RBWords

     Jesus speaks these images to disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees who had adopted the practice of public fasting and thought any serious Jew should do the same.  Fasting was required of Jews only at the time of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), so their question was a bit like someone who adopts a particular devotional practice and then feels like everyone else should be doing it!!  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns about fasting in public in order to gain attention.  [Matt. 6:16-18]  But the bigger picture - the one the questioners don't see - is that Jesus is bringing a new and different teaching that requires a new and different way of thinking and acting.  The images of cloth and wine/wineskins (he must have learned them from experience?) capture the question.

     I feel very much like an old wineskin when my more computer-savvy friends try to explain to me what I must do to get my computer to do what I need it to do!  However, it should be noted that Jesus doesn't say the old wine is bad wine or the new wine is better.  He just says they each require different attention and the new wine has to go somewhere!!   There was nothing wrong about the observances of the disciples of John and the Pharisees.  What was wrong was their attitude about those practices!  They were not ready to focus their faith on a person instead of a life-style.  

     Catholic tradition is swarming with devotional practices, some of which have  official ecclesiastical approval.  I, for one, find the rosary a very comforting spiritual practice.  But it would not be right to think that a Catholic who does NOT pray the rosary is a BAD Catholic!  Pope St. John Paul II introduced the "Divine Mercy" devotion, and it has become very popular, but neither it nor the rosary is compulsory.  The Divine Mercy chaplet is "new wine."  We can do either, both or neither, but they must have the same purpose:  Do they help the practitioner to better recognize Jesus and live according to his teachings?  AMEN