Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Append i x

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A Theology of the Christian Year, continued

time has become, as the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement puts it, “porous” to God. Every Sunday, in particular, is a declaration of the eschatological qualification brought to time and history by the resurrection of the crucified Christ from the dead. Over time, though so qualified, is not abolished. The Savior himself “needed” – we can infer after the event – the years of his earthly life, from the moment of his conception to the day of his ascension, for the multifaceted work of redemption. Moreover, the mystery of God’s design for the world apparently includes the centuries that have since passed. And still the Parousia has not taken place. What is worked out in time and history will belong, we conclude, to the final kingdom of God, however marvelous the transformation it will undergo in the general resurrection which Christ’s presaged. If the Creator’s saving purpose accommodates itself to time and history in these ways, it is entirely appropriate to commemorate, celebrate, and anticipate it in the temporal symbolism that the church’s calendar represents. That is in no way to deny the openness of all Christian worship and the whole of Christian existence to the entire mystery of God.