Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the Lord Jesus Who spoke to His disciples about the new and old wineskins, and how only new skins should be used to contain new wines, or else, if old wine is put into new wineskins and vice versa, they would not be compatible and will ruin everything. Similarly, our Lord Jesus also spoke of how a piece of new cloth put to patch a hole in an old cloth will just cause the tear to become even bigger.

In the first reading today, we heard about the disobedience of king Saul, the first king chosen by God to lead His people Israel, who refused to obey fully the commands of the Lord, Who had commanded that he and the Israelites destroy the Amalekites completely, from their king, towards all the women and children, all their cattle and their goods, for they have been a great enemy and a great hindrance to the people of God for a long time.

Instead, king Saul chose only to destroy the men and all the armaments of war and the people of the Amalekites, sparing not just the cattle, the lambs and the possessions of the Amalekites, but even sparing the life of their king, Agag. Saul tried to argue his way out of trouble by saying that he had spared the cattle and the possessions of the Amalekites in order to give sacrifices to the Lord as a symbol of thanksgiving, but he failed to realise that, as Samuel and the Lord had made it clear, that sacrifices are no more important than obedience. In fact, sacrifice made without obedience and understanding is meaningless.

Jesus our Lord Himself had often repeated this point as well, saying that like the faith of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who often followed the code of the law so strictly and emphasised so much on the rituals and the properness of the actions that one should undertake in the Law, that they had often forgotten the true meaning and purpose of the Law itself.

Yes, that is just as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were so engrossed with the preserving of the Law of God, such as the law of the Sabbath prohibiting people from doing anything as prescribed by the law of Moses, but yet failed to take notice that indeed, the purpose of such law is to help mankind to love God more and devote their time to the Lord rather than being constantly engrossed in their own daily business.

They fasted and prayed loudly in public places not because they loved the Lord or had a real piety and devotion to Him. Some of them might have been truly faithful, but for most of them, they did all those things in order to be noticed by the people, and to be praised and honoured for their supposed great piety and devotion to the Lord. And this is what the Lord Jesus mentioned as the old way, that is incompatible to the new way He was revealing to the world.

It is a clear reminder to all of us, that if we are to become the disciples and followers of the Lord, then we all have to forsake and leave behind our earthly and worldly ways, or else, the incompatibility between the two will cause a rift and a trouble for us in the days to come, just as the Lord Jesus showed it with the incompatibility of old wineskins and new wine.

The way of the world is the way of pride and desire, the desire to be praised, to receive fame and to be showered with good things in life. The way of the world is to turn our back to the Lord and to His love, and the way that we have usually followed is the path of selfishness and self-indulgence, which we must avoid if we are to be true disciples of our Lord.

Let us all renew all of our faith to God with great passion and good understanding what the Lord expects from us. He does not expect from us sacrifices or offerings, but rather the true offering of our love, our devotion, our commitment to Him. This is what He desires from us, rather than the long prayers and all the rituals. But do take note, that it does not mean that we should not pray, but rather, when we pray, from now on, let us do it with zeal and fervour.

May Almighty God bless us all and strengthen us, so that we all may cast away our old shell of life, and discard all the wicked things of the past which we had, and take up the new mantle of life that is blessed and in the grace of God. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.