By Dr. Scott Hahn
It was like Christmas in October! Bright, shiny bags were all lined up in a row, waiting to be opened.
Inside each was a lifetime’s worth of wisdom—books on the meaning of Scripture, on theology, liturgy, and the sacraments, on the Fathers of the Church, and more.
I had the proud privilege of playing gift-giver, presenting these bags to dozens of seminarians who participated in our second annual Letter & Spirit conference, held at St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh (more on that later).
Of all the Center’s many accomplishments in the past year, this initiative, which we have dubbed “The Seminarian’s Bookshelf,” was the one I found the most creative and moving.
Our idea was literally to help stock the shelves of these men training for the priesthood. We want our future priests to have the resources they need for a life of prayer, study, and sanctification. I’ve said before that this is a primary goal of our work: to help raise up holy priests and spiritual fathers by inspiring their love and knowledge of Scripture and the liturgy.
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has said that seminary formation’s “deepest goal is to bring the student to an intimate knowledge of the God who has revealed his face in Jesus Christ. For this, in-depth study of Sacred Scripture is needed, and also of the faith and life of the Church in which the Scripture dwells as the Word of life.”
We’ve taken the pontiff’s words to heart. Through your generosity, we were able to give a dozen Center books to seminarians who had also received scholarships to attend our Letter & Spirit conference.
The conference, by the way, was a great success! We had nearly 200 people come out for the event—priests, seminarians, deacons and lay people; scholars and ordinary Catholics. For two days we talked about the Bible and the liturgy; the ancient Jewish roots of the Mass and the priesthood; the Trinity; love and sacrifice.
It’s been such a great year. You can read a kind of “year-end report” on the back page of this newsletter. It’s quite an impressive list.
Once again, I’m humbled and amazed at what we’ve been able to accomplish by the grace of God, the hard work of Center associates, staff, and volunteers.
But in this season when the Word became flesh, I’m most grateful for you. I can’t thank you enough for your prayers, your notes of encouragement, and your financial contributions.
Because of your generous gifts we are able to be gift-givers all year round—giving seminarians and others the tools they need to know the great gift of God who comes to us in Word and sacrament.
It’s been a great year, praise God! And our plans for next year are even bigger and better!
December 2006
