New wine in new bottles: Mary, the new wine, and the new wineskins

**Quote:***“No new wine must be put into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins will burst, and both the wine and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” – Matthew 9:17 (NIV)***Sabbath of Our Lady:**Saturday of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time is, in liturgical tradition, known as Our Lady’s Sabbath, the day when, dating back at least to the 12th century, the Latin Church dedicated the last day of the liturgical week to the memory of Mary. The Gospel pericope for this Saturday (Matthew 9:14-17) about the disciples’ fasting and new wine in old wineskins offers a rich hermeneutical key to understanding Marian charism: Mary as a “new wineskin” capable of containing the “new wine” of Incarnation.**Fasting of the Disciples: Joy and Nuptial Time:**Jesus’ response to John’s disciples’ question, *”Why don’t your disciples fast?”* (Matthew 9:14) is one of the most veiled yet significant statements in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus implicitly identifies Himself as the Bridegroom, an identification traditionally reserved in the Old Testament for Yahweh regarding Israel (Hosea 2:16-22, Jeremiah 2:2, Ezekiel 16, Song of Songs). By presenting Himself as the Bridegroom whose presence turns mourning into joy, Jesus claims the relationship prophesied between God and His people.The wedding imagery has immediate Mariological implications: Mary is, in patristic and medieval tradition, the “Bride” who received the “Bridegroom” at the Annunciation. The interpretation of Song of Songs as a description of the relationship between the Logos and human soul in general, and Mary in particular, developed by Origen, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Carmelite tradition, sees the “fiat” as the Bride’s response to the Bridegroom knocking on the door. Our Lady’s Sabbath as a day of joy rather than fasting has, in this context, precise theological coherence: it celebrates the relationship between the Bridegroom and His perfect first Bride.The somber note Jesus adds, *”But there will come days when the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast”* (Matthew 9:15b), introduces the Paschal dimension: the joy of following Christ is real but not exempt from the Cross. The “nuptial time” of Jesus’ public life ends on the Cross. The disciples’ fasting begins with Jesus’ death and the experience of abandonment on Holy Saturday. Mary lived this Holy Saturday, the day between death and Resurrection, in a unique way: tradition contemplates her on that day as one who, unlike the disciples, maintained her faith intact. Our Lady’s Sabbath is therefore also Holy Saturday: the vigil in expectation of Resurrection.

The alternation between feast and fasting, between the time of the Bridegroom and the time of His absence, describes the rhythm of the Christian spiritual life that mystical tradition identified as “consolation and desolation.” Ignatius of Loyola’s instruction on spiritual desolation, “not to change the resolutions taken in times of consolation,” is precisely the response to the time of fasting: to remain faithful to what was committed during times of joy, knowing that consolation will return. Mary is the model of this fidelity in desolation: Holy Saturday was her time of greatest fasting, and she remained.

II. New sacks for new wine: interior renewal

The image of new sacks for new wine is one of the most frequently used metaphors in Christian tradition to describe the need for interior renewal as a condition to receive the new gifts of the Spirit. The “old sacks” are hardened inner structures, closed certainties, habits that prevent surprise, prejudices that filter reality before encountering it. The “new wine” is grace, the gift of the Spirit, the novelty that God wishes to introduce into personal and communal history. The condition for the new wine not bursting the old sacks is interior availability’s renewal.

The Church’s history shows that resistance to renewal, attachment to the “old sacks” of cultural, liturgical, theological, and institutional forms, has been a recurring temptation. Vatican II was explicitly described by its protagonists as an effort to create “new sacks” for new forms of ecclesial life that could contain the “new wine” of the Gospel in a radically new era. Resistance to Vatican II on the part of some sectors of the Church is, theologically, resistance to the old sacks preferring the already fermented wine to the novelty of the Spirit.

Contemporary charismatic renewal, the movements of renewal in the Spirit that emerged in the second half of the 20th century, saw in the image of new sacks their own vocation: to create communities of faith with new forms (charismatic prayer, personal testimony, participatory liturgy) that could contain the effusion of the Spirit that the movement experienced. Evaluating these movements by the criteria of Art70 (the fruits) is the correct way to discern: where the new sacks produce fruits of love, service, and conversion, the wine is authentic. Where they produce division, spiritual arrogance, and escape from ordinary responsibilities, the sacks may be new but the wine is questionable.

The interior renewal that the sack image describes is, in the spiritual tradition, the fruit of continuous conversion, permanent metanoia that prevents spiritual hardening. Ignatius of Loyola, in the Examen de Conciencia he proposed as a daily practice, aimed precisely at this: daily awareness of inner movements, subtle hardenings, nascent resistances, so that the sacks do not harden before the wine has finished fermenting. Saturday Mary, as a day for reflecting on the week past, serves a similar function: awareness of the sacks that hardened during the week and need to be renewed before the new week begins.

III. Mary as new sack: total availability

# Mariology Uses the Image of New Jars to Describe Mary’s Uniqueness in the Availability for IncarnationMariology employs the metaphor of new jars to depict Mary’s singular availability for the Incarnation. The Church Fathers, notably Epiphanius of Salamis (4th century), described Mary as the “**pure vessel**” capable of containing the Word of God because she was entirely available, without internal resistances, free from egoism or sin’s hardening. The doctrine of **Immaculate Conception** articulates this theological insight: Mary was preserved from original sin and the structural hardening that affects human freedom, precisely to be the “**new jar**” able to hold the “**new wine**” of Incarnation.This image does not imply passivity on Mary’s part or automatic availability. Theologists who emphasized the freedom of Duns Scotus, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and John Paul II in **Redemptoris Mater** highlight that Mary’s availability was a free response, not a necessary condition. The “**new jars**” of Mary were not merely a prerequisite for Incarnation but the fruit of a life of growing availability, faithfulness to the Spirit’s movements, active love that made her heart increasingly capable of receiving the greatest gift.Marian devotion on Saturday has, in this context, a specific spiritual function: it is the day when the faithful ask Mary to help them “**renew the jars**”, their inner availability which weekly life may have hardened. Fatigue, frustrations, disappointments, and sins can create resistances and hardenings that hinder receiving the “**new wine**” of the approaching Sunday. Contemplating Mary as a “**new jar**” invites renewal of availability: “**as Mary said yes, ask her to help you say yes to what the Lord wants to introduce into you**”.The angel’s phrase at the Annunciation, “**full of grace**” (kecharitomene, indicating a permanent, received plenitude of grace), accurately describes Mary as the jar completely filled with grace. The “**new wine**” of Incarnation found a vessel capable of containing it because it was already full of prior grace that prepared her. Marian spirituality invites the faithful to ask for the same grace: not immediate fullness like Mary’s, but progressive growth in availability that makes possible receiving more and more of the “**new wine**” the Lord wishes to give.## IV. The Marian Saturday: Contemplating the Mother of New WineThe historical origin of Marian Saturday dates back to the 12th century with the spread of Marian devotion promoted by Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians. The tradition, solidified by the Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday introduced by Alcuin in the 9th century and popularized in the 12th century, sees Saturday as the day when Mary “guarded the faith,” the Sabbath between death and resurrection when the disciples doubted and Mary remained steadfast. In this sense, Marian Saturday is the day of persistent faith, active waiting, the “dark night” preceding the dawn of Sunday.Contemplating Mary on Saturday has an eschatological dimension: Mary is already in the fullness of resurrection, the doctrine of the Assumption affirms that she is already with the Risen One in body and soul. Marian Saturday is thus a contemplative anticipation of what Sunday proclaims: the victory of life over death, the fullness of “new wine” into which Mary is already immersed. Contemplating Mary on Saturday is to contemplate the end towards which Christian life is headed: the fullness of grace that she already possesses and that the disciple still awaits.The Liturgy of the Hours on Saturday has a distinct tone: the evening hymns of Saturday, such as “Ave Maris Stella” and the “Salve Regina” from Compline, express confident surrender at the end of the day and week to Mary, who “watches” over those who sleep in God’s peace. This nocturnal confidence in Mary, the mother who stays awake while her children sleep, has biblical roots in the episode of Gethsemane: the disciples slept while Jesus agonized. Mary, not physically present in that garden, was spiritually present, awake in faith, like the sentinel of Psalm 130 who “waits for the Lord more than a guard waits for dawn.”The “new wine” celebrated in Sunday’s liturgy, Christ’s blood poured out in the Eucharist, the “fruit of the vine” transfigured at the Last Supper, has in Mary its par excellence “new jar.” The dominical Eucharist is the “new wine” that the “new jars” of the faithful need to be ready to receive. Marian Saturday is the preparation for these jars: the day when, through contemplation of Mary, the heart is renewed in availability, silence, and waiting for the resurrection that Sunday will bring. The believer who approaches Sunday with “renewed jars” can receive the “new wine” in all its fullness, and this is the gift that Mary, the Mother of the New Wine, intercedes for all her children.