The bridegroom is with them

Gospel of the Day (Luke 5:33-39)

And they said to him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink."

Jesus answered them, "Can you make the wedding guests fast while 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."

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.

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.

Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.

(And) no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"

***

Reflections:

"The bridegroom is with them"

In love alone, of all the movements of the soul and the senses and affections, can the creature respond to the Creator, if not with an equal, at least with a like return of gift for gift... the Bridegroom's love, or rather the Bridegroom who is Love, asks only the commitment of love and faith. Let the beloved love in return. How can the Bride not love, the Bride of Love himself? How can Love not be loved? So, rightly renouncing all other desires, she gives herself up wholly to Love, for it is in responding to Love that she is able to return love.

For though she pours herself out completely in love, what is that in comparison with the inexhaustible flow of love from his spring? Love does not flow in equal measure from her who loves and Love himself, the soul and the Word, the Bride and the Bridegroom, creature and Creator, any more than a thirsty man is like a fountain... The desire of her who longs, the ardor of her who loves, the trust of her who is confident, because she cannot run step for step with a giant (Ps 19[18],6), rival honey in sweetness, the lamb in mildness, the lily in whiteness, the sun in brightness, or match in her love him who is Love? No. For even if the creature loves less because it is lesser, yet if she loves with all her heart, nothing is lacking where all is given...

This love is nothing other than holy and chaste love, love sweet and tender, love as tranquil as it is true, mutual, close, deep love, which is not in one flesh but which joins two in one spirit, making two no longer two but one. As Paul says: «He who is united to God is one spirit with him» (1Cor 6,17).