Dear friends,

Jesus wants you. He wants you and me and everyone else, all of us, each of us. He wants to offer us a saving relationship that starts here on earth and leads to eternity. He wants us to be disciples.

So Jesus pursues us, you and me and everyone, in a way that is entirely personal and yet reveals a consistent method, a pattern, and it goes like this: Connect, Captivate, Catechize, Co-Mission. We can see Jesus’ method of making disciples at work in every single saint and disciple who has ever lived. We can see it at work in the ministry of our parish. And if we take the time, we can see it at work in our own lives, too.

Last week, Fr. Mike talked about how Jesus connects with each one of us, making the first move and meeting us where we are, even though He loves us too much to leave us there.

Which brings us to this week: Captivate. To be captivated by Christ is to see the One Who has always seen us. To encounter Him in a way that takes us from knowing about Him or knowing Him casually, at a distance, to knowing Him personally. To be captivated by Jesus is to see and experience His glory in some real and personal way that changes us.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus comes to the wedding at Cana, meeting this couple where they are and bringing them the gift of His friendship. But, as always, He wants to give them more.

That “more” starts with wine: the wine has run out, which was humiliating and inhospitable at best, a terrible way to start a marriage. Mary notices (as she always does) and brings the need to her Son. At this regular old wedding in Cana, He chooses to work his first public miracle, turning water into wine of the highest quality.

The final line of the Gospel reading is, “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.”

Jesus gave everyone there so much more than wine; He gave them the gift of His glory made manifest. I hope that the couple who were married at Cana came to believe in Him! But we know for sure that his disciples, who were already following Him, came to believe in Him more because of it.

Whether we’ve been following Him all our lives or are just starting our faith journey, Jesus wants to captivate us, encounter us, and invite us to see and experience His glory so we might more firmly commit to following and loving Him because He has already committed to loving us. Like the couple at Cana, let’s invite Him more deeply into our lives and the life of our parish so He has the space and permission to do precisely that. And let’s invite others to come and be captivated by Him, too.

*This week’s letter was written by Kristen Fisher, long-time parishioner, former OLPH youth minister, and current Director of Enkindle Catholic. If you’d like to know more about Enkindle’swork, please visit www.enkindlecatholic.org*