Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Intention: For students returning to Lasallian schools this week, that they find in their classrooms teachers who know their names and expect good things of them.
Today’s 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.’”
From the Second Meditation for the Time of Retreat | Saint John Baptist de La Salle
Do you look upon the good that you are trying to achieve in them as the foundation of all the good that they will practice for the rest of their lives? The habits of virtue that are cultivated in oneself during youth encounter less resistance in corrupt nature and form the deepest roots in the hearts of those in whom they have been formed.
Prayer
Eternal Father, your Son warned against forcing something new into a container that cannot hold it. Give us honesty about the habits and structures we have outgrown. Give us patience with those who still prefer the old wine, and humility to admit when we are the ones holding on. Make us willing to be stretched. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.