"From today's crisis, a church will emerge tomorrow that has lost a great deal...She will be small and, to a large extent, will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers, she will lose many of her privileges in society. Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers...As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs...It will make her poor and a church of the little people..All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful."
- Joseph Ratzinger, 1969
Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI. This is a quote from an article about him in Time magazine (June 7, 2010). It was uttered forty years ago and yet is amazingly prophetic. I am getting impatient. I am weary of the conversations about how we can "save the church," meaning the institution we love and protect. I am ready for that institution to die so that it will stop impeding the movement of the Spirit in our world. I am ready for what is coming. I am ready for women and men with hearts set afire to respond to who God is calling them to be and what God is calling them to do.
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