The Sacramental Imagination 35 Years Later
On May 14, 1989, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin shared these words in his Pentecost homily at Holy Name Cathedral:
“On Pentecost, God sends a mighty wind rushing through the streets of Jerusalem and the upper room. His fire burns ardently in the hearts of Jesus’ disciples, giving them courage, strength, and boldness for the sake of the kingdom. God’s wind and fire set in motion a mighty evangelistic effort, a proclamation of the Good News throughout the world. They help launch the early Church to continue Jesus’ mission and ministry.
Never have fire and wind been more mysterious than they are on Pentecost. They change simple fishermen into fearless evangelists. They transform mere Galileans into articulate missionaries who irresistibly sweep through the Roman Empire. In a single generation, Jesus’ disciples develop an obscure Jewish sect into a world-embracing religious movement…
My brothers and sisters in the risen Lord, God’s wind and fire are also part of our lives.”[1]
Cardinal Bernardin’s words are concise and direct: Sacramental signs are part of our lives. If we are not careful, however, this notion can digress into nothing more than a theological nicety. We can speak in generalities about sign and symbol and presence, but if we stop there, we miss the essential process of conformation, integration, and ultimate transformation.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “The Church’s great liturgical tradition teaches us that fruitful participation in the liturgy requires that one be personally conformed to the mystery being celebrated” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 64). These words echo the Catechism, which notes that the sacraments integrate “all the richness of the signs and symbols of the cosmos and of social life” (1152). But are we open to this conformation? Are we open to this integration? Are we open to transformation?
Perhaps the first step in opening ourselves to this trinity of sacramental imagination is to reclaim the wonder of wind and fire, of sign and symbol. At the beginning of John’s Gospel, before even beginning his public ministry, Jesus bluntly asks, “What are you looking for (John 1:38)?” Like those first disciples, we must answer the question before we can follow, before we can begin to understand the reality of what Christ offers. This is not a prerequisite, but a disposition. It is an honest self-assessment: Are we open to what God is going to show us? Are we open to wonder?
In his seminal work Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper describes the power of wonder:
“Wonder acts upon a man like a shock, he is ‘moved’ and ‘shaken,’ and in the dislocation that succeeds all that he had taken for granted as being natural or self-evident loses its compact solidity and obviousness” (114).
If we wish to open ourselves to sacramental imagination, we must remain unafraid of being moved and shaken. We cannot fear changing perspectives or ideas. We cannot lament theological growth and development. We cannot pretend that pastoral reality doesn’t exist in a church that has survived and adapted and grown over two thousand years. Like the fishermen turned evangelists, how will we let wind and fire transform us? Will we be “moved” and “shaken” as the Galileans turned missionaries?
Thirty-five years ago, Cardinal Bernardin noted that fire and wind are part of our lives. As we approach Pentecost this year, perhaps now is a good time to ask ourselves, “So what?” Do fire and wind invite us to see differently? Do fire and wind move us to something beyond ourselves? Do fire and wind and all other signs and symbols conform our hearts to Christ and usher in authentic transformation, both personally and communally? If not, we’re missing the point.
[1] From Selected Works of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin: Homilies and Teaching Documents, Liturgical Press, 2000.)