Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (9: 14-17) in which John’s disciples ask Jesus, ‘How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
Fr Paul says in these two stories about Jesus and the Pharisees we are deep within the problem of the relationship between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees.
First, in the yesterday’s story about Jesus dining with tax-collectors and sinners, Jesus has shown, that the heart of observance of the Law is not the ritual requirements of sacrifice but a welcome in love.

Now he goes one further, and by using these two parables Jesus implies that the time of the wedding-feast has already come. John the Baptist is the point where a change takes place from the old to the new.

Also, the patch of cloth and the new wineskins symbolise and reinforce that there is a radical break between Christianity and Judaism. It means that Christianity now builds on Judaism and takes it a step further.

Fr Paul invites us to reflect on today’s gospel challenge…how adaptable to change am I?