Choose New Wine Skins

In today's Gospel, Mt 9:14-17, Jesus  tells us that no one "patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth."  The new cloth will shrink and cause a bigger tear in the old cloth.  Also, Jesus says, do not put new wine into old wine skins. As the new wine ferments, the old skins will burst.

Jesus is speaking of making all things new. Lepers, sinners, the sick, the lame, the dead, women, Gentiles will be included, respected, healed, made whole and sent to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel. No one will be excluded.The old way--exploiting the poor, excluding women, refusing to dialogue, passing judgment, compartmentalizing people into class systems with the rich getting richer off the poor, multiplying rules made by humans who seek to control and exert power over others--will be replaced by God's Way, a way of mercy and love, forgiveness and compassion. Peace and justice shall meet. No longer shall industrial pursuits, economic superiority or one gender being chosen over another just for gender sake, no more "a tooth for a tooth," no more power dynamics of lording oneself, one's race, one's nation over another. There is only one Way, the way of the Trinity, where all persons are equal, all striving for a common good: the salvation of the world and the giving everything, even one's life if necessary, to bring wholeness to another, to respect the dignity of the other as a child of God.

The old does not fit any longer. Jesus shows us the way to be obedient to the Father even unto death. Each person must give way to the Divine Will, as Jesus did,  in order to know the fullness of life that Jesus brought to this earth. To truly become the likeness of God, to be transformed into God, to reach our full potential as human beings to  experience our oneness with all that is, with all persons,  and to come to union with God, we need to let go of the "old wine skins." The choice is ours.  May we choose wisely!

"Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5)

In  today’s Gospel, Luke 5: 33-39, the Scribes and Pharisees are again at odds with Jesus. Nothing Jesus does is right for them. This time, they confront him because his disciples do not fast or offer prayers like their disciples do.  The Scribes and Pharisees do not recognize that something New is taking place, that the Messianic Kingdom has arrived, that the Old Covenant is being replaced by the New Covenant.  As Jesus’ proclamation of the New Kingdom spreads by his healing of all who are brought to him with every kind of disease and demons are commanded to leave the area, and unjust practices are challenged,  the Scribes and Pharisees speed up their attacks on Jesus, trying to trick him, looking for ways to trap Him and find cause to put him to death.  They do not want their world of laws and rituals that have been in vogue for hundreds of years to be disturbed.  They do not want any change in their rituals or in their lives.  As Jesus says at the end of this Gospel: “…[N]o one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

The same scenario is occurring in the Catholic Church.  There are people among the laity, the clergy and women and men religious who vehemently cling to past rituals or traditions from of old, who do not want their lives disturbed by change of any kind.  The past, for some, is enshrined in gold.

How willing are you and I to accept the inevitability of change in  the Catholic Church, in the way we express our faith, in the externals of our religion, in ritual and sacramental changes; in short, in the way God works? How open are we to the changes that inevitably occur in our personal lives, our family lives, our religious community, our parish?