19th Sunday after Pentecost
11.10.20 Stability
Some things we want to change; some things we hope they don’t change. Some things - they cannot change whether we want it or not.
In the supernatural world there is a comforting sameness that what we have been taught to rely upon is still there today, and will be still there in a hundred or a thousand years time.
Things to do with God are especially unchangeable.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13,8)
God is eternal and beyond time, therefore cannot change. Nor does He need to change, being all perfection.
We are often reminded we live in a fast-changing world. We are often alarmed at some of those changes, for such things as gender confusion, disregard of marriage and traditional family values, a decline in common decency (language, standards of dress etc).
We cannot go back in time but we can go ‘back’ to God to be revived in wisdom, charity, zeal. It is not really going back, more like going ‘deeper’. We enter the eternal truth and apply it in each successive age.
God is faithful to His covenant and that is something that will never change.
A few days ago we celebrated the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The Rosary takes us through the sequence of our salvation, through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord.
We go back again and again to these events, which are still current and still relevant for us.
That Christ has come, and done all those things, is the difference between life and death for us.
We might wake up one morning and find our liberties reduced by legislation. We might see much of our society sinking into greater darkness.
But the Rosary will still be there; and as we see with the Rosary, the last part - the Glorious Mysteries - leave us in a very upbeat position.
We go through fire and water, but we emerge in glorious freedom.
The objective truths of our faith remain the same; our subjective response to those truths might change. We might feel stronger in faith one day, and weaker the next.
When we feel weak in faith, or in any way oppressed by life’s difficulties, take in a deep breath of unchangeable reality.
The Bible speaks in several places of God as a Rock. A rock is something that is not easily moved and can stand in the one place for a long time.
If we build on rock we will be secure (Mt 7,24). On this rock I will build My Church (Mt 16,18). The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour (Ps 17 (18),2)
We call upon that rock-like stability in our lives. The Rosary is one way; the Mass is even more powerful in its effects. The Mass brings before our senses not just the truths we believe but their actual operation, as we encounter Christ coming among us and giving Himself as a sacrifice for sins.
It is often suggested that people should slow down and relax, take time out to appreciate nature etc. We can agree with that, but do better still by re-connecting with the Source of all beauty, all meaning.
We go back to where it all comes from, and the grace of God works in us and through us.
And the things that should change, such as sin and all its effects – will change.
Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
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