The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with our ideas about covenant and marriage and the direction for our lives in these relationships.
Consider the Covenant
The reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah proclaims the vindication and salvation of Zion.
* [62:1–12] As in chap. 60, the prophet addresses Zion, announcing the reversal of her fortune. Several motifs reappear: light and glory (60:1–3, 19–20), tribute of nations (60:11), and especially the marriage (61:10; cf. also 54:5–8).1
Psalm 96 praises God Who comes in judgment.
* [Psalm 96] A hymn inviting all humanity to praise the glories of Israel’s God (Ps 96:1–3), who is the sole God (Ps 96:4–6). To the just ruler of all belongs worship (Ps 96:7–10); even inanimate creation is to offer praise (Ps 96:11–13). This Psalm has numerous verbal and thematic contacts with Is 40–55, as does Ps 98. Another version of the Psalm is 1 Chr 16:23–33.2
The reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians asserts the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
* [12:4–6] There are some features common to all charisms, despite their diversity: all are gifts (charismata), grace from outside ourselves; all are forms of service (diakoniai), an expression of their purpose and effect; and all are workings (energēmata), in which God is at work. Paul associates each of these aspects with what later theology will call one of the persons of the Trinity, an early example of “appropriation.”3
In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the Wedding at Cana to present signs of His mission.
* [2:1–11] The first sign. This story of replacement of Jewish ceremonial washings (Jn 2:6) presents the initial revelation about Jesus at the outset of his ministry. He manifests his glory; the disciples believe. There is no synoptic parallel.4
Mike Cherney finds himself drawn to St. Paul’s comment on the diversity of gifts. He thinks about how we are called to respond as recipients of God’s gifts. He considers the current labor market and the historically large number of people who are rethinking their role in the workplace. He and his wife are finding themselves among the disproportionate number of people later in their lives who are reassessing how they can best serve in their remaining years.
Don Schwager quotes “The touch of the Lord,” by Ephrem the Syrian (306-373 AD).
"Why did our Lord change nature at the beginning of his signs, if it was not to show that the divinity that changed nature in the interior of the jars was the same that changed nature in the womb of the virgin? And at the conclusion of the signs, he opened the tomb to show that the insatiable nature of death would not keep hold of him; he confirmed and ratified these two uncertainties of his birth and of his death. As to their nature, these waters were turned into the [fruit of] the vine; their stone vessels were not changed within their own nature. They were a symbol of his body, which was wonderfully conceived in a woman, and in a marvelous way by [the intervention of] no man within the virgin. He thus made wine out of water to teach about the manner of his conception and birth. He called upon the six jars as witness to the one virgin who gave birth to him; for the jars conceived in a unique way that was not customary for them, and they brought forth wine, and then they did not continue to produce [it]. Thus did the virgin conceive and give birth to Immanuel, and then she ceased and did not continue [to give birth]. The offspring of the jars was from smallness to grandeur, and from vileness to excellence, for from water came good wine. In this case [the birth from the virgin], however, it was from grandeur to weakness and from glory to contempt. Yet in the case of these jars, they were for the purification of the Jews, and our Lord poured his instruction into them, to teach that he came in the way [found in] the Law and the Prophets, and he transformed everything by his teaching, just as wine [was made] from water." (excerpt fromCommentary on Tatian's DIATESSARON 5.6-7)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on John 2:1-11 comments that we ask Jesus to come into a specific situation, as Mary did at the wedding at Cana. And when we see him acting—whether that’s through answering our prayer or reassuring us of his presence—he reveals something about himself. That he loves us. That he cares for us. That he has come to save us. That he will be with us always.
Is there some situation in your life that you want the Lord to enter into? As you pray, remember that he wants to do more than just resolve the immediate problem you are facing. He wants you to know who he is and why he came. He wants to reveal his glory to you. “Jesus, open my eyes to your glory in my life!”7
Friar Jude Winkler shares how God renewed the Covenant with the people of Israel after they had turned away at the time of the Exile. Paul expresses difficulty with the proto Gnostic attitudes of Corinthians who over emphasized speaking in tongues among the gifts of the Spirit. Friar Jude makes many connections in the symbols at the wedding in Cana to Jesus' “hour of glory” on the Cross.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that there were clear statements in the New Testament about the cosmic meaning to Christ [1], and the communities taught by Paul and John were initially overwhelmed by this message. In the early Christian era, only some few Eastern Fathers (such as Origen of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor) cared to notice that the Christ was clearly something older, larger, and different than Jesus himself. They mystically saw that Jesus is the union of human and divine in space and time, and the Christ is the eternal union of matter and Spirit beyond time. But the later centuries tended to lose this mystical element in favor of dualistic Christianity. We lost our foundational paradigm for connecting all opposites.
Since we could not overcome the split between the spiritual and the material within ourselves, how could we then possibly overcome it for the rest of creation? The polluted earth, extinct and endangered species, tortured animals, nonstop wars, and constant religious conflicts have been the result. Yet Jesus the Christ has still planted within creation a cosmic hope, and we cannot help but see it in so many unexplainable and wonderful events and people. For some Christians, the split is overcome in the person of Jesus. But for more and more people, union with the divine is first experienced through “the Universal Christ”—in nature, in moments of pure love, silence, inner or outer music, with animals, or a primal sense of awe. Why? Because creation itself is the first incarnation of Christ, the primary and foundational “Bible” that reveals the path to God. Our encounter with the eternal Christ mystery started about 13.8 billion years ago in an event we now call the “Big Bang.” God has overflowed into visible Reality and revealed God’s self in trilobites, giant flightless birds, jellyfish, pterodactyls, and thousands of species that humans have never once seen. But God did. And that was already more than enough meaning and glory.8
The image of God and Jesus as bridegroom to the people of God is a rich paradigm in which to examine our keeping of the Covenant.
References
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