The Alleluia verse before today’s Gospel reads thus:
The word of God is living and effective, able to discern the thoughts and reflections of the heart.
Why do we do the things we do? It’s good to pause and re-examine our motivations.
Saul’s rejection and the question of fasting are good mirrors to hold up to our own lives. May it spur us to the reason for the season of Ordinary Time: Repent and Believe in the Gospel. Let us examine our lives and continuously seek improvement – for the time allotted us is but a flap in the wind.
The Fall of Saul
Although Saul claimed to be obeying the Lord and fulfilling the mission he was given, the prophet Samuel points out the errors of his ways.
For a sin like divination is rebellion,
and presumption is the crime of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the command of the LORD,
the LORD in turn has rejected you as king. (1 Samuel 15:23)
We too can fall into this trap, and it would behoove us to pay attention to the
subtle and glaring ways in which we deviate from the will of God for our lives.
On a human level, I’m all too aware of the ways in which I twist and mold the
requests made by loved ones to suit my schemes and dreams. Such divination and presumption can creep into our relationship with God as well.
Paragons of obedience and submission include all three members of the Holy Family. Each of them lived and modelled for us the way to live out these virtues. We can turn to them for assistance!
What’s in your wineskin?
No one pours new wine into old wineskins. So sayeth Our Lord.
We can get comfortable with the wine we’re accustomed to drinking, thinking to ourselves: the Old is Gold.
But Our Lord is constantly pushing us out of our comfort zones, so unless we renew ourselves continuously, we’ll be stuck in our old rut.
There’s also the danger of relying on I, me, myself.
The responsorial psalm warns us:
Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you? (Psalm 50:16bc-17)
The key is to be “Spirit-led”, allowing the Holy Spirit to work
powerfully in our souls and remind us of the saving power of God.
Staying close to the sacraments, ruthlessly exterminating our flaws and filling
our ‘skins with the life-giving blood proffered to us by the Lamb of God
is the only way we can hope to fulfill His will for us’.
We are but wineskins, but the wine within should be divine.
Why Fast?
Let’s take up the question of Fasting. Jesus invites his hearers to question our motives for fasting. For the apostles, fasting was impossible while Jesus inhabited the Earth, but once He was taken up, they would indeed be required to fast.
So, what should be our motivation to fast? I suspect each of my readers will have their own answer to this question, but allow me to share Mary’s Five Stones as revealed to the visionaries in Medjugorje. The Five Stones are similar to the five small stones that David used to slay Goliath. These are Prayer of the heart, the Word of God, Fasting, Sacramental Confession and the Eucharist. Reference: https://www.medjugorje.org/ol5step.htm
Why Fast? In order to empty ourselves to be ready for God’s fullness and freedom.
