Christification: A Review of Fr. Robert Imbelli’s ‘Christ Brings All Newness’

This year, I have been teaching a course on the Gospel of John at a local Roman Catholic parish. As one might expect, John’s Gospel – with its depth and richness and outright mysteries – is not without its difficulties and challenges. For example, John 3:13: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” This is a good verse to contemplate in these final days before Christmas.

If the Son of Man referred to here is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, we can understand that He is the person spoken of. If, however, only the one who descended from Heaven can ascend into Heaven, how can anyone other than Jesus Christ ascend into Heaven? Since none of us, non-divine humans that we are, have descended from Heaven, are we then unable to ascend? What does this mean for the call to holiness? How can we be welcomed into the Kingdom of God?

The answer to this problem lies at the heart of the Gospel message, which St. Paul proclaims when he says in Galatians 2:20 that, through baptism, he has “been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

It is only by becoming fully Christ-like as partakers of the mystical body that we can be “one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28), and those who ascend into Heaven are “heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). To put off the old man and become another Christ (Ephesians 4:22), to have our old self crucified with Him (Romans 6:6), is a process that we might call Christification – that is, to “become” Christ.

I bring all this up because – not only is “becoming Christ” an important theme for me and my Gospel of John class – but the topic of Christification is the central theme, driving force, paradox, and solution in Fr. Robert Imbelli’s book Christ Brings All Newness, published by Word on Fire Academic.

Throughout the book, Fr. Imbelli stresses the importance of setting Christ at the center of our life. We must find our source for living, not by any natural means, but through a ressourcement in Christ.

Re-Sourcement was one of the guiding principles at Vatican II. For Fr. Imbelli, it means going to that source of living water, which is eternal and becomes a wellspring within (John 4:14). Once we have returned to the source and we have become lamps burning and shining (John 5:35), we must go out and meet others where they are. We have a mission as Christians to cry out and spread the Good News (Mark 16:15) in a manner accessible to modern man, with all his errors and misconceptions. This new evangelization is also an aggiornamento (another key principle at the Council), the bringing of Christ the new Day (John 9:3-5).

Fr. Imbelli introduces early on the antithesis to the Christification of re-Sourcement and evangelization: what he calls the “excarnation.”

Excarnation – a term which Fr. Imbelli adopts from the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor – expresses the estrangement of modern humanity from its embodied and incarnational roots. It is the alienation of faith and spirituality from the tactile, sacramental, and relational aspects of life. Taylor’s term underscores how modernity has favored a disembodied sense of self – one that views religion as abstract and private, disconnected from the communal and sacramental life of the Church.

In Imbelli’s framework, excarnation is not merely a cultural shift but a spiritual crisis, one that has dulled the Christian imagination and contributed to what we might call the “decapitation” of the Church – severing the mystical body of Christ from its Head.

A central remedy to the modern excarnation is beauty – which is transcendent, often considered interchangeable with goodness and truth, and it is almost always expressed and encountered in an eminently concrete fashion, through a sunset, a painting, or a story. Fr. Imbelli emphasizes this aesthetic dimension of faith – something largely lost to many modern Catholics. He regards the beauty of Scripture, liturgy, art, and music as essential pathways to rekindling the “Christic imagination.” The Catholic imagination must be nurtured by symbols and stories that captivate the heart and orient the mind toward God.

As Gerard Manley Hopkins famously wrote, “Christ plays in ten thousand places.” For Imbelli, this is not just a poetic sentiment but a call to recognize Christ’s presence in every dimension of life. By His ascension into heaven, Jesus brings humanity into divine communion, making Heaven accessible to those united to Him. And for Imbelli, therefore, the Eucharist is the ultimate remedy to excarnation.

Uniting believers to Christ’s presence reorients Catholics from disembodied spirituality to an incarnational faith where Christ lives in and through us. This vision of union with Christ, or Christification, is the only true antidote to the excarnation of our modern malaise and escapism. Through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, believers are drawn into this mystery, becoming participants in the divine life – nourished on the Living Bread, which never loses life but only gives it.

The essays, reviews, and reflections collected in Christ Brings All Newness (some of which were first published at The Catholic Thing)  reflect Fr. Imbelli’s lifetime of theological work and pastoral ministry. Drawing on Dante, Hopkins, Newman, and Ratzinger, these reflections are steeped in the teachings of Vatican II, but seek to reclaim its Christocentric ressourcement.

His critiques of postconciliar misunderstanding (or willful neglect), his celebration of the universal call to holiness, and his urging us towards a more profound engagement with the paschal mystery form a coherent vision for a Church seeking renewal. The only source of this renewal can be Christ, for as the title of the book boldly proclaims, “Christ brings all newness.”

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