Homilies,  Sunday,  Year C

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 16 January 2022

With the great interest in spirituality it is not unusual to come across approaches to spirituality that envisage it to be primarily about the quest for peace and harmony, a kind of self-satisfaction.  In this sense becoming spiritual is about becoming at “one with myself”, “connecting to my real self,” finding a centre within myself” that promises to make be immune from all the ups and downs, and the many contradictions, of life.  The self-help sections of bookstores are full of literature that promise we need never feel powerless again, that success is always within our reach, that vitality and beauty are always attainable if we but follow a few simple steps and develop the right mind.

Even though when we hear such promotion, we might easily see through it, it isn’t difficult to be seduced, even subtly, into thinking that life should be about a never-ending journey from high to high, that life should always be bigger and brighter, that every year should be more exciting than the last one. We entertain this expectation that economies have the one trajectory of growth.

Genuine spirituality, however, is never about the promise about achieving a kind of harmony that no longer engages life’s randomness and often cruel uncertainty. Authentic spirituality is never about feeling a certain way.  It is, rather, about entering the events of our life, many of which ‑ most of which ‑ are beyond our control, entering even the painful experiences of our life, always searching for the invitation, the unexpected possibility, that is present underneath all that occurs to us.

And often enough is it only in the failure of our dreams, rather than in the fulfilment of our dreams, that life opens for us in the richest way, in a way beyond our imagination, in a way that is true and most deeply enriching.  Indeed, as the Australian writer, David Malouf, wrote once, “the mystery of life is not solved by success, but by failure, by a perpetual becoming.”  I think what Malouf is talking about here is that it’s often when life does not turn out for us as we would quite like, that we discover something altogether remarkable, provided that we have the humility and the receptivity to what might be being offered us in the deepest way possible.

Often, then, real life begins to open for us when we let go of how we dreamt things might have been, accept the reality that is before us, and allow it to teach us what it truly wants us to learn.  Often it is in our shattered hopes, not in the fulfilment of our hopes that the most important lessons for our life are presented to us.  In this way, genuine spirituality does not take us out of our reality; it does not promise us a way out of our reality. Rather it impels us into our reality, just as it is, and opens a new window precisely there.  Our relationships may not be quite what he had hoped for; our children may not have turned out as we had dreamt; our life’s work may not be all that we had imagined it might be.  But maybe it is in the disappointment of our dreams and hopes, rather than in their fulfilment, that God is holding out to us a particular invitation that is truly transformative of our lives.

Herein lays one of the meanings of today’s gospel story.  The people gathered in Cana have great hopes about the wedding feast.  They clearly want it to be all that it could be.  But their hopes are dashed.  Their dreams have gone to water.  And yet, it is in this failure of their expectations that they meet Jesus.  Precisely, as they deal squarely with the failure of what they had wanted, they encounter Jesus who offers them something beyond what they had first imagined – a quality of wine beyond their expectation.

So too for us:  when our own dreams have turned to water there is every possibility that a new wine, a rich wine – a whole new experience and perspective on life – might be ready to be given us.  When what appears to be simply a lack, or a failure, or a disappointment, or a disillusionment, or mere water, is transformed into the wine of rich new possibility, of new beginnings, of a whole transformative perspective on life – and not just grudgingly, but with abundance, then we are experiencing that life given us by Jesus.

Entering this new level and perspective of life is the revelation of the genuine promise of God’s life, the true sign of God’s new life given us by Jesus.  In him, we may not be given our dreams.  But we are given our life in its true fullness.

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