Gospel Reflections
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
18 January 2025, Church Year C
Finest Wine
John 2:1-11
Rev.
Joseph
M. Rampino
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The
wedding
at Cana, described in our Gospel passage this Sunday, never fail
to
signify for us the abundance of life that Christ desires for all
his
people. We read
this passage at weddings
to remind soon-to-be husbands and wives at the moment they found
their new
families, that Christ embraces them, see their needs, and stands
ready to pour
out incredible gifts on the love that binds them. We refer to this
passage in order to build up
their confidence that the Mother of God presents our troubles
and
insufficiencies to the Lord, who is always prepared to address
them. Perhaps most
commonly, we see Christ’s
overwhelming gift of wine in this story as a sign that he wants
joy for us,
even if we use this moment jokingly to affirm our own love for a
good drink.
These
interpretations
and impressions are all true, and all lovely, but they are only
the beginning of the good things Christ promises us at Cana. The key to unfolding
this passage is
understanding the meaning of wine itself as a symbol. Thankfully, there is a
test prayed at every
Mass that illuminates everything for us.
As the priest prepares the chalice during the offertory
of the Mass, he
fills it first with wine, then with a little water; the presence
of both should
immediately make us think of Cana.
As he
mixes these two liquids in the chalice, the priest then says in
secret: “by the
mystery; of this water an wine, may we come to share in the
divinity of Christ,
who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”
Here
then
is our great clue. The
wine and water
represent divinity and humanity, God’s nature and our own. During the Mass, as
the two mix, the wine
that represents God’s divinity takes up the water representing
our humanity and
seems to transform it into itself, such that we still say that
the chalice is
filled with wine and the water no longer appears distinct or
separable. As this
happens, we ask for our own humanity
to be taken up, and for us to receive a share in God’s own
divinity.
Applying
those
same symbolic values to Cana, we can understand that Christ’s
turning water
into wine is a similar sign, that is, of Christ turning our
humanity into
something divine. He
takes what is
natural, the water representing us, and makes it supernatural,
giving it deeper
color, flavor, and the capacity to lift the heart to
exhilaration; he makes it
the wine representing divinity.
At Cana,
Jesus is not just helping this couple in their need, he is not
just helping the
guests to have a good time, and he is not just showing his love
and approval
for marriage and human love, but he is making a promise. He is promising to
make us sharers in his own
divinity, to give us the life he shares with the Father and the
Holy Spirit.
This
first
miracle of Jesus, accomplished in response to a simple need and
at the
request of his Mother, announces his entire mission of
salvation, even to the
present day. To
save us in our human
need, Christ today promises to take our natural selves and
transfigure us into
what only he can be: the wine enjoyed at the eternal feast of
heaven. So, the
real wedding is not so much between
bride and groom as it is between heaven and earth, between us
and God, the
union given to us in Baptism, and nourished, deepened, and
fulfilled in holy
Communion. There
can be no greater
source of joy than this best wine.