Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, C, Vigil
January 18, 2025
To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
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The following text guided the homily:
* This is Msgr. Roger Landry, National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us in this Sunday’s Gospel, when we will participate liturgically in the most famous wedding of all time, because of who was on the guest list. We meditate on the Wedding Feast of Cana every Thursday as we pray the second Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary. Often we pray about what it reveals about the Sacrament of Marriage and how Jesus takes the “water” of the institution of marriage from the beginning with Adam and Eve and raises it to the “wine” of a sacramental encounter with him: how Christ brings the marriage between a Christian man and woman into the marriage between Christ and the Church in fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied with words we ponder every Christmas: “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you, and as a Bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.” The wedding feast of Cana is an implicit revelation not just of Jesus’ miraculous power, but of his spousal love, the nuptial intention of his incarnation, even though no one, except Mary, would have had any clue about it at the time.
* I would like to examine the scene under three different angles: what we learn about Mary’s intercession, what we learn about the way Jesus generously exercises his merciful power, and what we learn about the servants’ zealous cooperation. Each of these has much to say to us about our Christian faith and life.
* Let’s begin with what the scene reveals about the Blessed Mother. Ancient Jewish wedding celebrations, like the one taking place in Cana, would last eight days, with three sumptuous meals a day. Wine was served throughout the octave. It was the generally the happiest celebration in the life of Jews, which is why Jesus often returned to the image of a wedding banquet to describe the joys of heaven. Rather than leaving on a honeymoon, the couple would remain, reigning so to speak as king and queen over the celebrations. We can only imagine how embarrassing it would be today if, at a wedding reception, the banquet hall ran out of food or beverages early in the celebration. Even though most people would sympathize with the couple and blame the banquet facility, it would still be terribly embarrassing for the family. In the ancient world, it would have been incalculably more so, because the family itself threw the reception. If they ran out of supplies, especially with days to go during the reception, it would have been an embarrassment that likely would never have been forgotten. Mary was at the wedding and noticed the impending catastrophe. Before the wine steward caught on to the predicament, before the couple did, before even their parents did, Mary saw the problem. The reason why there was no wine left was probably because the others were drinking so much that they just weren’t paying attention. Mary’s love made her notice the details that others were missing. To remedy the problem, she went to her Son. She didn’t twist His arm. She didn’t try to persuade Him that he should act. She simply said, “They have no wine!,” confident that her Son, even though it wasn’t His “hour” for working public miracles (because that would inexorably pre...
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