Adjusting to New Ideas

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

We are midway through the Easter Season. If you are following the daily readings for the Eucharist, you will notice that we are also midway through the Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke's attention in this book of the Christian Scriptures now shifts to the preaching and missionary efforts of St. Paul. Today's passage clearly indicates that while St. Paul is known as the Apostle to the Gentiles, he began as Jesus and the other disciples did; namely, preaching to the children of Abraham. Several times in his own writings, St. Paul indicates that he had hoped that the fact that many Gentiles were converted to Christianity would be an incentive to the Jews to do so as well. While many did in fact come to believe, there remained those who simply could not accept that Jesus was the Messiah for whom they had been waiting.

This reminds us that while faith is a gift, we must be willing to cooperate with the gift-giver. The Gospels record that even the disciples of Jesus struggled to accept the message that Jesus preached. In many ways they were being asked to accept a completely different way of thinking about God's promises. Accepting Jesus meant that they had to abandon much of their history and their heritage, even the rituals of their Temple. Those of us who have lived through the many changes that were initiated by Vatican II will remember the great resistance to change that many in the Church found very difficult, indeed, still find difficult. If these changes, which were not as dramatic as the Jews were asked to make, were difficult, think of how difficult it must have been for the Jews to accept the notion that this lowly carpenter from Nazareth was the fulfillment of all they had been promised.

Change is never easy. Yet this is exactly what the Gospel is all about – conversion, change. Just as every human being physically changes, perhaps imperceptibly, every day of our lives, our spiritual lives must also change as well. This is precisely why we pore over the Scriptures year after year, each time discovering new insights and our own growing edge.