Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then they said to him, ‘John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.’ Jesus said to them, ‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.’ He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good.” ’

Two months ago, I was invited to offer a reflection on Matthew’s account of today’s Gospel story. Now, seemingly by coincidence, I find myself being asked to reflect on Luke’s version of the same encounter. As Catholics, we know that God’s Revelation is complete in Jesus Christ, yet we also recognise that God can use the ordinary events of our lives to draw our attention to His voice. The Catechism teaches that so-called ‘private’ revelations do not add to Christ’s Revelation, but ‘help us live it more fully in particular moments of history’ (CCC 67). Jesus originally spoke these words about fasting to a particular group of people. Yet because they are preserved in Sacred Scripture, they are also spoken to each of us today. The question is not only what Jesus meant then, but what He is saying to us now.

As I sat with this Gospel, I realised that my own prayer and fasting have been lacking. Not because the bridegroom is with me as such, but because I am not making my relationship with God a priority. Perhaps this is the revelation that I need to hear to help me ‘live it more fully.’

St Benedict begins his Rule with a simple invitation: “Listen carefully … to the Master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” My encouragement to you is to spend time with this Gospel through Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading). Read it slowly. Listen attentively. What word or phrase catches your attention? What is Jesus saying to you today? And how will you allow that word to shape your actions in the days ahead?