Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations for the New Evangelization

by Robert P Imbelli

The Second Vatican Council marked the beginning of the New Evangelization. It sought to communicate the Gospel's perennial newness to the contemporary world in a spirit of joy and hope. Yet despite the exhortations of Paul VI and John Paul II, a number of ecclesial and cultural factors deflected the church's evangelical energies, so that the council's radiant Christocentric vision faded in an increasingly polarized church. In this important new work, Robert Imbelli probes the council's comprehensive Christocentric vision and its evangelical imperative. It maintains that Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his body, the church, and that the Eucharist effects the ongoing intimate communion between Head and members. It is this life-giving communion that the church desires to share with the wider world as the world's truth and salvation. Drawing on the writings of Pope Benedict and the witness of Pope Francis, Imbelli's insights will help transform what is merely notional for the reader into a vivid reality through the lure of beauty. Includes four-color illustrations.

Genres: Theology

152 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2014

Reviews

[Jose Luis]

I'd say the call to action here is mystogogical - of not being afraid to delve into the mysteries of our faith and to seek out new (or rediscovered) ways - through art, music, architecture, literature - to understand the uniqueness of Christ, the Trinity, the Eucharist, and what it means to be holy.

Fr. Robert Imbelli frames the New Evangelization as a response to the insipid imagination of the modern Christian. The problem at hand reminds me of an article I read in First Things about fairies being wiped from the human imagination by breakthroughs in our understanding of fungi and microscopic organisms. While I'm all for scientific understanding of creation - it's what God gave us intellects for - the new scientific mindset has disconnected us from our spiritual needs.

At first glance, the secular worldview seems to have crushed the human sense of wonder and mystery. But go to any US shopping center, and you'll find witch stores and guides on channeling crystal energy. What about the yoga and meditation craze? Clearly there is a hunger of understanding that "other" dimension. There is an aversion for religion but a hunger for spirituality.

This un-channeled desire has led to a sense of "excarnation". Humans today feel uncomfortable with being in our bodies. We are at odds with the physical, material reality. We know we are so much more, and being trapped in a mortal body makes us squirm and tremble. Take yoga, for example. People love it. For some years I was doing it. But the truth is that yoga is excarnational. The end-goal is to free the mind from the sufferings of the body. The body is a hindrance to immaterial eternal enlightenment.

That is contrary to the incarnational reality of the Christian faith.

Christian life (and morality - inevitably) flows from a deep concern with a spiritual reality that runs in tandem with our material existence. It's a battleground for souls that we cannot see but live out every day. It is a spiritual reality which Christ - through his Incarnation - came to disrupt on a cosmic scale out of immeasurable love for humanity. It is a reality that spills through the Eucharist into our physical world, and manifests itself in the lives of the Saints, those of whom which have fallen asleep in the hope of the Resurrection now live even more fully in the presence of God and constantly pray for us.

How do we get people to "get" this? How do you wake people up from their sad, lonely, dreary existence away from Christ's love? How do we get people to connect physicality with spirituality and internalize the joyful radicalness of God's salvific plan for humanity?

That is the challenge Fr. Robert is trying to address.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book provides a short re-looking at the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Eucharist, and the Church, looking from the perspective of Christ Jesus.

Using art,literature, and theology, Father Imbelli's book helps keeping the tradition ever new.