Welcome to timeofthechurch, my blog about the contemporary life of the Catholic Church. It aims to promote better pastoral practice and leadership in our parishes and ministries by bringing together the best of the Catholic tradition with the pastoral issues and concerns that affect the Catholic community today.

I believe the riches of our theological and spiritual traditions offer abundant resources to support the conversion of our communities and strengthening of our mission in the present. I believe that the Church, as both the bearer and receiver of God’s mystery, remains a place of possibility and hope for the future. By offering my thoughts on this blog I hope to contribute to that hope.

The name of my blog draws its inspiration from the work of the Dominican theologian Yves Congar OP (1904-1995) and the Jesuit scholar Henri de Lubac SJ (1896-1991) who, in their sacramental approach of the Church, underlined its life and activities as both inseparable from human history and at same time as transcending that history.

For these scholars it was in the mystery of the Church, ‘the bond between two worlds’, that past (memory), present (history) and future (eschaton) coincide, most especially in the Word and the Church’s sacramental life. This ‘time of the Church’ is not time as the world understands it, the mechanical plodding of one moment to the next, but a time of anticipation, witness and conversion to Christ who is even now the fulfillment of human history. It is a time that sends us forward in faith rather than simply affirming where we are.

I hope the articles, reflections and comments on this blog will serve as a source of hope and renewal in discipleship, ministry and community life. I hope you too will share your thoughts and reflections on the best of Christian leadership and the growth of faith in your part of the world.

Thank you for visiting and every good wish,

Daniel