Spirituality of the Readings
His Delight
Our previous Sunday was the climax of our celebrations of Jesus’ birth, early life, and of course, his baptism. In other words, not yet his public life.
This year’s cycle of “Ordinary Time” is now replacing the “Christmas season.” So it is time to begin hearing about his public life, his showing forth as God’s Word. That will be the content of “Ordinary Time,” in spite of the season’s mundane name.*
How long will this year’s Ordinary Time continue? Every Sunday from now on, except for insertions of the Lent/Easter season, or any other special celebration of the Lord.
Our year C began with Advent. It will feature the Gospel according to Luke. The following words will be proclaimed before the Gospel reading each Sunday: “A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.”**
But, to make things more complicated, this Sunday—the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time—does not have a reading from Luke’s Gospel. The Church has used instead a reading from the Gospel of John, one about an event which actually took place before Jesus’ public life started, as Jesus says explicitly (“My hour has not yet come”).
We have begun with an irregularity!
One way to look at it is to say that the present Sunday is a brief transition, meant to console us and raise our expectations concerning the Messiah and the Good News.*** Let us examine it now in that way.
Isaiah in the First Reading says that God is going to give his people a new name. They will be called “My delight.” Their land will be known by the name, “Espoused.” The Lord will marry them and bring forth abundance from their lands.
After our Second Reading, we are told in the Gospel of the wedding feast in Cana, Galilee.** The wine has run out. We hear that Jesus is able to transform water into the very best wine, just as God can change a forsaken people into ones that are his delight.
This is an image for citizens who are fresh out of hope, but who can delight in promise. Only God in Jesus can fulfil that promise. The Gospel story has more symbolic depth than just a simple story of an amazing miracle would.
Let’s look.
Mary says modestly to Jesus, “They have no wine” [symbolically, the human race has no real life left in it]. Jesus replies, strangely, “woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” Explicitly, his public life has not yet come. In that life he will preach, heal, suffer, die and rise again, as we will see in the coming weeks.
But Mary knew him too well. She did not take seriously all the reasons God’s promise could not be fulfilled. She knew that the people needed the full, rich wine of life, which is love. She trusted her son. She says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
And, of course, water becomes wine.
On this Sunday we begin to watch Jesus make us into “his delight.”
John Foley, SJ
**From Saint Louis University