At Masses around the world every day, millions of people, in the words of the gospel, “eat and drink” with the Lord—would Jesus disown any of them, the way the master does in the gospel story?

Jesus once used a metaphor we don’t hear today that’s good to keep in mind when we hear this passage proclaimed. It’s the one about how new wine just doesn’t fit in old wine skins. When the new wine expands, the old stretched-out skins will burst, and there goes the wine.

I had a particularly ugly experience of division last summer. While visiting a farm with my parish migrant camp outreach group, we had a nasty confrontation with the farmer. We’ve had them before, but this man’s tirade was scarier and more threatening than usual.

Fans of country music might recall a song by Garth Brooks called “Standing Outside the Fire.” In the refrain he sings, “Standing outside the fire / Standing outside the fire / Life is not tried—it is merely survived / If you’re standing outside the fire.”

Brothers and sisters, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and so prepare ourselves to receive the Lord.

There is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for his own great sacrifice of boundless charity.