Daily Gospel Reflection – Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Bishop Robert Barron
January 16, 2023
Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mk 2:18-22
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord says his disciples do not fast because God is holding a great wedding banquet.
You find the theme of the wedding throughout the Old Testament as a motif to express God’s covenant with his people. We’ve fallen apart in sin. We’ve gone into exile. And what does God want? He wants to call us back to a great wedding banquet.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus you find that same motif: he will gather the scattered tribes—yes, the elite, but also the sinners and the outcasts. All are welcome around the table of the Lord, establishing this wedding banquet and unity that God wants with his people.
Jesus presents himself as the coming together of heaven and earth. He’s the coming together of divinity and humanity in his own person. He is this wedding banquet. “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Because this great banquet is going on!
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