· 8th (B) Ordinary Time, February 26, 2006
· Theme: God’s love at our Core – What are we asked to change?

· We live in a fast moving, rapidly changing world.
· In the course of a few short years, the Internet and cell phones have made all of our lives different.
· Yet some values are Core and Fundamental to our lives?
· How do we distinguish from what is most important to us from what is transitory and changing?

· Jesus understood this seemingly contradictory reality of life
· He knew that there is a core within each of us that remains constant.
· He teaches us about that core when he tells us that the reign of God is within us.
· The Spirit of God dwells at that core and is always there to guide us and keep us centered if we will just pay attention.
· Jesus also teaches us that life evolves and adapts to new insights and to new times.
· In today’s Gospel he tells us what happens when we try to hold on to outgrown experiences:
· New wine bursts old wineskins,
· New cloth shreds old garments,
· Something has to give.
· What is core and constant in our lives?
· What in our lives are we hanging on to that we really need to let go?

· The Readings give us a context for these questions:
· First reading for Hosea:
· The background of Hosea’s prophecy is that the northern kingdom has been faithless to God and has succumbed to Baal worship, and to ruthless oppression of the poor.
· Partly because of his own marriage experience (he married Gomer, who was unfaithful to him), the prophet pictures the relationship of God and his people in terms of a marriage.
· God had married Israel in the desert, but Israel had been faithless and had gone a-whoring after Baal.
· This covenant is core to the life of God’s people. When they lose this core truth – they lose their identity.
· But God pursues his people to win them back because he loves them.

· In the Gospel reading from Mark, chapter 2:
· The wine and the garment are examples that Jesus uses to show that more than just customary fasting is being challenged.
· The old garment and old wineskin represent the Jewish relationship that God initiated in the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai.
· Jesus presents himself, not as a replacement or cancellation of that covenant relationship, but as a continuation and intensification of God’s fidelity.
· The wineskin is new, but still a wineskin. The wine is new but still wine. Jesus does not replace the old, but pours new life into the relationship that God desires for all.
· Jesus will continue pouring out this new life even to the pouring out of his blood on the cross.
· God so loves his people as not to give up on us
· This truth is at the core of our faith. To lose it is to lose our identity as Christians.

· This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
· Lent – is not a Catholic Diet Plan – a time to shed the extra pounds we gained during the Christmas holidays.
· Rather, it is a time to ask ourselves basic questions:
· What is core and constant in our lives?
· We evaluate our personal lives:
· What has moved into that core position in our lives (alcohol, food, work, anger, violence) that we need to move out so that we do not lose our identity as Christians – as people who follow the Lord and take care of each other?
· We evaluate our communal lives:
· What is our response to the most needy among us?
· One good response:
· L. A. Voice along with the other PICO community organizations in California are beginning a campaign to accomplish two goals:
· Provide health insurance for ALL children in California
· Ensure that hospital Emergency Rooms remain open.
· What is our response to people we do not understand fully.
· We can think of the Muslim community – torn by sectarian violence in Iraq, inflamed by the war we initiated
· As a people can we find a way to resolve world tensions without resorting to the old ways – the horrors of war in which everyone loses.
· Are we Listening to God’s Spirit who dwells at the core of our lives as Christians?

· On Ash Wednesday
· The Minister puts ashes on our heads and says: “Repent and believe in the Good News”
· Ashes are a kind of rich soil for new growth.
· What do we need to let die in our lives so that the new life of Christ can spring forth?

· As we continue with our liturgy today:
· Let us pray in thanksgiving for God’s constant love of us
· Let us ask God to help us evaluate our lives so as to identify those areas of our lives that need to change.
· Let us pray that we can always find the Spirit of God at the Core of our existence.

· Amen

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