New Wine for the Bridegroom's Feast · Sep 4, 2026

0:00Top of the morning to everyone, holiday, good morning, good morning. It's Friday and we are ending the retreat and we are heading out at the earliest at 10 30 this morning. So the McKee and Concentre is located at in Kalamba City and someone, I have been appointed with someone at New Valley. So after here I head out there to have lunch with him and then I return to Sarangani Concentre. Sorry, Sarangani study center only. So I have several things lined up for me this afternoon and I am so excited to do them for the glory of God of course for the love of God. And I invite you to try some of these activities that I do online. Anyhow we read now from chapter 5 who is saying, look, the scribes and Pharisees said to

1:03Jesus the disciples of John about this fast often and offer prayers in the disciples of the Pharisees do the same. But yours, your own disciples eat and drink. That's something to note. Different teachers we observe note that they have different emphasis, different styles. You know, the other one they are required to do this and this other teacher we have requires none of that. So we make comparisons. That's one of the functions of our intellect. We compare. We see differences. We see what's different in the others because we identify instinctively. So here it was the difference was the group of followings John the Baptist, the precursor,

2:08the one who prepared the wave the Lord for his coming. They fasted. And they offered prayers. Well, the disciples of Jesus, what they eat and drink. It sums well, they think that they do not fast offer sacrifices that is and neither do they pray because they eat and drink. This makes me recall the two prisoners debating with each other about how they smoke. At that time, people were still smoking a lot. So they received a ration of cigarettes per day. And one of them was studying in companion. You know, when I smoke, I pray. And the other one countered, nah, me, I pray and then I smoke. So I don't know who won, but it's interesting to see the difference.

3:08Right? Well, and you can translate that with other activities you know, I wash, I fix, I hammer this thing, I repair that thing and I speak, etc. I smoke. I pray while smoking. And we should also go one step further. The thing I'm doing is itself a prayer because I do it for God. I love God with it and through it I show him, I love him. Grateful for his gifts. Right? And this is my prayer. Work well done. Honest in accordance with the law of God. Right? And that's what we're called to do this. We're not called to you know, work and then separately we pray.

4:11Of course, this we should also do. I mean, imagine husband and wife, they don't stay together all the time unless they work together in the office, but normally they work in different places. The wife at home maybe or in the husband maybe, I don't know, somewhere out there. And he would call her in checking in on her and how are you? I love you, etc. But that doesn't mean that he will not want to go home and to be with his wife. Right? In fact, being with his wife will inspire him, fortify him, give him ideas of how he could be united with her during the day when he is physically separated from her. He would look, as we should look towards being with the Lord in prayer, you know, directly praying, reading his gospel, reading his spiritual reading book or the rosary and not make and as in excuse that I'm ready praying while I am eating, making business, collecting money, you know, because those activities are good, they're not bad, but we can do them

5:15for the love of God. And it becomes prayer, right? But that doesn't mean that we don't have a reserved time for praying, for being with the Lord and with the Lord alone. Can you make a Lord answer them, their protest, seeing this difference? Can you make the wedding guests fast when 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. So I mean, that got them to think, who is this bridegroom? These disciples were with the Lord. They had the Lord. And that's why they were celebrating, they had more rather than less because the Lord was there, the source of all good. This reminds me also of attending an activity or a seminar with the Prelude of Opus

6:17Day. Blessed Alvaro, blessed Bishop Javier Echamelia, who was a present father. I have not had the chance and the fortune of being with him in a seminar. I look forward to it. If ever I ask from the Lord right now for a chance to be with him. But anyhow, you know, so he, a Lord was trying to teach them that the bridegroom was with them. If I am with the father for sure in that seminar, it's going to be a okay because he is there. I mean, daddy is with us and he loves us very much. So we're going to experience his love. So it is also with the Lord. But there will come a time when the Lord will be taken away. Like when he went to his passion and death and they were suffering because it was a

7:21good suffering, a teaching moment in that suffering. They would experience what it meant to be without the Lord. So we would always look to be with the Lord because it's like sleeping, you know, sleeping late for whatever reason. And then the next day we feel that so much up to it, right? Sleepy, moody, whatever. Because we lack sleep. So it makes us resolve that I look forward to sleeping tonight. I would take better care of my sleep rather than waste time not sleeping. We make that desire. And this is what our Lord is with us. Our Lord wants to be with us. Can you make the wedding guest fast while the bridegroom is around? 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, apparently, no one tears a piece from an old piece from a new cloak

8:28to patch on an old one. It's like anachronistic, it's not sufficient adequate. It's not the right fix, you know. So the Lord was pointing this out. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins. And it will be spilled. It will be a waste. And the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wine skins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new. For he says, the old is good. Wine ages and it becomes better. Right? The old people apply this also to people. Sometimes, they older, they get the better they become because they have more experience and they have learned more lessons in life. That's why they are better. But that's the point. Our Lord was preparing for a new dispensation. There was the Old Testament and there we have the new.

9:32So we have a new covenant. New sacrifice is now the Lord was preparing them for this new sacrifice, which was his sacrifice in the cross. And without, we have a new dispensation. New wine into new wine skins. Thank you for listening and made the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain forever on it. Ciao.