Change is Inevitable and Life-Giving

I do not believe the Second Vatican Council was a mistake.  I do believe forming committees and including Protestants and artificially remaking the Mass after it had formed slowly and organically over 1,900 years was completely inappropriate and it doesn't take much digging to see what sort of liturgical abuses have become downright common in most American Novus Ordo Masses.

That said, the idea that we should just stick with tradition for the sake of tradition is anathema to the idea of a living faith.  To be alive means to change and to grow.  To refuse change for the sake of, well, not changing, is to refuse life and God.

However, that doesn't mean that any change will do.  Change for change's sake is no better than being stuck in tradition for tradition's sake.  Yes, change is scary, but when taken on with prudence and discernment, and moved through slowly, it can lead to some great things!

Thanks to change, we no longer see human sacrifice as acceptable.  Thanks to change, we no longer believe slavery is acceptable.  Thanks to change, we started to listen to the voices of people "of color" and women.

Also thanks to change, we no longer know what a woman is.  Also thanks to change, we have merely pushed slavery underground under the guise of human trafficking.  Also thanks to change, we have renamed human sacrifice with terms like "reproductive freedom" and "right to die".

So there really is no new thing under the sun (see Ecclesiastes 1:9).  And yet, the reason we know we are alive is that things keep shifting, moving, changing.  No one said it has to be a one-way movement.  Just that we keep moving.  Change is inevitable and refusing to embrace change and ride out the unavoidable waves is to bury one's head in the sand.

Or to put one's lamp under a basket (see Matthew 5:15).  Resisting change is based in fear.  Fear is the opposite of faith, and Jesus Himself admonished us to live in faith and not in fear.