of holiness and glory. soon could topis he'll stoop however low he has to go even a manger a zygote an embryo you know the god man as a child as crucified you know and at the same time we'll get around to the question of god's immutability but let's also get to the fact that you know he's assuming our nature to make us partakers of his nature two peter one four illustrates that we've been so focused upon the weeds, we miss the flowers. We're redeemed from sin, from judgment, from condemnation, from hell. That's good news. But that's not great news as much as what we're redeemed for. We're redeemed not just to be forgiven and healed like patients in a hospital. We're redeemed

to be adopted, made partakers of the divine nature. He's not just going to call us children. He's going to elevate us to the heights of holy sonship so that we end up sharing in Christ divine sonship, again, my brain is on the brink of exploding. It's like, who to thunk it? No human committee, no 70 rabbis translating the septuagint. Nobody could have imagined the only thing God made the whole world for and entered the world in a manger. And so, I mean, this is why God gave us brains. But even more, this is why God gave us hearts. so that we would just adore the majesty of his mercy and realize, yeah, God, you're immense, infinitely larger than the whole freaking universe. And yet when you become a zygote, an embryo, a boychild,

you know, it would be no really, it's not smaller than if you were to become a galaxy, you know. Well, you brought up the immutability question, so let me pose that to you. Oh, boy. If God becomes man, isn't that a galaxy? an argument against God's unchangeableness. At one point, he wasn't man and then he was, so what are we to do with that? That is like a $74,000 question. I mean, that is really, in a certain sense, more of a philosophical objection than something that Protestants would raise as a theological problem. But it is a philosophical problem because, you know, God, we would say, doesn't have being. We do. We have human being. You know, God doesn't have being. He is

being itself. So we don't speak of God simply knowing all things like a supercomputer, you know, that gathers data and basically assembles all of the facts. And I was there before you, so I am all knowing. God doesn't gather data so that he knows all things. God knows all data into existence out of nothing. So God doesn't have being, he is being. He gives us our being, but it's finite. We call it human being, human nature. But divine being is eternal.

There never was a time when he was not. It's also simple because anything that would divide God would in effect be greater. So God is perfect in all of his attributes. And so the infinite perfection of God, points not only to the fact that he is unlimited in his being, his knowledge, his power, his omnipotence, but also that he can't change. He can't mutate. He can't be divided. Why? Because, again, whatever it would change God would be greater than God. And if God needs to undergo change,

then you move from potency to act, he wasn't perfect in the beginning. And he is. So immutability is another philosophical conclusion that we can reach by rational argumentation and in a certain sense, logical deduction. Immutability, that seems to preclude the incarnation. That seems to exclude Jesus being born in the immaculate womb of his mother Mary. Because at that point, we'd have to say,

well, I guess God does change before he wasn't incarnate, and now he is, so God doesn't change. Yes, he does. Okay, what do we do with it? Well, I would point, again, to the patristic testimony that is sort of elevated, nearly perfected by St. Thomas Aquinas. You know, pines with Aquinas. Why? You know, who else? Because Aquinas' point is not simple in the sense of simplistic. It's simple in the sense of profound. but God is immutable. We're extraordinarily mutable. So when he becomes man, he doesn't undergo change. We do. God changes us by taking his own eternal divinity and his own divine sonship and uniting it perfectly to our human nature to the fact that we are sons and daughters of human parents. We are thus servants of God. We are not eternally begotten as the son. We are made,

not begotten. He is begotten, not made. Homo Uzias, consubstantial, one in being with the father, one in being we are with our fathers and mothers, but not with our creator. Okay, but what happens when the immutable God enters into time? Eternity isn't suspended. nor is his um the presence somehow you know exploded no his immutability it becomes the instrument by which we are changed we are transformed this isn't a kind of novel you know Aquinas wasn't making it up it wasn't an invention it is a mystery of faith that goes beyond philosophical reason but he shows that it doesn't go against philosophical reason it really is a variation of another problem that we had way back in the first and second centuries. Arguably, the first and earliest heresy was

Gnostic. The word Gnostic comes from Gnosis in the Greek, which means knowledge. And so these intellectuals, these academics believe that by knowing, by intellectual knowledge, they were saved. And what is their knowledge? Well, they were a sectarian bunch, but the one common denominator among all of the Gnostic sects was this, that in the Old Testament, we had a Deuteros Theos, a second God, a lower divinity, a demiurge. And then we move from the old to the new,

the God of Jesus Christ is the real God, the most high God. So we've changed gods, or as some were saying, God has changed. He was wrathful and just in the old, and now he's become kind and merciful. Well, he's kind and merciful in the old.

