Sometimes I say, ‘Well, if I’m to choose, I want to talk about
how we are shaping the religious imagination of young people, or any other
people today’. ‘Speak on, brother’, they say, or, ‘We’ll
call you, if we need you’.
The imagination, please note, not philosophy, though I love philosophy.
Nor theology, about which I’m mildly enthusiastic, nor modern biblical
studies, which can lead me to misbehaviour. The imagination—pictures
in our minds, theatrical scenes, or scenes from our favourite movies,
or TV shows, or novels.
Remember Dickens’ extraordinary scenes and people and language (second
only to Shakespeare?). Poetry can keep us awake at night—what poetry
do we know by heart? And why do we know it by heart? There are bits of
music we can find ourselves singing or at least hooting in the shower.
The imagination—the stuff that energises the inner life, keeps us
awake at night, that stirs the feelings—lets us know that these are
the feelings we’ve got, directs them, and loads them with meaning.
We’re having a lovely late autumn evening here in beautiful Melbourne.
The sun was golden and then red as it went westward, the grass was golden,
people were walking or running or taking the dog for a walk.
It was a seventeenth century landscape painting by Claude Lorraine, it
was the last verse from Keats’ ‘Ode to Autumn’, it was
the last unending bars of Mahler’s ‘Song of the Earth’.
It was full of the ripeness of life, so ripe it was ready to fall, and
there was a cool undertone of mortality in it.
I met one of my older brethren coming back from his autumnal walk. The
poignancy of human life, all the more beautiful because it is pressured
by our mortality, was in the misty gold of sunset. That’s what the
imagination does for us. The works of imagination—poems, pictures,
music theatre, novels and so on—are what make us civilised and help
us to be human.
Think how much our Christian faith works through the imagination—most
of the Bible, especially the gospels, with their stories, and perhaps
above all their stories of Jesus’ stories, the parables. I don’t
think Jesus worked out his ideas first and then found a good story to
convey them; rather I suspect that he was discovering what he felt, thought
and believed as he shaped the stories. I wonder how many times he told,
or re-imagined the Good Samaritan story, and so deepened in his understanding
of what it is about?
We discover the truth of human life through the imagination more fully
than any other way. Because everything we are is brought together and
orchestrated—a single phrase in a poem can be full of both joy and
sorrow at once; we feel its significance for us; the truth is heartfelt.
The parables are unendingly illuminating; as we get older and wiser we
bring more experience to them and they unfold themselves even more. It’s
true of paintings, of plays, of music.
Here’s a serious question for the Church today—what are we
doing about shaping the religious imagination of future generations? Where
are the pictures—they could be very modern in style—that draw
us through our imaginations into the faith? How do our church walls reveal
the stories of the gospels with paintings or sculptures? What does the
music do? What is the liturgical dance for? How is the word of God voiced?
The eucharistic action acted? How does the liturgy grasp the imagination?
To take the issue a step further. How do we make use of the imagination
to foster commitment and devotion to Jesus? How can we have faith in Jesus
if he doesn’t have a face? Can we imagine his voice?
Indeed, the pictures are often there, and please God they are good ones.
It’s important for us to notice what they are for. They invite us
to relate to Jesus personally. If commitment needs devotion to become
alive, maybe we need to consider what devotions we still practice, or
encourage the younger generation to undertake.
It’s worth noticing what already happens. Maybe devotion to Jesus
nowadays pays special attention to how he came to the poor and marginalised,
and not only comforted them with his promises, which is what the Beatitudes
are, or even healed them of their sickness and distress; in the end he
joined them and became marginalised himself, which is one way of understanding
his crucifixion.
Understanding—and feeling about it. And so his resurrection shows
him as the victim of a gross injustice, still bearing the marks of his
suffering, rising into restored and transformed relationships with those
who love him. Touching his risen wounds, like Thomas, leads us to realise
that he is our Lord and God.
It is through our imagination that we can touch him. And it is through
imagination that we come to sense how our fellow humans live or how they
are deprived of the life that should be theirs. Sympathy, or, better,
empathy works through the imagination, and is nurtured by it. Devotion
probably needs devotions; it certainly needs our imagination. That’s
the way to the human heart, one’s own heart, the heart of others,
the heart of Jesus.
Andrew Bullen SJ
