When The Church Was Young

“When The Church Was Young” is the latest book from “Dr. Italy”, Marcellino D’Ambrosio.

I first came across Dr. D’Ambrosio when I was living back in England and was exposed to the Catholic Faith Exploration (CaFE) videos. His warmth and gentle presentation style made the Catholic Faith look rather attractive. During the priestly discernment of my mid-twenties, I read his book Exploring the Catholic Church which gave me a lot of light concerning my vocation during that somewhat turbulent time.

A couple of years later, I got to meet Dr. D’Ambrosio in person when I travelled to Walsingham for “New Dawn”, a charismatic Catholic family camp and retreat. Dr. D’Ambrosio was one of several speakers giving smaller talks around the campsite. I didn’t really understand the title of the talk listed in the schedule as I had no idea who the “Church Fathers” were, but having enjoyed watching him speak in the CaFE videos, I decided to go and have a listen…

A lesson in family history

“History shouldn’t be boring. History is basically story-telling. Stories shouldn’t be boring, especially if we’re telling stories about our family…”

This was how Dr. D’Ambrosio began his talk on a subject which would become one of my great loves, the Early Church Fathers. Over the next hour, he regaled us with stories of our Catholic family, and anecdotes about our forefathers in faith. He told us about some of the early martyrs, but the stories which really stuck with me were those concerning the rather colourful lives of St. Ambrose and his protege, St. Augustine. Up until that point, I had no idea that so much passion and drama could be hidden behind the images of those old, bearded men which I saw in stained glass each Sunday.

Since that time, I have studied the Early Church in much more detail by listening to lectures and reading books. As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time will know, it is a constant endeavour to introduce those I meet to the Early Church Fathers. Over the years I’ve assembled some resources to ease the learning curve. It was with great excitement, therefore, that I pre-ordered Dr. D’Ambosio’s new book, “When The Church Was Young”…

Ever ancient, ever new

I was not disappointed.  In short, Dr. D’Ambrosio has produced my new favourite introductory volume to the Church Fathers. While quite a lot of Patristics books can be rather dry, the style of this book is easy and relaxed, which meant that I got through the entire book in just a few days.

There are several things which I think are uniquely achieved in this book. The first thing which is worth commending is the way in which the author manages to connect the stories of each Early Church Father into an overarching narrative. This is extremely helpful in keeping the chronology and flow of events clear in one’s head.

The next thing is that, although I would say that this is an introductory book, it is absolutely packed with little nuggets of information I hadn’t come across before. In fact, every time I found one of these gems, I put a little post-it on the page…

The final thing about this book which sets it apart from others is in the area of what you might call “application”. At the end of each chapter, Dr. D’Ambrosio connects the events, issues and themes discussed in that chapter to both contemporary secular society and to today’s Church. In these sections, he shows how the lessons learned in the early centuries can be applied to today’s world and how the wisdom of the Fathers is the sage advice we need to hear as we attempt to remedy contemporary dilemmas and struggles.

Upon completing this book I immediately purchased two more copies, certain that I would quickly find homes for them. No sooner had they arrived, I had put them into the hands of friends, enthusiastic to read them after hearing my glowing reports on Facebook.

All in all, I loved this book. It’s an excellent introductory guide to the Fathers which is never-the-less jammed full of valuable material presented in an accessible fashion. Dr. D’Ambrosio is right, history shouldn’t be boring, and neither is this book, thanks to his excellent retelling of our family story.