On the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, we’re presented with a banquet of rich offerings. Let us receive these treasures and allow them to sink into the depths of our soul. For Our God delights in us, even though we may struggle to come to terms with a fact so astounding. We are His Beloved, and His loving gaze never departs from us. As a bridegroom rejoices over His bride, so does He rejoice in You!
Marriage Story
The Bible is a love story. With immense patience and doggedness, God pursues His people. He tells us we are His delight; we are His beloved. We spurn Him and betray Him, and a chasm opens up that is beyond our powers to overcome. Undaunted, He sends His Son, the Bridegroom because He wants nothing less than to marry us. The Eucharist is the pinnacle of His love for us, whereby He consummates His union with us. His love is Everlasting!
To Jesus Through Mary
In the gospel, we’re invited to a wedding feast in Galilee. And a minor crisis is about to befall the wedding couple. A crisis that is averted because of the concern of the motherly heart of the Mediatrix. Much has been written about the First of the Signs Jesus did. But if you look at it squarely, what’s at stake here is human esteem, nothing more. Let’s say the wine had indeed run out, it would be nothing more than embarrassment, and tongues in Cana would have wagged for a bit at their deprivation, and anon, they would have gotten over it, and that would be the end of it. But Our Lady wasn’t having any of it, she expressed her concern, left the matter with Her divine Son and Divine Wine flowed abundantly from the stone water jars!
At the outset, Jesus’s words to His mother gave slim hope for optimism:
“Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” JN 2:4
Yet, his proximate actions spell out clearly how much the concern of Our Lady affects Him. He simply cannot refuse His mother. And her nature only asks in accordance with God’s will and out of love for God’s children. We would do well to seek out our Lady’s intercession. In the words of St Louis de Montfort, we’d be going to Jesus with our hand in Mary’s.
The Wine Divine
Our Blessed Lord’s first sign turns water into wine. The signs refer to the inbreaking of God’s work in the World. This sign, like the feasts of the Epiphany and Our Lord’s Baptism that we just celebrated, manifests God’s glory to His people. But there’s more. The sign Jesus performs for the wedding couple is a foreshadowing of Holy Thursday, when He institutes the Holy Eucharist for us, His Beloved people. It goes back to the Marital embrace between God and His people. He longs for us and desires us to be His chosen people.
Such wondrous gifts are the lot of His baptized:
● The sacrament of matrimony, a sign of the love between husband and wife, and a sign of the eternal love between God and His people.
● The Most Holy Rosary, where we place our hands in Our Lady’s hand as she leads us closer to her divine Son.
● The sacrament of the Eucharist, the uber sacrament, which prolongs His life in us, divinizes and immortalizes us.
When the wine of our lives runs short, we could and should fall back on this.
[Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11]
Beautiful Reflection Patrick Juliet D’Souza
Great job, once again, D’Souza’s.
Keep up the good work.