We live in times of change. To live is to change, even if only to move forward. St. Augustine's expression is well known: "If you say stop, you are already lost. Do not stop, always go forward; do not turn back, do not go astray. On this road, he who does not go forward, goes backward" (Sermon 169, 18). And Unamuno sealed the phrase that "progress consists in renewing oneself". This happens both on the material and biological levels, in the family and in the business world, in Christian and ecclesial life.

In a video message to the social week in Verona in November 2017, Pope Francis explained that fidelity means change. In fact, to be faithful requires moving forward on what has been lived without ceasing to live it, continually starting over, renewing oneself, updating oneself without forgetting one's own identity and one's own goals. Whoever does not move forward stops and ceases to be faithful to his path and to his mission statement. And this, Francis observed, has two faces. A positive one: trust in God who impels and accompanies. And another negative face: the resistance to walk and renew oneself, the routine, the defensive enclosure in false securities.

Fidelity to God and man

The history of salvation presents the case of Abraham, who, faced with the call of God (it is the first time in the Bible that such a call appears), had to change, to set out towards unsuspected horizons, to set in motion an unprecedented process, precisely in order to be faithful.

In the Christian life, fidelity is not possible without advancing by bearing fruit, making the talents we have received bear fruit, drawing from the Gospel, always old and always new, the newness and freshness that each new status requires, on the basis of prayer, love and work.

Fidelity to God is inseparable from fidelity to man. It requires going out of oneself to meet the needs of others, rejecting what is easy and comfortable. It is enough to think of friendship between two people, which requires openness, trust and understanding.

Continuing to live life to the full is a process of "going out of one's way" that wears one out. But it is worth it because the Christian life is a heart, not a cold block of marble. It is sculpted by the generosity of God and the partnership of our grain of wheat, bathed in a little blood, which gives it strength and energy. 

Fidelity staff is dynamic

Even on the smallest scale of created being, the quality of being depends on the capacity for change. Especially in living beings we see that being is not reduced to beginning to be, but implies acting, putting into action the potentialities that are in every nature. In fact, we call "nature" the essence that is "born" when we begin to be as a principle that makes acting possible and remains always present, in a dynamic way, in action.

Of course, in human beings, to live means to renew oneself. Walking requires the minimum risk of lifting one's foot to move forward. To think is to advance from one thought to another in a process of reflection. And in the most properly human acts, all this is done by bringing freedom into play. As Guardini said, human freedom is not understood simply as "freedom from," but requires consideration of "freedom for." That is, we have been given the freedom to change, to advance in pursuit of beauty, to reach new heights of truth and goodness.

This is why there is a truth proper to human action, a truth that is not static, but that emerges every time we act well, doing justice to reality and in openness to love, which brings with it an aspect of beauty. The fidelity of persons is dynamic or it is not fidelity, both at the individual level and in human groups and in history. 

Christian fidelity and fidelity in the Church

At the ecclesial level, the principle arises that the Church must walk in a disposition of renewal, because it is neither a mineral nor a clockwork mechanism, but a living body. For this reason, the reform or renewal of the Church (always necessary), as is also the case with the Christian life, cannot be carried out at the expense of identity, but on the basis of an identity that must always become new life, growth and conversion that never ends.

As Benedict XVI explained in a memorable speech in December 2005, the Church moves forward through reform or renewal in continuity. Neither pure change without report, nor immobility without projection. The tree only grows by branching out and bearing fruit on condition that it rests on its roots, from which comes the nourishment that gives it life and growth. In the Church, as in the life of individuals and societies, there is no authentic progress without living tradition and vice versa.

Francis has pointed out some criteria-guide for the reform of the Roman Curia, which similarly serve for the general renewal of the Church and her institutions: conversion staff and pastoral; Christocentrism; missionarity; functionality; modernity; sobriety; subsidiarity; synodality; professionalism (cf. speech to the Roman Curia, 22-XII-2016).

The necessary dynamic in fidelity is that proper to the members of every family and of every human business. It requires keeping in mind, as St. Josemaría said, that God "has willed to run the risk of our freedom" (Christ Is Passing By, 113).

The Christian, who participates in the very life of Christ, aspires to participate, spiritually and little by little, in the very freedom of Christ. That is to say, of the simplicity and depth of the one who knows himself to be the Son of God, always accompanied by the action of the Holy Spirit. The divine Spirit, in his role as the principle of life and unity of the Church, is at the same time the promoter of communion in diversity, of fidelity and life, of love and truth.