NOTE: The following is the conference I presented Sunday afternoon at the nearby Monte Cassino Shrine for one of the weekly October pilgrimages.
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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 water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty
to thirty 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 headwaiter.” So, they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become
wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers 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 as the
beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and
his disciples began to believe in him.
--John 2:1-11
Human beings—especially
Americans, it seems—do not like being told what to do. Obedience is something
we tend to resist and resent. We like our “freedom,” or what we perceive as
freedom. We want to call the shots. We don’t want to listen to anybody else.
But the fact of the
matter is that to get along, and even to survive as a species, we need to obey
someone else or a set of rules and regulations each day. Without some measure
of obedience and deference to another beyond our individual desires, society
would descend into absolute chaos. For the good of everyone, there need to be
“rules of the road,” so to speak.
In the life of
Christian discipleship, this is even more true – and it really is a
matter of spiritual life or death for each one of us. Adam and Eve, as our
first parents, chose to disobey God and set the pattern of human behavior that
we still struggle with today.
Mercifully, God the
Father did not discard or forget us. First, he gave us the Law and the Prophets,
pleading with us to “return to the Lord” and “heed his voice with all your
heart and all your soul” (Dt 30:2). This is not difficult to figure out, God
tells his children through Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy: “This command
which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. … It is
something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have
only to carry it out” (Dt 30: 11,14).
But the choice is
ours, just like it was in the time of Moses: “I have set before you life and
death, the blessing and the curse,” God says. “Choose life, then … “(Dt 30:19).
What he asks us to do, in other words, is for our own good, from an eternal
perspective.
But the Law and the
Prophets were not enough for us stubborn, hard-hearted human beings. So, the
Father in his great mercy sent his only Son, Jesus, God’s Word made Flesh, to
teach us, to show us the way, to help us make the right choice, and to do most
of the heavy lifting for us. Following Jesus as a disciple means doing what he
did, using his example as a guide. HE is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (cf.
John 14:6).
And because the fully
human, fully divine Jesus took his flesh from a young woman in Nazareth, his
appearance among us depended upon her assent, on her obedience to the Father’s
will. When the archangel Gabriel announced this plan to her, she undoubtedly
had many questions and not a few trepidations about how it would all work out (he
didn’t give her many details). But Mary said “yes” anyway. “May it be done
to me according to your word,” she responded (Luke 1:38).
And so, in that
moment, Mary became not only the Mother of the Lord, but his very first
disciple—and hence, the mother of all disciples. Her obedience was a critical
counterpoint to Eve’s disobedience, just as Jesus’ obedience to the Father
would offset Adam’s defiance, restoring eternal life to humanity by his death
and resurrection.
In the Gospel passage
we just heard, John the Evangelist presents the first of seven signs in which
Jesus manifests his glory as the Son of God. The turning of water into wine at
the wedding in Cana signifies the abundant transforming grace available to us
all through the salvific mission of Christ. Just as the prophet Isaiah
foretold, God does something new in Jesus—offering cleansing, restorative drink
to his chosen but wayward people (cf. Isaiah 43).
As demonstrated
through Jesus, God has the power and the will to change our tepid souls into
new wine filled to the brim. But again, the choice is ultimately ours. While it
is Christ who changes the water into wine, the servants (you and I) are
summoned to fill the jars with water. God’s gratuitous gift of grace requires
our acceptance and cooperation.
So, for this reason,
Mary, the mother of disciples, tells those servants (and us): “Do whatever
he tells you.”
Mary shows us how to
be a disciple of Christ. “Do whatever he tells you.”
These very words (if
you haven’t noticed) are inscribed on the front of this podium. And they
are important words for all Christian disciples. God the Father has set Eternal
Life before us in his Son Jesus, who says later in the Gospel of John: “I came
that they may have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Choose Life,
the Father says. And Mary, the first disciple who chose Life with her pronouncement,
“May it be done to me according to your word,” in turn says to us: “Do
whatever he tells you.”
