Text - Agamben: The Church and the Kingdom

Sojourn

Speaking before the bishop of Paris and several other high ranking clergy in the cathedral church of Notre Dame de Paris, Agamben is apocalyptic in tone regarding the state of the church in the world.

'I've chosen to begin my address to the Church of our Lord, in sojourn or exile, here in Paris' (p. 1)

For Agamben, as for the apostle Paul, the Church exists in the world in sojourn.
It is telling for the role of the Church in the world is one of temporary existence, of visitation.

The Greek for sojourn is also the same for parish: πάροικος (pároikos). A brief etymology reveals its meaning: παρά (pará, “near”) + οἶκος (oîkos, “house”).

Agambon thus directs the bishop's attention towards an old adage: 'In the world but not of the world.'

The Church as Eternal

The Church, as a body of sojourners does not exist in the time of this world. Contrary to the modernising efforts of followers in the 'Spirit of Vatican II', the Church does not find its relation to the world in emulating trends and 'keeping with the times', but rather in hosting access to the eternal. The Mass does not happen on a Sunday morning, but rather in the Eschaton; the sacrifice offered once for all on behalf of all. Time is suspended, or rather, revealed in its fullness as apocalpyse. 

Agambon calls the Catholic Church to action; rather than awaiting the right time, the time of the Lord, it must act now. This is because Messianic Time is not a time to be anticipated for, but in a sense, a state of being. Not a temporal place, but the absolute presence of God where all is in all.

'In the one case, the time in which we believe we live seperates us from what we are and transforms us into powerless spectators of our own lives.In the other case, however, the time of the messiah is th etime that we ourselves are, the dynamic time where, for the first time, we grasp time, grasp the time that is ours, grasp that we are nothing but that time.' (p. 12)

The Challenge to the Church

'Christ announced the coming of the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church' (a French theologian quoted by Agamben, p. 27)

Here lies the challenge to the Church in France, to realise in itself that it is the temporal presence of the eternal; that it ministers not to this time, but to the eternal sacred. 

It is in this point that I find the architectural merit of what Agamben is arguing, for if the sacred is eternal, how can it be that the temples exhibit a transition in their form. In Liverpool there are two cathedrals, one Catholic, the other Anglican.

The plans of these cathedrals are wholly dissimilar, the Catholic is circular, gathering the people toward the altar as a theatre in the round; the Anglican is cruciform with the high altar at the easternmost extremety. The latter is more conservative than the former in its design but not its doctrine.

For the Church to be present eternally, it must present itself as eternal.
This is reflected in the rites, preaching, and architectural experience. 

'The Church can be a living insitution only on the condition that it maintains an immediate relation to its end' (p. 41)

Unceasingly the same, the Church must exhibit the eternal qualities of the sacred so that, for those who seek it, they are joined not simply with their contemporaries, but with the whole human experience of accessing the divine. 

Liturgical architects beware.