DGEMS

“Jesus” the “Messiah” – Faith: In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaimed to the Pharisees; that He is the Messiah. And, His “Good News of Salvation” fulfils the “Old Testament.” Thus, He adds, the “new wine” is not to be put in “old skins” but, ‘fresh skins.” Ponder on, “Are we still attached to the “old wine”; the image of a “Punishing God; and fear Him?

One day when John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast, some people came to him and said to Jesus, ‘Why is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’

Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom's attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will fast.

‘No one sews a piece of un-shrunken cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine, into fresh skins!’