“I am the bread of life.”
There is something that is known as the Catholic imagination.
I prefer the term “Catholic Imaginarium”
as some theologians call it
because imagination connotates a fictional reality,
sort of a made-up reality
whereas Imaginarium is more accurate;
it speaks of the universe which we see;
kind of a world view.
This Catholic Imaginarium is something
which we all live inside whether we realize it or not.
It’s the very language we use:
the symbols; the sacraments; the signs.
Everything about who we are as Catholics
is inside this Catholic Imaginarium.
As Catholics, it is a very large worldview.
Most Catholics do not even know
the fullness of the Catholic Imaginarium.
We tend to live in those segments of what we have experienced;
the language which we are used to
and limited by our own experience or our own bias.
Sometimes, even prejudices that we prefer.
This Catholic Imaginarium allows us to embrace
a wide and deep world view because we believe it comes from God.
The God who is the universal creator of all creation;
it also comes from the cosmic Christ.
The sacraments are a clear example of our Catholic Imaginarium
but also the Saints are a part of our Catholic Imaginarium.
Also, for example, Mary.
We have a huge devotion to Mary.
In the Protestant Imaginarium, those do not exist.
Does that mean that Mary only appears to Catholics in the world?
And only touches Catholics?
No. That is not what we believe.
But it is only those who have the Catholic Imaginarium
who can experience Mary in that way.
In a sense, the rest of the world have limited their worldview
to experiencing Mary in that way.
The same is true of the Saints and
many other things inside our Catholic Imaginarium.
There are other Imaginariums that we have
that we either limit or we expand our world view.
We can enable a greater world view or disable our world view
by these different Imaginariums.
For example, there are political Imaginariums.
There is a Republican Imaginarium.
There is a Democrat Imaginarium.
And while those used to have an overlap in language and symbols,
today there is almost none.
That is why we cannot hear each other’s words,
because the world we view, the Imaginariums,
that language does not even exist inside.
We have two completely opposite Imaginariums.
We also have familial Imaginariums
that can often come from both a generous background
or can be a limited background.
But even inside the Catholic Church,
we can have a different world view because we have subsets
that have limited the Catholic Imaginarium to one subset.
The Eucharist is even used as a batting ram against
that as we have seen most recently among the Bishops,
how limited their Imaginarium is.
Another example are those who do not want to take vaccinations;
they cannot even imagine that the coronavirus is real.
They cannot imagine that some of these things are real
and as a result their Imaginarium is limited;
therefore, they operate from that.
When I talk about Imaginarium,
I do not want you to hear fictional, non-reality.
It very much is a reality as to how we experience
the whole world for good or for ill.
In today’s scripture passages, God and Christ expands the world view,
this Imaginarium,
of the people of God and his would-be disciples.
Let’s just go through it.
The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt
and now they have been set free and they are in the desert.
Now they are grumbling
because they want to go back to their narrow world view,
their narrow Imaginarium,
“We were better off having just eating from the flesh pots.” they say,
“and be back in slavery than to be in freedom and starve.”
They even come up with conspiracy theories:
“Oh, you brought us out here deliberately to poison us,
to kill us in the desert?”
God does not attend to their grumbling.
He doesn’t even say anything about it.
But rather God just feeds them.
God feeds them quail in the evening and manna in the morning.
Then they even grumble about that.
Why? Because it does not fit into their small Imaginarium.
And what does God do?
He is trying to break out,
“You do not need to be limited
by what you have previously experienced.
I am here to give you a new way, bread from heaven.
Food from heaven.”
God tries to expand their Imaginarium;
with limited success but they do expand.
Then comes Jesus in today’s gospel
and this is the most classic of Catholic Imaginarium;
Bread of Life which we call the very Eucharist.
And in these several weeks that we are reading
from this Bread of Life Discourse of John’s gospel;
it is breaking open and encouraging us to expand
our Catholic Imaginarium to the fullest;
to break it open even further.
Again, I remind you of what happens here:
They have just experienced the feeding of 5,000
from 5 loaves and 2 fish.
Jesus does not want to get caught up in the small Imaginarium,
namely, making him the King,
he disappears from their sight
and now the disciples go and find him.
He has just done this miracle
but their minds are still stuck in the old Imaginarium.
And he expands their view.
He says, “No,look, it is not about the bread for your body.
It is about the bread for your spiritual body.”
And I, he says, “I am that food.
I am that bread that has come down from heaven.
Feed on me and you will have eternal life.”
It blows their Imaginarium open again.
So what does all this mean for us?
God and Christ, the Cosmic Christ,
is constantly calling us to expand our Imaginarium
because God has created all of the universe.
Christ is the King of the whole universe.
And he is trying to get us to understand
that he is in all things; and in all people.
He is not limited by our Imaginarium.
He is not limited by our experience.
But if we allow God in, in this way, we can expand our Imaginarium.
And what will that do for us?
It will allow for us then to make room for others.
No matter what their persuasion
whether they are on the different aisle from us inside Catholicism;
or whether they are not Catholics at all;
or whether they are nonbelievers at all.
Because God is the Creator of all.
And this then table becomes
where we nourish ourselves today;
what we are going to do is
we are going to receive this Bread of Life
and we enter into the reality of that;
and this is not again imagination as in fake or made up, this is real.
We believe when we take in this Bread of Life
that we become what we receive.
We become the bread of life for others.
It doesn’t just stay here
whether we are in attendance or whether we are online.
What we are called to;
we are called to be the bread of life for others;
we are called to be the food for the world,
the bread for the world.
What does that look like?
It is every word we use that lifts up another;
that nourishes their soul.
Every action of kindness and gentleness we use;
every little word of forgiveness
that nourishes a soul just a tad;
a smile on a face;
a breaking open of goodness is food
that the world desperately needs today.
It is not enough that we come here to experience
this as a private experience;
or even as a small communal experience among us just here;
or even all of us online
but we are called to allow the Lord to blow open our Imaginarium
and to be the bread for the world today.
Let us not allow ourselves to be limited
but to allow God, the Creator of all, the Cosmic Christ,
to blow open our imaginations and
to allow our Imaginarium to embrace all people;
and that for every word and every action we take this week
that we are bread for the world
that is so hungry.
I am the bread of life.
