“No one pours new wine into old wineskins” (Mark 2:22).
- Jesus’ arrival heralds the beginning of a completely and definitively new age.
- Jesus establishes His Church as the new wineskins through which His Spirit pours into the world in order to redeem all people.
- His Church is holy – meaning, set apart by God for God’s purposeful designs.
- His Church does not cease being holy because of the faults of her children, whose failings always are personal even though their consequences always extend far beyond the individual sinner.
- Even in those moments when the splendor of His Church is disfigured by the infidelities of those who should have been faithful to Him and when many of His own seem to be mired by the indifference toward Him, holy and heroic souls still exist – eclipsed though they may be for a time.
- Recognize and reach for genuine holiness and always speak the truth lovingly, especially when we see deficiencies in those who should give better example.
- Our love for God and His Church rightly grows from our own increasing thankfulness for the means He offers us to experience and receive the sanctity for which He created us.
O Most Holy Spirit, rush into our minds and hearts in ways that inspire us to live as good children of the Church, to love You more and more, and to pray sincerely for those brothers and sisters in greatest need of divine mercy.
