Carmelite homily for Monday, January 20, 2020 – Lectionary 311 (Mark 2:18-22)
A few years ago our Shrine of Saint Therese in Darien, Illinois, had a display of a chasuble which had been made out of the wedding dress Therese wore at her First Profession. In those days you came to First Profession dressed in wedding attire; that was removed and the habit given. After her canonization, the Pope of the time, Pius XI, requested that dress and had it turned into a chasuble. In today’s Gospel Jesus says don’t take new cloth and put it on old. But what about taking old cloth and making it new? I think that is what Jesus was getting at. Every person, every generation is to take these lessons, this faith, and make it new. I think that is what Therese did in her ‘Little Way.’ And that’s the call of all of us. Therese also did that – she took one of her sister’s dresses and turned it into a chasuble – old to new. Let’s do that ourselves – old to new.