20250705 ADAPTING TO CHANGE
05 July 2025, Saturday, 13th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading |
Genesis 27:1-5,15-29 |
Jacob obtains Isaac's blessing by fraud
Isaac had grown old, and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see. He summoned his elder son Esau. ‘My son!’ he said to him, and the latter answered, ‘I am here.’ Then he said, ‘See, I am old and do not know when I may die. Now take your weapons, your quiver and bow; go out into the country and hunt me some game. Make me the kind of savoury I like and bring it to me, so that I may eat, and give you my blessing before I die.’
Rebekah happened to be listening while Isaac was talking to his son Esau. So when Esau went into the country to hunt game for his father, Rebekah took her elder son Esau’s best clothes, which she had in the house, and dressed her younger son Jacob in them, covering his arms and the smooth part of his neck with the skins of the kids. Then she handed the savoury and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.
He presented himself before his father and said, ‘Father.’ ‘I am here;’ was the reply ‘who are you, my son?’ Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your first-born; I have done as you told me. Please get up and take your place and eat the game I have brought and then give me your blessing.’ Isaac said to his son, ‘How quickly you found it, my son!’ ‘It was the Lord your God’ he answered ‘who put it in my path.’ Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come here, then, and let me touch you, my son, to know if you are my son Esau or not.’ Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice but the arms are the arms of Esau!’ He did not recognise him, for his arms were hairy like his brother Esau’s, and so he blessed him. He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ And he replied, ‘I am.’ Isaac said, ‘Bring it here that I may eat the game my son has brought, and so may give you my blessing.’ He brought it to him and he ate; he offered him wine, and he drank. His father Isaac said to him, ‘Come closer, and kiss me, my son.’ He went closer and kissed his father, who smelled the smell of his clothes.
He blessed him, saying:
‘Yes, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a fertile field blessed by the Lord.
May God give you
dew from heaven,
and the richness of the earth,
abundance of grain and wine!
May nations serve you
and peoples bow down before you!
Be master of your brothers;
may the sons of your mother bow down before you!
Cursed be he who curses you;
blessed be he who blesses you!’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 134(135):1-6 |
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.
or
Alleluia!
Praise the name of the Lord,
praise him, servants of the Lord,
who stand in the house of the Lord
in the courts of the house of our God.
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.
or
Alleluia!
Praise the Lord for the Lord is good.
Sing a psalm to his name for he is loving.
For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself
and Israel for his own possession.
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.
or
Alleluia!
For I know the Lord is great,
that our Lord is high above all gods.
The Lord does whatever he wills,
in heaven, on earth, in the seas.
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel Acclamation | Ps118:135 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let your face shine on your servant,
and teach me your decrees.
Alleluia!
Or: | Jn10:27 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice,
says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Matthew 9:14-17 |
When the bridegroom is taken from them, then they will fast
John’s disciples came to him and said, ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth on to an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. No; they put new wine into fresh skins and both are preserved.’
ADAPTING TO CHANGE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Gn 27:1-5. 15-29; Mt 9:14-17]
We all desire progress, but this cannot be possible without change. As creatures of habit, we do not take to change easily. We prefer to do the same old things because it demands less effort and energy. It is also within our control, and we know the expected results. To change requires us to “die to ourselves”, and our familiar ways of doing things. It means having to learn new things, to adapt to new situations, and, most of all, face the unknown. Change makes us fearful, yet this readiness to change is precisely the challenge of the Gospel today.
When Jesus was queried as to why His disciples did not fast, unlike John’s disciples and the Pharisees, He responded, “Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast.” In other words, He made it clear that the situation had changed. Before His coming, fasting was needed to prepare for the Messiah’s coming. The purpose of fasting was a means to an end. But since the end had already arrived with His coming, fasting was no longer necessary until He was taken away. The message of Jesus is clear: We must adapt to changing situations. We cannot remain where we are when the times have changed. It is not enough merely to repeat what we do; we must always be alert to the changing times and ensure that we are responding rightly and appropriately.
The danger with traditionalists is that in their desire to remain true to the past, they forget that fidelity to the past requires change. The irony is that not changing is being unfaithful to our past. Simply sticking to past practices by merely repeating them would be a sign of infidelity. Instead, fidelity to the past means fidelity to the original principles that led to certain practices and rules. While the expression must change according to the times, the core truth remains. The essence and the truth itself cannot change, but the way we express this truth must adapt to our times. That is why, even though the doctrines of the Church cannot change – as they are based on truth – theology is always evolving. We constantly seek to re-express eternal truths in ways that are communicable and understandable to our audience. Otherwise, the Christian message risks becoming redundant, if not irrelevant, to our people today.
Fidelity to the truth requires a creative and dynamic continuity with the past. It is for this reason that the celebration of the Eucharist has evolved over the last 2000 years. The essentials of the Eucharist cannot be changed, namely, that the Mass is a sacrifice, a meal, the real presence of the Lord and a thanksgiving. However, how the Mass is to be celebrated has been changing since the first Mass was celebrated by the early Christians. A study of the historical evolution of the Mass will help us to appreciate the changes that have been made and are still being made so that the celebration of the Mass remains faithful to its original meaning yet relevant to our times.
