Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 5
January 14,1982
t
Our Changing
Times
BY NEIL A. PARENT
Some years ago, while working with a
group of teen-agers in a religious education
class, I happened to talk about my life as a
youngster - around the time of World War II
and immediately afterward. Mind you, I am
not all that old, but you would have thought
I was as old as Methuselah from the
reactions I got.
What could one possibly have done before
television? they asked. “Whaddaya mean,
there were no McDonalds and Pizza Huts?
No frozen foods? How did you eat?”
The more they pumped me for
information about my life “back then,” the
more I came to realize just how many
changes have taken place since my
childhood. These have occurred not only in
science and technology but in many other
areas of life as well.
In his best-selling book, “Future Shock,”
Alvin Toffler wrote that change today is “a
roaring current ... so powerful . .. that it
overturns institutions, shifts our values and
shrivels our roots.”
The renowned American inventor, Charles
Kettering, once observed: The world hates
change, yet it can bring progress. Much as we
may dislike change at times, it can serve as
the partner of improvement and growth.
One area in which change has been
encountered has been in the church at large.
During the height of the implementation of
changes in the church following the Second
Vatican Council, a friend of mine told me -
with some bitterness - he hoped he would
die before the church as he had come to
know it ceased to exist.
By no means was he alone in his feelings.
Even today, nearly 20 years after the close
of the council, there are Catholics who find
adjustment to those changes in the church
difficult.
Why is there change within the church?
The church exists in a world which is
changing. In fact, the people who make up
the church change, bringing special needs,
wants and hopes to be met. All the people of
the church reflect their own time. Thus to
be effective in its mission, the church finds it
has to adapt in special ways to circumstances
of the times.
We also change in the context of our
personal lives.
Our own faith develops, for example.
Although the basic content of our faith
perdures, the way in which we live it
changes.
Essentially, our faith is about our
relationship with God. And that is a
relationship that continually grows if we are
pursuing a closer union with him.
Christians are pilgrims who pursue new
paths -- ones which will, we hope, lead to
deeper communion with God. For some
Christians, this can mean exploring new
ways of prayer; for others, it might mean
that more education about the faith is
needed; still others may wish to engage more
in social service or to join a religious
movement or community.
Change and growth frequently involve
risk. There is some risk in expanding beyond
what is already familiar. There is, for
example, the risk of experiencing pain
should we discover that our personal ways of
doing things are inadequate and really need
to grow.
We like to think of ourselves as having the
right answers or of doing things the best
way. But growth invariably involves
discovering our deficiencies, which is never
pleasant, in order to move beyond them.
Change does not always equal progress.
Some change in the world is not for the
good.
Thus, at a time when change is so much a
part of life, an important task develops for
the Christian: to manage change, to take
charge of it in one’s life so as not to become
its victim. There is danger in just being
carried along by change.
I don’t wish to overstate the case of
change. There is much about life that
remains constant, familiar and reassuring. In
thinking about human ways, the author of
Ecclesiastes in the Bible observed more than
2,000 years ago: “Nothing is new under the
sun.”
For example, people enter into personal
relationships, marry and live in families
much as they always have. They also
continue to organize themselves in
traditional ways to ensure the provision of
their common needs.
But change is a reality of life today - so
much so that 25 years from now teen-agers
will still be expressing their surprise at how
much society has changed in a few short
years.
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1982 By N.C. News Service)
S ->
R2D2 and C3PO, the popular robots from “Star Wars”
and “The Empire Strikes Back,” may just be fantasy today
but young people are growing up in a world where robots
and computers will be doing much of the work humans had
to do a few years back. In a time of rapidly changing
technology, young people must not only learn to live in a
society dominated by machines but develop values and a
lifestyle that will be compatible with the changing times.
(NC Photo)
In The Age Of R2D2
BY DAIVD GIBSON
R2D2 and C3PO make their way with
considerable agility along the corridors of
the Millennium Falcon, the great spaceship
on which they spend much of their time.
Although the two are manufactured
creatures, they have their own special ways
of walking and communicating. Moreover,
millions of moviegoers who follow the “Star
Wars” saga know that R2D2 and C3PO have
provided wonderful help in the direst of
emergencies.
These robots and all their space-age
friends were born of a peek into the future -
the kind of future gazing so common in this
age of rapid social, scientific and
technological change.
We are, it has been asserted innumerable
times, accustomed to change. There has been
so much of it and it has affected our lives in
so many ways, that it grows less and less
likely that further changes will ever again be
characterized as astonishing.
Will earthlings shuttle back and forth to
space stations in the relatively near future?
Who’s to say? one might answer.
Oddly enough, the nostalgia craze is as
prominent as future gazing. For millions,
Monday night still belongs to “Little House
on the Prairie.” In addition, “The Waltons
are readily available for viewing on TV
reruns.
The problems of the Ingalls family - its
prairie pilgrimage - have captured and
captivated a nation’s attention. But why?
The past is infinitely interesting. Actually,
the past is dressed up quite a bit for its
presentation on television. But people turn
to it, intrigued by the firm and clear values
of the people “back then” when life was so
difficult.
Perhaps the nostalgia craze is a sign of
something very simple - that people need to
remember or want to remember what life
was like for their forebears. Or perhaps
people fear that the past will be lost,
forgotten in the swift movement toward the
future. The recollection of our past, we may
sense, tells us something about ourselves that
we want to know.
