“All that I have seen teaches me to trust God for all I have not seen”

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God. ~St. Augustine: (354 –  430: was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy)

Gospel Text: (MT 9:14-17)

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."

We must never assume that we have completely figured out who God is and so have completely understood, to the very last detail, how he ought to save us from our predicaments and problems.  The quicker we place God in a box, the more we foolishly trap ourselves in our own false notions and assumptions of God. Essentially this  is what  the  well-meaning disciples of John  had  done,  as seen  in  today's Gospel  reading, in their  questioning of  Jesus  of  his seemingly unconventional ways in matters of fasting.

Let us be reminded of what Pope Francis said, "Being with Jesus demands that we go out of ourselves from living a tired and habitual faith."

We must allow God to be God.  We must allow his Spirit to grow in our hearts and expand our capacity to embrace God and his ways. We must be friends with the Lord, faithful and even silent companions at times in the face of a truly mysterious God.  We must allow ourselves to be surprised by God's love which is infinitely greater than what we have imagined it to be.  Only then can we rejoice in our absolute trust in him.