When asked a question about his disciples fasting, Jesus said there would be a time that they would fast after his Ascension into heaven. To help us understand how vital fasting is in our walk with Jesus, he tells a parable about wineskins.
What do wineskins have to do with fasting?
When wineskins age, they become brittle and can leak. New wineskins are flexible and expand under the pressure of the fragmenting gas. Well, like wineskins, we have to ferment too. Our minds and hearts must expand to bear Jesus to the world, and no one who comes to know Christ Jesus personally can stay the same.
Just think how entrenched we become in our thinking and attitudes. When we do and refuse to change, our hearts become hardened like an old wineskin. When we fast, we deny what is ours so we can grow into what is Christ’s. We’re hungry for all he offers us that is new and different.
Our hardened hearts will crack if we don’t fast because Jesus is more than we can humanly hold. Our old ways of thinking and behaving, praying, and relating to God and people are like old wineskins with no give. My way or the highway, we say.
Please, God, we will change and grow and, like all the saints, become another Christ. I love this saying of St. Padre Pio “If the people of the whole world could see the beauty of only one soul when it is in the grace of God, all sinners and unbelievers of this world be converted.”
Discover that beauty in your soul today through a fast.
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FASTING AND BEAUTY
When asked a question about his disciples fasting, Jesus said there would be a time that they would fast after his Ascension into heaven. To help us understand how vital fasting is in our walk with Jesus, he tells a parable about wineskins.
What do wineskins have to do with fasting?
When wineskins age, they become brittle and can leak. New wineskins are flexible and expand under the pressure of the fragmenting gas. Well, like wineskins, we have to ferment too. Our minds and hearts must expand to bear Jesus to the world, and no one who comes to know Christ Jesus personally can stay the same.
Just think how entrenched we become in our thinking and attitudes. When we do and refuse to change, our hearts become hardened like an old wineskin. When we fast, we deny what is ours so we can grow into what is Christ’s. We’re hungry for all he offers us that is new and different.
Our hardened hearts will crack if we don’t fast because Jesus is more than we can humanly hold. Our old ways of thinking and behaving, praying, and relating to God and people are like old wineskins with no give. My way or the highway, we say.
Please, God, we will change and grow and, like all the saints, become another Christ. I love this saying of St. Padre Pio “If the people of the whole world could see the beauty of only one soul when it is in the grace of God, all sinners and unbelievers of this world be converted.”
Discover that beauty in your soul today through a fast.
IGNITE THE FIRE!
Father Rick Pilger, I.C.
pastor
Fr. Rick Pilger, I.C.
Pastor
Blessed Sacrament Church
11565 66th Ave. N.
Seminole, FL 33772
727-391-4661
pastor
www.bscchurch.com
or .
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