GRATITUDE 11 On 7-7

Greetings of peace and blessings in the name of Our Lord Jesus- the Son of Mary and Joseph. Dearly beloved in Christ, I am grateful to you all for your warm wishes and prayers on my priestly ordination anniversary. May God continue to bless you and your families. Amen. Thank you all once again and God bless you all. Peace be with you.

Genesis 27:1-5,15-29
Mathew 9:14-17

In the story of the two sons of Isaac; Esau had already sold his birthright as first son to Jacob over a plate of lentil stew and Rebecca will later seize the opportunity to get Jacob to receive the patriarchal blessings and promises. Such deceit led to enmity within the house and it still does till this very day. We need to rely on God and work toward reconciliation and unity in our families and society at large.

In the ancient world, animal skins were used to store wine because could preserve fermenting wine for a long period. But Jesus’ expression about wine and wineskins takes a deeper sense of meaning. The wine is the grace of God that has been poured into our hearts through our baptism in Christ and as grace ferments in our lives, it stretches out our human capacity to endure even in moments of trials and tribulations and to love our neighbor as God said we should.

As disciples of Christ, sometimes our lives are worn out like oldwineskins incapable of expansion or growth but Jesus is with us always and we do not need fear at all, even though He does not sometimes take away the difficult situations in which we find ourselves, His grace however, can keep our hearts supple and fresh capable of growing stronger and more resilient.

The grace of God continues to be poured into our lives thanks to Jesus -The Bridegroom. His grace ferments within us to love our neighbor and extend that love even to the fringes of our society and all corners of the world.
If We think that we are handling too much of the needs of ourselves and others, we need to go back to Jesus to give us more graces to work for the interest of others so that in the end w we all can share in the wedding of the Lamb.

Fr Joseph Osho