Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 4, 2020
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.”
Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”
He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
When Adam and Eve fell from original grace in Eden, God in his loving mercy temporarily banished them from partaking in his own divine life. God did not want them eating from the Tree of Life and living forever in this fallen state, so the loving Father protected them from accessing the tree.
God had a plan before he laid the foundation of the world. The happy fault of Adam would win for us so great a savior, the New Adam, who would once again draw us into the heart of love itself.
Before the merciful banishment, the benevolent Creator, clothed Adam and Eve with skins. Some Rabbis surmise that the skins were the actual human epidermis. Before the fall, man and woman were luminous with God’s glory and absent of an outer covering. God in his mercy, stretched skin around their bodies encapsulated the very souls He had breathed into them from his own image and likeness.
When the New Adam, Jesus, finished his salvific work on the cross, humanity could once again access and eat from a new Tree of Life. By eating the eternal fruit of his own body, we could live forever redeemed. God again fashioned new skins for us. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation! The bridegroom poured his own Eucharistic wine into our new skins! We were filled with a sober intoxication of his Holy Spirit and ready to burst with joy.
No one puts new wine into old wineskins, the skins would burst and so Jesus, the bridegroom, refashions each of us into a new creation, with supple new skin, that is able to breathe and expand as his new wine of love ferments within us. The old covenant wine was good, but the wine of the new covenant is vino par excellence!
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. Rose of Viterbo was a prophetic young girl who inspired her homeland to stand with the Vatican in a dispute with an emperor.
Frederick II was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the 13th century. He came into conflict with the pope, who excommunicated him. In response, Frederick began attacking the papal states. In 1240, he conquered the region of Viterbo, Italy.
Rose was born in Viterbo and lived there with her poor parents during this conflict. When she was 8 years old, Rose fell ill, and during her sickness, she received a vision from Mary, who told her that she was to give her life to pursuing holiness just as St. Francis did. Mary told the girl that she was to take the habit of the Franciscans, but that she was not to live in a convent—she should stay at home and set an example by her words and deeds.
After she recovered, Rose took on the rough cloak of a penitent and continued to ponder this vision. When she was 12, she began preaching in the streets against Frederick’s occupation, in an effort to incite the city to overthrow the regime. Rumors spread that she worked miracles as she spoke, and soon a crowd began to gather around her house.
The attention made Rose’s father nervous, and he forbade her from leaving the house under threat of a beating. “If Jesus could be beaten for me, I can be beaten for him,” she replied. “I do what he has told me to do, and I must not disobey him.” When their parish priest insisted that she be free to preach, he relented.
For two more years, she continued to speak in public about the occupation. As her popularity grew, authorities called for her execution, but the city’s magistate sent her and her family into exile instead.
When Frederick died in 1250, the Vatican’s forces won the day and Rose and her parents moved back to Viterbo. Rose sought entrance into the local convent, but was denied because she did not have a dowry. “Very well,” she replied with a smile. “You will not have me now, but perhaps you will be more willing when I am dead.”
She continued to live with her parents, leading a life of prayer and service, but she died young, at the age of 17. Six years later, due to her popularity, her body was transferred to the chapel of the convent she once tried to enter. The church burned down in 1357, but her body was preserved and was carried through the city in a procession every year.
That tradition continues today with an annual festival in Viterbo that features dozens of men carrying a giant platform through the city on Sept. 3, the night before her feast day. It stands several stories high, and atop it is placed a statue of St. Rose.
Relics of St. Rose rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Rose of Viterbo, you were unafraid to call people to love the Church—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Rose of Viterbo is in the public domain. Last accessed April 3, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
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