he's still just and holy in the new. So Ironaeus, who's the new, one of the most recently declared doctors of the church, he's the doctor of unity because he shows that the unity of history, the unity of the old and the new, is not that we changed gods from the old God to the new God, or that God changed from being angry to being soft and merciful, but that God changed us. He stooped down to us in our own misery. That is catapagosus. And then through the incarnation, he raised us up to his own glory. That is anabasis. Suncatabasis is a term that Ironaeus enshrines because God accommodates himself to us

in our weakness in order to transform us by his strength. And Aquinas, you might say, is adapting that. What was true of history is also true of human nature, that God cannot change. we can and we do but just because god doesn't go through change he doesn't have emotions he doesn't have highs and lows but that doesn't mean that divine apothea what we might translate as apathy means that that god is just simply detached he doesn't really care at all precisely because he doesn't go through passions and emotions like we do he can be compassionate in a way that is firm and alterable. So he doesn't love us simply because of how good we are or how sorry we are for being

bad. His love is what causes our goodness. His love is what causes us to repent. His love is what causes us to return to him. And so his love is what completes the circuitry that had been short-circuited by our own stupid sin. And again, adapting that and applying it to the philosophical objection that God now has suddenly become mutable. No, he hasn't. But what he's brought about is a transformation that goes beyond any theory of evolutionary mutation that scientists could imagine. And this is why salvation for us as Catholics is theosis, not just for Eastern Catholics, not just for Eastern Orthodox, but for all Christians, we have been made partakers of the divine nature and yet the divine nature didn't change us but this becomes the instrument by which we are

transformed as st john damascene would say the humanity of christ becomes the instrument of his divinity so that our humanity which is sort of like hard and cold like aquinus would say a bar of iron which does not have any natural capacity of fire to inflame anything else But if you take that hard, cold bar of iron and put it into a red hot fire, suddenly it begins to take on the properties of that fire. You pull it out and you're touched by it, you are burned. By iron? Yeah. Because the instrument of Jesus' humanity has been transformed by the unity of that union, the hypostatic union with his divinity, so that it becomes the instrument of our own divinization. We returned to that point. He didn't get anything that he was missing by becoming man, suffering, dying, and rising and going back to the Father to the right hand of the Almighty. He did it for us, not for himself. And so what is the full circuit? It is our divinization. And once again, we just see yet another example of how typology applied to history ends up transforming our metaphysics. The way we understand divine.

nature, human nature, and the incarnation as well. Beautiful. Let's talk about the explosion of angelic activity that took place around Christmas. And maybe we could also speak about what Chrysostom and Aquinas had to say about the star. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go back to the beginning, you'll find that angels are there all over the place. You know, you find the angels and the visitation to Abraham and Sarah.

already in Genesis 17, 18, and 19. You have angels encountering Jacob. You have angels meeting the covenant with Moses. At every decisive moment of salvation history, you have not only angelic presence, but angelic activity. And so the incarnation, when Christ comes in the fullness of time, puts on full display what a friend of mine calls

angelic hyperactivity, where they're just hyperactive, they are overshadowing, they are testifying, they are telling the shepherds, they're announcing to the magi, they're speaking to the Blessed Virgin, you know, and because the angels have been waiting for this moment. You know, Paul describes in Ephesians 3 how the angels learn from God through the church because their nature is so superior to human nature, we're half animal, we're half angel, but, you know, the lowest angel is still metaphysically superior to the highest human except for Mary. And so the angels are looking at the incarnation

as something that is extraordinarily instructive for them. The incarnational debut of the Son of God, who's now the son of Mary, her firstborn, the son of man from Daniel 7 and other passages too. You know, angelic minds, even before the fall of the fallen angels, angelic intellects, not even seraphic brains could comprehend what is now being manifested through the incarnation.

In fact, I'm convinced that that was behind Lucifer's fall. Intellectual pride. I'm not going to worship the godman, the little boy child, and I'm not going to serve his mom. They're inferior. Yeah, they are naturally, but they won't be supernaturally. Yeah, non-servium, you know, it's beneath my dignity, like it is others too. But once you grasp this, you realize why angels who've seen the beatific vision, since they pass through the test and pass with flying colors, they behold God as the seraphim do in Isaiah 6. But this goes beyond the vision of the angelic intellect. And so they're active. And they're also aware of the fact, I'm going to just put this simply. In the Old Testament, all the visions of heaven are accepted.

exclusively angels. Because the angelic population is exclusively angelic. In the New Testament, though, after Jesus rises from the dead as we read in Matthew 27, verses 51 and 52, tombs around Jerusalem are open. The saints are seen until they're gone. Where do they go? He took the souls of the faithful departed of the Old Testament from Hades, the realm of the dead, and repopulates heaven, just in time for John to have the visions of the apocalypse were the remnant from all the 12 tribes, the 144,000, plus all these other people from all of these nations and tribes and tongues, they're up in heaven.

