Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Feast or Fasting

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 01-17-22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

MEMORIAL OF SAINT ANTHONY, ABBOT

MARK 2:18-22

Friends, in today’s Gospel, people ask Jesus why he doesn’t encourage fasting among his followers. Jesus’ answer is wonderful: “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (That’s a typically Jewish style, by the way: answering a question with another question.)

This great image of the wedding feast comes up frequently in the New Testament, most obviously in the wedding feast at Cana narrative. And it is echoed in the Tradition. Jesus is the wedding of heaven and earth, the marriage of divinity and humanity; he is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride. In him, the most intimate union is achieved between God and the world.

Could you imagine people fasting at a wedding banquet? Could you imagine going into an elegant room with your fellow guests and being served bread and water? It would be ridiculous! So says Jesus: “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.” The mark of the Christian dispensation is joy. Exuberance. Delight. God and the world have come together. What could be better news?

[MurphsLaw]

+++The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed
to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the
Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them,
“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with
them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot
fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away
from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”+++