The Word of God
Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to Jesus, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins."
Mark 2:18-22
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- Fasting is the next point of contention between Jesus and his opponents. It may not be a major issue in itself but Jesus takes the opportunity to make an astonishing claim: He is the bridegroom! Marital imagery was used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship between Yahweh (bridegroom) and Israel (bride). Here Jesus claims the term (bridegroom) for himself and speaks of his followers as wedding guests. Later Christian thinking will go further and see the Church, the New Israel, as the bride of Christ. Are you comfortable with this kind of imagery? What are its implications?
- The Good News brought by Jesus is something radically new. Older, established structures (external such as religious rules, or internal such as ways of thinking) are inadequate to contain it. How does this teaching affect our efforts at renewal in the Church today? It is hard to let go of the old and familiar, but that may be what is required.
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- In today’s Gospel story Jesus portrays your life with him as like a wedding celebration. During the first millennium of Christianity this became the context in which Christians saw their lives.
- In a few moments of reflective prayer, see can you be with Jesus as one he loves with a passion or as his beloved disciple. When you have dwelt for some time with this reality, tell Jesus what you like about this way of viewing your relationship with him and tell him too how you resist it.
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- Jesus joined our human race in order to raise it, by adoption, to the sphere of God in heaven. At the first Christmas, heaven was wedded to earth. The arrival of Jesus and the announcement of this great offer, then, was an occasion for deep rejoicing – just as any wedding is.
- Practices like the Pharisees’ fasting, on the other hand, belonged to a more humdrum era. (Not that Christ’s followers were always going to be spared pain – persecutions would one day come).
- Joy and celebration are key to the Christian life.
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- People noticed the contrast between two sorts of religion: the Pharisees’ preoccupation with laws and regulations, and Jesus’ love of celebrations and feasts. He was seen as somebody who was always ready for a party, somebody who enjoyed life and lived it to the full. In his parables the kingdom of heaven is often a banquet, a wedding, a party: a place of untrammelled joy, not of tight rules.
- It is so easy for us to reduce the interior life, and the freedom and flame of the Gospels, to a set of pieties and regulations. Jesus would measure our religiousness not in laws but in love. He could not install his message of love and justice into the stiff mind-set of the Pharisees, who gave all their energies to following the tiniest points of the law.
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- New wine; fresh wineskins! This is what Pope John XXIII called for in 1962 as he opened the Second Vatican Council. He seemed to shed his years and became a youthful prophet launching the Church on a great adventure of the Spirit. He said: “What is needed now is a new enthusiasm, a new joy.’
- Dear Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ. You are faithful to your dying promise to remain with us who gather in your name. You enable us to carry one another, especially those who are heavy!
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- A wedding feast lasted an entire week in Palestine. The privilege for the closest friends of the bride and groom was to remain for the week in their company. Joy is the hallmark of the friends of the bride and groom. Do I find joy in knowing and being close to you, Lord?
- ‘New wine, new wineskins.’ Lord, you caution me from having a closed mind. You challenge me not to cling to old ways, and to be receptive to the new. Grant me openness of heart and mind. Let me trust in the depths of your creative Spirit who is making all things new.
Some thoughts on today's scripture
ActiveDefault- The life of religious people is always open to scrutiny and examination from outside. I pray that my way of living communicates gospel values. I take care not to come to uncharitable judgments about the way others live.
- God calls me to growth and new life. I pray that I may receive all the goodness God has to offer me, being made anew in the image of God.