SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Through the Good News God called us
to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2TH 2:14

ISAIAH 62:1-5

My Soul's Beloved,

Today I exult in the promises of the prophet Isaiah concerning Your love for Your people. The redeemed of the Lord. Even though our sins be as scarlet O Lord, You will never forsake those for whom You laid down Your life. The Father is aware that too great a price was paid for His wayward, disobedient, willful, hard-hearted, stubborn children whom He loves so dearly, so incomprehensibly, so utterly that He sent You, His only begotten Son, to pay the price for our sins. We have separated ourselves from our Father yet He bridged that separation by offering You up as the Sacrificial Lamb whose precious blood washes away our sins. United in You as Your Body, Beloved, we become like You and God accepts us because You redeemed us.

We are holy because You are holy. We are acceptable because You make us so. We are filled with glory and splendor because You share Your glory and splendor with us. We are crowned as sons and daughters of the Living God because the King of Kings and Lord of Lords accepts us from the Hand of God as Your bride whose bridal garments are washed whiter than snow by the Blood of the Lamb. 

We, the forsaken children of Adam and Eve are no longer abandoned, miserable, forsaken, banished from the sight of God but God has so loved us that through the barbaric, heinous crime that men committed against the only Son of the Living God, You, made perfect atonement for the sins of the world and have made us pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God. We are now called:

‘My Delight’

and your land ‘The Wedded’;
for the Lord takes delight in you
and your land will have its wedding.

Like a young man marrying a virgin,
so will the one who built you wed you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,
so will your God rejoice in you.

We cannot thank You enough, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God for becoming the atoning sacrifice for our sins, for feeding us with Your Flesh and Blood, and for pouring out Your Holy Spirit in us to help us who are still so weak and so unworthy to help us in our pilgrim journey from this life to the next. All praise and glory to You, O Lord our God now and forever.

PSALM 95(96):1-3,7-10

Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord all the earth.
O sing to the Lord, bless his name.

Proclaim his help day by day,
tell among the nations his glory
and his wonders among all the peoples.

Give the Lord, you families of peoples,

give the Lord glory and power;
give the Lord the glory of his name.

Worship the Lord in his temple.
O earth, tremble before him.
Proclaim to the nations: ‘God is king.’
He will judge the peoples in fairness.

Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

1 CORINTHIANS 12:4-11

My Soul's Beloved,

The saddest thing in all the world is when we become prideful and boastful about the gifts of the Spirit given to us to build Your Body. Sadly we see this vainglory among many gifted teachers, preachers, and healers, who attract adulation and are placed on a pedestal. Instead of pointing to the Holy Spirit, the Giver of every good and perfect gift, they lap up all of it as their due, they set themselves up as being above the rest. Preaching a gospel of prosperity, overtly and covertly they lead many astray from the truth and away from the fold.   

Today's verses taken from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, remind us that all glory must redound to God alone. Any basking in self-glory is stealing what belongs to God alone. We are only servants in service to the Master. We are Yours to command, to send where You will, and to do with just as You will. All who confess to being members of Your Body are under Your Lordship and must work together in harmony to build the Kingdom of God on earth. 

Forgive us Lord when we ignore the gifts of the Spirit because we are afraid or unwilling to put them to use, or we misuse them for personal glory and gain. Keep us humble, little, childlike, always in the shadow of Your wings, and continue to watch over us, protect us from the wiles of the malignant Enemy who never sleeps.

The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose. One may have the gift of preaching with wisdom given him by the Spirit; another may have the gift of preaching instruction given him by the same Spirit; and another the gift of faith given by the same Spirit; another again the gift of healing, through this one Spirit; one, the power of miracles; another, prophecy; another the gift of recognizing spirits; another the gift of tongues and another the ability to interpret them. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who distributes different gifts to different people just as he chooses.

JOHN 2:1-11

My Soul's Beloved,

The infinite and marvelous ways we can interpret this first miracle that You performed at the wedding in Cana are limitless. From the beginning preachers, teachers, and lovers of the Gospel, all who have meditated on it and inspired by the Spirit of God who is the Spirit of Truth have discovered so many truths in it but we will never plumb its depths and beauty.

You and Your disciples are invited to a wedding at Cana it is a time of celebration. There is no occasion more joyful and hope-filled than a young man who is wedded to his bride and is surrounded by the laughter and rejoicing of family and friends on their special day. Your Mother, who is also present notices that they have run out of wine early into the celebrations she is aware of the great embarrassment this will cause the young bride and groom and their families and so she approaches You. The Queen Mother approaches her Son, the King, knowing that You who love, respect honor, and revere her cannot and will not reject her plea.  

We read that there are six stone water jars meant for the ablutions and customary among the Jews that can hold twenty or thirty gallons of water. You instruct the servants to fill them with water. The servants have already received prior instruction from Your Mom, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ They do exactly as she says. They fill the jars to the brim. You then instruct them to draw some out and take it to the steward which they do. He tastes it and has no idea where it came from, the servants know though, and having tasted it he calls the bridegroom aside and says, ‘People generally serve the best wine first, and keep the cheaper sort till the guests have had plenty to drink; but you have kept the best wine till now.’

Lord God, Savior of the world, we learn so much from this, Your first sign:

Your Mom notices all. She knows when we are in need. She will not hesitate to bring those needs to You. We will only know in heaven the manifold blessings we have received unbeknownst to us through her most powerful intercession because her maternal heart was moved with pity and compassion for us.  

The empty stone jars represent our lives with You and Your life to fill it with grace and with power.

The servants are Your anointed and consecrated ministers who will do whatever You tell them to do.

Through their tireless ministry always and everywhere, we receive the Sacraments of life and healing. We are forgiven and nourished. We are strengthened and renewed with the grace of God and the Holy Spirit.

Only through the waters of baptism can our ordinary lives be transformed into new wine and from us flows Your goodness and sweetness so all who meet us exclaim with wonder and awe when we live a life of grace.  

Outside the life of the Catholic Church our lives hold ordinary water but when the Living Word of God makes us members of His body and children of God through baptism, renews and cleanses us constantly in the Sacrament of Confession, feeds us, and strengthens us in the Holy Eucharist, confirms us in the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation, unites us and makes us one flesh in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, gives us new ministers to carry on the life of the Church for its flock in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, strengthens us when we are sick in the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and helps on to make the final journey to the Kingdom of God we realize how good God is to give us this one, holy, catholic, apostolic church.

Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that I am a member of this Church which is also the Bride of Christ.

This was the first of the signs given by Jesus: it was given at Cana in Galilee. He let his glory be seen, and his disciples believed in him.