The Marriage Feast of Cana (Second Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Posted on by Cassie

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

The Baptism of the Lord

Posted on by Cassie

The Baptism of the Lord is the Feast which brings the Christmas Season to a close and begins the Ordinary Time of the Church year.  It is with this event that Jesus began His public ministry.

John’s main function is to prepare the way for Jesus Christ and announce His coming.  Jesus is the one who will bring the Spirit of God to us, because He is the Son of God and possesses the fullness of the Spirit.  John warned about the consequences of  sin and pleaded  with people to turn from the way of death; Jesus will be the one who will provide us with the means of escaping sin and death.

John announced Jesus as the one who would Baptize with the Holy Spirit and execute Gods’ judgement.  We think of the Holy Spirit as the one who gives us the strength to obey God’s laws, and we think of the  judgement as something that will happen at the end of time, when Jesus will come again.  There is truth in this.  But in John’s eyes, being good was something that people needed to begin doing right away, to prepare for the  judgement that Jesus would bring when he came the first time.  There was therefore urgency to John’s message. We may need a dose of this urgency now, to jolt us out of any complacency we might have about God’s judgment.  Remember, Jesus baptizes with both the Holy Spirit and fire.

The Baptism of the Lord is the turning point in the life of Jesus.  Before His Baptism Jesus was by all appearances only a village carpenter.

After His Baptism Jesus began to teach and heal and announce the reign of God.

What happened at Jesus’ Baptism?  The Holy Spirit descended upon Him, and a voice from Heaven pronounced, “you are my beloved Son”.  Jesus, conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, was already the Son of God from  birth.  Jesus’ Baptism by  John was the occasion for His identity to be revealed.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell

the epiphany of the lord

Posted on by Cassie

The word “epiphany” means to make known.  On the Solemnity of Epiphany we celebrate Jesus being revealed to all the nations.

The Magi appear only in the Gospel of Matthew.  They are not called Kings and their number is not given.  Matthew understands them to be astrologers.  The Magi receive their revelation not from Sacred Scripture, but from the heavens.  They discover a star.  It was common belief of antiquity that a new star marked the birth of a ruler.  For Matthew, God not only reveals through Sacred Scripture and dreams but also through nature.  The astrological sign will lead these Gentile Magi out of pagan superstition and worship into an encounter with the King of the Jews who is Jesus.

The Magi challenge contemporary Catholics in at least two ways.  First, they represent people who are seeking the Lord right in our midst.  We need to ask ourselves what we are doing to help the alienated, the lonely, the rejected, or the confused among us who, like the Magi, are looking for Jesus.  If we do not act, they may not find Him.

Second, the simple, risk-taking quest of the Magi threatens our complacency.  If we seem to have stopped in our spiritual tracks, their example might help dislodge us and overcome our inertia.  We, too, must find Jesus and worship Him.

On the Feast of Epiphany we worship the King of all nations.  We worship God as the God of all creation.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell