A good reminder from Scott Hahn

It's not "five across the eyes" from a redneck named "Junior," as in one local radio station's recurring parody of "Montgomery County parenting," but this passage nevertheless brought me up short, like the entire book of which it is part:

"Modern people will often speak of worship as something outside the stream of history--purely transcendent. Not so the ancients: They knew no distinction between the sacred and the secular. The covenant was an exchange of persons, and so it comprehended all of life: private, public, professional, religious, recreational, everything. The idea of a Sunday-only Christian -- or a Sabbath-only Jew-- would be ludicrous to our ancestors in biblical faith."

That's one of many nuggets in Scott Hahn's "Swear to God," a power-packed primer on "The Promise and Power of the Sacraments."

In 200 pages, Hahn discusses each of the seven sacraments. Along the way, we also learn why the Catholic church has historically recognized seven sacraments (as opposed to any more or any less), why God's characteristic way of dealing with us is sacramental, why Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day, why covenants come with both blessings and curses, why the Eucharist is so important, and how God "transformed the cosmos from a mere creation into a family home and a holy temple."

It's great stuff, all of it, firmly grounded in scripture, and written for non-specialists rather than professional theologians. Hahn is too fond of puns in his subheadings, but otherwise I recommend this quintessentially Catholic book to any Christian, without reservation.