Videos from selected homilists; Transcript excerpts from Fr. Hawkswell, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Chama, Msgr. Pellegrino, Fr. Sigma, Fr. Kavanaugh’s homilies; Bishop Barron podcasts; Life Issues; Doctrinal Homily Outlines
“Our most common folly is that we often realise this important point only after our own resources have been depleted or even exhausted,” writes Father Chua
BC CATHOLIC | 2022
This Sunday, we hear how Christ changed water into wine during the wedding feast at Cana.
St. Athanasius pointed out that this happens naturally and gradually whenever vines grow and grapes ferment. What Christ did at Cana was to hasten and localize the processes involved.
Thus he showed that he was not a magician, perverting natural processes, as when the devil tempted him to change stones into bread. No; he showed that he was God, creation’s master, the power behind all fermentation.
O.P. | 2022
God wants us to enjoy living our human lives. Indeed, God wants to bring our humanity to its fulfilment. God wants us to have a good, fulfilled life rather than an ordinary life. God wants us to have good wine rather than ordinary wine. That good life is found in Jesus. Jesus is the good wine. Human life is not to be repressed or denied. Jesus was an ordinary human being and passed as such for much of the time. His divine origins and authority become apparent in what he did when he encountered hypocrisy and lies. In other words, what he did when he encountered a lack of humanity, whether that be ill-health or ill-will. He healed it.
RELATED HOMILIES:
Water into Wine (2019)
I Will Not be Silent (2016)
A CONCORD PASTOR COMMENTS | 2019
Because I often use props in my homilies you might be wondering if I’m going to pull out a jug of water and change it into wine. Sorry! Changing water into wine is something above my pay grade. Besides which, I have a hard enough time changing the person I am into the person I want to be – even though I know that’s exactly what GOD is helping me to do, helping me become the person I was created to be, the person I’m called to be.
BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2019
The miracles of Jesus were not just intended for people of his own time. They have been recorded for our benefit. Therefore, if we examine a miracle story closely, it often yields to us an insight about our own lives or our relationship to God. This is certainly true of today’s miracle at the wedding feast of Cana. When Jesus was at Cana, he saved a young couple from serious embarrassment during their wedding celebration. But what does this miracle mean for us? What can we draw from this story that has relevance to our own lives?
CHRIST IN THE DESERT MONASTERY | 2016
The changing of water into wine at Cana’s wedding feast is called “the first of Jesus’ signs.” And what is a sign? The purpose of the signs recounted in the Gospel of Saint John is to demonstrate the mission of Jesus and to strengthen the believer’s faith on the road to eternal life. At the sight of the signs performed by Jesus, we are told that people came to believe in him and continue to believe to the present as well. The call, though, is to be more than “impressed” or “amazed,” by Jesus, but to experience firsthand the glory and majesty of the only-begotten Son, the Redeemer of the human race, and to follow in his footsteps until our final breath.
DIOCESE OF KNOXVILLE | 2016
What I was struck by in praying over this gospel passage was the depth of the relationship (and this word is important) between Jesus and his mother. Mary does not even need to ask. She knows her son and even if she does not know fully how everything will play out she knows who he is and why he has come. “They have no wine,” is all that she needs to say. Our Lord knows what she is implying, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”
DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2022
Although the Christmas season is over and we are in the Ordinary Time of the year, today’s Gospel once more returns us to the Epiphany. There are actually three epiphanies of the Lord. The Orthodox and Byzantine Churches celebrate them all together on the same day. The Roman Catholic Church separates them. So we had the wise men two weeks ago, and the Baptism of the Lord last week. During the year C readings, that we are now in, the third Epiphany, the turning of water to wine at Cana, is celebrated this week. This is seen by the Church as an epiphany because it is the first time that Jesus Himself manifested His divinity to His disciples. The Gospel of John calls it the first of His signs.