In other words: Bring
your souls to Jesus. Accept his freely offered grace won on the Cross for you
and allow him to fill you with the new wine of redemption. Then, enlivened by his
Spirit, go, and share the love, mercy, and peace you have received. Let it
spill over into the lives of others. This sentiment falls into line with Jesus’
later words to his disciples: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever
remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do
nothing” (John 15:5).
Mary
always points out the way to us, and she points toward her Son: “Do whatever
he tells you.” She herself lived out that directive, ultimately following
him to the Cross when most of his disciples had abandoned him.
In 1974 Saint Pope
Paul VI wrote this about Mary:
Mary is held up as an example to the faithful for the way in
which, in her own particular life, she fully and responsibly accepted the will
of God (cf. Lk. 1:38), because she heard the word of God and acted
on it, and because charity and a spirit of service were the driving force of
her actions. She is worthy of imitation because she was the first and the most
perfect of Christ’s disciples. (Marialis Cultus, No. 35)
Mary, as the first
and most perfect Christian disciple, first listened to the Word of God, and
then acted on it. As our Mother in Christ, she provides us, his disciples, with
an example to follow. Most of us here, at one point in our lives (or even many
times) have likely heard the admonition, “Listen to your mother!” Well, Mary,
as mother of disciples, says, “Listen to my Son! – Do whatever he tells you.”
This is primarily the
message from God the Father himself, who spoke from the heavens during the
Transfiguration, telling Peter, John, and James: “This is my beloved Son.
Listen to him.”
So, it is clear that
as Christian disciples, our entire lives must be ordered around this principle.
That is the definition of a disciple: one who listens to a teacher, learns, and
then follow’s the teacher’s example. And in the case of Jesus, God’s Word made
flesh, following him is a matter of life or death, and the Eternal Life he
holds out for us provides a special intimacy with the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Jesus himself while on this earth said, “Whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).
But how—practically
speaking—do we listen to Jesus and then do what he tells us?
As mentioned before,
it’s not all that difficult to figure out (although carrying out what he
tells us often is!). Since we are created in God’s image, his Word is already
written on our hearts. And Christ gives us the Church to guide us in this
regard—its teachings, its liturgical life and community, and especially
the sacraments. We also listen to him in prayer, which is animated by the Holy
Spirit, and within the circumstances and relationships we find ourselves in
each day.
But most of all, we have
Scripture -- God’s Word. In particular, the gospels show us the way.
Something I’ve wanted
to do for a long time is compile a list of all the things Jesus specifically
and directly told his disciples to do (or not to do) in the gospels.
Preparing this conference gave me the opportunity to do that. So, I scoured all
four gospels and wrote down each of the things Jesus tells us—his disciples –
to do. The final list is quite lengthy, but I did want to share with you some
of the sayings that seem to really stand out in importance – either because
they are repeated often or because they are specifically emphasized by Jesus.
Here, then, is what
Jesus tells his disciples to do:
n Take courage. Do not
be afraid. Just have faith. (These three come up a lot.)
n Follow me.
n Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.
n Love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all
your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.
n Love one another as I
love you.
n Do to others as you
would have them do to you.
n Be merciful, just as
your Father is merciful.
n Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you.
n Forgive anyone
against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn
forgive you your transgressions.
n Stop judging and you
will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and
you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you.
n Anyone who wishes to
come after me must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Whoever
wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
will save it.
n If you wish to be
perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.
n Ask and you will
receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
n Stay awake! You do
not know on which day your Lord will come.
n Go into the whole
world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
n Go, and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you. I am with you always.
These, among others,
are the things Jesus tells his disciples – then and now – to do. Let us, then,
filled to the brim with the grace of his Holy Spirit, listen to the Word
of God and then do it. Like Mary, his first disciple and the mother of
us all, may we always choose the Eternal Life that Jesus holds out for us,
following him to the foot of the Cross—as did his mother and the beloved
disciple. There, he says to us, “She is your mother” (cf. John 19:27). And, as
our mother, she says to us: “Do whatever he tells you.”
