Monday 15 January 2024

Today is Monday the 15th of January, in the second week of Ordinary time.

IAmSon sings, ‘Slow Down’.

Slow down, where are you going
What's so important that can't wait
Tell me what are you seeking
What is it that’s keeping you from
Bringing me your questions
All that you carry, all that you bury underneath
Just slow down, just slow down
And meet with me
Rest now, be in the present
Here in the blessings of today
Listen just for a moment
I am the only one with
Words to calm your worries
Focus your mind on me, I am the way to perfect peace
Just slow down, just slow down
And meet with me




Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 2: 18-22

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

It would obviously be very odd to fast at a wedding feast. Jesus suggests here that his presence with his followers has something in common with a wedding feast. What do you think does he mean by this comparison?

Does fasting play any part in your own spiritual or religious practice? What are, or what might be, its advantages?

The torn cloak and burst wineskin are powerful images of how new Jesus’ teaching must have seemed to his first followers. What is there in his teaching that is still capable of surprising or challenging you today?

As the passage is read again, imagine how the people who ask Jesus this question might have responded to his reply.

Speak to Jesus, in this final part of the prayer, about whatever you have been touched by during it.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.