Word of the day

A Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews
HEB 5:1-10

Brothers and sisters:
Every high priest is taken from among men
and made their representative before God,
to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,
for he himself is beset by weakness
and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself
as well as for the people.
No one takes this honor upon himself
but only when called by God,
just as Aaron was.
In the same way,
it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,
but rather the one who said to him:
You are my Son:
this day I have begotten you;
just as he says in another place,
You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.
In the days when he was in the Flesh,
he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears
to the one who was able to save him from death,
and he was heard because of his reverence.
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

From the Gospel according to Mark
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."

New wine, new wineskins. This is the newness of the Gospel. What does the Gospel bring us? Joy and newness. These doctors of the law were locked up in their commandments, in their rules. One of you may tell me: but father, don’t Christians have laws? Yes! Jesus said: I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. And the fullness of the law, for example are the Beatitudes, the law of love, total love, as He, Jesus, has loved us. When Jesus reproaches these people, these doctors of the law, he admonishes them for not having safeguarded the people with the law but for having made them slaves of so many little laws, of so many little things that they had to do. St Paul makes a good distinction: sons of law and sons of faith. To new wine, new wineskins. (Santa Marta, 5 September 2014)