RELIGION: "When the Church Reads the Signs of the Times"

Friday, July 20, 2018

From Crisis Magazine:

Knowing what’s going on can make it easier to reach people. But there’s a limit to this. Jesus could read the signs of the times, but his listeners couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Paul read them too, but people found his preaching “foolishness” and a “stumblingblock.”

The problem wasn’t that Jesus and Paul needed to work out a new and improved form of evangelism, but that people insist on ignoring basic realities. When they do, focusing too much on their language and concerns means joining their mindlessness. Saint Benedict and Saint Francis went a different way. They didn’t think current concerns were going anywhere, and their response was to forget about them and do what they thought made most sense. When people saw what this was, they realized what they had been missing and followed them. This changed the world.

Read the full article: When the Church Reads the Signs of the Times

P-B