A reflection on Matthew 13:44-52 for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A.
At the end of this Gospel passage, Jesus offers an image that feels especially important for the Church today. He speaks of a person who brings from the storeroom “both the new and the old.” It is a small image, but it carries a great deal of wisdom.
The Church has always been a keeper of treasures. We inherit Scripture, sacraments, prayer, saints, liturgy, theology, music, ritual, and centuries of faithful witness. These are not things to discard lightly. They have carried generations through joy, persecution, grief, doubt, and hope. Tradition gives us roots.
But roots are not meant to keep a tree from growing.
Sometimes, in our desire to protect what is old, we become suspicious of what is new. New questions can feel threatening. New voices can make us uncomfortable. New ways of understanding Scripture, ministry, family life, human dignity, or the role of women can be dismissed too quickly because they do not sound like what we have heard before.
Yet Jesus does not praise the person who brings out only what is old. Nor does he praise someone who throws away the old in pursuit of novelty. He speaks of both.
That “both” may be one of the hardest words for us to live.
Faithfulness is not the same as remaining unchanged. The Church has developed over time because people have prayed, studied, listened, argued, repented, and learned. Our understanding has deepened because faithful people were willing to ask whether familiar practices truly reflected the Gospel.
We should be grateful for that kind of courage.
There are things in our Catholic tradition worth preserving with great care: the dignity of every human person, the sacramental life, concern for the poor, reverence for creation, the call to holiness, the communion of saints, the conviction that grace can meet us in ordinary life.
And there are also practices and structures that deserve honest examination.
When women say they feel unheard, should our first response be to defend what has always been done? When young people tell us they are struggling to find a place in the Church, do we listen or simply ask them to adapt? When people on the margins describe wounds caused by the Church, do we protect the institution before we attend to the person?
Tradition at its best is not a locked room. It is a living inheritance.
I think of family traditions. Some are worth keeping exactly because they connect us to those who came before us. Others change as children grow, families expand, people move, and life takes unexpected turns. The meaning is not necessarily lost because the form changes. Sometimes the deeper meaning becomes clearer.
Perhaps the same is true in the life of faith.
The Holy Spirit has not stopped working. That does not mean every new idea is wise or every change is good. Discernment matters. But fear cannot be our primary method of discernment.
We need the humility to ask: What in our tradition still gives life? What needs to be understood more deeply? What has caused harm? What new insight might the Spirit be placing before us?
The storeroom is large.
There is room for ancient wisdom and new understanding, for reverence and questioning, for continuity and growth.
A faithful Church does not have to choose between the old and the new.
It must learn how to bring forth both.
Prayer
Holy Spirit,
help us cherish the gifts that have carried your people through generations
without mistaking familiarity for faithfulness.
Give us wisdom to recognize what must be preserved,
courage to examine what must change,
and humility to listen when new voices reveal something we have failed to see.
Keep us rooted in Christ
and open to the new life you continue to bring forth.
Amen.
Leave a Reply