Christ Brings All Newness
Christ Brings All Newness
Essays, Reviews, and Reflections
Introduction by Richard G. Smith
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Winner of the CMA 2025 Book Award for Theological and Philosophical Studies (3rd Place)
Winner of the CMA 2025 Book Award for Anthology (3rd Place)
St. Irenaeus teaches that “Christ brought all newness in bringing himself.” This representative collection of the writings of Father Robert Imbelli proclaims, celebrates, and sounds the depths of the newness of Jesus Christ and the radical transformation to which Christ calls believers. Rooted in Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, these essays, reviews, and reflections explore the Christian faith’s rich liturgical, artistic, literary, and theological traditions across the centuries.
At a time when Catholic theology too often risks being reduced to sociology and Christian faith and discipleship diluted to mere moralism, the author proposes a vibrant and profound mystagogic theology. In such theology, the mystery of Christ is not only notional but real, not only described but evoked. Imbelli offers a theology and vision of the Christian faith at once intellectually stimulating and deeply affective.
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Table of Contents
What People Are Saying
“Theology today can seem surprisingly rudderless, as if the acquisitions of the last century’s return ad fontes had been casually mislaid. It is a tonic to find a theologian whose mind is both disciplined and open, who interprets the signs of the times as such—as significant, not as oracles—in the light of a life-giving tradition. Not easily labelled as ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal,’ he manages to span wide expanses, a balancing act he performs with surefooted elegance still, well past his threescore and ten. This volume by Robert Imbelli, a learned man of the Church, is a treasure.”
—Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO
“In the realm of literature, it has long been recognized that there are some great masters who excel especially in the short story format. In the field of modern theology, there is no one, in my judgment, who surpasses Robert Imbelli’s mastery of the form of the short theological essay. The essays in this volume are profound, inspired, and perspicacious meditations on the deepest and most central theological themes—above all the perennial newness of Christ. They are filled with the light of Christ and the fervor of the Spirit and will communicate this light and warmth to the attentive reader.”
—Khaled Anatolios, John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame
“When Hans Urs von Balthasar concluded that the theological guild needs people 'who devote their lives to the glory of theology, that fierce fire burning in the dark night of adoration and obedience,' it is unlikely that he had Fr. Robert Imbelli specifically in mind; Christ Brings All Newness suggests, however, that he well could have. In winsome, sometimes ecstatic prose, our author joyfully embraces both the seriousness of the theological task and the eternal freshness of Christian life and practice. This book, indelibly marked by a lifetime of contemplative reading, spiritual reflection, preaching, and pastoral ministry, invites its readers not only into the circle of Imbelli’s dear friends—Irenaeus, Augustine, Fra Angelico, Bach, Newman, Ratzinger, Dante, and a plentitude of others—but also and more urgently to friendship with Jesus Christ, who makes all things new.”
—Jennifer Newsome Martin, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
“Robert Imbelli is a theologian who might rightly be described as both ‘Irenaean’ and ‘irenic.’ Like Christianity’s first great systematic thinker, Irenaeus of Lyons, Imbelli finds the coherence of Christian thought—indeed of all human history and culture—in the person of Jesus Christ, and Christ serves for him as the criterion by which he judges all human achievements. Yet this judgment is always rendered in an irenic spirit that seeks common ground in Christ even as he frankly acknowledges disagreements. This volume gathers essays, reviews, and reflections on a wide range of topics, figures, and forms of theological expression, yet it possesses a remarkable coherence because of Imbelli’s determination to take every thought captive for Christ.”
—Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, Professor of Theology, Loyola University Maryland