16 Jan 2012, Monday, Weekday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 1 Sm 15:16-23

Samuel said to Saul:
"Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night."
Saul replied, "Speak!"
Samuel then said: "Though little in your own esteem,
are you not leader of the tribes of Israel?
The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying,
'Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction.
Fight against them until you have exterminated them.'
Why then have you disobeyed the LORD?
You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD."
Saul answered Samuel: "I did indeed obey the LORD
and fulfill the mission on which the LORD sent me.
I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen,
the best of what had been banned,
to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal."
But Samuel said:
"Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obedience to the command of the LORD?
Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission than the fat of rams.
For a sin like divination is rebellion,
and presumption is the crime of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the command of the LORD,
he, too, has rejected you as ruler."

Responsorial Psalm Ps 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 And 23

R. (23b) To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
"Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold."
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
"Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?"
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
"When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God."
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

Gospel Mk 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

Meditation: Mark 2:18-22

“No one pours new wine into old wineskins.” (Mark 2:22)

How often have you heard this passage and thought to yourself: “I need to get rid of the old wine­skins. I need to repent and change my life”? That response is well and good, but it gives us only one half of the picture of what Jesus was say­ing here. So often when we read Scripture, we tend to focus on what we must do, but there’s a beauti­ful truth in this passage that teaches us far more about what God wants to do in us. He wants to fill us with his new wine! He wants to give us a new vitality and a new energy—if we are willing to receive it.

Throughout Scripture, the image of “new” wine is used to illustrate the new era that would be ush­ered in when God’s Messiah was revealed. “The time is surely com­ing,” declared the prophet Amos, “when … the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it” (Amos 9:13). Speaking in the name of the Lord, the prophet Joel proclaimed: “I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mock­ery among the nations” (Joel 2:19). And finally, at the Last Supper, Jesus chose the wine of the Passover meal to become the sacrament of the new covenant he would make in his own blood (Luke 22:20).

The “new wine” that Jesus wants to give us not only drips from the hills and mountains today. It is gushing forth from the portals of heaven every day, as mighty as a waterfall, with all the power of God to deliver, to heal, and to usher us into the very presence of God.

Just as wine makes the heart of man glad (Zechariah 10:7), so too does the new wine of Christ have the potential to make us joyful and happy. Filled as it is with the power of God himself, it offers us freedom and vitality. It tells us that we are a new creation—a new wineskin. It tells us that we can walk through this world unhindered by the old wineskins of a life trapped in dark­ness. And that is really good news!

“Lord Jesus, I want to receive your new wine. Come and fill me to overflowing, Lord, and let me taste and see your goodness.”