Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Mt 9: 14-17
July 08, 2023 | Saturday
Then the disciples of John came to him with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not your disciples?”
Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come,when the bridegroom will be taken away from bthem, and then, they will fast.
No one patches an old coat with a piece 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 wine 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.”
Today’s Reflection:
The gospel story informs us that for Jesus, asking His disciples to fast would be like fasting at a wedding which was something inconceivable in the rural Galilean culture of the time where weddings were one of the rare occasions when ordinary people would enjoy a really good feast. The disciples may not now be fasting but Jesus points to a time when they will indeed fast, the time when He will be “taken away” in suffering and death. Looking at our practice of fasting as Christians, we only have an hour of Eucharistic fasting. We fast only on Ash Wednesdays and Good Fridays, yet we are still allowed to eat one full meal on those days. We Christians must recover the meaning of fasting. It is not only a discipline but a spiritual activity. Everytime we fast, let us reflect on the reason behind our fasting. /Vulnerasti, 2023
