Sc.ott Hah.n and Jo.hn Mar.tignoni * Updated

If you ever have the chance to see either of them speak, I would definitely recommend going.

John Mar.tignoni spoke on "Marriage and the Eucharist: And the Two Shall Become One" (you can get all of his talks on his website for free or you can donate).  He explains how the Eucharist can be explained in martial terms and marriage in Eucharist terms.  He then uses this relationship to explain why contraception is a problem, why non-Catholics can't receive the Eucharist, why sex shouldn't happen outside of marriage, and why there is no such thing as gay marriage (which is also something that Leila posted about).  We all know that the Eucharist re-presents and makes present the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  JM brought up that each time we have intercourse with our spouse, when are renewing our martial vows and re-presenting and our total giving of self from our wedding day and making the consummation of it present, which means we need to remember that this is more than just a physical act.  The one area that I wished that JM had discussed since he brought up contraception and how it separates life and love was the flip side of IVF.  Contraception is "love" without life and IVF is life without "love".  During the lunch break, I actually mentioned to JM that he should add a discussion of infertility and IVF to his talk, and he said he'd consider it.

Sc.ott H.ahn gave two talks.  One was on the the "Letter & Spirit: From Written Text to Living Word in Liturgy" and "Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, & Defend the Catholic Faith".  If you have never read a SH book or hear a CD of him giving a talk, you need to do it now.  Both talks are parts of books that he has, which I haven't read yet but definitely plan to.  In the Letter and Spirit talk, he focused on how his conversion from a Presbyterian minister to a Catholic came through reading the Bible, the early Church Fathers, and then seeing it all put together in the Mass.  He reminded us that the Bible came from the Liturgy and the Liturgy is thus filled with interconnections with the Bible.  Letter and Spirit is a follow-up to the Lamb's Supper, which is a great book on the Mass and its relation to the book of Revelation.  One other important point that he brought up is that the Eucharist is what makes the Crucifixion a sacrifice instead of just an execution, which is what everyone present (with the possible exception of Mary and the Apostles) would have seen it as.  You have to eat the Passover Lamb for the sacrifice to be complete.

I may write about the Reasons to Believe talk later.  The talk was interesting, but I'm having issues pulling out what I want to discuss.