Great Awakening vs. Great Awokening

What happens to a culture that forgets its roots? In his Advent homily Memory Awakens Hope, Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) warned that when a people lose the memory of God’s saving acts, they also lose hope for the future. Memory and hope belong together; without memory, we drift into despair or construct false hopes that cannot endure.

In this episode of the Spe Salvi Institute Podcast, Andrew and Bobby explore how Ratzinger’s insight sheds light on the contrast between the historic Great Awakenings—moments of spiritual renewal that re-centered communities on God—and today’s so-called Great Awokening. Our contemporary West has wandered into a “land of forgetfulness,” where moral fervor often masks amnesia of the transcendent. What do we risk when memory of the Christian story is erased? And what does authentic awakening look like in an age hungry for meaning but suspicious of tradition? Join us as we consider how recovering living memory—of Scripture, of the Church, of the saints—can reawaken true hope and chart a path beyond the illusions of our age.