The Third Sunday after the Epiphany AD 2025

The Gospel of Jesus’ first public miracle – the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana – was originally, in the Ancient Church, one of three events celebrated on Epiphany. With this miracle, Jesus manifested His divine authority, but not only that: by turning water into wine, He showed that He had come to make everything new. Everything, meaning above all us, human beings, who without His saving touch would be doomed to die in our sins and perish.

This Gospel Reading is also encouraging in another sense: namely, it urges us to trust Jesus always and in everything. Consider the example of Jesus’ mother. Even after Jesus seemingly rejected her request, she said to the servants: “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it!” Whatsoever He saith – this is what all the saints, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary, keep telling us. Do we have so much faith in Him, so much trust in Him, that we are willing to follow these words? Do we even take them seriously?

The servants at the wedding feast in Cana took these words seriously and acted on them. How great their faith must have been! Think about it: they knew that what they were taking from the stone pots was water. They had to take this water to the governor of the feast, who was expecting them to bring him wine. What kind of servant would dare do something so foolish?

This is the kind of unconditional trust that Jesus expects from all of us. No, He doesn’t want to put us in an embarrassing situation – He wants us to be able to entrust ourselves to Him and let go of what threatens to destroy us like a millstone hung around our neck: our sin, our unrepentant heart, our hope in what is temporary and perishable. Jesus wants to make us new and give us eternal life – that’s what He came for, that’s why He manifested His divine authority at the wedding in Cana.