Once, my birthday was on a Sunday. I was quite new to the parish, and only a few knew, which was fine for me. After Mass, a sister greeted me (well, she remembered…), and just then a parishioner approached me. She has been looking for me to give me a book she thought of giving me. The sister mentioned my birthday; “A gift, then!” the parishioner laughed, surprised. The book? It was The Diary of St. Faustina Kowalska, a book I had been pondering for over a week. Call it a happy coincidence, but there is nothing random in the works of God. He orders all creations or events, directing them all to himself. It was not coincidence, but providence.
Today’s Gospel offers us its own pair of ‘coincidence’ in Cana which St. Thomas Aquinas ties to our salvation in this Lenten season between Christmas and Easter. First, Cana was the setting of Jesus’ first miracle, when He turned the water into wine. With the wine that gladdens the hearts (Psalm 103:5), we see this first miracle linked to Christ’s first coming, heralded by angels as ‘good news of great joy’ (Luke 2:10), although the effect was not far reaching as it was only the disciples who believed. Then, today, we have Cana’s second miracle: a royal official pleads for his son who was lying ill some sixteen miles away in Capernaum. Jesus speaks— “Your son lives”—and healing follows. Aquinas sees this as a symbol of Christ’s second coming, when He will return in glory to heal every wound, body, and soul. This is prefigured by Easter, where Christ won over sin and death. The effect here is belief—the official and his household embraced faith, moved by a word that conquers death. Two visits, two gifts—joy first, wholeness together—joined by God’s timing.
The In Between
Lent places us between these two comings as it draws us to how our Lord Jesus took up our pain and bore our suffering and was wounded for our healing (Isaiah 53:4-5). It also reminds us that the miraculous healings recounted in the Gospel are proof that it was indeed Jesus who came to the world to redeem us from what has enslaved us since our first parents’ fall, which leads us to His Cross, where our ultimate healing was achieved.
We may still find ourselves confronted by human frailty, perhaps in similar situation of the official. You have known that pain—physical health decreasing, friends faded from memory, children facing their own difficulties. I see it in parishioners—widows praying for their grandchildren, old men lighting candles and praying fervently, parents on their knees walking to the altar for a prayer intention. The Cross and the healings made by our Lord gives strength and hope during this situation, knowing that though life may bend us, God bends closer.
God Bends Closer
In suffering, it is hard to see God’s hands. Yet providence is not chance, for “we know that all things work for good for those who love God,” (Rom 8:28). We may not grasp how pain links to healing now—perhaps in eternity—but the Cross of Christ proves that God cares about us. Everything leads to Himself.
May we always feel “the blessing that is hidden within frailty. Because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord” (Pope Francis. March 2, 2025, Angelus message). Between Cana’s wine and healing, let trust and hope carry us through to Easter. There, Christ rises triumphant! A foretaste of His return in glory. We will stand before Him, where he “will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain.” (Rev 21:4)
