My Hour Has Not Yet Come: Reflections on the Readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Isaiah 62:1-4
Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
John 2:1-11

“The ‘Hour’ obviously refers to His Cross. Whenever the word ‘Hour’ is used in the New Testament, it is used in relation to His Passion, death, and glory.” (Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ) It may not seem obvious but most of the readings today can be connected to the Cross.

Isaiah uses the image of God as bridegroom and Jerusalem (Israel) as the spouse, just as Jesus (God) is the bridegroom and the Church His bride. As such Jerusalem will be vindicated and her victory will shine like a burning torch. In this way this passage actually points to the victory of the Resurrection which comes after the Cross. Jerusalem “shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD, a royal diadem held by your God.” In other parts of Scripture we hear about gaining the crown which only comes after trial (e.g., James 1:12).

“Your builder shall marry you” is a metaphor for the Creator uniting with His creation. Just as Jesus admonished the pharisees about marriage, “and the two shall become one” (Matthew 19:5), this passage points to the unity that Jesus spoke of with the Father, Himself, and the disciples. Recall Jesus’s discourse at the Last Supper: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17:20-21)

Just as Isaiah talks of the unity of God with His creation, so Jesus is praying for the unity of the Church with Himself and the Trinity. It will be a time for rejoicing.

The responsorial psalm gives us an indication of how this unity will come about – through salvation. The salvation comes from Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross and His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven. These are indeed marvelous and wondrous deeds. Just as we are called to witness to the Truth the responsorial calls upon us to “Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations.” We do this by giving God glory and praise and we “Worship the LORD in holy attire.”

This psalm also gives insight into what we mean by “fear of the Lord.” By acknowledging God’s almighty power we humble ourselves before Him. As Dr. Peter Kreeft says, “God has to keep reminding us of the two most obvious truths in the world: that we are not him, and that he is not us.” Dr. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle C. And so the psalmist tells us to “Tremble before him, all the earth” because He is King.

St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians also talks to God’s wondrous deeds through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” But we have to remember that it is not for our benefit that we are given these gifts but we are to use them to serve God. In this regard we should reflect on what gifts we have been given and how best to use them.

In the words of St. John Henry Newman, “I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created. I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has. Whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name. God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission ... Somehow I am necessary for his purposes, as necessary in my place as an archangel in his …” St. John Henry Newman, Everyday Meditations

How are you using your gifts?

The first public miracle or sign as John refers to them occurred at the wedding feast in Canaan. As we see, Jesus had already gathered His apostles (see John 1:35-51) although He had not yet begun His public ministry, and they, along with His Blessed Mother, were at the wedding feast. When she observed that the wine had run out, Our Mother, the mediatrix, went to her Divine Son and simply said, “They have no wine.” To this Our Lord replied, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”

This simple exchange, besides initiating the first miracle or sign (of Christ’s divinity) was to change everything, for it would propel Him on the road to Calvary. “He was implying that a miracle worked as a sign of His Divinity would be the beginning of His Death. The moment He showed Himself before men as the Son of God, He would draw down upon Himself their hatred, for evil can tolerate mediocrity, but not supreme goodness.” (Sheen, Life of Christ)

This exchange also changed the relationship between Jesus, His mother, and even us. In this event Mary steps in on behalf of the wedding couple, who represent us. Thus she becomes a mediatrix between her Son and the people. As we read in the early chapters of Luke, Mary was the first to bring Jesus to others, bringing Him to Elizabeth and John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb. Now she brings Jesus to the people at large.

Returning again to the wisdom of Bishop Sheen’s Life of Christ, “But now that He was launched on the work of Redemption, she would no longer be just His mother, but also the mother of all His human brethren whom He would redeem. To indicate this new relationship, He now addressed her, not as ‘Mother’ but as the ‘Universal Mother’ or ‘Woman.’
“As Our Lord was a man, she was His mother, and as He was a Savior, she was also the mother of all whom He would save.”

And, to top things off, Jesus turned humanity around by not only providing wine but by providing the best wine.

Pope St. John Paul II explains Our Blessed Mother’s role as mediatrix in his 1987 encyclical, Redemptoris Mater. “At Cana in Galilee there is shown only one concrete aspect of human need, apparently a small one of little importance (‘They have no wine’). But it has a symbolic value: this coming to the aid of human needs means, at the same time, bringing those needs within the radius of Christ’s messianic mission and salvific power. Thus there is a mediation: Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself ‘in the middle,’ that is to say she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that as such she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she ‘has the right’ to do so. Her mediation is thus the nature of intercession: Mary ‘intercedes’ for mankind. And that is not all. As a mother she also wishes the messianic power of her Son to be manifested, that the salvific power of his which is meant to help man in his misfortunes, to free him from the evil which in various forms and degrees weighs heavily upon his life.”

“As mariners are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to heaven by Mary.” St. Thomas Aquinas