DIOCESE OF SACRAMENTO | 2022
It comes as no surprise to say that our culture is driven by competition. On every level, there seems to be a competitiveness that leads to little more than eventual unhappiness. To be the best at anything can bring personal satisfaction. But how was that success achieved? Was it at the expense of fairness, honesty, morality, and integrity? Was it by running roughshod over other contenders? Another problem with competitiveness is that we can become envious of others. We resent their talent or their good fortune. We can also become discouraged, distressed – and even depressed. Perhaps the worst part of competitiveness is that it can put people at odds with one another. It can destroy basic human relationships. People can begin to look down on others – or think that they, themselves, are superior.
KUALA LUMPUR | 2013
So what do we do when the wine runs out? What do we do when the thrill is gone? What do we do when the passion fizzles? What do we do when the faith fails? What do we do when health degenerates? Many look for substitutes, only to find themselves disappointed once again because the wine will also run out. ‘Running away’ is no solution too. Mary shows us the way. The strength of Mary’s faith is when she tells the servants to follow the instructions of her son.
SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997
Isaiah is not alone among the prophets in portraying our relationship to God in images of covenantal love. Hosea’s Yhwh will “betroth you to myself forever, with tenderness.” Ezekiel spins a marvelous tale of courtship, betrayal, and redemptive pardon to explain the history of God’s commitment to Israel. But Isaiah goes beyond the others. He presents an outright celebration of nuptials: God’s relation to Israel, to us, is an undying covenant of love and fidelity. “You shall be called ‘My Delight,’ your land, ‘Espoused.’ For the Lord delights in you, and makes your land his spouse. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.”
SINGLE HUMANITY | 2019
At Christmas we celebrated the son of God who became man like us. I tell you, it’s for real! God, in Jesus, comes at the wedding of your life. We can see in this Sunday’s readings. I marvel at the image of God that comes out from the readings, his determination and his way of loving -so human! You would say, he feels and speaks like us. It shouldn’t be a surprise. In fact, when we are truly human, we can see ourselves in him; for aren’t we made in his image and likeness?
Friends, this week we resume Ordinary Time, and the Church gives us this extraordinary story of the first sign of Christ’s divinity—the miracle at Cana. Why is the first of Jesus’ miracles turning water into wine at a wedding? Because Jesus himself is the marriage of heaven and earth, who transforms the water of human flourishing into the wine of the divine life.
THE FIRST OF THE SIGNSby Bishop Robert Barron . January 20, 2019 & January 17, 2016
The communion of humanity and divinity in Christ’s divine person can be likened to a marriage. Sin effects a kind of divorce between God and humanity, a break up of the marriage of God and his people. How wonderful, therefore, when the Messiah offers the first sign of his identity and mission at a wedding. This is an indication that the relationship of God and humanity will be transformed, reconciled, and renewed in Jesus Christ.
THE WEDDING BANQUET THAT OVERFLOWS WITH WINEby Bishop Robert Barron . January 20, 2013
We begin Ordinary Time with the wedding at Cana, a rich, spiritual story with great implications for the Church. Both weddings and wine are consistently used symbols in scripture, and each is utilized to a powerful degree to explain the Incarnation, grace, the Sacraments, and the fulfillment of God’s love for us.
THE GREAT WEDDINGby Bishop Robert Barron . January 18, 2004
The prophet Isaiah expresses the conviction of ancient Israel that God wants to marry his people, which is to say, to share his life fully with them. This espousing God becomes flesh in Jesus and hence it is altogether appropriate that the Lord’s first public sign in John’s Gospel takes place at a wedding. He has come that we might have life and have it to the full. The “”good wine”” of the wedding feast at Cana is now the “”good wine”” of the Eucharist by which all of us become partakers of God’s inner life
THE WEDDING OF HEAVEN AND EARTHby Bishop Robert Barron . January 14, 2001
When Jesus appears at the Wedding Feast of Cana, he signals the marriage of heaven and earth. When God moves into our experience, he transfigures humanity, elevating art, philosophy, science and politics into bearers of the sacred. He changes the water of earth into the wine of heaven.
