Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins

Heb 5,1-10; Ps 109; Mk 2,18-22
21 JANUARY
We know that the Lord God had established his covenant with the sons of Israel on the two tables of the Law. Everything else is a means, a way to obey the Law, never must it be a substitution. Even the cult is a way, not an end. Instead the children of Israel have turned the ways to an end and the end has been totally abolished. Against this essential transformation of the relationship with God prophets have always thundered. There is no prophet who has not denounced this religion of abomination and wickedness.

Woe to him who stores up what is not his: how long can it last! he loads himself down with debts. Shall not your creditors rise suddenly? Shall not they who make you tremble awake? You shall become their spoil! Because you despoiled many peoples all the rest of the nations shall despoil you; Because of men’s bloodshed, and violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. Woe to him who pursues evil gain for his household, setting his nest on high to escape the reach of misfortune! You have devised shame for your household, cutting off many peoples, forfeiting your own life: For the stone in the wall shall cry out, and the beam in the woodwork shall answer it! Woe to him who builds a city by bloodshed, and establishes a town by wickedness! Is not this from the Lord of hosts: peoples toil for the flames, and nations grow weary for nought! But the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord’s glory as water covers the sea. Woe to you who give your neighbours a flood of your wrath to drink, and make them drunk, till their nakedness is seen! You are filled with shame instead of glory; drink, you too, and stagger! On you shall revert the cup from the Lord’s right hand, and utter shame on your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover you, and the destruction of the beasts shall terrify you; Because of men’s bloodshed, and violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. Woe to him who says to wood, “Awake!” to dumb stone, “Arise!” Can such a thing give oracles? See, it is overlaid with gold and silver, but there is no life breath in it. Of what avail is the carved image, that its maker should carve it? Or the molten image and lying oracle, that its very maker should trust in it, and make dumb idols? But the Lord is in his holy temple; silence before him, all the earth! (Hab 2,6-20).

Jesus came not to consolidate the Old Covenant, but to establish a New and Eternal one. This New and Eternal Alliance cannot be founded on the tradition of the ancients nor on the foundations of the ancient Law of Sinai. It must instead be constituted, establish on the Discourse of the Mountain, which requires a very pure obedience to the Word in all that concerns the body, the soul, the spirit and in every relationship with God, with the selves, with things, with men, with time and with eternity. Wanting to put into the new dough of the New Covenant the leaven of the ancient religiosity, rejected by the very God and Lord, is a work of high corruption of the Gospel. The disciple of Jesus is asked for a style of life in conformity with the Gospel and the Gospel is the new absolute.

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him 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.”

Jesus cannot tell the disciples of John and the Pharisees that He came to make the New Covenant. They would have stoned him accusing him of breaking the Law of Moses. Instead, telling them a parable and excusing his disciples, he puts everyone to silence. Jesus is divinely wise. He knows when to give explanations and when to speak the language of the parable. He knows when to be explicit and when implicit. He knows when a word can be said and when it must be silenced. If the heart is of stone, never might the word enter into it. Saying it is wasting precious time, taking it away from true salvation. For us eternal truth will have to be: the Gospel of Christ Jesus is very perfect in everything. It is only necessary to observe it, helping every other man by showing him how it must be lived in truth.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, make us exemplary in gospel life before every man.