Homily For Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C, 16th January, 2022

 Homily For Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C, 16th January, 2022

Readings: Is. 62:1-5; Ps. 96; 1Cor. 12:4-11;  John 2:1-11

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

FILL, DRAW AND SERVE ARE THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR OUR CHRISTIAN JOURNEY

Today is the second Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year C, which begins immediately after we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord last Sunday. The beauty of this season lies in the fact that it invites us to live our ordinary life as a journey of holiness, faith and friendship with Jesus in order to continually discover our vocation and mission which is rooted in Christ’s own mission. Hence, our readings today present to us  guiding principles that will help us to journey with the Lord throughout the course of our journey.

Hence, in our first reading today,  we have the  message of hope for God’s chosen people who were passing through the most challenging moments in history of their journey with God. This very disposition and challenge are what we are experiencing in our world today. Thus, we can hear the message of hope from the Lord to his chosen people, his bride who is now dejected like a widow abandoned by her Lord. So, we can hear the Lord saying through prophet Isaiah: about Zion I will not be silent, about Jerusalem I will not grow weary, until her integrity shines out like the dawn and her salvation flames like a torch. For God will no longer forsake you for he shall delight in you and their will be a new wedding and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in you for this new wedding will bring about a new beginning.

This new beginning ushers us into the marriage feast in our Gospel passage today, an event that offers us the guiding principles of our Christian journey. Here, we heard how the wedding couple invited Jesus and his disciples in the most important day of their lives and Mary was also there. So, when an embarrassing moment came up during the course of the celebration, Mary in her usual way of helping people asked Jesus to safe the couple from social embarrassment and even when her request was not granted by her son, she had strong faith that he will not refuse her request. So she said to the servants: “ Do whatever he tells you”

By this request Mary who represents the Church reveals to us the key to a successful and happy Christian Life. That is to say that, the secret key that opens the treasure of a successful and happy Christian life is to do whatever he (Jesus) tells us. But what did Jesus say we should do? He told the servants: Fill, Draw and Serve. Telling us to Fill our lives with the water of salvation which he offers us every day through his Words and Sacraments and when we have filled our lives with the fountain of his presence, then we should Draw from the joy it offers and Serve humanity who are really in need and thirsty for the word of God, especially at this moment in our world when humanity really hope and seek for God’s intervention. Hence, by this words Jesus gave us the guiding principles for our Christian journey.

Dear friends, let this principle guide all our activities this year. We must learn to fill our minds with positive things so that we can draw from the abundance of our hearts and serve humanity. We must learn to fill our hearts with positive seed of different virtues and nurture them. This is important because whatever healthy seed we water grows and the seed you quit watering will eventually die and go away. But the questions are: what type of seeds are you filling your heart with? What kind of seed are you going to be watering in your life this year? Are you going to be watering valuable seeds or weeds? Because nature has made it clear that not all the seeds are good for us and so any unwanted seed is a potential weed. 

Then, the question we need to ask ourselves is: are we watering weeds that we do not need? For there are so many weeds in our lives, such as: weeds of fear, regrets, doubt, jealousy, hatred, disrespect, greediness, lying, gossip, impurity, wickedness, procrastination or are we watering those valuable seeds of goodness, honestly, faithfulness, love, holiness, obedience, charity and making them our values of life. For these are special gift of God to us just as we heard St. Paul speaking in our  second reading  about the need for us to put into use the gifts we have received from God for the greater good of all. Because there is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who distributes different gifts to different people just as he chooses. And it is our responsibility to put them into positive use for the good of all.

LET US PRAY: Lord God,  as we struggle everyday to do your will and respond positively in the mission and vocation entrusted to us, give us the grace to be responsible in applying the guiding principles of filling, drawing and serving one another as we embark on our Christian journey. Help us we pray to find joy, courage and solace in your saving grace as you guide us through the year. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a blessed Sunday celebration.