2nd Sunday after Epiphany 15 Jan 2012 Sermon

2nd Sunday after Epiphany 15.1.12 From sorrow to joy

We see that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow but we are asked to believe in a life where there is only joy. This stretches our imagination but it is true; in heaven it is all joy and no sorrow.

It is not so hard to believe in total joy if we consider how it all started. God, the perfect Creator, created a perfect world. All was good and happy. Until sin came and upset the balance and since then there has been lots of trouble.

Christ came to rectify things. His changing of water to wine symbolizes the healing or improving of the status quo.

But there is great tension here because His way of improving things has not been believed or accepted.

People refuse to believe that things can be better than they have been. They believe in neither a past innocence nor a future one. Cynicism.

Also they refuse to change their ways, to repent, to humble themselves – all of which are necessary for the ‘changing of water to wine’ in their case. Each sinner is changed only when truly repentant.

This tension leads to a lot more suffering, even to the necessity of death for Our Lord and His disciples. Thus wine turns into blood.

The changing of one substance into another is very familiar to us as Catholics.

At every Mass we believe the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.

Wine is recognized as a festive drink. If turning water into wine was an improvement what can we make of turning wine into blood?

It is an improvement also as we commune with Christ, drinking His blood, but it foreshadows suffering for us.

We cannot have the restoration of all things without some share in the ‘cup of suffering’ of Our Lord. This is the tension.

If we look at the progress of the Mass we see a certain progression. We begin by acknowledging our sinfulness, which we do in some detail.

We then offer the gifts of bread and wine, in atonement for our sins, believing that they will be transformed and increased in value by the action of Christ Himself.

We then celebrate that we have been set free from sin, at least in principle, and in festal style eat and drink in celebration – thus Holy Communion.

We see that we are ritually travelling from a rather desolate state of sin to a much happier state of union with Christ.

This is the same path we travel in this earthly life, moving from our present valley of tears to the glory of heaven.

While we are in the valley it is hard to see the glory, but the Mass takes us there in a shorter time. Every time we offer the Mass we are seeing in a compressed time our whole life story.

This gives us hope.

The water goes into the wine (becomes wine) indicating our good fortune in being united with Christ. The wine becomes blood indicating how hard life can be but also effecting the actual freedom that we seek. So in spite of - or even because of - the suffering, we do arrive at pure unalloyed joy. This is where we are now, somewhere in that process. In this Mass, and in life as a whole.

The better we offer our contrite hearts the more speedily and fully the joy will take over. It is ultimately only our sin which makes us unhappy. If we had no sin we would have complete happiness in our union with Christ.

Let us drink the cup, with all that it contains. Till we reach the eternal banquet.