Monday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 16, 2023

Mark 2, 18-22

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.”

Today’s Gospel Reading helps us to see how differently the Lord’s disciples lived as compared with how those of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees lived.  This in turn leads us to consider how unusual the Lord, as a teacher, appeared to his contemporaries.  And then the Lord himself speaks of himself as no other teacher ever had, or ever could.

“The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.”  These disciples were not governed by any hard and fast laws, as their association with John the Baptist or with a given Pharisee was informal.still, a person had as the purpose for attaching oneself as a disciple to a religious teacher becoming like the teacher, and a initial step towards this goal involved a certain amount of asceticism, particularly in terms of fasting and set prayers.  The asceticism, in theory, enabled a person to purify his mind and heart, making them better receptacles for the teacher’s doctrines.  For the disciples of John the Baptist as well as for believers today, fasting is undertaken both as a penance and as a way of preparing, as the fast before Mass.  But with the coming of Jesus on the earth, fasting became irrelevant.  The time of preparation was over, and penance gave way to the reception of the forgiveness of sins.

“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”  (The Lectionary text says the people “objected” this to Jesus but the Greek does not say this).  It is interesting that people paid so much attention to the Lord’s disciples that they knew they did not fast beyond what the Law required, but also that they felt strongly enough that they brought this observation before the Lord.  They expected holy men to live in a certain way — not based on anything they read in the Scriptures but merely from their own opinions and fantasies.  But their “objection”, if we want to call it that, was directed at the Lord himself.  They wanted to know why he did not fast, or otherwise act, as other rabbis and reachers did.  This complaint followed the Lord throughout his ministry.  We see him addressing it in Matthew 11, 19: “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners.”  But the Lord did not see his job as validating other people’s fantasies for how he was supposed to live.  When he did answer the complaint, he patiently pointed out that he was not merely some teacher — he was the Bridegroom.  He was utterly unlike anyone who had ever lived, and because God now walked the earth, no need for fasting existed, but rather the time for feasting did.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak . . . No one pours new wine into old wineskins.”  Here the Lord speaks about the effects of grace.  The life of grace enables a person to understand what before seemed incomprehensible, and to accomplish what before seemed insurmountable. The Lord is saying that those who receive this grace will be able to understand his teachings and will be able to live according to the way of the Son of God.  It is grace that makes a human a son or daughter of God, while those without grace remain his creatures.  Grace enables a person to be saved, while those who so not possess it are incapable of receiving salvation.

We pray for this grace so that we will be able to follow the Lord, wherever he leads us.