. What did John XXIII mean by “the signs of the times”? The expression came out of a new “theology of the world.” The church’s tie to the world was in keeping with an old idea: that the church was “incarnational,” a community begun by the Wordmade-flesh, by a God who chose to enter human history and start his pilgrim people on a march through that history. The word incarnation refers to the act of God becoming man, of God being made present in the world in a unique manner in the person of Jesus