Word to the Wise
Friday, September 6, 2024 - Friday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 4:1-5 and Luke 5:33-39]"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.'" [Luke]
The context for Jesus' image today is important. He is responding to criticism from the scribes and Pharisees over certain ritual observances that he and his disciples were not performing. Jesus' response is that he represents something very new and those observances are "old cloth and old wine." The old cloth and old wine are not appropriate for a new cloth and wine that he and his disciples represent.
On many fronts the reforms of the Second Vatican Council have represented new cloth and new wine. Efforts to sew the older concepts of church, liturgy, revelation, laity, relations to non-Catholic religious traditions, etc. onto the teachings of Vatican II have caused considerable tension, especially in the USA. It is nothing new. The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1561] met with considerable opposition. There is an old adage about it requiring 100 years to have complete acceptance of a council. Pope Francis is quoted as telling a group of young Jesuits that "we are halfway there!" One can hear echoes of the old hymn, "Gimme that old time religion!" in a lot of young Catholics now as well as from those who lived Catholic faith before Vatican II. But the new wine cannot be poured into those old skins. Eventually the new wine will become old and what is being done now will pass into the museums of memory. Jesus' response to the scribes and Pharisees remains a wisdom to bear in mind. AMEN