Friday, January 15, 2010

Daily - 1/15/10

John 2:1-11

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

2 Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.

3 When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."

4 (And) Jesus said to her, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come."

5 His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you."

6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons.

7 Jesus told them, "Fill the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim.

8 Then he told them, "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it.

9 And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom

10 and said to him, "Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now."

11 Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.
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1. On miracles in general: Christ didn't just perform miracles to "wow" people. In his gospel, St. John refers to Christ's miracles as signs -- demonstrations of His divinity. In fact, the first 12 chapters of John have historically been known as the "Book of Signs". They are meant to demonstrate the glory of God, so that the person seeing them might believe in Christ's divinity, repent, and obey his teachings (i.e., "go and sin no more"). This passage gives the first of the signs recorded in John's gospel, and note in verse 11 John's explanation of its purpose. .

2. On Mary's intercession (From the Catechism, paragraph 2618): The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana,89 the mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast - that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross,90 that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true "Mother of all the living."