Christmas Weekday

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010712.cfm

The path into the Valley of Saint Francis
passes by the foundation of a structure
that stood here once. 

There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,

and the mother of Jesus was there....

Following the extra long Advent the Christmas season seems to end abruptly. In its last three days we will hear the gospel of Jesus at the wedding feast of Cana, the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord. Their sequence is obviously not set by chronology; that would be Epiphany, Baptism and Cana. The Epiphany is a much loved, ancient feast in the Church, celebrated in the east with special festivities as the west celebrates the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas). Although we have dislodged Epiphany from January 6 and placed it on the first Sunday of the new year, it remains a point of unity between the eastern and western ends of the Church. 

Today we hear the inaugural event of Saint John's gospel, the wedding feast of Cana. Readers should always  notice the numbers in Saint John's gospel. They mean something.

• One day John the Baptist gave testimony concerning "one among you whom you do not know";
• the next day he saw Jesus and cried out, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." 
• the next day two of the Baptist's disciples followed Jesus
• the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, along the way he found Philip and Nathaniel; and finally,
• On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Add those days up and you come to the seventh day, which is also the third day! "Seven days" recalls God's creation of the earth. The seventh day is the Sabbath when God and his people rest from their labor. The third day is often the end of a period of preparation or waiting in the scriptures; and, as every Christian reader knows, it is the day of the Resurrection. On this third day which is the seventh day Jesus and his mother attend the first day of a couple's life together. This event is filled with the satisfactions of seven, three and one. 
It is a joyful day when every one drinks good wine. It becomes even more festive when Jesus gives them extraordinarily good wine. We will hear about that wonderful wine again on Pentecost when the disciples come streaming out of the Upper Room to announce the death and resurrection of Jesus. People will sneer, "They have been drinking new wine!" Indeed they are drunk with the new wine of the Holy Spirit, elated with a spirit beyond anything the world can offer. 

Give them a few centuries and these mosses will
turn the cement back to dust,
and time means nothing to them.

The Wedding Feast of Cana is a joyous celebration tasting of freedom, bliss and open, expectant hope in the promises of God. Like any festivity among God's people, it is a foretaste and promise of good things to come. It's only shadows are the moments when "they have no wine" and Jesus' ominous word, "My time has not yet come." But those shadows should not cast a pall over our celebration. Cana is a time for joy; we're delighted to attend the nuptial with Jesus and his mother, for it represents the nuptials of God and his holy people.