March for Life
On January 24, 2025, thousands will gather at the National Mall for the 52nd March for Life. I miss being there with the high school students (though I don’t miss the bus ride!). They march in order to speak for those who cannot; to stand up for the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for those who cannot stand up for themselves. I ask that you pray for the legal protection of the unborn; that the protection of the most vulnerable lives will one day be enshrined in our laws.
To that end, please consider signing up to spend one hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament on Friday, January 24. Adoration takes place each Friday in the Creation Chapel. Please offer up time this Friday to pray for the unborn and to pray for a greater conversion and change of heart for our country.
I also want to draw your attention to an organization that I find myself getting more and more involved with - Protect Life Michigan. Christen Polo and her team are raising up the next pro-life generation by training and equipping young people for pro-life leadership, educating youth on life issues and pregnancy resources, and networking young people within their communities to strengthen their impact. Should you wish to help in this important endeavor, you can go to their website and find more information.
Lenten Mission
Please mark your calendars and plan on attending our Lenten Mission March 16 - 18, 2025! We are collaborating with St. Mary Parish, Williamston. More details to follow. This will be an excellent way to enrich your spiritual lives especially the seasons of Lent and Easter.
Fr. Luke Ferris, a priest of the Diocese of Green Bay, WI and a preacher for the National Eucharistic Congress, will serve as our retreat master. He was on faculty when I was a student at the Institute of Priestly Formation (Creighton University) Spiritual Directors Training Program from 2016-2019. He is excellent and will prove to be a great speaker.
This Lenten Mission will be well worth your invested time!
Gospel Reflection
Today we read the familiar account of the Wedding Feast at Cana in which Jesus miraculously changed water in wine. Without even reading John’s narrative of the event, I am sure you could each tell the story with some degree of specificity. When we read this account, what are we immediately drawn to? Most would say the miracle of changing water into wine, but let’s take a step back and ask a couple of questions. Why was Jesus invited to the wedding in the first place? And why did He decide to attend?
We don’t really know why Jesus and His mother were invited to the wedding. We don’t even know who the bride and groom were. Perhaps they were family. Perhaps they were intimate friends. Regardless, Jesus and His mother were there. They were close enough to the bride and groom to be invited to celebrate the marriage.
Why did Jesus decide to accept the invitation to attend the wedding? Like the answer to the first question, He was obviously personally close enough to the bride and groom to be there - to be invited. (We will come back to the word invited.) Why the wedding? Why was Jesus there, and why did He decide to perform His first public miracle in the context of a marriage?
To answer these questions, let's ask ourselves who Jesus is? Jesus is both God and man. In the person of Jesus Christ, humanity meets divinity. In the person of Jesus Christ, humanity and divinity are intimately united. Jesus Himself is a marriage, so to speak. He is the marriage of humanity and divinity which were once divorced and the relationship fractured because of sin. The covenantal relationship between God and man was destroyed due to sin. Jesus is telling us something about Himself and what He came to accomplish in the context of the marriage celebration.
At Mass, the priest mixes a small amount of water into the wine prior to consecration. As he does so, he says under his breath, “By the mingling of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Water, quite often and certainly in the context of the miracle at Cana, represents humanity (you and me) and the wine represents divinity (God himself). Wine also represents something else - the blood to be shed to bring us back into relationship (back into covenant) with God the Father.
Jesus came to put us back into relationship with God, and He knew He would accomplish this by shedding His blood. Jesus knew that His blood would transform us; that His blood would change us into something different than we were before. His blood would change us into something more like Himself - something like divinity.
By accepting the invitation to the wedding, by performing this miracle in the context of the wedding, Jesus is foreshadowing His mission and subtly telling us who He is. By accepting the invitation to the wedding, Jesus invites us into relationship with Him - God. Will we accept the invitation? Will we accept the invitation by allowing Jesus to change us? As we pray into the wedding feast at Cana, let us move our hearts all the more toward relationship with Christ through His Church. Let’s accept Christ’s invitation by inviting Him all the more into the very being of who we are, allowing Him to change us into who He wants us to become.
Know of my prayers for you all!