This week Jesus moves from his private life in Nazareth to start his public ministry with the disciples and his mother Mary during the wedding of Cana in Galilee. In this first miracle people start to believe in him. Jesus insists that his hour has not yet come. He says the same thing many times in the Gospel of John about his death on the cross. Despite this his mother tells the servants to do whatever he tells them to do. What an act of faith. They do not know he is the eternal Son of God. When they do his will the miracle happens and his disciples come to believe in him. With believers now following him he begins his public ministry.

Hopefully we have both a private life and a public life. Like Christ we spend much of our lives preparing for ministry. Often we are baptized as babies, we then learn some of our prayers from our parents, we come to Mass, receive our first communion. Between first communion and confirmation we become slightly more public with our lives as disciples by becoming altar servers or singing in the choir but we still need to continue our education. When the Bishop gives us the Sacrament of Confirmation we become fully initiated into the Church begin our public ministry as a disciple of Christ. For example: we can lector, we can be Godparents, and if we learn enough we can teach others what we’ve been taught. We will be old enough to organize food drives for the poor, visit the prisoners, and even enter into the convent, monastery, seminary, or marriage.

There is always a change. Through our encounter with Jesus, the Lord can symbolically change us from the private life of water into the public ministry of wine. All we have to do is listen and do whatever he tells us.

Fr. Jeff