COLLECT SERIES
 |
Sea of Galilee |
The
Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C reads as follows:
Almighty
ever- living God who govern all things,
Both in
heaven and on earth,
Mercifully
hear the pleading of your people
And bestow
your peace on our times.
Through
our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives
and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God,
for ever and ever.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
In
making this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflection questions
emerged:
1. What
is my relationship with God as creator of the universe?
2. How do
I feel about being created by God?
3. What is
your pleading to God this week at Mass?
4. What
are the areas of peace needed in my life for this coming week?
5. How
can I bestow peace on our times this coming week?
Today’s Gospel is from John 2:1-12. There
are numerous messages which we can learn from this Gospel story in Christ's
life: Such lessons may include:
1.
Christ's approval of marriage–there
were some heretical sects later who said marriage was sinful, unfit for a
Christian.
2. See in it the intercessory power of our blessed Mother. Christ
anticipated his "hour" for working miracles in order to grant her
request.
GOSPEL REFLECTION
However, the theme
of today's readings is the goodness 'and kindness of God and we surely have a
convincing proof of that loving kindness in today's gospel story.
Christ worked his first miracle in order to grant a temporal favour,
an earthly gift, to save the newly-married groom from embarrassment. It had the
other effects of convincing his very recent disciples of their belief that he
was the expected Messiah, and also it convinces all Christians of the efficacy
of our Lady's intercession for us, but its primary purpose was to confer a
temporal benefit on the groom.
By this. Jesus showed that he is interested in our earthly affairs
also. He became man in order that we could become sons of God, he came on earth
so that we could go to heaven, but this miracle at Cana proves that he has a
deep interest in our many and varied activities during the course of our
journey to heaven.
He told us "ask and you shall receive." That
"shall" is very definite, our prayers will be answered, and what we
should ask for is not only spiritual gifts, but the temporal aids also which we
need. The "shall" applies to them too, as the miracle of Cana proves.
We shall get our temporal requests, provided of course that they won't impede
us on our journey to heaven.
No kind father
would give his child a gift that would hurt him–God is the kindest of fathers
and he sees what will or will not impede or endanger our eternal happiness. We
can and should therefore make our temporal needs known to God in our prayers,
confident that he will give us what we ask if it is for our real good.
You may be thinking that I prayed to God for temporal favours that
I needed badly and my prayer seemed to go unanswered. Was it unanswered really? Often, we pray for
something we think we urgently need but God knows better and gives us something
better, something more useful, more necessary, something you never thought of
asking for, but the good God saw your need of it.
It is important to
remember and believe that we have a Father in heaven who really loves us, and
cares for us, let us make our temporal, as well as our spiritual needs, known
to him in confident prayer. Our requests will not go unanswered.
For example:
recently a friend of mine told me that he had applied for job that he really wanted at one level, and yet, deep in his heart, he knew that working with this person was going to be, if he got the
job, very difficult, challenging and would ultimately affect his health, well-being
and reputation.
He told me that even though he prayed incessantly about it, he was actually relieved when I
he was unsuccessful. I\He told me '' I knew that God had loved me very much and had saved me from a lot of suffering
and pain. It did not take away the pain of what might have been if the
circumstances had been different, but I knew that God had loved me enough to
care for temporal and spiritual needs. It would have been detrimental to both
of these areas of my life''.
Jesus told us
"ask and you shall receive." That "shall" is very definite,
our prayers will be answered, and what we should ask for is not only spiritual
gifts, but the temporal aids also which we need. The "shall" applies
to them too, as the miracle of Cana proves. We shall get our temporal requests,
provided of course that they won't impede us on our journey to heaven.
God is a kind
father, so He gives us, His children a gift that would injure him–God is the
kindest of fathers and he sees what will or will not impede or endanger our
eternal happiness.
God wants us to
make known to Him our temporal needs in
our prayers, confident that He will give us what we ask if it is for our real
good.
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