Reflection for January 16, Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time: Mark 2:18-22

Gospel Mark 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.”

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Reflection:

What is a wineskin? A wineskin is a dried goat or sheep’s skin used as a container for wine this is perhaps the equivalent of wine bottle or wine drum today. What is the relevance of the new wineskin which represents Jesus?  

By our sinfulness we become the old wine that is not fit to be poured into the new wineskin. But if we desire to be poured into the new wineskin we have to decide to leave behind our old sinful lives. 

Thus we become new wine that is very much appropriate for the new wineskin. And the moment we are poured into this new wineskin we become secure. In other words the new wineskin which is Jesus Himself becomes our security blanket. Jesus is always offering Himself to us so that we can have a new life in this world. What He only asks from us is to leave behind our sinfulness.  

Has sin done us any good? No it did no good to us and it will never do good to us in the future! We therefore have to leave it behind so that we could journey in this world hand in hand with our new wineskin and our security blanket which is none other than Jesus. -  Marino J. Dasmarinas