At Stella Maris, we are implementing a theme for the ministry year (2025–2026). The theme will help bring to life our Little Commission and serve as a thematic thread running through our programming this year. It aims to be memorable and inspiring, and a source of a kind of enduring Lectio Divina throughout the year. A reworked form of this essay will soon be published for the parishioners in the bulletin.
No more tears, wailing, or mourning. No more death.
Sounds pretty good.
But then he goes on.
“Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).
If we’re honest, that word all probably trips up those of us fixated on control (i.e., most all of us). I mean, if Jesus takes away sadness, grief, and death, I’m game. But he doesn’t stop there. He wants to make all things new. Not a few things. Not some things. Not even most things, but all things.
That means my identity, my relationships, my family, my home, my job, my dreams, my plans, my [fill in the blank]. All of it.
And, on top of that, he’s the one who is going to make all things new. That means I’m not the one to do it. I’m not in control. I might not have a say. I might not get to make this look the way I want it. In other words, I’m being called to submit, as a creature, to the Creator, the One who made all things to begin with and who can reclaim and make new whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
All things new. There’s a dizzying boundlessness about these words.
It reminds me of something I read once in Joseph Ratzinger’s work. He was riffing on German philosopher Dietreich von Hildebrand. Hildebrand explains that modern men and women are proponents of personal change, but only in those parts of life predetermined by themselves and their ideals, and only up to a certain point.1 In other words, we set boundaries and want “to change only in certain respects but without letting the whole of his nature become involved.”2 We’re willing to change, but only through self-assertion and, usually, for the sake of amounting to something in the eyes of the world. Attempts to change often become a mere interruption—a particular aspect of life, a habit, a way of being, is interrupted, but, in the end, the person remains unaffected. Take diets, for example. This “bounded” approach is not the Christian position.
Ratzinger, via Hildebrand, distinguishes Christianity according to its call for ongoing metanoia, constant renewal, and a “readiness to change” that is boundless in “its utter radicality.”3 The boundlessness of it distinguishes Christian conversion from worldly, “pop conversion.” Pop conversion is subject to our preferences and entirely under our control. In contradistinction to the self-imposed boundaries of the idealist, Ratzinger says, “To be a Christian, one must change not just in some particular area but without reservation even to the innermost depths of one’s being.”4 Faith requires trusting in something other than what one can grasp or make “on his own,” so to speak. Faith demands an about-turn involving one’s whole person — “a perishing of the mere self and precisely thus a resurrection of the true self.”5 Christian conversion, therefore, bears within it a boundless quality — it breaks open of self-imposed boundaries of one’s personhood on all sides by the One who knows no bounds. St. Paul captures the completeness of what’s involved in conversion in his lightning bolt statement: “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).
Already. Not yet.
He will fulfill his promise at the end of time, but for those of us Catholic Christians who are living in the already-but-not-yet, we are tasked with embracing this promise right now. Yet we tend to resist change. Ironically, though we are beings “on the way,” transient, pilgrim beings who haven’t arrived at our final destination, we like stasis. This becomes problematic because the new life Jesus promises is, in some way, unknown to us. Rather than open to it and embrace it, we’re happy to float in the orbit we’ve created for ourselves, one maintained by the steady gravitational pull of comfort and control. So, we can ask ourselves:
How often do we want to keep God at an arm’s length (or further)?
How often is it the case that we’re stuck in our ways?
How often do we conveniently forget to pray or dismiss its effectiveness?
How often do we ask God what he wants in a situation?
How often do we settle for the comfortable?
How often do we embrace complacency?
How often do we justify our vices or relativize positions contrary to the truth?
How often do we prefer what we can make and control ourselves?
How often do we make the claim “it’s always been done that way,” as an excuse for not doing the hard work of opening to God, stepping in faith, and innovating for the sake of the Gospel?
New life in Christ is largely an unknown life, whereas we tend to bind ourselves to what’s comfortable. What we know is our norm. The thought of letting it go frightens us, yet often we’re dissatisfied with the status quo. We’re walking contradictions. You hear this in our complaints. We complain when nothing changes; we gripe when things do change.
And then there’s Jesus, looking you and me in the eye, and saying “Behold, I make all things new.” There will be no more wailing, pain, tears, death. For those of us in our fallen world, this post-Edenic valley of tears, everything will change. It’s like he’s saying: “I will change everything. Will you let me? Will you let me make you new? Will you let me be your all in all? (cf. 1 Cor 15:28)”
Letting Christ make me new means being reclaimed by him, becoming like him. It means having my self-centeredness and small-mindedness blown wide open — expanded boundlessly. It means no limits. It means no fear. A new horizon. A decisive direction.6 It means allowing him to harmonize my discord and pull off my mask(s). It means pursuing Christ above all things and allowing him to reorder everything else. It means giving him my to-do list and letting him reprioritize things. It means opening to healing, letting go of resentment, and receiving a softer heart — one that’s more tender, more sensitive, more patient. It means vulnerability, humility, and charity. To be made new is a reclamation project that invites me to become who I am as a son of God and abide in it. And living this new life is to live charity, to live Christ.
While God has something new for us as individuals, he has something new for us corporately, as well. The Church, too, is his creature and he wants to make her new. She is his reclamation project. Concretely, in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, we’re invited to experience this in the Beacons of Light process. Like it or not, our shepherds have set Beacons before us as the means by which we, collectively, become new. Do we perceive it that way? Do we believe that God has something new for us at Stella Maris? Do we believe that God has something new for his Catholic Church in this corner of Clermont County? Do we even see it that way? Are we willing to try?Are we willing to let God lead? Are we willing to let God take the initiative? Or are we resistant because we’re satisfied with what came before just because we’re familiar with it? Are we willing to let him make our parishes new?
“Behold, I make all things new.” Christ’s declaration strikes at the heart of what it means to be Christian. It’s a tremendous proposal and one that essentially boils down to surrender. He’s the one who makes things new, not me. To be Christian means I’m no longer in control. To be Christian means boundless conversion — all things new.
To help people open to God’s action and the newness he has in store, the Evangelization Office at Stella Maris composed a prayer for the year:
Jesus, you said “I make all things new,” and I believe you. Please make new: [name specific areas of life, relationships, situations that have become troubled or lifeless]. I trust you and I surrender all of this to you. Thank you for listening to me, loving me, and making me new according to your perfect design. Amen.
Tara Rose Burton’s Strange Rites (2022) re-articulates much of Hildebrand’s point within the contemporary context.
Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 61. Here, Ratzinger is quoting from Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ.
Ratzinger, Principles, 61. See also John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, §88.
Ratzinger, Principles, 60.
Ratzinger, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism, 26.
See Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §1.