Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.
Fr. Andy had a great homily today about these readings. He talked about how we each have a lens through which we’re most likely to read Scripture. For him, he usually reads Scripture through the apologetics lens. How do these readings testify to what we believe as Catholics? But he was very struck by Jesus’s challenge in the Gospel.
Humans (and I would argue especially Americans) like things to be comfortable. We do things the way we’ve always done them, and we’re often hesitant to change. Jesus challenges this. He offers us something new, and He says that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t take the best of the new and try to fit it into the old. That’s not how it works. “Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.” We’d be robbing the fullness of the truth and trying to make it fit into ideas that are discordant. “Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins.” We can’t try to be a new person in our old lives. To be converted means to be changed. Literally.
But that’s not comfortable for us. What would be more comfortable would be just to take the things we like from Jesus’s teaching and believe them at our convenience. Unfortunately, that’s called Cafeteria Catholicism and it’s rampant in our Church. Even people in Jesus’s own time struggled with the difficult teachings. When Jesus began to teach about the Eucharist, many of the disciples left. The apostles recognized that it was hard to understand, but they submitted themselves to Jesus. They had the humility to recognize that He knew way more than they did.
“No one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” How do you relate to this statement? Are there places in your life where you’re holding on to the old, to what’s comfortable, instead of embracing a new life in Jesus? Sometimes it can be small things. Today I challenge you to pick out something in your life that you’re holding on to but that Jesus is asking you to let go of. Or take a look at some teachings of the Church that you struggle to understand or believe. Do some research. Try to learn more about why we believe what we believe. Feel free to reach out if you’re not finding answers!
-Amanda Benner, Director of Evangelization