This is also true with respect to the question of fasting and abstinence. The Universal Church requires Catholics to fast and abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as a sign of solidarity in observing penance. However, for the rest of the Fridays of the year, except for solemnities, penance is to be observed.
As it is, in many instances, not eating meat is not a true penance for some, who prefer fish and seafood. On the other hand, because of the choice of penance given to Catholics today – allowing them to substitute abstinence from meat with other forms – it has unwittingly given rise to numerous Catholics forgetting that Friday is a day of penance. As a result, penance is not done at all.
So, we are left in a dilemma as to which is a better practice: To insist that all do a common penance on Friday by not eating meat, so that we can help each other to remember to do the penance and end up doing it slavishly for fear of condemnation by others; or to allow our Catholics to choose their meaningful form of penance with the possibility that they might forget to do it.
At the end of the day, the essence of the question is: How can we best keep ourselves spiritually attune to God and our fellowmen through the observance of penance? Which is the best way to help our Catholics observe the spirit of penance is debatable, and this lies in the difference of opinions with regard to the practical application of the necessity of penance.
The question put to us, then, is whether we are willing and open to change. Change is integral to progress. Of course, we are not saying that all innovations bring about progress; some can result in decadence. Yet, authentic progress requires change. This is the warning of the parables. When Jesus told His disciples that new wine needs new wineskins, He was trying to help His fellowmen to overcome their narrow-mindedness and see a broader picture. So long as they remained unreceptive to the Kingdom Message Jesus brought – the message of the Father’s love – and stayed fixated on an Old Testament understanding of a vindictive and legalistic God, they cannot truly experience God’s love. To stay relevant, we need to be consistent and be in sync with the times. As Jesus said, “No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth on to an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.”
How, then, can we overcome the fear of the unpredictable? Today, in the first reading, we are called to recognize that life is a mystery. The intrigue of how Jacob outwitted his brother Esau and tricked their blind father Isaac into giving him the blessings meant for Esau, who was the firstborn son, is certainly reprehensible in our eyes. One wonders where the justice of God is and how such things could be permitted. It seems that the sinful and unscrupulous people won the day. Is the bible endorsing what they did as right? Even if Jacob was the one chosen by God to be in the line of patriarchs of the chosen people of God, it seems to suggest that God condones such an act. In truth, the bible was not condoning the deceit of Jacob, for he had to pay for the consequences of his sin by being sent to exile from his home for twenty years.
Nevertheless, the truth remains that divine election has it that Jacob was chosen by God to be the one to receive the blessings for Israel. God had indeed chosen Jacob. This is what we call divine predilection: salvation is the work of God and He takes the initiative. Divine election remains the prerogative of God.
But one cannot say that God planned for Jacob to cheat his brother Esau of his birthright. As it happened, God’s plan was unfolded through the human drama of jealousy and ambition. This story goes to show that God’s plan cannot be impeded by man. He writes straight in crooked lines. God will use man’s sins and selfishness to further His divine plan. God works through even the unworthy motives of man. For those who love Him, God cooperates by turning everything to their good in accordance with His purpose. (Rom 8:28) Man’s sinfulness and evil cannot thwart the plan of God.
The ways of God are truly beyond our understanding. As in the case of Jesus, He was killed as a mistaken criminal, but His death brought about the resurrection. He chose sinners like Saul to be His apostles. He chose the most unlikely persons to be His apostles: fishermen, tax-collectors, and revolutionaries. Jacob, in our estimation, does not deserve to be the father of God’s people. Whilst our sympathies go to Esau, yet, in God’s plan, the promise of God to Abraham would come through Jacob. With the psalmist in faith, we pray, “Praise the Lord for the Lord is good. Sing a psalm to his name for he is loving. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself and Israel for his own possession. For I know the Lord is great, that our Lord is high above all gods. The Lord does whatever he wills, in heaven, on earth, in the seas.”
For this reason, we are called to trust in God and surrender our lives to Him. If changes are difficult to accept, we must take the risk of believing in His divine plan for us. By submitting ourselves humbly to divine providence and allowing His grace to work in and through the drama of human existence, we will find true happiness. To welcome the divine life of God in our lives, we need to be docile and trusting.
If we love God, He has greater plans for us. We will only hurt ourselves if we insist on sticking to our limited view of life and staying in the comfort our familiar environment. New wine needs new wineskins. Jesus is the New Wine who gives us the Holy Spirit. Unless we are docile and receptive, he cannot give us a new way of living our lives. To welcome Jesus is to look at life from Christ’s perspective, which is totally different from the world’s. Are we courageous enough to follow Him in faith, believing in the impossible and that His divine plans will unfold in our lives, and that nothing, not even sin, can hinder His divine plan for creation?
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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