Back for a Future: Irish Saints and a Collapsing World

For those of us in the West looking at the place of the church in society the words of Galadriel, a royal elf of the woods of Lothlórien in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, ring true. 
 
“The world has changed.
I see it in the water. 
I feel it in the Earth. 
I smell it in the air. 
Much that once was is lost, 
For none now live who remember it.”
 
We know it – those of us who are older see how different things are, yet even the younger ones among us have seen rapid social changes that reflect the tectonic shifts in our culture. We are a post-Christendom culture.
 
It can be discouraging to see such loss, and one can easily be overwhelmed or filled with despair at the task ahead. 
 
So what is a way forward?
 
Here is a sermon I recently delivered at Acadia Divinity College that looks at three Irish monks and what they have to say to us today about carrying out the work of the church in the midst of a collapsing world.  Click Here