The Wedding Feast and Wineskins

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.                  

People came to Jesus and objected,
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, 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 2: 18-22

The Pharisees were accustomed to fast twice a week and they saw that Jesus and his disciples did not follow this tradition and they wanted to know why.  Jesus said that you do not fast at a wedding party and while He was here there was no reason to fast.  He did say that once He was gone, then there would be time for fasting.  He also said that you don't use a new piece of cloth to repair an old garment.  The new cloth would shrink the first time you washed it and the hole would be made larger.  Similarly, you do not put new wine into old wineskins because the old skins were used up, they were brittle and would burst. 

The teachings of Jesus would not fit well with the teaching of the Pharisees.  Jesus was not here to patch up the old but to teach a new way of worship.  The old wineskins held the sacrifice of animals to appease an angry God but Jesus' teaching was to show us a new view of the Father, a loving and merciful God who wanted His children to be with Him and He was willing to do anything to make this happen, even sending His only Son to earth.  This new wine would never fit into the old wineskin and it would cause it to burst. 

We are so very blessed.  Even the learned of that ancient time served a God that they did not understand.  We have been given the whole truth about the love of God and we have been taught His ways.  We have been given the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to keep us spiritually sustained on our journey. The Hebrews of ancient time were certainly the apple of God's eye and very dear to Him, but today, the whole world is loved by God and the whole world is invited to be His adopted son or daughter and to share with Him the pleasures and beauty of heaven together with His Son.  What a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian and double that wonder and joy if you happen to be a Catholic Christian with access to the whole truth of the Gospel message. 

Purgatory is a place filled with Joy and Pain.  The people there need our prayers for they cannot help themselves.  Please remember to pray for them.  It will take you just a minute but it will mean so much for them.  Pray the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great: 

According to tradition, St. Gertrude the Great was told by Our Lord that the following prayer, each time she piously recited it, would release 1,000 souls (or a vast number) from their suffering in purgatory:

“Eternal Father,
I offer You the most precious blood
of thy Divine Son, Jesus,
in union with the Masses said
throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
for sinners everywhere,
for sinners in the universal Church,
for those in my own home,
and in my family. Amen.”