NEW WINESKIN, NEW PERSPECTIVE!!!

Friday, September 02, 2011

Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart

by Lorenz S. Centino, Jr.

Luke 5: 33 - 39
33	And they said to him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink."
34	And Jesus said to them, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
35	The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days."
36	He told them a parable also: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it upon an old garment; if he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.
37	And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.
38	But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.
39	And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, `The old is good.'"

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:

A BLESSED FRIDAY TO ALL!!!

Misunderstanding would often result from the difference of perspective and context of the people involved. People can be viewing or talking about one and the same reality but could not reach an agreement or a common ground for understanding because they are wide apart from each other in terms of viewpoints. As often used by many to illustrate a point, people can view a glass with water in it differently. One will see it as a half-empty glass, while the other one will view it as a half-full glass of water. Many would look at this as a representation of the two attitudes of men/women to life: the optimist and pessimist. How we view things or reality in general is influenced and determined by our particular worldview in looking at reality. Having a new perspective is having a new way of looking at anything.

There are people who criticize Jesus and his disciples because they don’t fast and pray like the disciples of John and of the Pharisees. They question the way Jesus and his disciples always having fellowships, most of the time, if not all the times, with sinners and outcasts. Jesus and his disciples always share a meal with them rather than fasting and praying with them. In fact Jesus and his disciples were accused of being a group of drunkards and gluttons (see Matthew 11:18-19, Luke 7:33-34).

These critics of Jesus have such protest not because they really want to stress the value of prayer and fasting. They are driven by a particular viewpoint that make them not to understand what Jesus is doing and teaching. They are blind from seeing the whole import and meaning of Jesus’ works and his own being. Jesus doesn’t fit into their framework of mind as to who the Messiah is for them. For them Jesus is an impostor or fraud claimant of being the savior. This makes them to just dislike anything and everything about Jesus that they become inconsistent and contradictory in some of their accusation against Jesus. In today’s Gospel, they praise John the Baptist’s practice of fasting and prayer. Yet in another instance Jesus unravel their inconsistency when Jesus chastised them saying, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 11:18-19 and Luke 7:33-34). They always view Jesus negatively and disapprovingly!

Through a parable Jesus addresses his critics to have change of mind and heart so they will have a new way of understanding and relating with him and with others. His parable of the new wineskin and new garment addresses the hypocrisy and blindness or close-mindedness of his critics. This imagery about wine and wineskins is a familiar day to day experience of his listeners. They don’t use bottles as we use them today for our wines. They put and store wines in wineskins. New wines are secured in new wineskins that can withstand the pressures and demands of fermentation as old wineskins can easily rupture and split open due to its stiffness and inflexibility to resist the pressure of fermentation.

Jesus continue to challenge us today, as he challenged his listeners before, to set aside and give up whatever inflexible and stiff ways we have in looking at him which blinded and hindered us to see him as to who he really is. We should put on a new perspective in dealing and understanding Jesus. We should take Jesus’ own perspective, not ours or the world’s. And once our hearts and minds are fermented according to the perspective of Jesus, then we will no longer desire for something new just like those who have a taste of the old wine will never desire for a new one. To have Jesus’ perspective is to be open to the revelation of Jesus about himself in the Bible through the guidance of the steward of the Word of God, the Church. Do we still listen to the Church? Do we have the openness of heart and mind to hear the Word of God among the many voices in the world that are overshadowing and obscuring God’s voice? Let us be shaped by God’s Word and not be misled and deceived by the purely secular philosophies of the world.

For your personal comments, you can reach me through this email: sanolorenz@yahoo.com