In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  From the beginning of the Fourth Gospel there has been a theme of newness and of creation. The Prologue refers to the power and role of the Word of God in the story of Creation. Then, very subtly, it continues to recount a new creation in the Incarnation of Jesus. In John 1:29 you see the phrase, “the next day” as John the Baptist testified to Jesus. “The next day” the first apostles are called in v.34 and following. The “next day” (v.43), now day four of the new creation week, Philip and Nathanael are added as disciples.  

The passage immediately before our gospel passage in the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). Our gospel is followed by the account of Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). “On the third day…” (Jn 2:1) we find ourselves, according to the Johannine imagery, on the seventh day of the new creation week.  The creation week reaches its climax – the unveiling of the public life of the Anointed One of God.  The account of the wedding at Cana is relatively short (11 verses) and yet it is filled with a variety of images, theological and sacramental.