Reform and Renewal in the Church—And in You

During my first month in Seminary, all students were required to attend a concert by a well-known Flamenco guitarist. Flamenco guitar music is a unique art that blends playing the strings while using the guitar’s body to make sound. During the concert, the guitarist imparted a wise saying of the Flamenco people: that everyone who came that evening brought something valuable to the concert; you have everything you need within yourself. God gives you all that you need to make a difference.

I believe this applies to our lives of faith. We are all able to change, to enact change, and to be part of a greater good, and to make a difference as Jesus’ followers. Any person, in theory, can change things. Most people do not or will not take the steps to reform the world around them. Jesus came preaching the good news of the divine kingdom and the imminent coming of God, for God was present within his very self. Scripture instructs us to renew ourselves and reform. We all have a part to play in reform and renewal, within ourselves and within the Church. 

You are to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created in God’s image, in the way of uprightness and holiness that belong to truth.

Ephesians 4:23-24

Self-Renewal: First and foremost, you are called to renew yourself. This is the invitation of the Gospel and the invitation to the fulfilled life. A purpose-driven and happy life cannot occur in ignorance or interior blindness. While reform means change within existing systems or structures, renewal means starting again and finding fresh change and inspiration in new ideas. Oftentimes, we like things as they are in our lives, and this may be the time that inertia and sloth create internal issues in our lives because of our complacency. So, life demands that we stay on track. I am not judging you because of past failures, mistakes, or sins. On the contrary, it is a great freedom to know that we can find meaning in life and can change. When we are responsible, we live in grace. 

Dr. Jordan Peterson taught 12 Rules for Life. #6 is arguably the most important. “Set your own house in order before trying to change the world.” Whether you like Peterson or not, there is some deep wisdom in this idea. It is so discouraging to want to change the world around us and not see any tangible results. You can, however, choose to start with the everyday events of your life. Dr. Victor Frankl wrote that the question of the meaning of life is not something you ask of life, but that life asks of you. You are responsible for answering the question. That is a burden in one way, and a great liberty in another. Make it so. Choose your meaning.

You have stripped off the old self with its practices and put on the new self that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:9-10)

Always be thankful. Let the world of Christ dwell in you with its richness. Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God with gratitude in your hearts. (Colossians 3:15b-16)

Reform of Life: When someone is approaching parole in prison and seeks to be approved by a parole board, he or she will claim that they are reformed. Reform means to change what needs to change and address problems. Let’s start with the reform of life in any person. It is not enough for me to come to you and say, “I know I’ve really hurt you, but I’m sorry. I’ve changed.” The burden is on me to prove to you I’ve changed. Solid psychology says that promises are not enough. It takes time to build trust, and even longer to rebuild broken relationships. Oftentimes, the best one can do is to start again and reform the parts of the heart that need to change. 

Many self-help experts, too many, talk about strengthening your mind to build resiliency and become your best. I know one self-help expert who served in three branches of the military, was a Navy SEAL and Army Ranger, and now runs ultramarathons! While I think that’s commendable, I also think that self-renewal is a deeper matter, one of the heart. We all must come to terms with who and what we are. You and I, we are all God’s beloved children. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are also dust of the earth. “Remember you are dust; to dust you shall return.” Reforming your life is a matter of remembering this and returning to the heart, where we find resonance with God’s grace. Without this, we are nothing. Remember, God is not calling you to perpetual shame and fear of judgment. We are called to reform out of love. You reform your life ultimately because it is God’s glory to see humanity fully alive. An ancient homily for Holy Saturday says that Jesus called Adam and Eve out of Sheol into salvation. “I made you to live, not to remain in death.”

Brothers, I want you to know that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the Gospel. For to me, life is Christ, and death is gain. (Philippians 1:12,21)

Reform in the Church: We all know the story of Martin Luther, one of the most influential preachers, evangelists, and thinkers of the last l000 years. He is the one who instigated the movement that became the Protestant Reformation. Let us say, without delving into the Protestant/Catholic debate, that he was a sincere believer in Christ and a passionate advocate for change in Christianity. Although the Reformation divided Christendom, it was the catalyst for authentic reform in the Church. The main difference between Protestant and Catholic reform was that Protestant reformers founded new sects of Christianity, with Lutheranism following Luther and Anglicanism following King Henry VIII and the English monarchy, and Calvinism following John Calvin, etc. Catholic reformers worked within the Church. These reformers were Ignatius of Loyola, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and St. Francis de Sales. 

