The Catholic Calendar for Sunday, January 18, 2004
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 96:1-3,7-10
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
John 2:1-11

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks His mother the very strange-sounding question, “How does this concern of yours involve Me? My hour has not yet come.” If we didn’t know better, we might think that her concerns didn’t matter at all, so terse-sounding was His reply. The fact that He did reply is the gospel’s message and allows us to understand something about our relationship with Jesus and just how much our concerns matter to Him.

We know that gospel stories are not meant only to demonstrate how Jesus responds and interacts with a specific individual, but how He does (and will) respond to us too. In other words, who is Mary but His devoted and faithful mother. Pure and full of grace, her only desire is to do His will. So when He says, “What matter do you make to Me?” and then goes on to anticipate His own schedule to please her, we begin to see how we too must matter to Jesus.

As with Mary, He will anticipate our needs, revise His schedule, bend down from heaven to perform for us a miracle of love. Let us never again be shocked by Jesus’ opening words in this Gospel, but remember instead what He did for Mary -- what He will do for us.

- Donna Nelson, ocds
(drn3rd at hotmail dot com)

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posted by joachim at 4:44 AM