The restoration of happiness

Year C - Ordinary Time 2

FIRST RFADING: Isaiah 62: 1-5. (rsv) For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My delight is in her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

SECOND READING: 1 Cor. 12:4-11. There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

GOSPEL: John 2:1-12. There was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days.

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When the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile (538 BCE) they found Jerusalem (Zion) in ruins. This dismal historical context of the first reading is taken by whoever wrote this part of the Book of Isaiah (often called ‘Second-’ or ‘Third-Isaiah’) as symptomatic of the destruction which money-powered politics and unethical economics wield. ‘Forsaken’ and ‘Desolate’ were Old Testament names given to a woman abandoned by her husband (1 Kg. 22: 42; 2 Kg. 21: 1). They are used here to refer to a people which has become a victim of greed, impiety and violence. Inequality, intolerance, disrespect, dominance, and the like, destroy any covenant of communal love which, according to God’s dream, should exist if things were governed justly.

Such communality can only be established by the principles of fraternity, equality and freedom, as Paul proclaims to the Christians of Corinth. This was a prosperous Roman colony where Paul lived and preached between 50 and 52 CE before moving on to Ephesus. Paul provides sound theological reasons for a political and economic system which engenders justice and peace, a system which retains and enhances the beauty of individual lives and happy social living.

John expresses the restoration by Jesus of such beauty and happiness through the story of a marriage feast. Despite the long and meticulous preparation that must have gone into it, this feast was practically ruined. Wine here represents all that spoils the happiness and beauty of our lives, just as Jesus represents, personally and spiritually, all the values which he preached and practiced. Unhappiness and ugliness are incompatible with Christian values. These values restore life to the form intended by God.

The fulfilment of God’s plan

Cycle C – Advent 2

FIRST READING: Baruch 5: 1-9 – Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, 0 Jerusalem, and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. For God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven. For your name will for ever be called by God, “Peace of righteousness and glory of godliness.” Arise, 0 Jerusalem, stand upon the height and look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. For they went forth from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne. For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

SECOND READING: Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11 – In every prayer of mine, I am thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

GOSPEL: Luke 3:1-6 – In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness; and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

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Baruch was the prophet Jeremiah’s friend and secretary. It was he who wrote some of the prophecies of Jeremiah, and also provided biographical data about Jeremiah. What is called the Book of Baruch was most probably not written by Baruch. Nevertheless, it contains the teachings and sentiments of both Jeremiah and Baruch. Both of them lived through the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, which seemed to be a failure of God’s plan of salvation. The writer proclaims that this is not so. However, it is clear that he had in mind something much more than just the release of the Jews from Babylon: a return to the original communal plan which Moses designed for the people of Israel.

This plan became a reality through the Christian community. One such community, and a strong one at that, was at Philippi, a city in Macedon. Paul was a prisoner when he wrote to the Christian community there. It had been the first which Paul had set up in Europe, and, understandably, he had a soft spot for it. Paul rejoiced to see God’s plan being fulfilled. ‘His’ community was a sure sign that new times had begun.

These new times were heralded by John the Baptist. He was never a Christian, and neither was Jesus ever a disciple of the Baptist. Nonetheless, John was another sure sign (one which he could not have imagined in a thousand years) that the ‘age of the gentiles’ was over, and that the ‘salvation of God’ was at hand.