In the last century, the First and Second Vatican Councils were called to address the changes within the Church as well as the changes within the modern world. While both councils are as different as night and day in their approaches, both sought to bring Gospel values forward in uncertain times. We are invited and called upon to contribute to this movement. 

When change happens, there are many responses. Some deny the need for change; others resist it. Many will call for immediate change without any caution or foresight to see it brought to a good conclusion. A reformer will recognize the need for change and seek to bring it to conclusion. One such reformer, St. Peter Damian. He is relatively unknown compared to other saints. He lived and breathed in the 11th century AD and sought reform in the Church when nothing seemed to be going right. He courageously worked for reform without calling into question the Church as a whole; he worked within its bounds (Bishop Barron, Letter to a Suffering Church).

To change is to grow, and growth is a grace. In the Church’s history, 2000 years have given us many examples of development in Christian life and Church administration. You reform the way you see fit. You are one piece of the puzzle, a living conduit for grace. Any living thing takes what it needs from the environment to survive while maintaining its own unique living flesh. As John Henry Newman wrote, we assimilate and adapt and still keep our unique and dignified identity as Christians. Let us work for the reform of the Church. Let us live vibrantly in this present moment, working for God’s kingdom which is “here, and still yet to come.”

For the love of Christ impels us, that once we believe that one died for all, therefore all have died. And died for all, so that all who live will no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for their sakes, and was raised from the dead. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

Evangelical Renewal: Some time ago, an unassuming and odd individual left behind his life of privilege to follow Jesus. He is not the person you would expect. He was not a strong leader, highly educated, a great speaker, or even considered holy (at least at first). He went to live the Gospel among the poor and the needy, and he started a movement which greatly renewed the Church. I say he started a renewal because he did not change the structures of the official Church. He followed a vocation that was to renew all things, although he had no specific vocation to anything. I am speaking about Saint Francis of Assisi. 

It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely Saint—a man who wanted a career of high honor and enjoyed the finer things in life. He went through the turmoil of dissipation until he got in with God, so to speak. He felt the Gospel call to give up everything and follow Jesus. Once he dispensed with his father’s money to help the poor, he chose to divest himself, literally, when his father disowned him for his charitable endeavors. At one point in his conversion journey, Francis, first known as Giovanni or John, felt he was called to rebuild the Church. He thought this call was from Jesus, and he began working to repair a small, abandoned Church called the Portiuncula. Once he was finished and the small Church was repaired, he felt that the call meant more. He was called to rebuild the Church, the living temple of God, which needed change at that time. Truly, Francis of Assisi became one of the most beloved disciples of Christ and saints of the Church, and all because he took on a vocation to renew the Church. We all can do this. 

So, remember that Francis is said to have followed Jesus perfectly, and his footsteps paved a unique path to sanctification. Benedict, Theresa, Ignatius, Mother Theresa, and other saints followed this path to renewal. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a pressing need calls for bold action. What can we do? Are you or I willing and able to go out and live as Jesus? To renew something means to start it again or keep it going. Discipleship in Jesus is never “one and done.” You are always moving forward. “I have done what is mine to do. Now do what is yours to do,” the last words attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. 

Semper Reformata: Dear Friends, as we conclude this retreat together, I call to your attention the age-old maxim of God’s wisdom for the Church: Ecclesia Semper Reformata. The Church is always reforming. This is not a movement that we always notice. Jesus’ resurrection was not a one-off event. It was the crowning achievement of divine creation, the never-ending journey to new life and redemption. Thus, the Church is always changing and evolving, sometimes gradually, other times in a state of punctuated equilibrium. There are peaks and plateaus, rising and falling, for the Church’s growth is not measured in a straight line. It rises and falls as the pulse of a heartbeat. We cannot assume that it is not happening or that we control it. We are part of it; we are it. You are the People of God, the Assembly of faith, the one true Church founded on rock, and alive and vibrant in many times and in many people and places. 

I am not alone, and neither are you. Coming to the Church alive is worth any drive. More importantly, we are alive when we worship in the beauty of God’s house, which is ever ancient and so ever new. Who knew that you and I could be made new again? Yet that is the invitation and the challenge. We make things new by allowing ourselves to be renewed and reformed, and this is the Church in which we live and breathe, and “in God all live, move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

So, keep going. Live your life in faith, continue with hope, and let love shine out of you as Jesus gave love to others. Without this, we have nothing. You are “living stones” building up the Church. (1 Peter 2:4-5).

Go, and make it so! Amen.

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