Word to the Wise
Monday, January 18, 2010 - Monday in the Second Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Samuel 15:16-23 and Mark 2:18-22]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. [Mark]
The older I get, the more I come to appreciate the wisdom about the wineskins! I am confronted daily with the newest thing on the market in regard to computers and cell phones and medications and even theologies! How are all these "new" wines going to fit into my old wineskin? Jesus tells the people who ask him about fasting as an observance that he is bringing a whole new reality to birth in which the fasting of John the Baptist's disciples and the Pharisees has no meaning. They will have to change not only in terms of their beliefs (new wine) but in terms of their very selves (wineskins)! The issue is bigger than just fasting, although fasting becomes a kind of "test" case in this passage. The real issue is that Jesus is a new reality that requires a change of outlook and a new direction since he will replace the temple and all that the temple symbolizes in terms of Jewish life. I find myself thinking about my own life as a Dominican in this regard. I entered the Order in 1964 right out of college. The Second Vatican Council was nearing an end but it was a distant event which suddenly burst into the old Dominican world that I had entered. Observances my Novice Master assured me on one day would never change would be changed the next day! I had to find some new wineskins! Since then, it seems like I've had to spend a fortune on wineskins. Nowadays I admit the temptation to patch the old ones is getting stronger and stronger! The Church has been around so long that almost anything "new" can always find a precedent in the "old." That can leave us wondering about both the wine and the wineskins. But, since I like both old and new wine, I'll be satisfied as long as the skins don't leak - at least not too much! AMEN
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