Sunday, January 14, 2007

Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Epiphany 14.1.07

2nd Sunday after Epiphany 14.1.07 Cana

We have been celebrating in the Christmas season that God the Son took on human nature, joining it to His already existing divine nature.

Today’s miracle at Cana has been traditionally understood as an epiphany, a showing forth of God’s glory, the first public miracle worked by Our Lord.

An epiphany requires to be ‘seen’ to have its full effect. Can we see what is happening here? Have we eyes to see?

The symbolism of this miracle can teach us much. Water is turned into wine. And it is the very best sort of wine.

In every Mass we pray that through the mingling of water and wine we may come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.

If divine is wine and human is water, the lesser is taken up into the greater and enriched forever.

Once God has taken on human nature humanity can never be the same.

We have been upgraded. Our Lord said on another occasion: we cannot put new wine into old skins. The skins would burst and the wine would be lost.

New wine, new skins. If our human nature is to hold divinity we must be remade, be new people.

The ‘epiphany’, the point we must see, is that we cannot be new humanity if we continue to live in the old sinful ways.

We cannot be lazy, lying, lustful, bearing grudges and rages, and still hope to be sharing in the divinity of Christ.

This is old skins and the new wine will not hold.

Nor can we fulfil this new state just by ritual observance (such as going to Mass once a week)

Nor by minimal observance of the commandments, cutting corners at every possible chance.

What is required is no less than a complete makeover, a complete new person, like a new building from the foundation up.

To be incorporated into divinity is no small thing.

We must rise to the occasion.

How do we do this?

Just think that you probably came to this Mass in a car. How many came on horseback? A hundred years ago everyone would have come on a horse, or pulled by one.

We have upgraded. We do this for every area of our lives except the most important.

When it comes to our human nature - when an upgrade is available – we stay with the old. We stay with our sins because we are used to that way of living.

Hard for us to change, even if we do see the need, because old and bad habits die hard.

How to dig them out? Gradually it can be done.

One more prayer, one more act of penance, one more good deed, one little bit more exertion, one more sacrament…

Just push ourselves a little harder and we find new doors to grace opening and we become stronger.

We can reach a new platform from which other progress can be made.

Supposing we overcome one bad habit. If there was a certain sin we were committing five years ago, but are not committing now, this is progress. It gives us another starting point.

We don’t go back to the old ways and we can head further into new territory, the land of holiness.

Living in union with divinity is a skill to be learnt, but we can practise it and get better.

At least know what is required. ‘See’ the revelation, grasp the point, and don’t try to pretend that nothing has happened at Cana.

You are marked for greatness; don’t settle for less.