MIKE’S MEDITATIONS
New Wineskins By Mike Van Vranken
W
e have all shared our longing for walking down that aisle to “take and eat” and “take and drink” the real presence of Christ. Knowing the “real presence” is already in each one of us, we have equally missed our church communities; the sojourners we experience Mass with each week, or even daily. We waited patiently, and sometimes not so patiently, for churches to reopen. We want things to “go back” to where they were. In all of this, I have a new understanding of Jesus’ statement: “People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17.) Or, as the Message Bible says: “you don’t put your wine in cracked bottles.” Of course, we have had the “new wine” all along. We just have trouble placing it in new and uncracked bottles. Jesus gave us this “new wine” when He explained how He came to fulfill the law (old wine.) He continued to teach us how to be blessed, now, already in His real presence. Some apparent ways to experience community and real presence were given to us 2,000 years ago. Jesus said, we are blessed when we are poor in spirit. Can we find the real presence of Christ in the community of the financially poor, and the poor in spirit? Are we so hesitant to meet the real presence in the poor communities because of our lack of generous openhandedness? Could our new normal be one of blessing because we join the poor with our generosity and our presence with Christ among them? Jesus said we are blessed when we are meek. He does not describe us as “Christian Soldiers” and certainly not as “militants.” In our meekness, do we search the real presence of Christ in the suffering communities around us? Are we interested in meekly being present to Christ there? We are blessed when we show mercy. Every community on earth needs mercy, compassion and forgiveness. When we show it to each other, we show it to Christ. Do we have any interest in the real presence of Christ by showing mercy to every, single community out there? We are blessed when we hunger and thirst for justice. There are many communities who deserve justice. And, of course, the real presence of Christ is living among them. Are we? We are blessed when we have a clean heart. He does not say a clean “mind” nor a clean “body.” A clean heart blesses us. Are we willing to detach from our biases and closed minds to grow into clean hearted ministers to the real presence of Christ in communities who do not look or think like we do? We are blessed when we are peacemakers. Do you see any 12 THE CATHOLIC CONNECTION
communities in our society who are at odds with each other? Everywhere, right? As a peacemaker, can you experience Christ in those communities? Is He calling you to be that peacemaker? And, of course, we are blessed when persecuted and insulted when we look for Van Vranken and find Christ in those communities. And the blessing here is so great, we are called by Jesus to “rejoice and be glad.” Finding and consuming the real presence of Christ in our churches is still vital to us, and rightly so. But that alone is not our calling. Neither are we called to shout the good news from the rooftops. Instead, Christ is inviting us to live these blessings as found in Matthew 5:3-12. And, as we see them clearer today because of our pandemic experiences, they become, once again, our new wine; our new normal as prescribed by Jesus. Are you ready to put this new wine into a transformed way of experiencing Christ by living these beatitudes? Even better said, are you ready to pour this new wine into your new wineskin? Do you have the courage to find the real presence of Christ in these needy communities? Or, are you so desperately clutching to your old wineskins (old ways of doing things) that you are blind to see that these old containers are already leaking all over your shoes? We may not readily have answers to all these questions. But God certainly does. Daily conversations with him will allow you to hear his answers as you experience the real presence of Christ within yourself. Mike Van Vranken is a spiritual director, a member of the teaching staff for the Archdiocesan Spirituality Center of New Orleans Formation of New Spiritual Directors, an author and a speaker. You can contact him at mikevanvranken@comcast.net.
