Monday 20 January 2025

Today is Monday the 20th of January in the 2nd week of Ordinary Time.

IAMSON sings, ‘Slow Down’. As we prepare to enter into prayer, you might like to use this time to 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 thats 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.’

Our scripture today touches on the practice of fasting. Perhaps this isn’t something you've tried before. Or maybe, the idea of fasting brings up some difficulty for you. Take a moment to reflect on your own relationship with fasting over the years. What might God want to show you afresh about it today?

As long as the bridegroom (Jesus) was present, the disciples were not expected to fast. During a wedding celebration the ordinary cares and duties of life are put aside. Where in your life today do you experience God as present, like this? In what ways today do you rejoice in God’s presence?

Jesus’s message is like new wine, exhilarating, radical, fresh. As you listen again, smell the bouquet and taste the quality of this new wine.

Christians look forward to Christ’s future coming. Jesus suggests we should fast in this ‘in-between time’. Can you talk to him now about why this might be? What form this fasting should take? How to avoid being totally caught up in the things of this world, and pay sufficient attention to the things of God?

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.