January 19th, 2025 - Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel is St. John’s record of the first miracle in the earthly ministry of Christ.  At one point at this wedding at Cana, the guests started to notice the shortage of wine, and Mary brought this news to the attention of her Son. His first thought was his bond with his Father, his commitment to do his Father’s will and to do only what the Father wanted.  Jesus does act by turning jars of water into jugs of wine.   It was a demonstration of the near presence and power of God.  When this miraculous wine was served to the guests, the head steward mistakenly gave credit to the bridegroom, thinking that he had saved this amazing vintage for the last moment of the wedding. But it wasn’t the groom who practiced delayed gratification, it was Jesus. And this miracle pointed to the very character of God who sometimes does not give us what we want according to our first instinct, but what we really need to love and serve him. God loves us so much that sometimes he seems to delay the answer to our prayers, knowing we are not ready. God loves us so much that He may deny our requests because he wants to give us something so much more than we can ever imagine at the present moment. This is the way of God.