You’ve done everything to hold yourself together.

To put things in place. 

To fix yourself.

Yet, somehow, your life continues to be a mess—in your relationships, your finances, your health, your spiritual life, or all of the above.

Why? Because you can’t really fix yourself. All the more others can’t fix you. It’s because you did not make yourself. Others didn’t make you. 

If your cell phone breaks, do you fix it yourself? No. You can’t. You didn’t make it. You bring it to the one who knows it more—ideally to its maker or to people whom the maker trained to fix it. You bring it back to the source!

So you want your life to be fixed? Bring it back to the One who made it. He knows how to fix you and will be ecstatic to do so. He loves you!

Alvin Barcelona (apb_ayo@yahoo.com)

reflect

Listen to this song by Coldplay. Hear Jesus singing it to you: “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed / When you get what you want, but not what you need / When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep / Stuck in reverse / Lights will guide you home /And ignite your bones / And I will try to fix you.”

Dear God, I come before You. I surrender my life to You. You can—and will—hold things together in my life. You can and will fix me! In Jesus’ name. Amen.

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

Saint Paul describes Jesus as the “firstborn of all creation.” He has a preeminent place as the god-man over all creation. In fact, all creation is for Him and is shaped in His image. All the fullness of God dwells in Jesus so that when we encounter Him, we truly encounter God in the flesh.

¹⁵ Brothers and sisters, Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ 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.

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 4, 5

R: Come with joy into the presence of the Lord. 

¹ Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands; ² serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful song. (R) ³ Know that the Lord is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends. (R) ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise; give thanks to him; bless his name. (R) ⁵ For he is good, the Lord, whose kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all generations. (R) 

Gospel | Luke 5:33-39

The Pharisees fasted twice a week and saw this as an important part of their spiritual practice. They were scandalized by Jesus, a prominent rabbi and leader with a huge following of Jews, who did not insist that His disciples fast. Jesus said that He was ushering in a new people of God with His ministry and not just a pious Jewish association. The coming of God’s Kingdom was realized in feasting and joyful celebrations rather than in fasting. Yet later, when Jesus had risen, the disciples and the church would practice fasting. 

Gospel Acclamation

I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.

³³ 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.” ³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵ But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” ³⁶ 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. ³⁷ 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. ³⁸ Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. ³⁹ And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

Read the Bible in one year! Read JEREMIAH 15 - 18 today.

Today’s Gospel speaks a lot about our tendency to insist or impose our beliefs on others, as if we are the standard of what is true, good, and beautiful. In Tagalog, we call it “m a ku l i t ,” which literally means being repetitive or insistent. 

The scribes and the Pharisees were exactly like that. They were very insistent on their practices and challenged Jesus by asking Him why “the disciples of John the Baptist fast so often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but Yours eat and drink” (Luke 5:33). 

This, we find so true on social media. Notice how we, from the older generation, would comment at how better we are than the young ones? Call it generation gap, but when we—whether old or young—insist on being more correct, more right, or more true than others, we eventually divide our world into conservatives and traditionalists versus liberals and progressives. We end up more confused on what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, what is clean and unclean. We forget that we only have one distinction from others, which is our being Christians or followers of Christ.

Jesus tells us today the rule of thumb in order to find Him who is Truth Himself and avoid division: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins . . . Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.” (Luke 5:37-38).

Let us always seek Jesus first in everything because whatever is dull becomes clearer when seen and understood in the light of Christ. It is when we are most insistent that we negate Christ, even if we claim that whatever we are doing or planning is in His name. 

Fr. Nick Lalog

reflection questions

What aspects of life have you been most insistent about that have led to misunderstandings with your family and friends? What makes you hold on to what you believe in and insist on it, even if you don’t find Christ in it?  

Lord Jesus, help me to center my life in You alone. Make me a new wineskin to be filled with You and to remain rooted in You. Amen.

Today, I pray for: _______________________________________