Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C (3)

Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Theme: The marriage feast in Cana

By: Rev Fr Stephen ‘Dayo Osinkoya

Homily for Sunday January 16 2022

Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 96
1 Cor. 12:4-11
John 2:1-11

Here we are at the beginning of a new year with high hopes that this year will be better than the last. We have our hopes even though we know that there is much in our world and in our country in particular that is wrong. Without going into a long discouraging list of the many things that are wrong let me mention just but the obvious few of them. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, not closing. Political corruption darkens our perceptions of what is good and what is evil.

Today’s Gospel gives us the point of reference. It takes us back to the very beginning of the Christian movement, the movement of God into our humanity in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God brings His Light to what it means to be human and how we should live with each other. This Sunday’s Gospel tells the story of the first miracle of Jesus in the Gospel of John. Although we are using the Gospel of Luke for the readings most of the year, today we switch to the Gospel of John for the story of the wedding feast at Cana.

This jump to the Gospel of John is due to the fact that the Church is dealing with the inauguration of Jesus over the first weeks after Christmas. With the imagery of marriage relationship, Isaiah gives us the hope that through the marriage of God with his people, there will be a change, a cleansing, a new start. God’s marriage to us will come to fulfillment in Jesus and when we have belief and hope in him, the world can be changed. Hence in the gospel passage of today, John presented us with a marriage feast in Cana as the venue for the first miracle of Jesus.

At every marriage ceremony, there is always an exchange of gift – an exchange of the gift of love between the man and the woman. So at Cana Jesus turned water into wine, because where there is exchange of love, joy should always be present in abundance. Love cannot abide and then sadness, unhappiness and gloom abide in the same place at the same time. When we share our gift with others, we share our love. And St. Paul makes us to understand that there are varieties of gifts; but all given by the same Spirit for the same purpose of serving others (1 Cor. 12:4-11).

So the message for us today is that God’s special gifts are not meant primarily for our personal benefit but for the service of others. That is what St Paul says when he lists examples of different gifts of the Holy Spirit and adds that “to each person is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” We should learn from Mary who knew back in Nazareth that she was living with a person who could work miracles and yet never once ask him to multiply her bread, or double her money to make ends meet? After all, one might think, charity begins at home. But for Mary and for Jesus the will of God, the service and the happiness of others came first.

Beloved in Christ, let us take some time off today to reflect and discover what gifts God has given us, and then ask ourselves if we are using these gifts for some service in the community. Maybe if we began better using the gifts we have for the common good – like the gift of praying, singing, teaching, caring, sharing, encouraging, supporting, motivating, writing, etc. – then we might begin to see miracles. Concern for others is the basic miracle.

We could make our own the famous prayer of St Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love;For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
Our psalm today sums up the message of today’s liturgy by admonishing us thus:
“Give to the LORD glory and praise;
Give to the LORD the glory due his name!”

The only way we can thus give God glory and praise is through the use of His gifts to us in a way that brings joy to the heart of men and women of our world who are already discouraged with the lack of wine of truth, justice and peace. Just as the presence of Jesus made all the difference at the wedding in Cana, so also are we to make our presence make all the difference in the life of others around us.

*Rev Fr Stephen ‘Dayo Osinkoya*