Monday, January 16 : Saint Peter Chrysologus

“Why do we fast but your disciples do not?” Why? Because for you fasting is a matter of law. This isn’t a spontaneous gift. Fasting in itself is without value; what matters is the desire of the one who fasts. What sort of gain do you think you will get from your fasting if you fast under constraint and impelled by some law? Fasting is a splendid plow with which to work the field of holiness. But Christ’s disciples were set from the start right at the center of a field already ripe with holiness. They are eating newly garnered bread; how could they be obliged to now carry out outdated fasts. “Can the friends of the Bridegroom fast when the Bridegroom is with them?” Someone who is getting married gives himself up wholly to joy and takes part in the banquet; he shows himself affable and gay towards the guests; he does everything that stirs up his love for the bride. While he is living on earth Christ is celebrating his wedding with the Church. That is why he agrees to participate in the feast to which he is invited and does not refuse. Full of goodwill and love he shows himself human, approachable and friendly. Did he not come to unite man to God and to make of his friends members of the family of God? Similarly, said Jesus, “no one sews a new piece of cloth on to an old garment”. This new piece of cloth is the material of the Gospel, that which he is in process of weaving with the fleece of the Lamb of God: a royal robe that the blood of his Passion will shortly dye with purple. Now how could Christ consent to attach this new cloth to the outdated legalism of Israel? … And similarly, “no one pours new wine into old wineskins but the new wine is put into wholly new skins”. These new wineskins are Christians. It is Christ’s fast that will purify these skins from all stain so that they can keep intact the taste of the new wine. Thus the christian becomes the new skin that is ready to receive new wine, the wine of the Son’s wedding, crushed in the winepress of the cross.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team