Time to Change

I don’t watch television much.  But, one program I do look forward to each week is Restaurant Impossible.  Aired on the Food Network, it features Chef Robert Irvine who does his best to save restaurant owners in the red.   Irvine has 48 hours and ten-thousand dollars to help them start turning a profit.  Most of the time this means changing the exteriors:  the food, menu, and décor.  But, it also means changing the interiors:  the owners themselves.   Irvine challenges them to change their ways of doing business and their ways of being in relationship with their partners, their staff and their customers.  That always proves to be the hardest part.  But, as the program demonstrates week after week, if the owners aren’t willing to undergo an interior conversion, it doesn’t matter if a menu item like Pork Salad changes up to Spinach and Mint-Basil Pesto-Stuffed Pork Loin. 

The Church is about to make an exterior change in its liturgy.  We will soon receive a new Sacramentary (the big red book used by the priest during Mass).   Some of the prayers and responses we use at Mass will change.   Changing the words we pray will be a challenge, but over time and with repetition, it will become easier.  The real challenge will be changing ourselves which is the purpose of all our liturgical prayers.   Our liturgical prayers are changing because church officials believed it best that they be closer to the original Latin language in which they were written.  But, the real language of the liturgy is always the language of conversion.  If we have no desire to change our inner selves, then it really doesn’t matter if we say “and also with you,” (current translation) or, “and with your spirit,” (future translation).   As Restaurant Impossible teaches, inner change is not only crucial, it’s good for business!

 O Lord, give us the desire to change our hearts.  AMEN.