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ROME, February 15, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Robert Sarah has announced the forthcoming release of what he considers his “most important” book to date, in which he analyzes the “profound spiritual, moral and political crisis in the contemporary world.”

Cardinal Sarah, who serves as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, made the announcement on Friday, posting on Facebook:

I am pleased to announce the release in France — on 20 March — of my new book with Nicolas Diat titled: Evening approaches and the day is now far spent.

My analysis will focus on the profound spiritual, moral and political crisis in the contemporary world. 

After God or Nothing and The Power of SilenceEvening approaches and the day is now far spent is the last volume in the triptych I wanted to write. This book will be the most important. For I consider that the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril.

+RS

The title of the forthcoming book is taken from the New Testament account of the disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35). The passage reads:

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the break and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?

In comments to LifeSite following today’s announcement, Dom Alcuin Reid, the founding Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, France, and International Coordinator of the Sacra Liturgia initiatives, in which Cardinal Sarah has taken part, said:

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French cover of the soon to be released ‘Evening approaches and the day is now far spent.’

There is a lot of shouting and noise in the Church today – even the sorry spectacle of cardinals criticising brother cardinals and the continuous debate over fundamental tenets of the faith in social and mainstream media, etc. 

Amidst this dictatorship of noise Cardinal Sarah has been conspicuous by his silence. And from his silence he has emerged, from time to time, to speak in a prepared and considered way through his books and discourses – one thinks immediately of his address on the Sacred Liturgy at our conference in London in July 2016, or his Pentecost homily in Chartres last Pentecost Monday, amongst others. These are not soundbites tweeted to perpetuate an ideological narrative; they are the considered utterances of one who weighs his words according to his God-given ministry and believes it is his duty thus to speak. 

There is no reason to expect anything less from Cardinal Sarah’s forthcoming book. Indeed one may anticipate that it will be all the more important given that it arises from further silence, prayer, work and suffering. When this Cardinal speaks we do well to listen attentively.

First released in French on March 20, the English edition of Cardinal Sarah’s new book is expected out in the months following from Ignatius Press, which also published God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith and The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise

LifeSite attempted to contact Ignatius Press for further details but was unable to reach them as of this posting.