04-09-2026, Friday of Twenty Second Week in Ordinary Time
1 Cor 4: 1-5; Ps 37: 3-6, 27-28, 39-40; Lk 5: 33-39
ἀσκοὺς παλαιούς (Gk) (askos palaios) (Old Wineskin) (Lk 5:37-38)
The Word to reflect today is from today’s Gospel passage according to Luke (5:33-39). The word askos palaios consists of two words. Askos means a leather bag; a bottle made of skin or a wineskin. palaios means old; what has existed for a long time; worn out, obsolete; former previous stubborn behaviour.
“No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment… And no one puts new wine into old wineskins…” (v. 36) Jesus notes that tearing a patch (epiblēma) from a new cloak destroys the new without truly mending the old. The Gospel Jesus preaches, is not an add-on meant to patch up human legalism; it is an entirely intact garment of grace.
askos is normally a skin container made of animal hide. As new wine ferments, it releases gases. Fresh leather stretches under the pressure; old, brittle, calcified leather has lost its elasticity and will burst. While talking about new wine and new wineskin, Luke uses two words kainos vs. neos. neos refers to time – wine that is freshly pressed, while kainos refers to quality and character New wine (neos) demands containers that share its transformative capacity (kainos).
The heart of Jesus’ message here is not a rejection of spiritual discipline, but a re-ordering of religious forms around the living Christ. The Pharisees viewed righteousness through the lens of rigid, inherited forms. They practiced fasting twice a week to maintain a standard of piety, but they failed to recognize the presence of the Bridegroom standing directly in front of them. When form replaces presence, religion ceases to be a source of life and becomes a brittle wineskin. The living, fermenting presence of the Holy Spirit and the radical grace of the Gospel carries internal pressure. It challenges our assumptions about who is acceptable, where God works, and what devotion requires. If our interior life is brittle, defensive, and calcified by habit, the presence of Christ will break us rather than renew us.
To be disciples of Jesus is to ask daily for a renewed heart, one that does not retreat to the easy comfort of the palaios (the old is good enough) but instead offers the humility and flexibility necessary to hold the vitality of Christ’s presence.
Are you trying to patch the gospel on your life of sin? Have you renewed your heart to old within the Gospel?