What the World is Waiting For

I have long said to friends, what the world is waiting for is a community within the Church which makes the Tridentine Mass its presupposition, not its message. A community which makes the Gospel its message and life, the preferential love for the poor, the engagement with the world, the invitation to consider the claims and life of the One who declared Himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

When the Tridentine Mass is seen to quietly but powerfully fuel such an 'Evangelical' movement, as its presupposition, not its focus, it will be a Kairos, a moment of grace. The Kerygma of the early Church was the Church's focus, fueled by the Mass, the Kerygma's very presupposition. When the order is sadly reversed, one is not far away from polemics, imbalance and the unseemly disfigurement of the Church's proclamation. Oxygen is the presupposition of Life, it does not swallow up all the spiritual and existential aspects of living itself. ---Stephen Hand