Third Sunday after Epiphany AD 2024

A priest recently recalled his trip to Rwanda where he spoke to people about reconciliation. Thirty years ago, from April to June 1994, an unthinkable genocide took place in Rwanda, during which, among other crimes, up to 800,000 people were killed and half a million women were raped.

When that priest met and talked with people, he saw two things: on the one hand, how impossible, humanly speaking, it is to find reconciliation in situations like this, and on the other hand, how the amazing grace of God has made it possible despite everything. Perhaps the most striking encounter was when a woman came to him with her daughter and told how the rest of the family had been killed while they were not at home. The man who had murdered her family had come to the priest with this woman. They came together because they were looking for reconciliation, and they found it. Later they even got married.

It’s hard to grasp – just like it is hard to grasp all the pain and suffering that people inflict on each other. But it is even more hard to grasp God’s forgiving, renewing, and sanctifying grace that can heal even the worst wounds.

Apostle Paul says in today’s Epistle: “Reward to no man evil for evil.” It’s hard, but ultimately, it’s our only real option. Today’s Gospel speaks about Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana: the turning of water into wine. This first miracle testifies to what Jesus had really come for: not to turn water into wine, but to make our sinful and corrupt hearts and lives new and pure.