Jesus said to the Pharisees, "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."
Note: I gave this meditation this morning at Ursuline Academy's all-school Mass.
Something big is soon coming out. The new iPhone will be announced on September 10th, 2013. The world is waiting and watching.
Last month, apple announced a new operating system to go with it: the iOS7.
The two - hardware and software- will soon become one. They were made for each other.
New wine and new wineskins. You don't put old wine into new wineskins. You just don't do that. If you do, the new wineskins will burst. Similarly, you don't put a new operating system into an old phone. If you do, the old phone will burst. [I know, my iPhone 3 is constantly crashing.] Instead, you put a new operating system in a new phone.
The Holy Spirit is our new operating system. How does it work? Just like Jesus Christ!
We are the Lord's hardware, his handiwork. The old operating system didn't work well for us. It wasn't meant to. It was too simple, and we are not simple. In many ways, it was limited to "Thou shalt not..." The code was harsh: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
The old operating system was simply a preparation, a prototype, to the much more complicated operating system that was to come; the one that we could handle and that was really built for us.
Come Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here. It is our new and everlasting operating system. She is a beauty, exactly what we need. We were built for her. And even though she is thousands of years old, she continues to surprise, challenge and inspire us.
She is forever young, forever new and forever wild.
As an old iPhone will burst with a new operating system, so we too will burst with the wrong operating system; that is, driven by poor self-image, a bad attitude, and/or an unhealthy lifestyle.
Ariel Castro burst! When his reality changed, he didn't change with it. Instead, he burst!
When you are faced with unrelenting difficulties or horrific news do you burst? When your reality changes for the worst, do you burst? You shouldn't. Christ never burst. If anything, he sustained all things, survived all things, and succeeded in all things. Why? Because his operating system was based on love.
We need to get rid of the old operating system. We don't need to sin to have a good time; to be happy; to be rich; to be famous; to be popular; to be loved; to be influential; to laugh; to smile; to be powerful; to be accepted; or to be in control.
We don't need to use war to obtain peace. We don't need to bomb to restore order. These ideas are all from the old operating system. They have been tried. They have been tested. They have all failed.
There are so many forces that are out of our control. Faith and love are not out of our control. We have free will. We can choose to believe and to love. No one can take that away.
What is shocking to me is that love is in my control. This is shocking because God's essence is Love, and God is out of my control. But because of the Holy Spirit, I have been given the grace to participate in God's love, to contribute to it, and to share it with others.
"It is no longer I who live in me, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).
Out with the old. In with the new.
Father,
ReplyDeleteWould you please mention something about our Holy Father's request to fast and pray tomorrow for the situation in Syria? We can do so much more than we realize if we unite with all Christians, people of other faiths and all people of good will, as Pope Francis has said. We do have control.... to sacrifice and love.
Mary
BEAUTIFUL MEDITATION.
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