THE DAILY GOSPEL

July 4, 2015 (Saturday)

Ps 135:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6 Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

13th Week in Ordinary Time Psalter: Week 1/(Green/White) St. Elizabeth of Portugal, married woman, queen 1st Reading: Gen 27:1-5, 15-29

When Isaac was old and his eyes so weak that he could no longer see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” he answered. Isaac continued, “You see I amold and I don’t know when I shall die; so take your weapons, your bow and arrow, go out into the country and hunt some game for me. Then prepare some of the savory food I like and bring it to me so that I may eat and give you my blessing before I die.”

Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her elder son Esau that she had in the house and put them on Jacob, her younger son. With the goatskin she covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck, and she handed to him the bread and food she had prepared.

He went to his father and said, “Father!” He answered, “Yes, my son, who is it?” and Jacob said to his father, “It is Esau, your first-born; I have done what you told me to do. Come, sit up and eat my game so that you may give me your blessing.” Isaac said, “How quick you have been my son!” Jacob said,

“Yahweh, your God, guided me.” Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near and let me feel you, my son, and know that it is you, Esau my son, or not.”

When Jacob drew near to Isaac, his father felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like the hands of Esau his brother and so he blessed him. He asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” and Jacob answered, “I am.” Isaac said, “Bring me some of your game, my son, so that I may eat and give you my blessing.” So Jacob brought it to him and he ate. And he brought him wine and he drank. Then, his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” So Jacob came near and kissed him.

Isaac then caught the smell of his clothes and blessed him, saying, “The smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. May God give you of the dew of heaven; and of the richness of the earth; and abundance of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you and nations bow down before you. Be lord over your brothers, and let your mother’s sons bow down to you.

Cursed be everyone that curses you and blessed be everyone that blesses you!” Gospel: Mt 9:14-17

Then the disciples of John came to him with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not your disciples?”

Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then, they will fast.

“No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for the patch will shrink and tear an even bigger hole in the coat. In the same way, you don’t put new wine into old wine skins. If you do, the wine skins will burst and the wine will be spilt. No, you put new wine into fresh skins; then both are preserved.” Reflection:

Some things do not go well together. For example, if you paint a mustache on Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, you get a horrible caricature of beauty. The same principle applies to fashion: You don’t wear jeans with a tuxedo, a tiara with a swimsuit or a tie with a T-shirt. Also in matters of food and drink, you eat a hot dog with a coke, not with a fine French wine like a Chateau-Lafite, just as you eat a delicious Gorgonzola cheese with a long French bread, not with an oreo cookie.

Likewise, Jesus tells us in today’s gospel reading, a lot of practices, institutions and beliefs belonging to Judaism cannot mix with the revelation he brings. This is made abundantly clear in the famous six antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount. There, six times Jesus quotes the Old Testament and either corrects it, radicalizes it or alters it beyond recognition (cf. Mt 5:21-48).

Incidentally, the same directing principle (no old wine in new wineskins) applies to our efforts at inculturating the gospel into our modern world. Some things of the modern world are quite compatible with the gospel (v.g. concern for a just society, gender equality, rejection of racial discrimination, etc.) while some others are not (abortion, divorce, sexual promiscuity, etc.). Oil and water do not mix.

Claretian Communications Foundation Inc.; 8 Mayumi Street, UP Village, Diliman, 1101 Quezon City; Tel.: (02) 921-3984, 922-9806; Fax: (02) 921-6205; e-mail: www.claretianpublications.com/ cci@claret.org; website: ccfi@claretphilippines.com