My Thoughts on 04/07/2020

Don’t you love that three letter word, “NEW”. If we put this word new in front of anything then often the implication is that it is better. It is different. We all find new things attractive.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says people do not put new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. In the time of Jesus they used leather to carry liquids. The leather gradually dried out and hardened. Apparently new wine created gas as it fermented. This would burst the old skins which had no flexibility.

The way of Jesus was like new wine. The rigidity and customs of the Pharisees couldn’t contain this way. St Pope John Paul II coined the term “new evangelisation”, a new way of sharing the good news. We are certainly living in a changing era as a church when we need to be more flexible and creative about sharing the good news of Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

May the Holy Spirit give us fresh courage to express the original message of Jesus in ways that appeal to the people of our time.

Canon Father Anthony Charlton
Canon Father Anthony CharltonParish Priest