Old and new

At the end of today’s Gospel, our Lord invokes different metaphors in different ways concerning things old and new.

The first two metaphors, about cloaks and wineskins, are relatively similar, warning against trying to put something new into something old.

For some of us, religion is a patch: something we wear, something that may fill a gap we may feel in our lives, but that really doesn’t affect our lives. We may point to the patch and proclaim our religiosity (“See? I’m a good Catholic!”), but it doesn’t match the rest of our lives.

Some of us are focused on the gifts of the Holy Spirit – we pray that we may be filled with the new wine of the Spirit – but we have not worked to change our lives, our habits and our attitudes. The result can be spiritual, emotional, and moral disaster.

We must be made anew – completely, inside and out – in the image of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is part of our continuing conversion and development as Christians.

In the third metaphor, our Lord reminds us that not everything new is automatically better. This is to remind us that the point of the other two metaphors is not the virtue of newness for its own sake, but newness in Him. The newest thing is not always the best thing. What is best is that which is most faithful to Christ, even if it is “old” in the eyes of the world (although eternal new in the wonders of God’s grace).

Behold! I make all things new, says the Lord.