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+You Shall be Called “My Delight” 2nd Sunday
Ord-C
This text from the first reading of the prophet Isaiah and the gospel are some
of the most beautiful for all the year. Isaiah saying “No more shall people call
you ‘Forsaken,’ or your land ‘Desolate,’ but you shall be called ‘My Delight,’
and your land ‘Espoused’ along with the wedding Feast of Cana show us just where
our Christian faith is taking us, to the marriage feast with the Lamb. God in
Christ is entering into an espousal relationship with us, drawing us into the
closest communion with the Divine. This abiding and life giving relationship
with Christ is what meets the greatest longing of every human heart.
To do justice to our texts, one must begin to dance with them. We have just been
celebrating the wonder of the Incarnation and all at once, this morning, we have
Mary with her fully grown Son, Jesus, at a wedding banquet. The disciples of
Jesus are there. What a rich store of theology this scene presents with Mary
taking notice of how they are running short on wine, a potential embarrassment
for the newly weds. She says so simply to Jesus: “They have no wine.” Her words
suggest far more than concern about wine running out at a wedding feast. As only
the gospel of John can do, the wedding scene is telling us of what is central to
the whole of sacred history. The marriage is that of that going on between God
and Israel where the “bridegroom rejoices in his bride” as we heard from the
prophet Isaiah. The time has come for the definitive saving power of God to
become manifest as is revealed in Jesus’ apparent resistence to Mary. “Woman,
how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”.
Mary saying to the servers “do whatever he tells you” shows us real insight into
who her Son is and what his life is to be about. Beyond her immediate concern
for the wedding banquet is her concern for the Church of all time, indeed for
the whole of the human family. What she is asking of Jesus is that he provide
for his people the wine of the Spirit, the grace, the strength to fully realize
the Father’s plan of salvation. Jesus having the servers fill the six stone
water jars used for the Jewish ceremonial washings, filling them to the brim,
shows us that he caught on immediately to what his mother was asking. These six
stone jars represented the history of God’s people up until the arrival of the
long awaited Messiah. Then the water transformed into wine and tasted by the
headwaiter brings to a climax in symbolic act all that God had promised the
chosen people. All efforts to live by the law had fallen short of the mark, and
now with Jesus in our midst an entirely new beginning is underway. In his Person
God’s glory is manifest and we are told the “disciples began to believe in him.”
With the arrival of his hour, Christ’s acceptance of the mystery of the cross
and entering fully into God redeeming plan, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon
us all. Paul’s words to the Corinthians tell us of just how widespread this
outpouring of the Spirit is. To each of us has been given the manifestation of
the Spirit for the good of others. To one is given the expression of wisdom, to
another that of knowledge or faith, to another the gifts of healing and so
forth, all for building up the Body of Christ. As we recognize and put to use
these varied gifts the marriage feast is already being celebrated.
Isn’t it this feast that we celebrate here at the altar each time the gifts of
bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord. The outpouring
of the Spirit upon these gifts is what is taking place in each of our lives as
we let ourselves be drawn more and more into the mystery of God’s own love at
work in us. The marriage feast of the Lamb is well underway..
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Abbey of Gethsemani
January 14,2007
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E-mail: info@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
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