Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 2, 2022
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers,
and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same;
but yours eat and drink.”
Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
then they will fast in those days.”
And he also told them a parable.
“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.
Otherwise, he will tear the new
and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins,
and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new,
for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
When the Pharisees pressed on why his disciples do not fast, Jesus responds, “No one pours new wine into old wineskins.” Is Jesus maligning the practice of fasting?
The answer is emphatically no; on the contrary, Jesus challenges the Pharisees (and us). He is reminding us to allow Christ, and Christ alone, to transform us into vessels into which his Spirit may overflow.
Being human, we must be continuously reminded: We do not attain our salvation through our human efforts, neither in fasting nor by any other means, however complex or extravagant, but through the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit.
The primary way we are made wineskins fit for the kingdom is through our reception of the most Holy Eucharist. We are renewed each time we worthily receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. Ironically, the more we recognize our unworthiness in the presence of this holiest sacrifice, the more lavishly Christ renews us with his Spirit, to the point that our cup overflows.
Let us today and always approach the Eucharist with this filial reverence, and let us pray especially for the success of the Eucharistic Revival started by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June of this year.
Prayer
Jesus, we know that you are always with us, leading and guiding us through your Spirit. At the same time, we long for that time when we will experience the fullness of your presence in the wedding feast of heaven. We ask that you send your Spirit to strengthen us through the difficulties of this life so that we may be prepared even now for life eternal. We ask this in your most holy name. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Anna the Prophetess appears very briefly in the Gospel of Luke—she received the young child, Jesus, when Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple to be dedicated to the Lord.
According to Jewish law, parents were to present each male child to the Lord by offering sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple, and were greeted there by Simeon, who had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before seeing the messiah (Lk 2:25-26).
After Mary and Joseph and Jesus met Simeon, they encountered Anna:
“There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was 84. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem” (Lk 2:36-38)
This exhausts our knowledge of Anna, but even this brief description tells us what is most important about her. Unlike Simeon, who knew he would find the messiah, Anna simply recognized the Lord. After decades and decades in the Temple, seeing people coming and going with their sacrifices every day, she had the vision to recognize that one young couple and their child were unlike any of the others.
What gave her that ability to see—to recognize the divine in the midst of the ordinary? All we know is that she fasted and prayed—she cultivated a close relationship with God. She knew God—she was familiar with God because she spoke with God every day. And that familiarity opened her eyes to recognizing God’s presence in situations outside of prayer. The same is true for us—a habit of prayer opens our eyes to recognize God’s presence in the rest of our life experience.
Relics of St. Anna the Prophetess rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. She is depicted in the fresco above standing to the far right in a brown cloak, observing Joseph and Mary presenting the child, Jesus, to Simeon.
St. Anna the Prophetess, of the thousands of people you saw in the Temple, you instantly recognized Jesus—pray for us!