Gospel: September 5, 2025
September 5, 2025 (Friday)
22nd Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 2 / (Green)
Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
1st Reading: Colossians 1:15-20
Gospel: Luke 5:33-39
Some people asked him, “The disciples of John fast often and say long prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why is it, that your disciples eat and drink?” Then Jesus said to them, “You can’t make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them.
But later, the bridegroom will be taken from them; and they will fast in those days.” Jesus also told them this parable: “No one tears a piece from a new coat to put it on an old one; otherwise the new coat will be torn, and the piece taken from the new coat will not match the old coat.
No one puts new wine into old wine skins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed as well. But new wine must be put into fresh skins. Yet, no one who has tasted old wine is eager to drink new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
Reflection:
“The new way of being disciple.”
Spanish wine is called “joven” (young) if it’s bottled soon after fermentation rather aging first in barrels. Some might think that a young wine is simply the poor relative of one that has been left to mature. Indeed, if you are accustomed to the rich flavors of an aged wine, you might not appreciate the lighter, fresher taste of the other.
Thus, Jesus says, “no one who has tasted old wine is eager to drink new wine.” Here, the new is seen as unfinished and not as good as the old and this idea is applied by Jesus to the comparison of the practices of the Pharisees and his own disciples. The people accustomed to the ascetical practices of the Pharisees and of John’s disciples are critical of the new ways which seem to be lacking in penance.
New wine has its own characteristics and is not to be seen as simply unfinished. Similarly, in Christ’s parable, the new wine—the new way of being disciple—involves more celebration, as it is an acknowledgment of the presence of the Messiah. This means that our penance is to be coupled with joyful celebration of the Risen Christ, who is our hope.
