First of His Signs

As we begin, I'd like to address the question of the choice of a Scripture if we should choose to pray daily with Sacred Scripture. And I'll propose two different ways of choosing a Scripture. Obviously, whatever works best for you is fine.

One choice of the Scripture comes—and many people do this—from the daily readings of the Mass for that day. So someone might get, for example, the Magnificat publication, or there are all sorts of digital ways of getting this. And a person looks through the First Reading, the Psalm, and the Gospel, finds the passage that seems to speak most to him or her, and chooses that for the daily Scripture for the daily prayer.

Now, there are a couple of advantages to that. One is that you never have to cast about. It's there for every day, so you don't have to invent something every day. And then secondly, it harmonizes with the Church's prayer so that your prayer with Scripture harmonizes with the Mass of the day or the liturgical season—Lent or Christmas or Easter, or whatever it might be.

Another approach that some people choose is to go systematically through a Gospel or maybe all of the Gospels and just pray through them in that way. And I'll read to you a description of this. This is Robert, and he describes how he has done this just as a concrete example.

"Over these years, I've gone systematically through the Gospels one by one." So that's the nicest way to do it: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. "The evening before"—so he's following Saint Ignatius—"I read the Gospel I'm going through until a passage strikes me. I don't necessarily pray with the one that follows the last one I prayed with. I pray with the next one that strikes me." And I think that's a great idea as well. Choose the next passage that really speaks to your heart.

"Sometimes I choose a text based on what I'm experiencing that day, or it might be from something that strikes me in spiritual reading that I've done that day.

For example, one time I was reading about the Holy Eucharist, so I prayed with John chapter 6, which is all on the Bread of Life, and with the Last Supper. I stay with these texts as long as I find fruit. Sometimes I repeat a passage if it speaks to me. Another time I was reading a book on union with Christ. The author mentioned John chapters 14-16 and spoke about the Mystical Body of Christ.

So I spent two weeks praying with those chapters in John's Gospel. I went over them two or three times and felt them more deeply each time. When things strike me like this, I set aside the systematic prayer with the Gospels and pick it up again when I have finished. He continues, I go through the Gospels in order: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. When I finish, I start again.

The first two years, I jumped around quite a lot. Then I began this systematic way. Now I've been through the Gospels two or three times. I prepare for the prayer the evening before. I choose the Scripture, and then I read a short commentary on it—not a heavy intellectual one—"

And that's a useful thought. Most of us are not biblical scholars, and so to have a short spiritual commentary on the passage can be very helpful, and there are many of these. Just a short thing like that can help us to pray better with the text.

"I read the Gospel passage two or three times before going to bed. I do my prayer the next morning at the start of the day." So you can hear just how Ignatian that approach is.

So there are very serviceable ways of choosing a Scripture for each day. We choose the amount of time that we know is sustainable. And I'd say if you're in doubt about how much time is sustainable, choose less rather than more. You can always add more later on if it becomes apparent that you can do it. And then you're set for something that will make all the difference in your spiritual life.

Our text for this session, is, as we continue contemplating the life of Jesus, is now the first of His miracles, and that is the wedding feast at Cana.

So again, we let our hearts be quieted. We let our eyes meet the eyes of Jesus and see the love and the warmth that is there in His eyes and His desire to communicate to our hearts through His Word. We ask for the grace through this prayer to grow in intimate knowledge of Jesus so that we may love Him more and follow Him more closely.

On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect Me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you.”

Now there were six stone jars there for the Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus told them, "Fill the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim. Then He told them, "Draw some out now and take it to the head waiter." So they took it.

And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from—although the servants who had drawn the water knew—the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this in the beginning of His signs in Cana in Galilee, and so revealed His glory, and His disciples began to believe in Him.

So this passage gives us another key moment in the life of Jesus: the first of His signs, the miracles, the healings that are going to draw crowds to Him and make Him known. So let's be there. Let's be there at the wedding.

You see the spouses, the crowd, the celebration, maybe the dancing going on. And I see Jesus there, and with Him the first of His disciples. And I'm there, a part of it. I see it taking place all around me.

And the moment is filled with deep meaning. God in Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Divine Bridegroom, has come to dwell with and be wedded to His people. They have no wine. The wine gradually begins to fail, and Mary is the one who sees it. And this is always true of Mary. She sees—she's the first one to notice—and she sees the need that is not even yet expressed.

