Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 19, 2025

I’m sure we’ve heard people say that they love a person but they don’t like them because of whatever wrong they’ve done. Well, that’s not true for God: Even in the messiness of our sin, God not only loves you, He delights in you. You are God‘s delight.


We hear that in the first reading from Isaiah, “The LORD delights in you.” Got delights in you. Imagine that.


…And we give gifts to people we delight in, right? Well, in the second reading from Saint Paul, Paul lists a number of spiritual gifts that God gave and were exhibited in the church at Corinth. And, remember, Corinth was simply a city with a community of Christians, just like Elma/W. Seneca is a town with a community of Christians. There wasn’t anything special about Corinth.


And, in this community of Christians who happened to live in Corinth, Paul is pointing out numerous gifts that these ordinary Christians were exhibiting: Supernatural gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues.


…And all these gifts very possibly exist within our parish. But we have to have faith to realize and use them. We have to trust God enough to actually pray over somebody. We have to trust God enough to let Him inspire us to do mighty deeds, or to discern situations, or to be given words of knowledge and prophecy.


And, in the Gospel reading, we hear how Mary, Jesus’ mother, particularly exhibits the gift of faith. She had so much faith in her Son that she didn’t feel the need to instruct Him as how to address the problem at the wedding. She simply said, “They have no wine.” She trusted Jesus enough that His will would be the best outcome.


And notice how the Gospel passage makes clear that Jesus would not have done that favor for the couple if Mary didn’t put her faith into practice by interceding for them. And, Jesus’ response to his mother was no rebuke. Otherwise, Mary would’ve said something like, “OK, sorry for bothering you.” Jesus wasn’t rebuking his mother but echoing the words of the first man from Genesis. After naming all the creatures on the earth, what did Adam call the first female? “Woman.” Jesus was denoting that Mary was the new Eve. Jesus makes Mary, the new Eve, the woman who will be a source of blessing for the world, not a curse as Eve and Adam were.


…Again, God not only loves you, He delights in you. He has given you gifts; perhaps extraordinary gifts. Our parish certainly has people with spiritual gifts. Each person has at least one: And that’s faith. And Mary shows what extraordinary things faith can do in our ordinary lives when we act on it.



This day’s Scripture readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011925.cfm

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