Alongside of angels singing the songtoos that only angels sang in the Old Testament, we're now singing that in the Mass like they are before the presence of the God man. And so what history has done to the very fabric of being, is something that would burst the brains of the greatest philosophers. And the star which guided the Maggioy. Oh, yeah. Now, there are many different interpretive opinions, and I have sifted and sorted through many.

I can't claim to be an expert on all of them, or even an expert on most of them. I'm not even sure any of them, but the early church fathers, you know, fathers know best in this case, I would say, because no matter what the Magi were following, you know, so often I have had really sincere and intelligent people point out that the constellation that was happening back in the first century, back around the time of Christmas, would have had Virgo,

the Virgin, and Drago, the dragon, and the male child, and the dragon ready to pounce like you see in the visions of Revelation 12. And to me, that is highly plausible. But in terms of astronomy, me, the idea of a moving star goes beyond whatever constellation might have been there. You know, we have the age of Aquarius, whatever age it was back then, Capricorn, you know, what have you. What St. John Chrysuss and others too testify to the fact is that angels so often will appear in the fiery glory of their own heavenly splendor in terms of stars. And so this is why it became something of a commonplace to say that the magic,

were following a divine messenger, a heavenly messenger. What is the term for messenger? Well, it's Malakim, but in the Old Testament, that's what the angels are called. They're messengers of God. In the Greek, Angeloi literally means messengers, because they're sharing the Uangelion, that is, the good message, the good news. That's where evangelization comes from. And so the original evangelizers are these angels, because they have been waiting since the

dawn of time to share this good news and not just to announce it, but to immerse themselves in it. Beautiful. I want to conclude the same way we began by reading this quotation from Pope Benedict. And then I'd like to invite you to give us and those watching any advice on how to make this a beautiful Christmas, how to really enter into the feast that it is. So again, this is from Pope Benedict the 16th. The history of salvation is not a small event on a poor planet in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation. Everything is created so that this story can unfold the encounter between God and his creature. It's not a minimal

thing on a poor planet. You know, if the Catholic faith, if the gospel of the Christ child is even half true, all of that would follow. But it's not. It can't be half true. It's the whole truth or it's not the truth. And I understand why atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Muslims and others are like, I can't believe that. I want to say, I get it. I couldn't either, apart from a gift that I didn't conjure up on my own. This isn't. something that I devised by my own power or by common consensus or by a majority vote. Flesh and blood has not revealed as to anybody. And it's never revealed it to almost every single Catholic in any given age. Just as it was the remnant back in the first century,

just as it was the remnant in the 8th century BC during Isaiah's ministry, it will probably be only and always a minority report because most people are proud. And even though those who believe it suffer from pride. And so we suffer from unbelief, like we read in Mark 7, I believe, help thou my unbelief. That's my prayer. It should be every hour. But at the end of the day, you know, what we are professing is something that we ought to be possessing. You know, as evil spirits possess these poor souls, we had to allow the Holy Spirit to lay hold of us and possess us in freedom like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had the position. of the Holy Spirit in a way that our brains will never fully understand, you know.

So at the end of our conversation, you know, and here we are wherever we are, you know, in Advent and Christmas, to commemorate the memory, to celebrate the mystery, is to move from memory to mystery to being on mission. If you don't see yourselves, if we don't see ourselves, if we don't see ourselves as being called to be missionaries of the gospel every bit as much as the angels were dying to do and the others too mary going down to the judena hill country for her kinswoman elizabeth i mean we just haven't gotten it hasn't sung from the head to the heart just yet but as it proceeds from what we know to be true to what we really choose to love i mean this follows you know, not as religious rhetoric, you know, not as turning the volume up to 11 and blowing

out the speakers. We're not exaggerating. This is the only truly reasonable response. This is the only perfectly rational way to respond to what we've been celebrating since we were infants, since we were kids, you know, since what we're doing now with our fellow Christians and with other Catholics too. So we've got to get with the program, you know, with the angels as well. but you know the wonderful thing about god becoming man god becoming an infant an embryo is that god does great things through small things that we don't have to do great things that when we commemorate the memory when we celebrate the mystery when we think about the mission it might be changing the diaper you know it might be just going to work and being there on time and being a better friend

to our coworkers, or not cutting the corners, you know, not taking stuff that isn't ours, you know, from work, you know, by being apostles in the context of really assisting our coworkers and our neighbors, by loving our neighbors as ourselves, a little can go a long way when it is touched by grace. You know, I have a book called Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace, which is sort of summarizing my own journey into the fullness of the Catholic faith. And so, you know, what little things can we do, you know, in Advent and Christmas. And I would say, start small. I mean, when I think back to what we've done as a family now for, we've been married for 46 years, what my parents did as non-practicing Christians every once in a while, we began with an Advent wreath

