A Different Time

Over the last few weeks, in this series in the Parish Newsletter, we have been looking at the situation of believers over the centuries that have gone before us. 

In recent times, we are experiencing something that has never happened before.  That something is a transition from a society which is fundamentally religious to a society which does not include religiousness in its ethos or social structures.  This has never happened before as far as we know!  There have been instances of transition from one pagan religion to another, or that of the Roman Empire moving from paganism to Christianity, or that of many European countries moving from one form of Christianity to another at the time of the Reformation.  But a society with no explicit and acknowledged religious dimension is something which has come about gradually over the last hundred to a hundred and fifty years.  We find ourselves in a new situation, and coming to grips with that new situation, means that we cannot simply do what we have always done before. 

In moving from one religion to another, there are certain things in the former religion which can act as building blocks for the transition to the new religion.  So pagan feasts were often Christianised in the transition from pagan religions to Christianity.  Pope Gregory I recommended to St Augustine of Canterbury that he transform former pagan temples into churches or Christian shrines.

In our time, we need to find new points of contact between the lives of people generally and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  For instance, a point of departure may be to delve into the meaning of human life, to ask questions about its deeper needs and desires, its capacity for living together in harmony or its future. 

This is not something for us to fear, but something which in fact unearths new dimensions of the meaning of Jesus Christ for human beings.  We are indeed entering a new age. 

This was a fundamental insight of those gathered for the Second Vatican Council, for the Popes who arose in its wake and is especially prominent in the words of Pope Francis.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin