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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider New wine into fresh wineskins

New wine into fresh wineskins

Published Jul 5, 2025 12:01 am  |  Updated Jul 4, 2025 04:31 pm
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John the Baptist’s disciples compare themselves with Jesus’ own disciples on the matter of fasting. John lives an austere life, “neither eating nor drinking” (Mt 11:18), that is, eating sparingly, and this robs on his disciples who fast more than is required in the Torah. But fasting is a mark of repentance, an act of petition to God to deliver people from whatever oppresses them.
Pious Jews believed that it would hasten the coming of the Messiah. Now that Jesus has come, this mark of petition and of waiting has to give way to the joy of fulfillment, akin to the joy of participating in a wedding banquet. The Good News of salvation, the “new wine” that Jesus brings, is something novel and wonderful that cannot be contained in an old mentality (old wineskins).
The Good News can only be contained in a new way of thinking and behavior, and with a joyful heart and a new spirit. The Gospel cannot be “good news” if received within traditional sentimentality and frame of mind. Regarding the “new wineskins,” Pope Francis declares, “Even customs must be renewed in the newness of the Holy Spirit, in the surprises of God… that the Lord give us the grace of an open heart, of a heart open to the voice of the Holy Spirit, which can discern what must not change because it is fundamental from what has to change in order to be able to receive the newness of the Holy Spirit” (Meditations at Domus Sanctae Marthae, Jan. 18, 2016).
Gospel • Matthew 9:14-17
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. 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.”
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.

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