I grew up in what some people would call “a very Catholic” home. My grandparents (especially my grandmother) were very devout Catholics, who raised my mother with a very strong religious character, which she transmitted to my siblings and me. I certainly received a formation in faith from them, but that faith was presented to me as something that was greatly dependent on my efforts and my strength. I was constantly told that “I had to behave, otherwise baby Jesus was going to be sad,” or that “I had to say my prayers so that God would be happy and would bless me,” or that “I had to try hard to be a good boy at all times because God sees everything.”
To be sure, my family instilled in me love for the Church, an awareness of the power of the sacraments, a strong set of moral values and respect for our Catholic Tradition. Nevertheless, it was mostly based on my efforts, my strength, and my merits. It goes beyond saying that I grew up conscious that I was falling short of being the “good Catholic” boy I was supposed to be.
The Spirit of Christ
Once, with the occasion of a youth meeting with Pope St. John Paul II in Loreto, Italy, I was able to listen to the preaching of a lay missionary man, who was announcing the possibility to live faith, in a way that seemed totally new to me. He was speaking of the same faith I had been raised in, but he strongly announced that this faith was the Spirit of Christ working in me, not the fruit of my efforts and my strength. Moreover, he said that if we accepted the announcement he was making and desired it to become true in our lives, at that very moment the Holy Spirit could start working in us, giving us this faith. I was very struck by the preaching of this man and something changed in me that day. I had been exposed to the “new wine,” of the grace of Christ, and I felt called to allow the Spirit to change me into a “new wineskin,” able to hold this wine. I can say, that, on that beautiful summer day of 1995, I experienced today’s gospel seeing how the Lord wanted to put “new wine into new wineskins.”
New Wine
Jesus Christ came to preach and to announce the novelty of the gospel. He came to offer the “new wine,” of the life of grace that we could receive as a fruit of His death and resurrection. As we can see in today’s gospel, the newness of Christ’s message clashed with the views and practices of the Pharisees and the disciples of John, who thought that by their efforts and ascetic practices alone, they were making way to the coming of the Kingdom of God. They relied on the “old wine” of the Law, understood as a series of precepts and commandments we are called to conform to with our own efforts.
Christ came to show how His salvific mission consisted in making possible what our strength alone could have never fulfill. Yes, the Law is fundamental and essential for living in the Kingdom of God. But it is the “new wine” of the grace infused in us by the Spirit of Christ, the one that empowers us to fulfill the Law in its fullness. The “new wine” offered by Christ gives us the possibility of enjoying already here the banquet of eternal life. It is a completely new vision of our life of faith! We do not have to try hard, apply a lot of effort, suffer in this world, so that at the end, when we die, we can receive heaven as a prize we have earned. The “new wine” of the Spirit of Christ in us allows us to see that the Kingdom of God has been earned for us by Christ, and that He wants to give it to us for free!
An Invitation
Let us receive this word today as an invitation to accept the “new wine” the Lord wants to give us in abundance. I know that most of us tend to see Christianity solely as a religion of efforts and merits. And that most of us are “trying” very hard to be good Catholics and feeling that we fall short in the process. I invite you to be open to let yourself be transformed into “new wineskins” that may hold the “new wine” of Christ’s grace. Allow the Spirit of Christ to work in you and to help you receive fully the newness of Christ’s message. Thus, you will be ready to experience the beauty of the Kingdom of God, already here on earth. God bless you all!
