(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Mass-Blog-for-the-2nd-Sunday-of-Ordinary-Time-2025.mp3)
Mary taught Jesus a lesson at the Cana wedding feast before Jesus taught one to its headwaiter. It’s always time to serve the good stuff. So when the choice wine ran out, Mary enlisted her son’s help.
“They have no wine.”
Jesus responds,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”
Mary didn’t have to say another word to him, but maybe she shot him one of those Mom-looks, because the only other thing she had to say was to the servers:
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Fast-forward 2,000 years. Turns out, we’re ALL obedient servers called to do whatever He tells us!
Our very selfhood is God’s gift of abundance, and each of us is called to keep God’s grace flowing. We’re more than just containers of God’s grace, we’re distributors of it. It doesn’t matter how many recipients there are, as long as we’re here, it never runs out. Neither does God’s joy in giving it.
Even Isaiah couldn’t contain God’s joy, as Sunday’s first reading indicates (Isaiah 62:1-5). Through this great prophet, God gave the Promised Land a new name: “My Delight.” And Isaiah did what prophets do: spread God’s glory so even kings couldn’t compete with it and their subjects couldn’t deny it.
None of us can contain God’s glory as expressed through each of us. As Paul teaches, it overflows through all of us but manifests itself in different ways.
“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)
Abundantly. Like the fine wine at Cana, God’s grace is never exhausted as long as we’re here to serve it. And as Paul also reminded the Corinthians, God loves a cheerful giver.
“God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work. … his righteousness endures forever.” (2Corinthians 9:8)
Forever means timeless, and as Mary taught Jesus, our hour is always now.
Priest and philosopher John O’Donohue took Mary’s lesson to heart, reminding us that we are all timeless expressions of God’s grace.
“You did not invent yourself or bring yourself here,” he taught. “In terms of human time, the mystery of your individuality was dreamed for millions of years. Your strange and restless uniqueness is an intimate expression of God and who you are says something of who God is.”
Like the fine wine at Cana, God is good all the time.
–Tom Andel
So many lessons in these readings and this blog. To me, the essential takeaway is “do whatever he tells you!”
Such simple advice coming from one who would know, the first disciple of our Lord, his mother Mary. If only we can accept the grace to heed and live out these truths. Do whatever he tells you!
There are countless ways to seek out and determine what this supernatural advice means to each of us. How does Jesus direct us? It can start by our being open to his word in scripture. Certainly, in feeding on His word in the Holy Eucharist.
Do whatever He tells you!
The desire to take God’s direction lends integrity to how we serve what He puts in us. His grace is like the wine that becomes Christ’s sacred blood. It can turn a broken cup into a chalice.
“Like the fine wine at Cana, God is good all the time.”
My prayer and goal is to be open to God’s Goodness