The more I understand the depth of God's love for us, the more speechless I am about it, and the more I start to see my own lack of love for Him and others.
Today's Gospel was from John 2:1-11, and it's the passage where Jesus, his disciples and Mary are at the wedding feast at Cana.
Mary notices that the wine is running out, which would've been a total disaster for the wedding party, and so, with rock-solid trust and faith in Jesus, she asks Him to help out.
And Jesus does.
His first public miracle is done at Mary's request.
(just think how many more miracles she can ask of Him on our behalf now that she is in Heaven with Him!!)
Jesus turns 6 stone jars of water, each holding 20-30 gallons of water, into wine.
That's the equivalent of about 1,100 bottles of wine in today's measure!
and not just *any* wine, it's the BEST wine!
So good in fact that the steward at the wedding feast is shocked at what high quality it is!
To me the fact that Jesus produced 1,100 bottles of finest wine for something as 'trivial' as ensuring the success of a couple's wedding feast, is an echo of the extent of His love for us, and the extent to which He goes to ensure our salvation.
I mean, 1,100 bottles seems like an excess! And God's love for us is such a huge excess that the more you understand it....the more it's un-understandable!
We've just had Christmas, and have reflected on that huge love God has for us, that GOD HIMSELF, the One who existed before time, became a creature; a creature made from the dust and dirt, just because He loves us!
I mean...wow!!
Would any of us leave our comfortable lives, clean beds, showers, clean clothes etc to go and live in the gutters of the dirtiest slum in the world, with the poorest people in the world? Answer...almost certainly not.
Now magnify that by an infinite magnitude, and you are still no-where near the level of humility of God becoming man.
and He did it out of a love so huge for each and every single one of us!
I mean...wow!
And then He allowed Himself to be abused, spat on, slapped, insulted, mocked, and crucified...again JUST for love of us! So that we can spend eternity with Him!!
BUT not content with giving His entire self for us at Calvary Jesus wanted to ensure that all people, not matter when in history they live, could recieve Him in the most intimate and personal way in to their very bodies...
and so at the last supper He instituted the most Holy Eucharist.
As Jesus said "This is my body.....This is my blood."
Jesus, God Himself, takes the apperance of bread and wine, so that we can live in Him, and He live in us (which is what He said in John 6:57 "He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him").
That is such love! It is not possible to be more intimate and personal with anyone than with Jesus after having recieved Him in Communion!
St. Cyril of Alexandria (Hom. in Joan., IV, xvii) beautifully represents this mystical union as the fusion of our being into that of the God-man, Jesus, as "when melted wax is fused with other wax".
Now that is such love, it takes your breath away!
GOD Himself, becomes a lowly man just for us, and then takes on the appearance of bread and wine just for us!
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