rom the day the Gospel dawned in the World, Christians have occupied a remarkable place – citizens of heaven, but heirs to the world; loving the world, yet persecuted by the world. A second-century author remarked that Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body. It was people of faith who transformed Greco-Roman civilisation and empowered it to thrive.

This is the way of believers in every age, “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested” (2 Cor 4:10).

In this book, Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, authors Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley demonstrate that the same power that converted the world in the first century is still converting the world today. Providence is not like a sporting event, or the stock market, or the battlefield, where progress can be measured. But it is more reliable than any measurement we have.

The message of this book is at once bracingly realistic and hopeful. Christians today are living in exile. But Christians have always lived as strangers in a strange land – and have nevertheless prevailed. It is a timeless message, but calibrated here precisely for our time.