Now that we are in the Ordinary Time of the Church year, we begin to orderly go through the life and teaching of Jesus. On this the Second Sunday in Ordinary time we begin to look at the first of His signs.
John speaks of Jesus’ miracles as “signs,” that is actions that carry special meaning and reveal who Jesus is. The incident in today’s reading is a sign that Jesus is inaugurating a new era, a messianic age.
The focus of the story is on the large quantity of wine that filled ceremonial water jars as a result of Jesus’ intervention. This is presented as the “beginning of Jesus ‘signs,” revealing His glory and leading His followers to greater faith.
In Jewish writings, an abundance of wine was a symbol of the joy that would greet God’s final intervention in history. The abundance of wine at Cana was a sign that Jesus was inaugurating a new and final era in Gods’ relationship with His people. Jesus would replace the religious customs of Judaism, symbolized by the jars used for ceremonial washings. The sign Jesus performed pointed to what Jesus would accomplish by His life and death, and it pointed to Him as the one who would accomplish it. Jesus provided wine, as a symbolic foretaste of the messianic era His death would inaugurate. The first of Jesus’ signs pointed ahead to the whole mission of Jesus, and invited faith in Him as the one sent from God to carry it out. By changing water into wine, Jesus behaves like the bridegroom and provides the “new wine” of His Gospel.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has traditionally been seen as the “Wedding Feast of the Lamb.”
Jesus is the Lamb of God and we, the Church, are His bride. As we come to Mass – the Wedding Feast- , we are given the opportunity to taste the good wine – the new wine of the Bridegroom. This wine of greater quality – His Precious Blood – is still offered to us in great abundance.
HOW TRULY BLESSED WE ARE TO BE CATHOLIC !
God Bless,
Msgr. Powell