Spring 1991

The Anointed Imagination: The Character of Catholic Literature in the Twentieth Century

Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

"Christ transformed our imagination by making his dwelling in our memory, so that we could create a symbolic world of language, images, and actions that is harmonious with the world of creation and redemption."

"Turn your eyes on Jesus. Will you? Can you with your anointed imagination see? Jesus! Jesus! Holy Jesus! . . . Get ahold of God!"

These are the impassioned words of Brother Shad to his congregation during a Wednesday evening revival service at Rooftree Pentecostal Church in Durance, Texas, and the scene takes place in the novel Ordinary Time, by A.G. Mojtabai, published in September, 1989.1 My theme is the Catholic Imagination, for which a more poetic name might indeed be Brother Shad's the "anointed imagination." 

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1. A.G. Mojtabai, Ordinary Time (New York, Doubleday, 1989), 90-1.