Reddit reviews Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God
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Scott Hahn’s book Hail, Holy Queen should address all your reservations about Mary. He also has several lectures on YouTube that could get you started. Here’s a good one. He’s a converted Protestant minister who wrestled with the concept of Our Lady for two or three years. He’s plumbed the depths. Any answers you need, he’s got them.
Also, I’d recommend praying the Rosary. That helped me work through my concerns. It’s truly a holy experience.
I suggest the following books by former anti-Catholic Presbyterian Minister Catholic Convert Scott Hahn. Read them yourself then give them to your boyfriend and discuss them with him.
Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism by Scott Hahn
And
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God
Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn: A biographical account of how Dr. Scott Hahn, former Presbyterian minister, and his wife found their way into the Catholic Church, and why.
Behold Your Mother by Tim Staples: An apologetic defense of the Marian doctrine using Biblical and historical references.
Hail, Holy Queen by Scott Hahn: Another defense of the Marian doctrine from Dr. Scott Hahn.
The Case for Catholicism by Trent Horn: A litany of apologetic responses to typical Protestant objections to and misunderstandings of Catholic teachings.
Catholic Answers Podcast: A weekday radio broadcast with various Catholic apologists and advocates for various Catholic issues.
Called to Communion radio podcast (with Dr. David Anders, available on EWTN's channel): A radio broadcast specifically oriented towards answering objections launched by Protestants. The host Dr. Anders is also a former Presbyterian seminarian.
Mary is amazing. You may be interested in Hail Holy Queen or the more detailed The Glories of Mary by St Alphonsus.
The title and role of Mary as Queen of Heaven can be seen as a type in 1 Kings 2:13-20 (especially those last two verses). There are other verses, such as Rev 12:1-3. You'll see those and others referenced in explanations of it, such as this and this.
Scott Hahn goes into this as well in Hail Holy Queen, which your library or local Catholic parish library may have.
> Obviously both dogmas could be true, but my question is why are they assumed to be true, why is the church so sure that they are true, why is it so important that they must be true, that they are raised to the level of dogma.
First, for an in-depth treatment of this, I definitely recommend Behold Your Mother: A Biblical And Historical Defense Of The Marian Doctrines, by Tim Staples, and Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother Of God In The Word Of God, by Scott Hahn. Both relatively affordable if you choose the "used books" option on Amazon, and highly recommended.
To give a brief overview here... we first must recognize that every Marian dogma, and any title given to the Blessed Mother, is meant to magnify or point to some reality about Jesus Christ. The dogmas you referenced can be drawn out from the Catholic beliefs about Mary and certain biblical titles she holds - The New Eve, The Ark Of The New Covenant, The Queen Of Heaven.
If I may ask, are you able to go a bit more in depth on what specifically is challenging about each doctrine, apart from not seeing their connection with other important Christian doctrines? That might help me lend a bit more guidance apart from the books I recommended. Prayers your way!
Books (both from former protestants):
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385501692/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_forRDbHKC4JST
Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines https://www.amazon.com/dp/1938983912/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3orRDb4NBP4WJ
Videos:
Mary the Ark of the New Covenant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmNWqLSJcJI&feature=share
Hail Holy Queen, Scripture and the Mystery of Mary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn1tWuIoZsg&feature=share
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God, by Scott Hahn
I read Rome Sweet Home last week and absolutely loved it. Dr. Hahn does a great job of showing how the Old Testament points to Mary in the New Testament.
I have a four-way tie for best mariology.
In no particular order:
Marian Mystery by Denis Farkasfalvy
Queen Mother by Ted Sri
Daughter Zion by Joseph Ratzinger
Mariology by Matthias Joseph Scheeben
If you're looking for books directed at a more popular audience (i.e. if you're not a theologian), then the following are very good:
Behold your Mother by Tim Staples
Hail Holy Queen by Scott Hahn
EDIT: Here's a great bibliography my professor made for a mariology course.
EDIT: Just as a caveat, my interest in mariology is mostly biblical. Apparitions aren't a huge interest of mine. So the above reflects that. Though there's plenty on dogmatic/systematic mariology there too.
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385501692/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_n_awdm_L68DxbVP2QT4Q via @amazon
Sorry on mobile and linking is terrible.
Disclosure: Have not read but comes highly recommended. Personally I like True Devotion to Mary and Secrets of the Rosary
The title of your post immediately reminded me of a Scott Hahn talk I heard last year, and then I saw your reference to him—so maybe you've already heard or read this story. If not, here it is from his talk, as I remember it: as a young Protestant minister gradually pulled into Catholicism, he was in much the same boat as you. His wife was dead-set against. She was very worried about him, and went behind his back to talk a mutual friend, a fellow minister, and urge him to do everything in his power to save Scott from Catholicism. So this friend started reading all the books that Scott had been reading. He and Scott's wife would look for the logical holes and plot how to undermine Scott's conversion. Much drama followed...but within two years, both Scott's wife and her co-conspirator had joined Scott in converting to Catholicism.
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You've said your vows to your wife, before God. You are committed to her, and she to you, until death do you part, whether you like it or not. If she won't go to Catholic church with you, that's ok. If she leaves you, that's ok too—you are committed to living chastely and honoring your marriage vows even if she leaves you, and doing everything you can (short of rejecting the Truth) to win her back.
But that's getting a bit melodramatic. You have concerns about Mary? Share those with your wife, instead of trying to poorly defend Marian doctrines you don't understand. It's ok not to have the answer, and if I know anything about marital communications (married seven years), saying "I don't know" is more likely than anything to get your wife on your side talking about the challenges with you more openly.
Your wife doesn't need to convert at the same time as you. But if you have converted in your heart, get yourself in RCIA and start going to Catholic church. If you want to really live your commitment both to God and to your marriage, go to your usual Sunday church with your family for the foreseeable future, and then go alone to a Catholic mass. That might take all Sunday morning, so you could perhaps go to Catholic mass on a Saturday afternoon if it fits your schedule better.
Anyway, that's a bunch of unsolicited advice. You asked for prayer and book recommendations. Let's pray together: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."
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And here's a book recommendation, since you like Dr. Hahn, in case you haven't come across it yet: Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God.
Books that tackle this topic: Tim Staples' Behold Your Mother, Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen. I also found these two audiobooks very informative on Marian doctrines.
Those should all at least touch on this topic, though they are about Mary in general.
The super-short version is that Mary was given special graces by God because she agreed to be his Mother through Jesus. One of those graces was complete freedom from original sin (excluding even the concupiscence which we still bear as a result of that stain) and another was the free capacity not to sin (which was wrapped up in her "let it be so" and filled her entire life). This was accomplished not by her power, but by God's as a gift of grace.
There are several good ones. As a Protestant, I am sure you would appreciate the biblical background, so here are some I recommend:
You really can’t go wrong with any of these titles. Just check out the descriptions and reviews and see which one you like best.
I'd recommend reading Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen and, if you're really feeling up to it, try Scheeben's two-volume Mariology.
If you're looking for a book, check out Hail, Holy Queen by Scott Hahn. Dr. Hahn has an easy-reading writing style that should be a great introduction.
Congratulations on the conversion!
> can you provide anything showing the Bishop of Rome's primacy/uniqueness in the early church?
Sure. Read Adrian Fortescue's The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon in 451. It's all over the Patristic tradition. The Orthodox are in agreement that the Roman Bishop held a unique position.
>where in St. Luke's gospel is Mary said to be ever-virgin?
I said that I think that St. Luke's Gospel attests to her perpetual virginity. On this, I recommend Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen.
> In the gospels themselves, Jesus is said to have siblings (not cousins, not spiritual brothers and sisters, contemporary readers understood this as blood siblings)
He's said to have ἀδελφοί. You've claimed contemporary readers thought of these as His siblings - who? Nobody I know of in the Patristic tradition does. Mary's perpetual virginity is well attested and is geographically diverse (you find it in Lyons and the Persian Empire).
