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Gospel: Luke 5: 33-39
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers,
and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same;
but yours eat and drink.”
Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
then they will fast in those days.”
And he also told them a parable.
“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.
Otherwise, he will tear the new
and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins,
and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new,
for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning in a time warp. Suddenly, you were living in the Stone Age.
You’ve become a hunter-gatherer who has to cook all of your food over an open fire. You’re living in a tent with no widows or a/c. Coffee, hot showers, deodorant, and hair driers are non-existent.
Life is suddenly very simple.
I’m sure we’d be miserable!
Thank God we’ve made advances over the centuries in science, technology, and medicine. Otherwise, life would be pretty rough.
Change can be good thing.
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This is what the Lord is saying in the Gospel.
“No one pours new wine into old wineskins… Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”
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You and I are being invited to see St. Pius X as a fresh wine skin – making us the new wine.
We have to think creatively about ways to engage new and future parishioners, both in-person and online.
We need minds and hearts open to technology; open to meeting new people; open to new leadership; new opportunities; and new programs.
We should also re-consider our own role in the parish. Can we try new things? New ministries?
Instead of sticking to the comfortable mentality of, “that’s the way things have always been,” or, “that’s always been his or her job,” perhaps we can step up.
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Just as life would be miserable if we were transported into the Stone Age, so nobody wants our parish to regress.
Rather, the opposite. We are all new wine being poured into a fresh wine skin.
Come, Holy Spirit.
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Image credits: (1) ChristInScripture.com (2) Society of the Precious Blood (3) Trinity Baptist Church, Senior Adult Weekly Devotional