Friday of the Twenty-Second Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

    Luke 5:33–39

Meditatio

“… no one pours new wine into old wineskins.”

    Early in this passage Jesus explains why his disciples don’t fast: the Bridegroom is at the feast with the bride (God’s people). Something new and joyful is taking place, and it’s incompatible with the practice of fasting.

    To this explanation, the evangelist attaches two of Jesus’ parables about new versus old: If sewn onto an old garment, an unshrunken patch will make a large rent. If used to fill up old wineskins, new wine will burst the skins. The message is “new with the new” and “old with the old.”

    At one point, I found this puzzling. How does one move from old to new if the two are incompatible? In reflecting, I noted that the two parables really concern attitudes, which are often easier to change than processes or procedures. If a person’s attitude can change, the new is possible. And, of course, that was what happened in the early Church. Some Jewish Christians, like Paul, were able to change their outlook in order to admit Gentiles into the Church without obliging them to embrace Judaism first.

    I think these parables have much to teach us today. It’s good to be open to the new. I don’t mean that we should accept everything that’s trendy. If we can look at the new with an open mind, we can decide whether it’s worthwhile to embrace it. Not to move at all is to stagnate. John Henry Newman wrote that living involves changing, and becoming perfect means changing often. Even though in ordinary life old wine is better, at Cana the new wine that Jesus produced was the best.

Oratio

    Holy Spirit, help me to evaluate anything new that comes my way and to decide whether it’s for me. I want to change for the better. Help me to see what I can improve in my life: Replace an unhealthy habit with a new and wholesome one? Give new life to a foundering relationship? Enhance my prayer life with a new way of praying? Take a new approach to the sacrament of Reconciliation? Inject new fervor into my Mass participation? Guide me, Holy Spirit, in true interior renewal.

Contemplatio

    Jesus’ new wine is the best.

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)