For the past ten years or so I have been offering Mass each day after Vigils in the chapel. With the Roman Canon, and sung, according to the music printed at the rear of the Missal. You'd think, wouldn't you, that others might take up the practice -- not of a daily Roman Canon, or after Vigils, but sung? Granted that we do not have an abundance of priests, some of them can sing at least as well as I do. No takers. Why? One could take it personally and say, "Well, no one takes up any idea I suggest." But that would be silly.  And incorrect. It's more a generic thing, characteristic of communities, especially religious communities. They tend to be conservative, are traditionally oriented, don't relish change. Least of all being trendy.

When Brother Roger was last here, he told me that he was working the while for his brother, a sign-maker. "Ah!" I said. "That's great. I wonder if he works with neon." "Yes, he works with neon." "Fine. I have an idea. I'd like a large cross in blue neon on the water tower on the hill. You know, it looks like a mighty Easter candle. We could Easter-candle it and mount a long strip of blue neon up and down, and a strip across for a cross. And the year 2000 at the center. Maybe an Alpha and Omega at the end of the cross arms. Could he do that?" "Sure, he could do that. No problem." "For the millennium, you know. So people going by wouldn't think the place some school or a state prison. How much, do you think?" "Oh, a couple of thousand." So I submitted it to the council. It didn't even make the minutes. So, it's personal? They don't take up any suggestion I offer? No, not at all. It's generic. They don't cotton to new ideas. They resist innovations. It's characteristic.

Christ's encounter this morning at Capernaum is revealing. A group had gathered in the house where He was staying. He was giving them the good news He came to proclaim when they brought a young paralytic to Him, hoping He would heal him. But they couldn't get close enough to ask Him. So they climbed up on the roof, removed the tiles and lowered the paralytic to a place close to His feet. Christ would have been somewhat amazed, or more likely amused, at their determination. He looked with affection on the youth and told him to "be of good heart, for I forgive you your sins."

The scribes prominent in the gathering reacted in character, distressed at this unheard of presumption. They raised their eyebrows, gave each other knowing looks. They pursed their lips and nodded knowingly. Christ need not have read their minds. He had only to look at their faces. "The man blasphemes! Who can forgive sin but God alone?" Their generic reaction blinded them to the obvious. If only God can forgive, maybe He is God. "Which is easier: to heal or to forgive?" "Get up. And go home," He said to the youth. High drama in a low room packed with a delighted audience who rubbed it into the traditionalists: "We've never seen anything like this, have we now?"

We are going to be electing a new abbot for this house in a month or two. It surely cannot be out of place to suggest that some concern over our own generic tendency to stick to what we are used to will need some deft handling.

Hopefully we shall elect an abbot even better than the one we had. We stiffen that hope with prayer. That hope being somewhat unrealistic, we pray that at least we get one as good as what we've had.

Yet, one thing is certain. Whether he is better than what we had or as good or far worse, he will assuredly be different. And his being different will require some openness, some give in your stance, some limber in your muscle if you are going to survive. Your commitment is going to have to go deeper than merely being comfortably content with what you are used to, to a deep submission to God's will revealed in His providence.

Which, after all, is an application of our faith common to all. Conformity to God's will is the key to happiness. Any generic inertia that resists change can lead us far astray, as it led the scribes astray. And that we must avoid at any cost. Better then to bend than to break, better keep flowing rather than freeze. No skyscraper ever broke in the wind: they bend. No vowed life ever lasted without supple love.  Amen.