Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 11, 2019
After making the crossing to the other side of the sea,
Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret
and tied up there.
As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him.
They scurried about the surrounding country
and began to bring in the sick on mats
to wherever they heard he was.
Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.
Imagine with me:
Jesus has been prepared for his mission by the Father, and his mission is emblazoned on his heart. His heart is set on healing his people from their infirmities and restoring communion, relationship.
He is primed to heal, and yet—
His mother comes to him with an off-putting request.
It’s irresponsible. It’s not fitting. It’s not what he planned. Jesus shakes his head, wondering why his mother wouldn’t realize that such an action might actually insult the seriousness his Father’s mission.
Why should he ask of his Father’s gracious power to break into nature in order to help a young bride and groom have a good party?
So he says, “Mom, this is not the appropriate occasion.”
But he feels the nudge of the Spirit within.
So Jesus transforms the water into wine, receives the comment of the steward, and maintains a calm exterior as his new friends begin to realize what has happened. He registers his mother’s quiet relief that the young people she loves won’t be shamed, and watches some of his relatives belly laugh at a retelling of a humorous story. The headwaiter, immensely dignified and in awe, brings Jesus wine, and Jesus raises it to his lips.
God’s gift breaks in.
I am the wine.
Jesus, you are the levity, the lightness, of life.
Jesus, you are the shimmer of joy which blooms. You are the ease of love long comfortable. Your presence is the undoing of tension for anyone who will sit with you, look at you, follow you. Your Kingdom will be like this wedding feast.
Jesus, the ones who will reject you are those who are the serious—those who are rigid and inflexible about their religion.
I feel compassionately towards them, Jesus responds. Only a few minutes ago the inflexible one was me.
Let us hasten to receive Jesus, the wine of compassion.
Prayer
Jesus the Christ, when the people of Gennesaret saw you, they recognized your healing power and the love and power of your teaching. Wherever you enter our lives, help us to recognize you and to be open and responsive to the healing and the Gospel message you offer us. Give us the grace to be instruments of your healing and grace in the lives of others. Amen.
Saint of the Day
On February 11, 1858, a poor 14-year-old shepherd girl named Bernadette Soubirous was collecting firewood near Lourdes, France. She saw a bright light, and Mary appeared before her in a natural hollow of rock in a cave on the shore of a river.
Mary appeared with a youthful face, and she wore a white garment with a blue belt and carried a rosary. Over the course of 18 appearances, she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. Mary told Bernadette to drink from a spring within the cave and to tell Church authorities to build a shrine on the site. Since those appearances, more than 200 million pilgrims have visited Lourdes, many reporting cures from the miraculous spring.
Father Sorin visited Lourdes, France, on one of his many trips back to France in the late 1800s to confer with the Holy Cross community. He was moved by the display of faith he saw there and began conversations at Notre Dame to construct a replica shrine on campus.
Notre Dame’s Grotto was constructed in 1896 (after Sorin’s death) and replicates the shrine at Lourdes on a one-seventh scale. A stone from Lourdes is implanted in the Grotto wall. The other boulders were unearthed from nearby farm fields, some weighing two or three tons. Workers, in digging the foundation, opened a spring of water in the same relative position as the miraculous spring that emerged at Lourdes—that spring now flows through the fountain on the left side of the Grotto.
In addition to the Grotto, Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in a large mural in the Basilica, shown in today's featured image.
Our Lady of Lourdes, who brings healing and hope to your children in France and throughout the world—pray for us!
