Behold! I Make All Things New!

Some time ago, I wrote about my dad substituting a new clothespin for the broken one I handed him.  "See," I told my neighbor, "I told you my daddy could fix anything." 

A child's faith in God our Father is required from all of us.  Like my dad, He knows that it is no good pouring new wine into old wineskins, for the old cannot contain the energy of the new.  He has no intentions today of patching up a fallen world, holding us together with baling wire and duct tape, and hoping for the best. Rather, whatever of our old nature is surrendered to Him is tossed into the pit, and in its place, He gives us a new nature, born not of Adam but of His own dear son, Jesus Christ.

"My Daddy CAN fix anything," but first we must hand it over to Him with full faith in His ability and in His love for us.  Jesus surrendered Himself body and soul to the will of God, into the hands of His Father Who loves Him.  Still, He went to a painful death and even to the feeling of being abandoned by God.  All that is in our old (Adam) nature must die, so that what is born again is born of the Spirit and of Truth.

Jesus accomplished our transformation once and for all with His death and resurrection, but His power and His energy must still work in us daily to transform our old natures into His.  In the Book of Genesis, God told Abram, "Walk in My Presence and be perfect!"  (Genesis 17:1).  Our transformation comes the same way -- as with the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, we too must "walk with Him" -- the Resurrected Jesus -- every day in order to allow Him to teach, to heal, to change our natures.  In His Sacrament, He daily feeds this new nature with His very own Energy, which we call the Holy Spirit.

On the road, He unfolded the Scriptures to them, making them see what before had been hidden.  He broke the bread with them, which now was their food -- His very own Body, Mind, Soul, and Divinity.  That food would change them forever, from Sons of Adam to Sons of God.  In our Mass, we have the same process -- feeding our minds and hearts with the Divine Word, breaking it open with reflection on its meaning, followed by the breaking of the Bread to feed our bodies and souls with the very Nature of Jesus Himself.

According to the Jewish commentators, the expression "Walk in My Presence" means to trust with complete faith that the Light of the Infinite envelops and surrounds us on all sides, as the Scripture says, Whoever trusts in the Eternal is surrounded by lovingkindness (Ps. 32:10).

In our day of corona virus and the destruction of the world as we know it, it is helpful for us to hand over our lives into the hands of a loving Father with complete confidence, knowing that He makes all things new again.  If He is destroying life as we know it, surely it is only because He will hand us a life we cannot now imagine.  If we walk in the newness of faith, as the Scripture tells us, we know that we are surrounded by  His lovingkindness, and that He continues to make all things broken new again!