We like to cling to our traditions. We tend to gripe over changes to things we are used to. “But this is the way we always have done it,” is a line that has come up in numerous event planning meetings I have been a part of. As a result, people try to keep their favorite parts of the old way of doing things and shove it into the new way. Usually, it doesn’t fit. You can sense that it is forced, this clinging to the past rather than embracing the new way forward. The new way can’t be as effective when people aren’t ready to let go of what was.
In today’s Gospel, the disciples of John question Jesus as to why He and His disciples aren’t fasting like they do. Jesus explains that they will fast in the future, but for right now, something is different and the old way doesn’t work. Jesus makes everything new. He changes the way we view the world. He changes the way we love others. He changes the way we respond to God’s will. He shows us how to be vulnerable, how to suffer, how to enter into new life and how to go out and serve others.
To know Jesus means you are changed, and once you are changed, you must choose. Do you choose to cling to the old or do you choose to step out into the new? Peter and Andrew chose to step out into the new. They left their nets and their boats–the old way of life–in order to make space for a new way of life, a life of preaching and healing and teaching and loving.
If you try to listen to the Gospel while also avoiding making any changes to align your life with the Gospel, you are going to be living in constant tension. This can cause shame or guilt which can lead to bitterness toward the Gospel, when it should be bearing fruit in your life. This is the bursting or the tearing Jesus refers to when what you know is right and how you are living are at odds with each other.
Jesus makes it clear in the Gospel that we need to make our hearts new in order to receive the message of the Gospel, in order to receive what He wants to pour into us. We also need to know what we are ready to apply to our lives. Sometimes we want to implement something as soon as we hear it, but it needs time to be “pre-shrunk” in order to fit where it needs to be applied to our life.
However, when we renew our hearts, when we seek healing for our wounds, when we follow God’s will for our life rather than our own, then we can receive Jesus’ healing love and mercy.
Let us constantly seek to be renewed in the life of Christ so that we can always be open and ready to receive Him.
Daily Reading
Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I Genesis 32:23-33 In the course of the night, Jacob arose, took his two wives, with the two maidservants and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the…
Saint of the Day
Sts. Aquila and Priscilla
Sts. Aquila and Priscilla
Feast date: Jul 08
Saints Aquila and Priscilla were a Jewish couple from Rome who had been exiled to Corinth, and were friends of St. Paul in the first century. They hosted St. Paul on his visit to that city and were probably converted by him. They are mentioned a few times in the New Testament in glowing terms by their friend Paul, who calls them “my helpers in Christ, who have for my life laid down their own necks” (Romans 16:3-4).They were tentmakers, thus sharing the same profession as Paul, and because of this it is thought that Paul may have worked with them. Acts 18:18-19 tells us that they accompanied Paul to Ephesus and stayed there with him for three years.In the era of house churches – when Mass was always celebrated in the house of one of the Christian community – their house was an important one.According to tradition they were martyred in Rome on their return, probably around the same time as St. Paul.