Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
One particularly wonderful aspect of Jesus’ teaching is the immensely practical way that He crafts analogies and parables to help people grasp the underlying meaning that He’s really getting at. God knows us and loves us better than we do ourselves and it is truly marvelous to consider how He meets us where we are as incarnate human people and engages us in ways that we can comprehend.
When questioned about the practices of His own disciples in comparison to those of the Pharisees, Jesus uses the analogy of the old and new wineskins to explain the dynamic between the Old and New Covenants. The primary point of the comparison is that it is simply not possible for the fullness of the New Covenant to be contained within the parameters of the Old Covenant. This does not invalidate the Old Covenant by any means. The mysteries contained within the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ are all accomplished according to and represent a fulfillment of the Old Covenant in the highest possible manner. That said, the mysteries of the Redemption are not just business as usual according to the Old Covenant either. Christ is literally renewing all of Creation and bringing all things into one in Himself. This enterprise requires new ways of understanding what He is doing and why. As such, it is not possible for the old wine skins (i.e., the Old Covenant) to accommodate the fullness and glory of the infinite merits obtained through Christ’s Resurrection. Instead, new wine skins (a New Covenant and a new Church) are required to contain these mysteries.