Today’s readings felt very challenging for me to distill into one striking theme in a single stride. Even though the theme of God commanding obedience as better than sacrifice stood out in the first reading (1 Samuel 15:16-23), I didn’t want to get myself morally conflicted with the idea of totally exterminating the Amalekites. Nevertheless, Jesus offers us a powerful image that holds everything together in the gospel with the metaphor of new wine and old wineskins (Mark 2:18-22). While the gospel message reiterated fasting or religious customs, I chose the idea of readiness for renewal. New seasons often demand new capacity, and new grace usually requires a repositioning of the heart, the mind, and the spirit. In that light, the Church’s Ordinary Time wouldn’t seem ordinary; it will become a steady invitation to grow, deepen, bloom, and re-strategize for fruitfulness.
One of the most practical ways to begin something new from something older is to pause and reassess. What progress did we truly make? What patterns supported our growth, and what habits quietly weakened our momentum? Beginning a new year, both civilly and liturgically, will call for similar honest evaluation: not to shame ourselves, but to become wiser stewards of our time, relationships, and vocation. The Lord does not demand perfection, which will be utopian considering human limitations. He calls for openness, flexibility, and the courage to let Him renew what has grown tired within us.
So, as we celebrate this Holy Eucharist, we place ourselves confidently in God’s hands with a simple prayer: that He may teach us His accurate measures of success and give us the grace to improve our lives. Where our efforts yielded good fruit, our prayer is that He may multiply it; where things did not go well, that He may purify our vision and guide us into better paths. And where we need a completely new beginning, that God may pour His “new wine” into us, so that our future becomes richer in wisdom, stronger in hope, and more faithful in love than the past.
