The Day is Now Far Spent

In this powerful book by the acclaimed spiritual leader and best-selling writer, one he calls his "most important", he analyzes the profound spiritual, moral and political crisis in the contemporary world. He says that he "considers that the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril."

"At the root of the collapse of the West, there is a cultural identity crisis. The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations."

In these words, Cardinal Sarah summarizes the theme of his book. His finding is simple: our world is on the brink of the abyss. Crisis of faith and of the Church, decline of the West, betrayal by its elites, moral relativism, endless globalism, unbridled capitalism, new ideologies, political exhaustion, movements inspired by Islamist totalitarianism.... The time has come for an unflinching diagnosis.

While making clear the gravity of the crisis through which the West has gone, the Cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without man, a world without hope.

After the great international success of his first two books, God or Nothing and The Power of Silence, Cardinal Sarah offers a wide-ranging reflection on the crisis of the contemporary world while teaching many important spiritual lessons.

"Judas is for all eternity the traitor's name, and his shadow hangs over us today. Yes, like him, we have betrayed! We have abandoned prayer. The evil of efficient activism has infiltrated everywhere. We seek to imitate the organization of big businesses. We forget that prayer alone is the blood that can course through the heart of the Church. We say that we have no time to waste. We want to use this time for useful social works. Someone who no longer prays has already betrayed. Already he is willing to make all sorts of compromises with the world. He is walking the path of Judas."

"Given the surge of sins in the ranks of the Church, we are tempted to try to take things into our own hands. We are tempted to try to purify the Church by our own strength. That would be a mistake. What would we do? Form a party? A movement? That is the most serious temptation: the showy disguise of division. Under the pretext of doing good, people become divided, they criticize each other, they tear each other apart. And the devil snickers."

"Today, in these pages, I offer you what is at the heart of my life: faith in God. In a little while I will appear before the eternal Judge. If I do not hand on to you the truth that I received, what will I say to him then? We bishops ought to tremble at the thought of our guilty silences, our complicit silences, our over-indulgent silences in dealing with the world."

"The unity of the Church rests on four columns. Prayer, Catholic doctrine, love for Peter, and mutual charity must become the priorities of our soul and of all our activities."

"Advertising often reduces a woman's body to the level of merchandise used for commercial purposes. They expose it, they display it for everyone to look at. It seems that they find this contempt and humiliation normal. The female body is seen as an object meant to provoke sensual desire."

"One cannot find God by watching a television program. God is a Real Presence hidden in the tabernacle. An image will never replace an intimate encounter... We deceive ourselves when we pretend to believe that we have encountered God and taken part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice by watching a televised broadcast. No one can claim to have been at his mother's funeral by watching the film of the ceremony of her funeral Mass."

"Liberty is another idol. Western man no longer tolerates any constraint. He claims an absolute independence from all moral norms."