Friday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 2, 2022

Luke 5, 33-39

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.’ ”

In the first part of today’s Gospel reading, we learn, through the mouth of a Pharisee, something of the structured lifestyle that characterized the Pharisees and their disciples and John the Baptist and his.  They had this in common: they fasted on certain days and they prayed certain prayers, probably at set hours of the day in imitation of the schedule of prayers in the Temple.  The Pharisee’s question reveals at least his perception that the Lord’s disciples did not follow something similar.  And we know that the disciples themselves felt they needed the Lord to teach them to pray “as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11, 1).  Regarding prayer, Jesus wanted the disciples to ask him to pray so that they might understand that prayer is itself a gift of God, as well as knowing how to pray.  The question of fasting gives him the opportunity to reassert that he is the Bridegroom who has come to lead his Bride to his home in heaven.  The time for fasting will come, he says, but it is not now when he is still among us: this should be a time of feasting and rejoicing. 

“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.”  The meaning of this parable is not easily discerned.  With some thought, the Lord appears to be saying that only those baptized and made anew can receive infusions of grace that enable the perfect following of God’s commandments.  However, if we grant that, then what are we to do with the the Lord’s observation that, “no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”?  The Lord is in fact observing what people say who will not try the new wine and remain with the old even when it has turned into vinegar.  St. Augustine says that the Lord is speaking specifically of the Apostles here, for at this time as “an old cloak” or “old skins”, the new wine of the Holy Spirit would burst them and overflow, but after the Lord’s Death and Resurrection they would be made new in order for him to fill them.  This is an apt interpretation because in the Acts of the Apostles 2, 13, when the Holy Spirit has filled them at Pentecost, the people hear them speaking other languages and praising God and they respond, “These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2, 13).  Peter, under the influence of the new wine of the Holy Spirit thereupon delivers an exhortation to the crowd that is so persuasive that “there were added in that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2, 41) to the ranks of the Church.

The Holy Spirit acts within a person and causes the person to change inwardly (as with wine) and outwardly (a new cloak) so that we are disposed to doing the good which the Lord would have us do.  Through the ages, earthly wine has been used for many purposes: for cleaning wounds, as a restorative and medicine, and to bolster courage, among others.  May the Holy Spirit heal the wounds of our sins and hurts, help us to recover and to persevere in times of tribulation, and to be bold in proclaiming the Gospel is the words, actions, and prayers of our everyday lives.