3rd September 2021
St. Gregory the Great
Col 1:15-20,
Ps 100,
Lk 5:33-39
THE ONLY THING THAT IS PERMANENT IS CHANGE
The young man who is today referred-to only as a son, will one day become a father and yet another day, he will become a grandfather. The only thing that is permanent is change.
It is not always easy to accept change. We prefer to do things the old way and feel comfortable when things remain the same. Technology is nowadays exponentially growing. Robots might very soon take up our jobs. What is being taught in classrooms today might be completely irrelevant to the job market of the coming years.
These innovations cannot be adequately addressed using an old syllabus; in order to address new technology, we need a new educational system. This reality of change might have informed our government when it introduced Competency Based Curriculum in our schools. We must realize that the only thing that is permanent is change and we must get used to it.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is inviting us to recognize in him and His ministry the arrival of the Kingdom of God. The time of expectation of the messiah is over, so too the time of preparation with fasting and penance for His arrival. Now it should be time of celebration of the presence of God in our midst, a time of banquet.
The new wine is now poured out. His teachings are radical and new. The old wineskins – the Jewish laws and practices – cannot hold ‘the new wine’ offered by Jesus. The religion of external observances, like fasting and praying, cannot contain the new approach coming from Jesus.
What is new will rupture the old ways of thinking; “And nobody puts new wine in old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and run to waste, and the skins will be ruined.” Luke 5:37.
While we need not change just for the sake of changing, we must be open and receptive to it, and be ready to change when we have to.
The spirit is ever new and creative. We need to keep our hearts and mind open. Like the critics of Jesus, we may block the spirit to act in us due to rigid attitudes and fixed mind-set.
Every time we listen to the word of God, it challenges us to appreciate new ways of thinking, attitude, and new way of life. It challenges us to venture into the NEW.
Let us be courageous enough to change for better, whenever the word of God challenges us to do so. The word of God is always new. Every time we listen to it, may we allow it to rupture our old ways of doing things, and be ushered into new ways of living-out our faith.
Are you afraid of change? Why?
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