Posted by The WORD in other words (2022) by Fr Jun de Ocampo SVD – Berlin, Germany
Monday 2nd Week in Ordinary Time
A story is told about a wealthy man who was booked in a flush 5-star hotel room. At around 10 pm, he was awakened from sleep by the sounds of a piano being played from the next room. Furious, he called up the hotel management to stop the guy playing the piano in the other room.
The hotel manager politely apologized for the disturbance. But he added to inform the hotel guest, “By the way, Sir, have you heard of this world-famous piano player by the name of Van Cliburn? He is that guy playing next to your room. Tomorrow, he will be rendering a concert.”
Upon hearing this, the angry guest quietly hung up the phone, got up from his bed, went to his refrigerator, poured a glass of Champagne for himself, sat down comfortably on the sofa, and listened with pleasure at the piano music from his neighbor’s room. He found himself listening to a free concert by Van Cliburn, right from his hotel room.
What was first judged to be a disturbance was later taken as a source of relaxation; the disturber became a VIP. All that was needed was a change in perspective.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus used two analogies—pouring new wine into old wineskins, and patching new cloth on an old garment. It’s a brilliant eye-opener for the Pharisees, inviting them to a new perspective about the person of Jesus and his Gospel of the Kingdom. Their resistance to the Kingdom of Jesus and His Gospel, as we all know, is what led them to have Jesus suffer and die.
Every time we read the Gospel, it becomes and invitation to finetune perspectives, so that in whatever situation we are in, we will find Jesus as the VIP who will be our source of comfor, strength and guidance.
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