And she reveals herself as profoundly sensitive to human situations and unspoken needs around her—alert, attentive. What if a parent lived like that as he or she related to his or her children? What if children related to their parents and grandparents in that way? Or a fellow worker or a fellow parishioner? And Mary does not simply notice; she becomes active.

She enters into the scene of need. She becomes involved. She brings the need to Jesus, and she is engaged and remains engaged until the end, until the need is met.

So what about me? Do I see the need and remain apart? Do I perhaps too easily simply assume that I cannot contribute or help?

And then this enigmatic answer of Jesus: "O woman, what have you to do with me?" But Mary is not deterred. She shows a kind of courage, and she is sure of her Son, Jesus. She does not give up, does not say, "Well, I've done all that I can," and withdraw.

She persists because she knows her Son. At times, you and I try to help and improve things, and it seems that our efforts meet no response. Do I give up? Do I say that I've tried and there's no use? And now I ask Mary to speak to me of her courageous and continuing involvement.

I watch as Jesus works the first of His miracles. I watch the servants as they fill the jars, the steward of the feast as he tastes the water made wine. And with the disciples, I see the glory of Jesus, and my faith deepens and grows together with theirs.

Is there anything in this passage that speaks to your heart? Is God saying anything? Is there some way in which, through it, He is inviting you to grow in intimate knowledge of Jesus, deeper love, and a closer following?

Finally, I want to quote from a letter of spiritual direction of the Venerable Bruno Lanteri to a married woman and mother of four children. A priest has just come into the area so that daily Mass is now available. Obviously, this is a very busy woman, and so he proposes the following to her.

You know, once I posted this at the beginning of Lent on Facebook, and the responses were really wonderful. Basically, they came down to this: "That's doable. I can do that." So he says to her, "It is important then to begin immediately to arrange with him for receiving Communion and to do so as often as you can."

So that's the first thing is: is daily Mass possible? Occasionally, every day, and the answers will be different for all of us. But if it is possible without excessive strain or failing to meet obligations and so forth, then it's the first thing to consider because it's the center, the source and summit, as the Council says, of the whole spiritual Christian life. "So his first counsel is: if it's possible to get to daily Mass, consider that and do that when you can.

Then you must be consistently faithful to meditation." Alright. That's the kind of prayer that we've been exploring over these days. "Consistently faithful to meditation and to spiritual reading, if it be only a quarter of an hour of meditation and a single page of spiritual reading." Well, you say, you know, I'm not a monk or a nun in a monastery. I can't go off for an hour and just leave my children or walk away from my work and pray like that. And Venerable Bruno knows that.

His question is, yes, you can't get an hour for most of us, but could you get fifteen minutes in the course of a day? As I've said before, if only when you're commuting back from work and you put on an app that helps you pray for fifteen minutes as you drive, or as you're going to get groceries, or alone in the kitchen getting supper, or mowing the lawn.

Is there any one of us who could not get fifteen minutes every day for this kind of prayer? Whether it's Ignatian meditation and contemplation, Lectio Divina, the Rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours—whatever way best helps us to pray.

And then he invites her to spiritual reading, if it be only a single page. Again, I'm so busy. I can't sit down for an hour and read. Let's grant that. But could you read one page from a spiritual book every day, or, correspondingly, listen to five minutes of a Catholic podcast every day? And who of us could not do that? Newness would be coming into our spiritual lives every day.

And the same also for the Examination of Conscience, which you can do while you are working. I'm so busy. I'm so tired at the end of the day. It's just hard for me to do the Examination of Conscience and review the day with the Lord.

Again, Venerable Bruno says, I grant you that. Is there a time when your hands are busy but your mind is free and you could do this with the Lord? You can see why people said, well, that's doable. Yeah. That spiritual program I can do.

Daily Mass when possible, fifteen minutes of meditation, one page from a spiritual book or digital resource, and then the examination of conscience—even while you're working if you have no other time.

And he concludes here: "Do not forget to raise your heart frequently with tenderness and peace to God." And he goes on.

So again, Ignatius, in leading us deeply into prayer, is inviting us to pray now and for the future in our lives of prayer. I really hope that that blessing will be there for all of us. Amen.