NEW JOY OF RELATIONSHIP
Know that the Lord is God; He made us, His we are; His people, the flock
He tends.
In all history
Jesus Christ stands apart. He is unique! There is simply no one else like Him,
nor will there ever be. As the eternal Son of God, He exists before all of
creation. As man He was born in time but continues now in a glorious form of
human existence. These are profound truths, difficult to grasp.
The reason St. Paul
addressed these great truths is that there was confusion among the Colossians.
They actually thought it possible that something created, especially the
angels, could be superior to Christ. Paul says a resounding "No" to
that thought. Christ, existing before all else that is, is actually the cause
of all creation together with His Father. Jesus is the head of all creation. As
human, Christ is the head of the Church.
These days I doubt
that we are tempted to think that angels could be superior to Christ Jesus or
that anyone in the Church could possibly be more important than Jesus. Maybe we
need to think of new forms of temptations, modern values which could be seen as
superior to Christ Jesus.
The question comes
down to, what are our values in life? How much worth do we place in money,
power, prestige, popularity, even just getting our own way all the time? Are we
perhaps falling prey to the myriads of commercials on TV which are designing to
make us always want something more or something better? Are material things the
source of our real joy?
In the Gospel today
we hear about fasting and feasting. In a consumer culture like ours, fasting
and prayer is needed to deepen our spiritual growth in our trust of God. The
disciples of John the Baptist were upset with Jesus' disciples because they did
not fast. Jesus gives a simple explanation. There's a time for fasting and a
time for feasting and celebrating! To walk as a disciple with Jesus is to
experience a whole new joy of relationship akin to the joy of the wedding party
with the groom and bride. To be a disciple there is both a time for rejoicing
in the God's presence and celebrating His goodness and a time for seeking the
Lord with humility, fasting and prayer.
Jesus goes on to
warn the disciples about the problem of the "closed mind" that
refuses to learn new things. Jesus used an image familiar to the people of His
time - new and old wineskins. What did Jesus mean by this comparison? Are we to
reject the old in place of the new? Just as there is a right place and a right
time for fasting and for feasting, so there is a right place for the old as
well as the new. "Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who
brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
In the Responsorial
Psalm we pray - Know that the Lord is God; He made us, His we are; His people,
the flock He tends.
We are called to
enjoy going out together into common pastures, playing together, working
together, and living our life together. Jesus showed us how to be a part of a
community - a community person in the full sense of the term. We are members of
the flock because Jesus is our head; Jesus is the Shepherd of life.
Our challenge today:
God wants our minds and hearts to be like the new wine skins - open and ready
to receive the new wine of His Holy Spirit.