July 4, 2026
Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 382
Reading 1
Thus says the LORD:
On that day I will raise up
the fallen hut of David;
I will wall up its breaches,
raise up its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
That they may conquer what is left of Edom
and all the nations that shall bear my name,
say I, the LORD, who will do this.
Yes, days are coming,
says the LORD,
When the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the vintager, him who sows the seed;
The juice of grapes shall drip down the mountains,
and all the hills shall run with it.
I will bring about the restoration of my people Israel;
they shall rebuild and inhabit their ruined cities,
Plant vineyards and drink the wine,
set out gardens and eat the fruits.
I will plant them upon their own ground;
never again shall they be plucked
From the land I have given them,
say I, the LORD, your God.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 85:9
and 10, 11-12, 13-14
R. (see 9b) The Lord speaks of peace to his people.
I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD–for he proclaims peace to his people.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.
R. The Lord speaks of peace to his people.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.
R. The Lord speaks of peace to his people.
The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and salvation, along the way of his steps.
R. The Lord speaks of peace to his people.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.
No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth,
for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.
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.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070426.cfm
Commentary on Amos
9:11-15
Today we have our final reading from Amos. It deals with the
happiness that messianic times will bring. It raises a hope underlying Amos’
words, one that runs through the whole Hebrew Testament from Genesis 3:15
onward—that God will bring blessing after judgement, and will not ultimately
reject Israel.
After many denunciations of hypocritical religions and
unjust treatment of the poor, the prophet concludes on an upbeat note of hope
for the future. The promises for the future include the restoration of the Davidic
kingdom, material prosperity and the homeland recovered forever. The day is
coming when the Lord will raise up again the “booth of David that is fallen”,
which had come on hard times and was continually being humiliated by outside
conquerors while being unfaithful, idolatrous and corrupt within its own
borders.
He says the “booth” (“hut” in some translations) rather than
the “house” perhaps to remind us of the humble beginnings of David, the
shepherd boy who was picked out by God to succeed Saul as king of God’s people.
Or perhaps it is an image of a once proud dynasty fallen on sad times.
And he says God will:
…repair its breaches
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old.
That is, it will be as it was in the glorious days of David
and Solomon. Then they:
…will possess the remnant of Edom [i.e. what is
left of Israel’s bitter enemy] and all the nations who are called by my
name…
This will be the extent of the rule of Yahweh’s anointed
future King, recalling the many nations surrounding Israel over which David
reigned. Somewhere in the future, the ruins of Israel will be rebuilt,
unfinished battles over enemies will be completed and former subjects will once
again come under the rule of David’s house. It will be a time of prosperity and
abundance.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord…
After all the forecasts of destruction, hardship and death,
Amos’ final words picture a glorious prosperity like a new Eden, when the
seasons will run together so that sowing and reaping are without interval, and
there will be a continuous supply of fresh produce, and the hills will run with
an abundance of wine, so unlike the times of suffering and invasion. God’s
people will return to their own lands from which they will never again be
taken.
There is no time scale given for this. It is really a
statement of hope and confidence in God’s caring for his people and a call for
them to behave in a way that shows they truly belong to him. It is a prophecy
which was fulfilled—in a very different way—by the coming of Jesus, David’s
descendant as King and Lord, whose Kingdom will never end.
Whatever the circumstances of our lives, we too, look
forward to a time of a never-ending happiness when we are totally united with
the God for whom we were made. Our hearts are restless until they can find rest
in Him.
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Commentary on
Matthew 9:14-17
Today’s reading follows on yesterday’s challenge of Jesus by
some Pharisees. On that occasion they asked why Jesus was eating with sinners
and outcasts. Now they go one step further and ask why he is eating at all.
They put forward the example of John the Baptist and his disciples who used to
fast regularly. Jews were only required to fast one day in the year, on the
feast of the Atonement. However, like the Pharisees, it seems that John’s
disciples used to observe fasts which were not prescribed by the Law in the
hope that their extra devotion would bring about an early coming of the
Kingdom.
Jesus answers their question in two ways. First he says that
people do not fast when they are in the company of the bridegroom. That is a
time for celebration. By implication, of course, Jesus is the groom. As long as
he is around, it would be inappropriate for his disciples to fast. However, he
says a time will come when the groom is no longer with them, and then there
will be reasons to fast.
His second answer is more profound and takes the form of two
examples. It does not make sense to repair an old piece of clothing with a
patch of new cloth. The new cloth, being much tougher, will, under stress, only
cause the older cloth to tear. In the second example, he says that it is not
wise to put new wine into old wineskins. Wine was kept in containers made of
leather. Because new wine was still fermenting and expanding, it needed to be
put in new leather bags which were still elastic and could expand with the
wine. The old bags would be already stretched, and new wine would only cause
them to burst. Then both the wine would be lost and the bags ruined.
