Friends, our first reading today from the prophet Isaiah foretells the time when God’s people will be composed of those who had once been considered forsaken, jew and gentile alike, outcasts brought into the inner circle, into the Church that God would establish on earth to safeguard and teach his truth. The precise wording we just heard is this;
“No more shall people call you “Forsaken“ or your land “Desolate, “
but you shall be called “My Delight, “
and your land “Espoused.”
For the LORD delights in you
and makes your land his spouse.
As a young man marries a virgin,
your Builder shall marry you;
and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride
so shall your God rejoice in you.”
Saint Paul reminds us that it is precisely the Church, Christ’s beloved—that is now his Bride for whom he lays down his life. And although he is speaking collectively, we must remember that God loves us individually with an unfathomable, infinite, divine love. Too many of us worry about not being loved. In fact, the greatest temptation which often assails us is the one which has us believe that even God doesn’t love us. We know that’s a lie simply by just gazing at our crucified Lord. It is the one proof of God’s love for us which ought to put an end to all doubt. Before we can understand Christ’s love for his Church, we have to understand his love for each of us as individuals, who together compose that Church.
Saint Paul, in the second reading which is taken from the twelfth chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians continues to elaborate on the various gifts that have been given to various individuals and how when they are used for the entire whole, they work in harmonious tandem to bring about God’s will. It is the same God who produces all of them in everyone. Hence, God knows us individually, equips us with gifts and talents he knows are compatible with our person, and then unites us all in a beautiful tapestry

which Paul goes on to call his Mystical Body. It is a beautiful symphony, a dance, if you will, between God and all of us, his precious “bride”.
The gospel of John picks up on this theme of spousal love in its description of the Wedding Feast of Cana. It is here, within a matrimonial setting, which is a foretelling of the everlasting beatitude in Heaven he calls each of us to enjoy, the Marriage Banquet of the King, who espouses all the elect to himself in an eternal and divine love beyond our imagination, that the Lord of Lords manifests the first of his prodigies. Saint John calls the miracle of the transformation of water into wine by Jesus, a “sign.” Why? Because all of it indicates and enlightens who Jesus actually is – the Son of God in our midst, who came to purify his bride, the Church, and lead it to the eternal nuptials in Heaven. He was creating his bride anew. The first Eve had thrown it all away. In and through Mary, the New Eve and “Woman,” and the Symbol of the Church, he makes all things new.
Through Her intercession may we all come to appreciate more and more just how much we are loved by Almighty God who wishes nothing but our good and well-being, the greatest of which is heaven with Him.
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