IMAGINING GOD

The theme of this Eucharistic liturgy is prayer. But what does it mean to pray? And when do we really pray? Let’s attempt some answers. Prayer arises from a deep conviction: there is a world larger than the visible and tangible. So true, that every religious culture has always felt the need to expand its historical-spatial boundaries (think of the cult of the dead among the ancient Egyptians, of terms like “eternity,” of places like Hades, Pardes…). We can also say this: for man, praying has meant believing in another possible world. The Neolithic period (8000 BC-3500 BC) is significant in this regard. Archaeology has found tombs where corpses had been buried in a foetal position. As if to say: man returns to the womb of Mother Earth to be reborn definitively in eternity. But man aspires not only to a larger and above all different world (those who pray are not resigned to the present); In prayer, one turns to someone whose name has been varied and multifaceted over the centuries, from Aton to YHWH, to name just two of the best-known. But this someone—one rightly asks—Reason – is it really there, or is it only imagined? Does God, as he has been called, exist or is he only a projection of the psyche, perhaps altered and exalted? Is there an ear that listens to the cry or the song of man? I spoke of an imagined God. When we speak of “imagination,” we must not mean something fanciful or invented. What is imagination? To understand this, we rely on a biblical text from the 5th-6th century BC, called the Priestly Text, found in Genesis 1. It describes God’s creative action through the word. But note: God speaks what is not yet there (but imagines it), thus creating with the word visibility from invisibility and therefore the visibility of the invisible. For God, what is not there is therefore possible and acquires visibility through the power of the word. With due differences, of course, it also happens on the human level. Let’s think about when we want to carry out a project. First, we carry it in our heads, we imagine it, then we realize it, and thus we make it come from nothing. Isn’t this the very mechanism, in some respects, of prayer? Doesn’t the word of prayer make the Imagined possible and therefore present? But where does this ability to “imagine” God come from? Ecclesiastes states that within man there is a notion of eternity (cf. Ecclesiastes 3:11). What does he mean? Literally: “God has placed in the heart of man the sense of ‘olam.” The term ‘olam indicates eternity. ‘Olam is God’s supreme time that surpasses experienceable time. God has therefore placed his times in the heart of man; he has sown the infinite there. For this reason, man is also never resigned to death. The short passage from Sirach, a work from 190 BC, which opens today’s liturgy, offers us another precious insight. In the wake of prophetism, the concept of prayer as a magical act unaccompanied by life is rejected. God does not accept the hypocrisy of those who attempt to stun with incense the injustice perpetrated against the poorest. A lesson as true and timely as ever.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey