Jesus answered expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is come, when
the bridegroom will be taken away from them, No one patches of unshrunken cloth, for the
patch will shrink and tear an even bigger hole in the coat. In the same way, you don’t put new
into old wine skins. If you do, the wine skins will burst and the wine will be
spilt. No, you put new wine into fresh skins; then both are preserved.”

Reflect

“A new wineskin.” A life changed can be likened to a new wine placed in
a new wineskin. An old wineskin cannot preserve a new wine. An old wineskin will burst
if new wine is put in it. Similarly, if our actions still reflect our old life even if we think or
claim that we have changed, our claim will not hold. One of the indicators that we are
merely like a new wine placed in an old wineskin is our inability to look into ourselves while
we have the energy to look at other people. In today’s Gospel, the disciples of John the
Baptist came to Jesus, posing a question with regards to fasting. They and the Pharisees,
accordingly, were fasting but Jesus’ disciples were not. This somehow betrayed
their shallow motivation as regards the reason why they were fasting. If they were
convinced that fasting was helping them, there is no point as to why they would
be questioning people who were not doing the things they were doing. It is our capacity to
do self-introspection that will enable us to proceed with our faith journey, which is a journey
toward an ongoing conversion.

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