Holy Friendship Day [Thursday] Rosary
The Luminous Mysteries
Second Luminous Mystery: THE SIGN PERFORMED AT THE WEDDING AT CANA
"On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited. And they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the feast had all been used, and the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' Jesus said, 'Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water,' and they filled them to the brim. Then he said to them, 'Draw some out now and take it to the president of the feast.' They did this; the president tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it came from -- though the servants who had drawn the water knew -- the president of the feast called the bridegroom and said, 'Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined; but you have kept the best wine till now.' This was the first of Jesus' signs: it was at Cana in Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him."
- John 2: 1-11
Reflection:
Today let us reflect on the virtue of OBEDIENCE. The Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mother are surely great examples of obedience. Let us focus on the servants. Of course, the servants' role was to obey - it was not their role to question the Lord as to why he wanted them to fill the jars with water since the problem was about wine, but they could surely ask: what in the world are we doing when the problem is about wine and not water? There was even no record as to whether they wondered if the water really turned into wine or as to the sensibility of bringing some to the president of the celebration without questioning his order though we might think that the most obvious question to ask was: the problem is wine and you tell us to bring water to the president? The president of the celebration did not even bother to ask them as to where did they get the new wine. The servants just followed the order and obeyed the command given them.
There is a story about a monk who was told by his superior to plant a dry piece of wood in the desert and to water it regularly. The monk obeyed watering the dry wood twice a day though the source of water was far from the place where he planted the dry wood. In due time because of his obedience, the stick grew and became a healthy plant. Perhaps many of us knew what command the Virgin Mary gave to St Bernardette Soubirous: to wash her face using murky water in a small pool of water which origin nobody knew and which in the next few days became clean and was able to heal the sick. Her obedience helped thousands to be healed of their maladies.
The military have this unwritten code: Obey first before you complain. One must not be confined within his vantage point or personal perspective when commanded to do something unless the command is clearly evil and simply wrong. Many wonderful things happen because of obedience. Actually, lack of obedience is one problem that we have today in this modern society: people think that it is blind obedience not to question an order or an article of faith and they want to be very sure first about something before doing or believing it even about things that have been proven true, right and proper for thousands of years already! Obedience is a great virtue because it also manifests one great virtue that is very important in our relationship with God and others: FAITH. Without faith, it is hard to obey and without obedience, one's faith is fake!
Image from dominicancooperatorbrother.blogspot.com via google.com
Biblical passage from Jerusalem Bible at catholic.org
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