The piece from it will not match the old cloak
Col 1,15-20; Ps 99; Lk 5,33-39
6 SEPTEMBER
The Lord our God wished he could replace the religious works of the flesh with obedience to the Commandments, to his Law, but he did not succeed. The flesh wants works according to the flesh, not according to the Spirit. He also wished he could replace fasting according to the flesh with fasting according to the spirit, but even in this he did not succeed. Flesh for man is more than a tick. It sticks to the flesh and it is impossible to detach it so that it opens to the spirit and walks in the Holy Spirit.
Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your labourers. Yes, your fast ends in quarrelling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined homesteads.” If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honourable; If you honour it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice – Then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Is 58,1-14).
Today, Jesus cannot say in an open, clear way to the disciples of John that they walk according to the flesh and not according to the spirit. He uses two images, which serve to say a profound and real truth, but also to loosen the too much attention placed on the substantial difference existing between the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees and the disciples of Jesus. Today, it is not important for the Holy Spirit to cry out the novelty of Christ. Instead, it is necessary to calm the restless and agitated hearts.
And they said to him, “The disciples of John 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.'”
The new dress and the new skin is the heart of Christ. It cannot be adapted to our old heart, to our religion according to the flesh. It is necessary to separate new heart, new Gospel, new life, new religion and old heart, old word, old religion and old life. We go to Jesus not for patching, but for conversion. One does not go outwardly, but through real clothing. We have to get dressed in Christ.
Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that we clothe ourselves with Christ and his Gospel.