Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Or Optional Memorial of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, virgin
Luke 5:33-39
New Wine, New Joy: Living Faith with Fresh Hearts

In today’s Gospel the Pharisees confront Jesus for the joy and freedom of his disciples. They were used to a religion of rules—fasting at fixed times, praying at fixed hours, and showing off piety with pale faces. Religion, for them, was meant to be heavy and uncomfortable.

But Jesus reveals something radically different: faith is not about misery, but about joy. He compares life with Him to a wedding feast, where the friends of the bridegroom share in the couple’s happiness. Christianity is not meant to suffocate life, but to fill it with light, laughter, and hope.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta often reminded her sisters that joy is a sign of holiness. She said, “A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.” Like Jesus, she knew that faith lived in gloom loses its attraction. Instead, Christian witness should make others “feel bathed in sunshine.”

But Jesus also warns that joy cannot be bottled in rigid minds and hardened traditions. He speaks of new patches on old garments and new wine in fresh wineskins. Faith must remain open to the Spirit, ready to grow, adapt, and bear fruit in changing times. To cling stubbornly to old ways can burst the wineskin and tear the cloth apart.

The Gospel challenges us: Are our hearts supple enough to receive the “new wine” of God’s Spirit? Or have we become hardened like old skins, unable to stretch? True discipleship means keeping our minds and hearts open, unafraid of fresh movements of grace.

Let us dare to live faith as Jesus and Mother Teresa did—with joy, with freedom, and with courage to embrace the new. For in Christ, the best wine is always still to come.

© Claretian Publications, Hong Kong, China
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2025