with the four candles for the four Sundays in Advent. The prophecy candle, the first one, in kindle hope, the Bethlehem candle to enkindle peace, shalom, the shepherd's candle for joy and then the angel's candle for the love of God to reach us and to light a candle each Sunday and then to gather around it each evening and to sing an Advent song or a Christmas carol to read the scriptures, to use Magnificat or whatever spiritual guide you prefer, you know, and to do it and to keep it less than an hour. Try to keep it less than a half hour if you've got small kids, maybe pray a decade of the rosary as well. But, I mean, that has been an anchor for us as a family, and that is the Advent Reith. We've also done an Advent calendar so that every day you can open a new window and see

what saint are we celebrating or what sacred practice can we do. We've also done as a family, the Jesse tree to look at the roots of Jesus' Davidic ancestry, which is becoming more and more popular these days. For the last week of Advent, we have the seven, oh, antiphons that are there in the mass and in the church's prayer, whether you're able to make it to daily mass or not. Oh, wisdom, oh Lord, oh root of Jesse, oh key of David, oh radiant dawn, oh king of the nations, O Emmanuel, God with us. There's this escalation, this build-up, as it were. I would also strongly encourage people to do a nativity, a creche.

We have it in our front yard. We also have it in front of the St. Paul's Center. That one, because of Bernie, is so much greater. I mean, from St. Francis of Assisi to our own homes today. And a way to love our neighbors as well, just to testify to our faith and maybe to renew their own sense of hope, you know, and in the midst of struggle. And I would also say, going to confession, we tend to forget, Advent is a penitential season like Lent. It's sort of like Lent light. You know, it's only four weeks, four Sundays leading to a celebration of Christmas.

Lent is much longer, and it leads to the paschal mystery of Easter and all of that. But it is a penitential season. And so observing Fridays, abstaining from meat, that's still there as a church discipline, but also going to confession, repenting of your sin, and making an arrangement so that other members of the family can join you on a Saturday in preparation for the next Sunday and Lent or whatever. I would also say, there's never a better time to enkindle Marian devotion, a daily rosary, at minimum. That might seem burdensome, but ask Our Lady, prove yourself to be a mother, a queen mother, especially in my own struggles, you know, and in my own home, at work or wherever else you're

encountering difficulties and impediments. But I would say at least a decade, I would say a rosary, you know, today in preparation for this, I prayed through all four mysteries, all four sets, you know, and I felt like it was barely adequate, given the sacredness of the topics that we would be talking about together, you know. I would also say the Marian devotions lead to the Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. Also, Our Lady Guadalupe, December 12th, and St. Juan Diego as well. Almsgiving, works of mercy, the other saints of Advent in terms of St. Nicholas, also St. Lucy, on the 13th, and I mentioned St. Juan Diego.

And I realized that, you know, there are five or six others, but I've already gone from small to a large list, and so I don't want to overwhelm. You know, anybody. Dr. Hahn, thank you very much for coming down here and for all the wisdom you've shared with us today. As we wrap up, the website people can go to, your St. Paul Center. Yeah.

We'll put the link below just in case you don't. Is it St. Paul Center? St. Paul Center.com. Excellent. Yeah. And we also have these priest conferences three times a year. You might consider sponsoring or inviting your own priest to join us from Monday through Thursday,

a total immersion in scripture, Dr. Bergsma and other people, I will always be there as well. That's special. We also have an invitation to gift a seminarian. We've already had people donate the study Bible to a thousand seminarians. There are 5,000 out there. We've had a seminary conference that was already overflowing, and we're going to have two next year. And so you might know of a seminarian who could really appreciate the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible if you order one for yourself at this 40% discount, which is as steep as it gets, you might consider getting one for a seminary and you know as well. And by the way, I want to say to your thank you, you're welcome, but I feel as though you're thanking a kid for engorging himself with

his favorite candy. I mean, this is just like too much fun, isn't it? Except it's not, you know. And thank you for the gracious hospitality and also the people throughout the studio here. You have new digs you know and i tell you uh it's surreal to be where you are here in nashville i'm so grateful having seen your studio in stupinville as well as yeah as well as st augustine in florida you know and uh this just takes it to an entirely new level and so thanks be the god for this amazing opportunity please offer your next rosary for me and the apostolate of what we're trying to do through points with aquinas that it would reach souls we'll do that i wouldn't get in the way and that if i do, the Lord will use even that. Yeah, glory to God in the highest. All right. Thank you.

Cup bless.