Pope Eugen I

In his exhortation on the joy of the gospel , Francis I lays out several principles that should guide evangelization. The first is “Time is greater than space.”

He explains, “A constant tension exists between fullness and limitation. Fullness evokes the desire for complete possession, while limitation is a wall set before us. Broadly speaking, ‘time’ has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself. Here we see a first principle for progress in building a people: time is greater than space.”

He contrasts this emphasis on time to the confining and possessive emphasis on space: “One of the faults which we occasionally observe in sociopolitical activity is that spaces and power are preferred to time and processes. Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back. Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces.” In short, “Time governs spaces.”

To those of us schooled by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, this sounds terribly familiar.