Homily: Monday of the 2nd Week of OT 2016 - New wine of the Spirit

In yesterday’s Sunday Gospel, we heard of the great miracle of Jesus transforming water into wine at the wedding at Cana. 

Today we hear again of those two images of weddings and wine. Jesus first compares his presence with his disciples to a wedding celebration.  Just as a wedding is filled with joyful celebration, so too, Jesus’ public ministry is a time of great joy for his disciples.  And so too, as Jesus is our companion throughout our own lives, there is a joy that cannot be taken away by any earthly misfortune.  Things can never become so dark that we cannot call upon Jesus as Lord.  No matter how severe our suffering, it can always be united to Him.

Second, Jesus says, “no one pours new wine into old wineskins.”  Since leather wineskins would become dry and brittle with age, the new wine, still in the process of fermenting would burst the old wineskins. 

Before baptism, before discipleship, we had an old nature, an old wineskin.  But when we were baptized and truly made the commitment to follow Christ, we set aside the old nature, and acquired a fresh new nature. For many of us, baptism was very long ago, and those fresh, new wineskins, if they are not constantly renewed can start to grow brittle again, resistant to change, resistant to the new wine of the spirit.

Many of us know Christians, even members of our families, who dabbled in Christianity, practiced it for a while, even 12 years of Catholic school, but now they’ve seemed to have lost their taste for the things of God.  Evening mentioning the faith leads to a heated argument.  The wineskin has burst.  For Christianity requires not just learning about the faith, but openness to being changed by it. And when we start to resist the change, we become resistant to the faith. 

St. Paul says in Romans, “I urge your brothers and sisters, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  For when we conform to the ways of the world, our natures begin to resemble that old wineskin again.

Rather, we come to Mass, we practice the faith in order to acquire that new way of thinking, a new way of acting and loving our neighbor. Every time we come to Mass, we should really be saying, okay Lord, transform me, change me, fill me, renew me.   

May each of us know the joy of knowing Jesus’ companionship with us always, and the openness of being renewed by Him and filled with the new wine of Spirit for the glory of God and salvation of souls.