20150704 ADAPTING TO CHANGES
Readings at Mass
First reading
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Genesis
27:1-5,15-29 ©
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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!’
Psalm
|
Psalm 134:1-6 ©
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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 ©
|
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 CHANGES
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, our familiar ways of doing things. It means having to learn new
things, to adapt to new situations and most of all, not knowing exactly what is
ahead of us. Change makes us fearful of the unknown. Yet this is
the challenge of the gospel today, namely, the readiness to change.
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 coming
of the Messiah. 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 the changing situation. We cannot remain where we are
when the times have changed. It is not enough merely to repeat what
we do but 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 to change is not to be faithful to our past. Just sticking to the
practices of the past by merely repeating them would be a sign of
infidelity. Fidelity to the past means fidelity to the original principles
that resulted in certain practices and rules. The expression must change
according to the times but the same truth remains. The essence and the truth
cannot change but the way we express this truth must change according to our
times. That is why although the doctrines of the Church cannot change,
since these are based on truth, theology is always changing as we seek to
re-express the eternal truths in ways that are communicable and understood by
our listeners. Otherwise, the Christian message will become redundant if
not irrelevant to our people.
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. But 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 and 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 prefer fish and seafood. On the other hand, because
of the choice of penance given to our Catholics today to substitute abstinence
from meat to other forms, it also 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 that is addressed to us, therefore, is whether we are willing and open
to change. Change is part of progress. Of course, we are not saying
that all innovations bring about progress. Some can lead to
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 were not
receptive to the Kingdom Message that Jesus brought, about the love of the
Father, and remained stuck with the Old Testament of a vindictive and
legalistic God, they cannot experience the love of God. In order 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 to be 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 to 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 that of 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?
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh
Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Singapore
©
All Rights Reserved
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