We take a detour from our Year C Gospel of Luke in order to explore the Wedding Feast at Cana. This is a Scripture text awash with meaning. From Our Lady’s intercessory role to Our Lord’s seemingly callous response, we’ll unpack the deeper meanings hidden within the text and the abundant Old Testament parallels that reveal a nuptial and new covenant theme. We’d also be remiss to ignore the fact that this Gospel reveals God’s heart, a heart that overflows with joy and that desires nothing but the best for those He loves.

Jesus is lost and found in today's Gospel. In it, the evangelist describes Jesus as having "understanding", an Old Testament characteristic of the Davidic kings. Luke also clearly links Our Lord with the prophet Samuel and by this connection we discover Jesus as the firstborn consecrated to God and the prophet who will speak condemnation on the corrupt Jerusalem priests. We end our episode exploring the interior life of Our Lady who was not shielded from spiritual hardship but learned to foster hope in the midst of confusion.

We turn our attention once more to our Gospel reading and to the figure of John the Baptist. People from all walks of life are coming to him, repenting, and asking for spiritual advice. John exhorts people not to a life of intense asceticism and separation but rather to lives of holiness in the midst of worldly endeavors, a radical idea for the time period. Exploring further John the Baptist's background we discover a man deeply committed to evangelization and a figure who is arguably the first champion of the lay vocation.

This week we continue in the spirit of Jeremiah with our first reading from Baruch, the man who served as Jeremiah's scribe. In it we find many parallels with the Old Testament and contemporary prophetic literature, specifically the Book of Isaiah. We explore the three covenant types of Ancient Near Eastern culture and link Baruch to Genesis 22 in which God himself is the covenant guarantor. Lastly, we explore the New Exodus theme implicit in our first reading and its clear link to our Gospel and the figure of John the Baptist.

As we enter into the Advent season, the Church offers us a series of prophetic texts in our first readings. This week we find ourselves in the prophet Jeremiah and we spend most of our episode situating this reading in its historical context, an exercise that proves helpful for understanding the text itself but also for understanding the season of Advent. As the apocalyptic theme continues in our Gospel we find the Church pointing both backward and forward. Understanding the longings of the Jewish people helps us to understand our own longing for Christ.

The Church points us to the Gospel of John for our feast today, looking specifically at the exchange between Pontius Pilate and Our Lord at the latter's trial. The question at hand is kingship: is Jesus a king and, if so, where is his kingdom? Looking at the literal translation of the Greek we discover how emphatic Our Lord's answers are. He reigns indeed but his reign does not flow from human authority. In fact, all human authority flows from him and one day will be subject to him. We'll also look at the 1925 encyclical that established our feast and the spiritual implications it offers.

Our Lord leaves the Temple for the last time. On the way out his disciples comment on the Temple's beauty and Jesus takes the opportunity to direct their hearts from an earthly worldview to a heavenly one, foretelling the destruction of that beautiful structure. Our Gospel picks up toward the end of this exchange and in it we find an abundance of allusions to a new creation, the ingathering of the nations, and the cosmic battle between good and evil. Though filled with images of suffering, read with the eyes of faith Our Lord's words provide comfort and hope, regardless of what the future may hold.

Jesus takes aim at the scribes in our Gospel today, calling them out for their love of fine things and special treatment. In contrast, Our Lord offers the example of the widow at the Temple. While the opulent monetary contributions of the rich ring out for others to hear, the widow's quiet offering does not go unnoticed by God. Jesus explains that, contrary to appearances, this woman has offered more than all the others. Exploring further the idea of poverty in the spiritual life, we find an apt opportunity to give to God from our nothingness in the sacrament of confession.

Jesus makes his final stop before reaching Jerusalem, passing through the ancient town of Jericho. On his way out of town the cries of a blind man reach his ears, compelling him to stop. Our Lord's encounter with and subsequent healing of the blind man are full of Old Testament resonances. In our Gospel we see the fulfillment of many prophecies announcing the arrival of the Messiah, we find fascinating parallels between Joshua's entry into Jericho and our Gospel, and we discover a unique echo of David's encounter with the blind in this encounter of Bartimaeus with Christ on the road to Jerusalem.

We leave Our Lord's words to speak for themselves in our podcast today, looking closer at the spiritual implication of his message rather than digging into scholarly insights on the text. The former exercise proves deeply important for our interior life, especially in periods of suffering. Understanding that the role James and John wish to possess is actually filled by two thieves leads us to recognize that heavenly success often masquerades as earthly failure and that even when we find it difficult to imagine fruits from our sufferings we can still hold fast to the conviction that heaven knows and honors our faithfulness.