Transformed and renewed

SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
January 16, 2022

Timing is everything, they say, and we often put things off until a “better” time. The exiles returning from Babylon to a desolate  Jerusalem certainly didn’t feel that it was time to rejoice. How  demoralizing it must have been to return home only to find it laid waste. Hearing Isaiah’s enthusiastic words, people must have thought him daft. Centuries later, Jesus had just begun his ministry; his “hour” – his passion and what followed—was long in the future. Attending a neighbor’s wedding (Cana was nine miles north of Nazareth) did not seem to be a time to begin manifesting his glory. But despite the timing, he acted. Three years later Jesus the bridegroom would consummate his marriage to his bride the church at “his hour,” on the cross, when he gave his life for humanity. According to John, it was just three days after his baptism that Jesus attended this wedding at Cana. In the presence of his newly called disciples, he transformed the water into wine. At the Last Supper, in the presence of his disciples for the last time before his death, Jesus changed the wine into his blood. Today, at this Eucharistic feast, gathered with fellow disciples, and in the presence of the Lord, once again the wine is transformed into his blood. John says what happened in Cana was the beginning of Jesus’ signs. But as we witness today and every time we gather for the Eucharist, there is no end to these signs. In partaking in the Eucharist, we are transformed by Christ’s Body and Blood. No   matter how we feel about ourselves, we are not forsaken or desolate. We are God’s children, each a cause for God’s rejoicing, continually transformed and renewed in holiness as Christians. Amen.  (Casey, Most Reverend   Robert G. Pastoral Patterns. World   Library Publication, 2021).