THEN THEY WILL FAST IN THOSE DAYS

1 Cor 4,1-5; Ps 36; Lk 5,33-39
7 SEPTEMBER
The Lord our God has never sent a single prophet among his people to deal with the forms of religion. He always called them and sent them to remind his Law and his Ten Commandments. The Lord asks his people only this: Listening to his voice, doing his manifested and revealed will. Prayer has only two purposes: invoking forgiveness for all the faults committed. Imploring grace and strength, intelligence and wisdom for a faithful and immediate obedience to the Law. Forms and ways are left to the choices of the individual. Even fasting with the Lord takes the form of one goal: preparing body, soul and spirit for great repentance, for conversion, for the reception of the Word that the prophet makes resound to the heart and mind. In Isaiah, as the Lord denies worship without obedience, so he denies fasting. The worship and fasting that the Lord wants are obedience, mercy, love and piety.

What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me. New moon and Sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you (Cf. Is 1,1-31). 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 (cf. Is. 58,1-14).

Jesus did not come to whitewash the sepulchres of the religion of man with new shades and new colours. He came to destroy these tombs and in their place put in the hearts the Law of his Father, brought to its completion. As a true prophet of the living God, He must only take care of the Word, showing how it is lived in every situation and condition that comes from history. And in fact, from birth to the cross, Jesus showed us visibly how to obey the divine will. But the minds are not yet ready to welcome this light. Going around among the tombs of religion by now has become a common habit. Unable to speak, Jesus uses a highly figurative language. It talks about a groom and of old and new wineskins and of wine. Now it is necessary to turn off any discussion or useless diatribe. Then tomorrow everything will be clearer.

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.'”

When the Apostles go to the world, then they will have to know how to adapt to every condition of abundance and poverty. They will surrender themselves to the Providence of the Father.

Faithful Virgin, Angels and Saints ensure that our life is very pure obedience to God.