>Their roles are nearly identical.
Only in a very thin way. This sort of argument is used against Christianity more generally (cf. the film Zeitgeist). The look-alike fallacy is alive and well.
>However, the Jews did not believe in an after-life in the modern sense of it
I don't know what modern sense you mean, but Second Temple Judaism had a far more diverse take on the afterlife than a literal reading of Eccl. 9.
>. Quick examples: baptism, initially was practiced on adults and shifted to infant (primarily).
This is an assumption.
>Some early Christians (including Constantine) believed that certain sins could only be cleansed once by baptism
Why do you mention Constantine? These sorts of random mentions make me think you're just grasping for vocabulary instead of being well-read. Your mention of the Assyrian Church specifically and now Constantine are the sorts of weird, random allusions that people who don't know what they're talking about make in an attempt to seem more learned about a subject than they are. Yes, the belief of early Christianity is that baptism washed away sin.
>initially practiced in private homes, church authorities have gained the right to deny people of communion (which initially was a personal choice, see 1 Cor 11)
There's no evidence outside of the Bible for this. This is your particular read of 1 Corinthians 11 (and I don't see it as a personal choice - St. Paul straight up commands people not to receive - sure, they can still will to sin and receive unworthily). But our earliest sources attest to a Eucharistic liturgy. This makes good sense considering the earliest Christian liturgies were taken over from the synagogues.
>historians have 5,800-ish manuscripts and no 2 are exactly alike
Greek manuscripts.
>Mostly minor variations, some big.
The majority are minor. The 'big' variations are the Johannine Comma, the woman caught in adultery (Jn 7.53-8.11), and the last twelve verses in Mark. I have no idea what you think this point makes. Do you think the Catholic Church is somehow behind these textual variants? That it somehow discredits Catholicism? What are you getting at?
I love Mariology!
Tim Staples' book Behold Your Mother talks about the Marian doctrines, the proof for them, etc., so this could help draw your mother closer to Mary.
Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen is an intense Biblical breakdown of Mary and her allusion to from the first pages of Genesis in the Old Testament to the Book of Revelation
Finally, because of her strong attachment to Mary, I'd recommend 33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat In Preparation for Marian Consecration
On Mary, the ones I've heard often are Behold Your Mother and Hail Holy Queen. I have the latter, but it's been many many years since I last read it so I don't remember much about it. I remember thinking it was really good though so there's that. (I guess this is a hint from God and Our Mother that I should pick it up again.) Other than those two, I found this website that you might find interesting.
I hope those prove useful on your journey!
All of his books are great. He used to be a Protestant, so he understand where many Protestants are coming from in their understanding of Scripture and theology. It makes him really relate-able without coming off as high-brow or overly theological. Rome Sweet Home and Hail, Holy Queen are also excellent.
I also recommend Fr. Dwight Longenecker as another Evangelical-turned-Catholic. He has a most excellent blog on Patheos called Standing on my Head and has written a couple of "debate" style books on varying Catholic topics, such as Mary: An Evangelical-Catholic Debate and Challenging Catholics: An Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue
Scott Hahn is a great author. His style is very clear and since he's an ex-protestant, he can communicate well. I'd very much recommend anything by him.
Catholic Answers has a lot of great resources that are geared towards helping protestant understand Catholic stuff. For example, this tract about why Catholics call Mary the "Mother of God".
For more "advanced" reading, I can't recommend the Summa Theologica enough. The full text can be found at newadvent.org, and I'd recommend searching it via google using searches with the following format: "site:newadvent.org summa theologica [topic]". Ex, if you wanted to know what Catholics teach about confession, you'd search "site:newadvent.org summa theologica confession" and follow the first few results.
Fr. Mike Schmitz is also a great resource for basic knowledge.