|
In today's gospel St. John
continues the themes of the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord with
the story of the wedding feast at Cana, at which Jesus manifests his
glory to his new disciples. John carefully relates the whole story
in the context of a wedding feast to illustrate for us the kind of
relationship we can expect between Jesus and his disciples, who are the
church.
Marriage in Christ means a whole new way of being. Two people must know
and love each other so much that they are willing to forsake all others
in order to become one complete person in their union with the Lord. Our
culture does not understand this kind of love. It takes time to
get to know another person. It takes communication to learn to
understand and be understood. Finally it takes courage to be willing to
let go of the need for radical independence and self-determination in
favor of a shared destiny with one other person. In order for the
marriage commitment to endure, one's personal wants and desires must be
subjected to the needs and desires of the other, in Christ. The person
ready for marriage must be able and willing to say, "what I want is no
longer as important as what we want." This very important and
fundamental human relationship has never been an easy one to maintain,
and it is becoming no easier in today's freedom-seeking culture.
The spouses who are succeeding in marriage achieve a certain, special
identity with each other. In a very real sense to know and/or love one
is to know and/or love the other. The one person does not make sense, is
not complete without the other. The two have truly become one in the
Lord. This does not mean that they are inadequate or insufficient
without each other. Rather, it means that they are so much in love and
involved with one another that they cannot be appreciated or understood
apart from the other. It is in this sense that the relationship between
Jesus and the Church must be understood.
Every disciple baptized into
Christ is empowered by the Holy Spirit to enter into this kind of
relationship with the Lord Jesus. Anyone who has met a disciple of
Christ should be able to recognize something of the Lord. This was the
kind of relationship John the Evangelist experienced in his Christian
community, and he saw it’s foreshadowing in the miracle at Cana.
Today, on the second Sunday of the year, the Church holds up this
intimate and awesome image of Christ's relationship to his Church and to
us, his disciples. At the beginning of another year's journey with the
Lord we are reminded of what we are called to be. We have the
grace of our baptism, we have the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the
Lord who loves us so much. Now all we need is the desire to use this
year to serve him more perfectly!
|
