3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Walls are necessary for security, to protect the life that is fostered within those walls. Just before our first reading begins, the Jewish people have finally been allowed to go home to Jerusalem after being conquered and sent away years ago.  The first thing they do is rebuild the walls to ensure their security.  Then our reading picks up with the great stories of their history being retold to this people who had in many ways forgotten their heritage and identity as God’s Chosen People – they are being formed again so that they can become the light to the world that God intended.  It is much the same in our Catholic Church today.  To be strong and secure in our Catholic faith we do need to be set apart, we do need to build walls to protect our life inside from the attacks of the outer world.  But we are also invited – like the Israelites – to reclaim our identity and then throw open the windows to let this life transform those around us: it’s both/and.  Where do you need to strengthen a wall this week?  And where are you being asked to open a window?

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In this week’s Gospel Jesus performs his first known miracle: turning water into wine at a wedding reception.  Jewish wedding receptions lasted 5-7 days; it was the third day of this wedding reception and they’re already running out of wine – it would have been a complete humiliation for the newlyweds. For this miracle, however, Jesus didn’t magically become aware of the wine shortage, snap his fingers and fix it all in an instant.   Rather, this miracle involved a number of people: noticing a problem, bringing it to Jesus, persevering through seeming rejection, carrying out laborious and seemingly useless orders, all backed by a trust that it would turn out OK in the end.  What would have happened if one link in that chain had been broken by someone stopping from discouragement or doing something other than what Jesus asked because it would have been the more logical or sensible thing to do?   The miracle probably wouldn’t have happened.  This week: how will you fit into that chain of events as God tries to use you to work a blessing, even a miracle, in the life of someone else?