Second Sunday in Ordinary Time--Sunday, January 19th, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We concluded the Christmas Season last Sunday and began Ordinary Time on Monday. Today, we continue the Season of Ordinary Time with this Second Sunday. This season will take us to Tuesday, March 4th. We begin Ordinary Time in the same way we ended Christmas last Sunday, with an Epiphany. Today we reflect on the “Wedding Feast of Cana” from the Gospel of Saint John; this is also the second Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary. Jesus, the one born in Bethlehem, who laid in the manger, has manifested His identity as the Christ, the Son of God as He performed His first miracle, changing water into wine. The Jewish Wedding Celebration that Jesus is attending has need of His help. Remember that the Jewish Wedding Celebration is eight days and there must be enough wine for each day. Although Jesus is a guest at the wedding, He reveals Himself as the “Groom.” What Jesus does with the water by changing it into wine reveals how He will prepare a bride for Himself. Jesus takes something very common and earthy - water, which represent fallen man, and  mingles it with His life blood represented by the grape that is made into wine. Water is transformed into what it was not, just as we are transformed into what we once were before the fall, the perfect image and likeness of close to us to mingle Himself with our humanity so that we may enter into the “Nuptial Relationship” with Him. This Gospel reading is perfect for us in this Jubilee of Hope – that we would be willing to pass through Christ and place ourselves in His hands so that He would restore us to a right relationship with God. Saint Paul helps us to see how God accomplishes this in each and everyone of us. The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, endows each of us with different gifts according to God’s will. God coming close to us enables us to reflect Him right there where we are everyday. Recall last Sunday from Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus was baptized He was praying. Prayer is essential to keep a close relationship with God. It is through our prayer that we can discern the gifts of the Holy Spirit so as to be faithful sons and daughters of God in our everyday life. Through prayer and the Scriptures we can discover how we are to live our lives, where we must repent, and be restored to what we once were.

Blessings,
Fr. Steven J. Guitron
Pastor