Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 15, 2024
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them,
“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But 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 unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
Weddings, wineskins, and cloaks—the images in today’s gospel are from everyday human experience. Fasting is the opposite—an interruption of the everyday eating experience. This ritualistic interruption of everyday experience, as the Pharisees see it, is meant to bring us closer to God.
But does it? Jesus questions the connection between the practice of the ritual and its deeper meaning. He references a wedding full of eating and drinking in the ancient world as it is now; the very opposite of fasting. Weddings are about human connections to the guests, the bride, and the groom. Jesus says that without this human connection at the heart of fasting, it loses its connection to the divine.
Today, we also honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He called Americans to question their ritual practices in housing, education, and war, and see the human toll of those practices. In 1954, Dr. King preached about the equivalent passage in Matthew’s Gospel, likening the pouring of new wine into old wineskins to a person trying to change a bad habit: “The fresh new desire for changing is poured back into the same old general framework.”
The old ways, the old wineskins, and the old cloaks are metaphors for our old rituals, which have historically marginalized many in America. Can we examine our lives to see how our everyday rituals and practices might weaken our human connections?
Dr. King’s words could also apply to our social systems: how can we reshape not just our small piece but look more closely at the systems that enforce inequity? Are they old wineskins in need of change too? In the spirit of Christ’s words from today’s gospel, let us ask: how can we make entirely new cloaks and wineskins that rejoice in human connection and goodness and bring us closer to God?
Prayer
Lord, give us time today to be silent and prayerful, conscious of your personal presence, moment by moment, sustaining us in all our experiences and relationships. Call us to new decisions for faithfulness and generosity, and whenever you call us by name, may we reply, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Paul the Hermit was forced to flee to the desert to survive, but ended up living there an amazingly long time.
Paul was born around the year 230 in Egypt to an upper-class Christian family. He was well-educated, but left an orphan at the age of 15. The persecutions of Decius began a few years later, and members of his family planned a scheme to seize control of his property by reporting him as a Christian to the authorities. He fled both his family and the authorities by going into the desert and living in a cave.
The hermitic lifestyle suited Paul well and he spent the rest of his 113 year-long life surviving off fruit and water and wearing leaves. He spent most of his time in prayer, and a legend tells of a raven bringing him bread for sustenance.
St. Anthony the Abbot, who is traditionally credited with formalizing the monastic movement, visited Paul and became friends with him. (In fact, Anthony’s feast day lands in two days.) When he died, Anthony buried Paul in a cloak that was given to him by St. Athanasius, and it is said that two lions helped dig the grave. The two friends—Paul and Anthony—are depicted in murals in the Basilica on opposite-facing walls. St. Paul’s image includes the bread-bearing raven, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Paul the Hermit, who lived nearly 100 years in the desert on little more than prayer, pray for us!