In any event, as the world nears the
beginning of the Third Millennium after
Christ, a lot of its people appear to have
their sights firmly fixed on the future - and
the past. Does that mean we don’t know
what we want?
Actually this sense of being stretched out
between the future and the past is not
unique to our times. As the pilgrimage of the
ancient Israelites unfolded, their prophets
kept on recalling the past and the promises
of God to the people. Traveling the road to
the future, people repeatedly had to
re-encounter their past.
We Christians are like that too. Our gaze is
fixed on the future and what Jesus has said
it will be. Yet each Sunday we recall during
the Mass what Jesus did in the past, what
kind of a people Christians were formed to
be “back then.”
Christians are people with hope. Their
hope touches the future.
And Christians are people with memories.
Their memories touch the past.
In every era people want to know who
they are, what life can mean for them. They
have hopes for their own lives. They also
have memories that can play a valuable role
as they chart a course for their lives right
now.
In this era of such rapid change, the very
ways in which people live change. Lifestyles
are affected on many levels. Home life
changes. Jobs change; entirely new fields of
work emerge. The ways people spend their
leisure time change. New choices develop for
people.
Along with all the changes comes a sense
of excitement that can be tinged with worry.
Do we know who we are? Do we know
who we were? Do we know who we want to
be?
In an era of rapid change - an era
Christians very much are part of - people of
faith keep asking those questions.
WITH ONLY AN UMBRELLA as
his partner, Gene Kelly dances to the
tune of “Singin’ in the Rain,” in the
classical AOs film of the same name.
Such films about “the good old days”
appeal to the part of us that longs to
return to a time when life was simpler,
less pressure-filled and less subject to
change. Charles F. Kettering, the
renowned American inventor, once
said that the world hates change, yet
it is the only thing that has brought
progress. (NC Photo)
The Secret
Of The Parables
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Mark often refers to Jesus’ teaching
activity, but rarely gives examples of the
actual teaching. Chapter 4, which highlights
the Parable of the Sower, is an exception.
Here Mark concentrates on a single aspect
of Christ’s message: The mystery of the
reign of God and the mysterious nature of
parables.
Since we do not know the context in
which Jesus originally used the Parable of
the Sower, its precise application is
uncertain. Its general message, however,
seems clear - that Jesus’ preaching about the
reign of God, in spite of resistance, obstacles
and setbacks, will inexorably bear
fantastically abundant fruit.
The story is true to life in the first
century, though the methods used by the
farmer strike us as rather bizarre today. The
seed, sown in apparently haphazard fashion
on the beaten path, the rocky ground and
among the thorns, was by no means wasted.
All those surfaces were then plowed under,
but, naturally enough, with varying results.
The' seed that fell on congenial soil,
according to the parable, produced an
incredible result. A good yield was sevenfold
- but thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold -
that was astonishing!
For Mark, the message lies precisely in
this surprise ending. The apparent slowness,
even failure, of the ministry should not be
discouraging to Christ’s disciples. God will
eventually assure success beyond imagining.
However, by the time the parables came
to the Christian communities, their original
meaning had been forgotten. As a result,
they took on an air of mystery. And a
parable by nature is more or less enigmatic.
The word, “parable,” translates the
Hebrew word, “mashal,” which means
basically a comparison. It also can refer to a
metaphor, simile, proverb, even to a riddle.
The parables in the Gospels usually
involve a simple, true-to-life story. But
beneath the surface is a second meaning not
readily apparent. This made the parable a
popular teaching device among the rabbis.
Listeners were challenged to discover the
hidden meaning and thus become personally
involved in the learning process.
This is how Jesus used parables - as
teaching devices.
Mark’s preoccupation with the parables
reflects a problem the early church felt
keenly: Why did so few people accept the
preaching of the word? Of those who did,
why did so many eventually fall away?
The evangelist composed this chapter in
an attempt to solve the puzzle. He seized on
the mysterious qualities of the parable as a
way of explaining people’s failure to accept
the Christian message. Mark even suggested
that Jesus deliberately used parables to
befuddle people, to hide from them the
mystery which could be revealed only to a
select group of well-disposed disciples.
Mark wrote: “To you the mystery of the
reign of God has been confided. To the
others outside, all is presented in parables, so
they will look intently and not see, listen
carefully and not understand, lest perhaps
they repent and be forgiven.”
A cryptic statement like that is open to all
sorts of interpretations -- and
misinterpretations. It is Mark’s rather gauche
way of saying that for “those outside,”
everything is “in parables,” obscure, because
they refuse to understand.
Being well-disposed, however, the
disciples understand God’s reign has
appeared in the person and activity of Jesus.
Events will show, however, that not even
the disciples came to a full understanding
until after the death and resurrection of
Jesus.
“Those outside” rarely ever saw the light.
But, according to Mark, the fault really lies
in their lack of receptiveness, not in the
parables.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Spend a few minutes thinking about life in your community. How
much has your life changed over the past 10 years? What has remained
the same?
2. What reason does Neil Parent give to explain why the church has
made some changes over the centuries?
3. In Parent’s article, what evidence does he give to indicate change is
sometimes difficult for people?
4. What example does David Gibson give to prove people look into
the past in times of rapid social change?
5. What does the movie “Star Wars” illustrate, according to Gibson?
6. Why does Father John Castelot think that the Parable of the
Sower might seem strange to modern Christians?
7. According to Father Castelot, why does Mark talk about this
parable?