Listen to old words a new way

Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who, like me, had been raised Catholic. He married a Methodist woman in the early 1980s and each remained faithful to the tradition of their upbringing for the first few years of their marriage. After awhile, though, he began to frequent his wife’s church and eventually, he stopped attending Catholic services altogether.

Part of me sympathized with this man. I think it's very important for a husband and wife to share the same values, and certainly a family routine is less complicated when spouses are actively involved in the same faith tradition, especially when children enter the family. Yet, I was also troubled, not because of his decision but because I didn't know what thought process brought him to this change. (I'm a writer; I dig the thought process.) I wanted to ask him about his switch, but hesitated because I didn’t want him to think I was judging him. His situation didn’t raise my ire; it simply piqued my curiosity.

When we were alone for a few minutes, I looked for some insight by asking him one simple question: “Do you miss the Mass?”

“It never changes,” he complained. “The readings I hear are the same readings I’ve been hearing since second grade. It’s always the same.” I listened to him describe how vibrant the service at his new church was, how he was captivated by how they “mixed things up.” I left our conversation with the sense that the tradition of his youth had gone flat for him, that he needed more stimulation. He needed things outside of him to change so he could stay engaged.

Well, it’s true that the readings used throughout the Catholic liturgical calendar do repeat, if not every year, every few years. It’s also true that the format for the Mass hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Yet even though the Scripture text may not change, we do.

I can listen to the story of the prodigal son today and contemplate it in an entirely different way than I did when I last heard it. When I was twenty, the message embedded in the story of the Good Samaritan was much different than when I heard the same story, the same words, read to me this summer. I am a different person than I was while in grade school, while in high school, when I was thirty; even since Spring, I have grown and evolved. I have changed. And so the same words strike my ears differently each time I hear them.

I think this man was misleading himself when he felt tradition ought to change in order to hold his interest. Tradition isn’t meant to change. If it was, we'd call it trend.

But we are supposed to change. And when we do, when we evolve and grow, we bring richness to tradition that will keep it vibrant and relevant for a lifetime.

If you embrace tradition, there’s no need to "mix things up." Listen to those same old words; just make sure you bring your freshest self to them while you do.