What did Jesus mean by these images? He was giving a clear
message to his critics. Jesus’ ideas were like new wine or new cloth. They
could not be fitted into old containers. People like the Pharisees were trying
to fit Jesus’ teaching and his ideas into their ways of thinking, but that
would not work.
Clearly, the old garment and the old wineskins represent the
elements of Mosaic Law that were to be reinterpreted and “fulfilled” by Jesus’
new teachings. The new cloth and the new wine, then, are the spirit of the
Kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus—the new order that Jesus was initiating—what we
would now call a paradigm shift, a radically new understanding of how God was
to be loved and served.
So John’s disciples wanted to know, for example, why Jesus
was not fasting—because in their book, a Jew fasted, and a pious Jew fasted
more often. But Jesus did not measure religion by external actions like fasting
or keeping other requirements of the Law (such as washing hands before eating).
For him, religion was a matter of the inner spirit, as we saw in his deeper
interpretations of the Law during the Sermon on the Mount.
Over the centuries the Church has moved its position in many
areas as it reaches a deeper understanding of the faith and how it is to be
lived in a changing world. Such a movement took place with the Second Vatican
Council. It involved much more than external changes (like having the Mass in
the vernacular instead of Latin). It involved a whole new way of seeing our
faith and our place as Christians in the world.
Even today, there are still people who try to live in the
post-Vatican II Church with a pre-Vatican II mentality. It is like trying to
squeeze new wine into old wineskins. It is a source of much friction and
misunderstanding in many Christian communities. We all have an obligation both
to enter fully into the mind of Christ as presented in the New Testament, and
to enter into the mind of the Church in this post-Vatican II era.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o2137g/
Saturday, July 4,
2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Father, you call your children to walk in the light of
Christ.
Free us from darkness and keep us in the radiance of your
truth.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 9: 14-17
Then John's disciples came to
Jesus and said, 'Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples
do not?'
Jesus replied, 'Surely the bridegroom's
attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the
time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will
fast.
No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth onto
an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets
worse. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins
burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. No; they put new wine in
fresh skins and both are preserved.'
Reflection
•
Matthew 9: 14: The question of the disciples of John concerning the practice of
fasting. Fasting is quite an ancient use, practiced by almost all
religions. Jesus himself practiced it during forty days (Mt 4: 2). But he does
not insist with the disciples so that they do the same thing. He leaves them
free. Because of this, the disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees,
who were obliged to fast, want to know why Jesus does not insist on fasting “Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not?”
•
Matthew 9: 15: The answer of Jesus. Jesus answers with a comparison in the form of
a question: “Surely the bridegroom’s
attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is still with them?” Jesus
associates fasting to mourning, and he considers himself the bridegroom. When
the bridegroom is with his friends, that is, during the wedding feast, they
have no need to fast. When Jesus is with them, with his disciples, it is a
feast, the wedding feast. Therefore, they should not fast. But one day the
bridegroom will go away. It will be a day of mourning. Then, if they want they
can fast. Jesus refers to his death. He knows and feels that if he continues on
this way of liberty, the authority will want to kill him.
•
Matthew 9: 16-17: New wine in new skins! In these two verses, the Gospel of Matthew
gives two separate phrases of Jesus on the patch of new cloth on an old cloak
and of the new wine in new skins. These words throw light on the discussions
and the conflicts of Jesus with religious authority of the time. A patch of new
cloth is not put on an old cloak; because when washing it, the new piece of
cloth shrinks and pulls on the old cloak and tears it and the tear becomes
bigger. Nobody puts new wine in old skins, because when the new wine ferments,
it tears the old skins. New wine in new skins! The religion defended by the
religious authority was like a piece of old cloth, like an old skin. Both the
disciples of John and the Pharisees, tried to renew the religion. In reality,
they hardly put some patches and because of this, they ran the risk of
compromising and harming both the novelty as well as the old uses. It is not
necessary to want to change the novelty which Jesus brings to us for the old
uses. Either one or the other! The new wine which Jesus brings to us tears the
old skins. It is necessary to know how to separate things. Most probably,
Matthew presents these words of Jesus to orientate the communities of the years
80’s. There was a group of Jew-Christians who wanted to reduce the novelty of
Jesus to the Judaism of the time before the coming of Jesus. Jesus is not
against what is “old.” He does not want that what is old be imposed on that
which is new and, that it prevents it
from manifesting itself. Vatican II cannot be reread with the mentality before
the Council, like some try to do today.
Personal Questions
•
Which are the conflicts around the religious
practices which today make many persons suffer and are a reason for heated
discussions and polemics? Which is the image of God which is behind all these
preconceptions, these norms and these prohibitions?
•
How is this phrase of Jesus to be understood: “Nobody puts a piece of new cloth on an old
cloak? Which is the message which we can draw from all this for your
community today?
Concluding Prayer
I am listening. What is God's message?
Yahweh's message is peace for his people, for his faithful, if only they
renounce their folly. (Ps 85: 8)
