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by Joshua Brumfield (Author)
How ought the church respond to the rise of a post-Christian secular age? Should it retreat? What is the mission of the church in this context? Joseph Ratzinger's eucharistic ecclesiology provides a model for living the relation between communion and mission, a model that provides a sound image for conceiving of and imagining the church's engagement with modernity and the embodiment of missionary communion. Ratzinger's vision, deeply influenced by St. Benedict's and St. Augustine's responses to the problems of their day, offers a theologically and liturgically grounded vision of missionary communion that transcends politics. In light of our creation by, from, and for the triune God, authentic responses to the present dis-integration of reason and community require the witness and invitation of the church as a community for the world. Ratzinger argues that right worship can and does habituate Christians and equip churches to respond to the existential questions confronting modern persons, many of whom seem partially paralyzed by the anxieties of life without truth and communion. Might the witness of communion for mission lived by the new ecclesial movements, especially the Focolare, offer an example of how Ratzinger's creative minorities can successfully evangelize this secular age?
Author Biography
Joshua Brumfield is IKON(R) Program Director and lecturer in IKON(R) courses for The Newman Idea. He lives with his wife and four children in New Orleans, Louisiana. He earned his BS from Tulane University, his MA from Our Lady of Holy Cross College, and his PhD from The Catholic University of America. He has served as Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Holy Cross and has published articles on Pope Benedict XVI, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Jacques Maritain.
