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Saint Luke 5:33-39.

by Daily Gospel | Source: Daily Gospel

Letter to the Colossians 1:15-20.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross (through him), whether those on earth or those in heaven.

Psalms 100(99):2.3.4.5.

Worship the LORD with cries of gladness; come before him with joyful song.
Know that the LORD is God, our maker to whom we belong, whosepeople we are, God's well-tended flock.
Enter the temple gates with praise, its courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks to God, bless his name;
good indeed is the LORD, Whose love endures forever, whose faithfulness lasts through every age.


Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 5:33-39.

The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, "The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same ; but yours eat and drink."
Jesus answered them, "Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days."
And he also told them a parable. "No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
(And) no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"



Commentary of the day
Blessed John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Apostolic Letter « Mulieris Dignitatem » §23 (© Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

«The wedding guests»

"'A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church" (Ep 5,31-32). This quotation from the Letter to the Ephesians... compares the spousal character of the love between man and woman to the mystery of Christ and of the Church. Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church - the Church is the Bride of Christ. This analogy is not without precedent; it transfers to the New Testament what was already contained in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.48 (Hos 1,2; 2,16-18; Jr 2,2; Ez 16,8; Is 50,1; 54,5-8)... In these prophets the woman-bride is Israel, God's Chosen People, and this choice originates exclusively in God's gratuitous love. It is precisely this love which explains the Covenant, a Covenant often presented as a marriage covenant which God always renews with his Chosen People. On the part of God the Covenant is a lasting "commitment"; he remains faithful to his spousal love even if the bride often shows herself to be unfaithful.

This image of spousal love, together with the figure of the divine Bridegroom - a very clear image in the texts of the Prophets - finds crowning confirmation in the Letter to the Ephesians... where the fullest expression of the truth about Christ the Redeemer's love, according to the analogy of spousal love in marriage, is found: "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (5:25), thereby fully confirming the fact that the Church is the bride of Christ: "The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer" (Is 54:5). In Saint Paul's text the analogy of the spousal relationship moves simultaneously in two directions which make up the whole of the "great mystery" ("sacramentum magnum"). The covenant proper to spouses "explains" the spousal character of the union of Christ with the Church, and in its turn this union, as a "great sacrament", determines the sacramentality of marriage as a holy covenant between the two spouses, man and woman.