Word to the Wise
Saturday, July 8, 2023 - Saturday in the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 27:1-5, 15-29 and Matt 9:14-17]People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. [Matthew]
Jesus is, indeed, portraying himself and his mission as pouring new wine into new wineskins. By the time the Gospel According to Matthew was composed, the face of Judaism was being changed not only by the mission to the Gentiles, but also by the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Romans. What would emerge from that disaster was a Judaism based exclusively on synagogue worship. Temple sacrifice disappeared forever. Christianity was also being reshaped from a small sect of Judaism to an international movement. The new wine of faith in Jesus was being poured into new wineskins that were being created in many places.
The variety of rites and "churches" within the Body of Christ is enormous. Most of my Beloved Congregation belongs to the Latin (western) rite of the Roman Catholic Church, but there are 20 or so "rites" that express our sacramental faith! (Melkite, Byzantine, Maronite, Syro-Malabar, etc.) This does not include those churches with the word "orthodox" in their title, whose sacraments are "valid" but are not in union with Rome. There are a lot of wineskins to hold the faith (not to mention, of course, those communities we call "protestant.")
Within the Latin rite there have been tensions between those who accept the liturgical (and theological) reforms of the Second Vatican Council and those who do not. Efforts to reconcile have been difficult. There is much to be learned and gained from studying how to best preserve the wine and the skins. Can old wine be poured into new wineskins? AMEN