The Wedding at Cana

We are meditating on the life of Jesus to become better friends with him. After forty days of temptation Jesus goes north from Jericho to Galilee for the Wedding in Cana.

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To understand Cana we must situate it in the context of the cradle and the Cross, Bethlehem and Calvary. This event with Jesus and Mary at Cana actually begins in Bethlehem with Jesus, the Savior of the World, God himself, as a helpless baby in the care of Mary. The Savior of the World who can’t even take care of himself. Now, I’ve just watched the birth and development of my grandson Cormac for the last seven months. He can’t feed, care for or protect himself. He doesn’t know how to use his legs, arms or hands for God’s sake – heck – even cows can walk the first day, yet Cormac is just now learning what an opposable thumb is for and he is still just rolling around on the ground. Sara, his mother, does everything for him. Mary did everything for Jesus and Jesus relied totally on her. Mary knew Jesus better than anyone for 30 years. Yes, Joseph was there and played a key role – but nothing surpasses the bond of Mother and Child. Think of that – for 30 years it was just Mary and Jesus – living, talking, and praying together. Why? Because they were getting ready to go on mission together to recreate the world. For Jesus is the New Adam and Mary is the Woman, the New Eve, the Mother of all the living.

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Jesus and Mary kick off this mission to recreate the world with the first public miracle at Cana. John 2: There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited. And they had no wine, because the wine of the wedding feast was used up. Thereupon the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine'. (Then the most ancient Greek text reads) Jesus said 'What is this to me and to you Woman? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you'.

They have no wine. They have run out. This is exactly how I feel. Mary, I got nothing left in the tank. I’m running on fumes.

Yet, in my heart I hear her say, “Michael, I know you. And I have been waiting for you to realize once and for all you can not do it on your own. But that is your default vice – to forget about me and My Son and take it all upon your shoulders until the weight crushes you. And then you say – “No, No, I’ve got this’ and now once again you are out of gas.” She ends with a simple request, “Let me pick you up and carry you.”

Now I want you to think about the most common picture of Mary carrying the child Jesus in her arms. Turn to her and tell her “Mary I am out of wine. Pick me up and carry me.”

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Cana points to Calvary – the only other time Jesus call Mary “Woman.” From the Cross Jesus looks down and sees John the beloved disciple standing near Mary, his mother and looking at John, he says to her: “Woman, behold your son.” The son that Mary held in her arms at Bethlehem will soon begin to dwell in the soul of John and then in the hearts of all the beloved disciples of Jesus. And the Motherhood of Mary extends to not only those who believe but to all those Jesus died for – to everyone.

Do you accept the Motherhood of Mary as John did? Have you taken her into your soul through consecration to Mary? Do you live in imitation of Jesus’ relationship with Mary? Do you cultivate an awareness of her presence? Do you interact with her moment to moment, day after day as Jesus did in Nazareth? Or do you tend to forget your Spiritual Mother? She does not forget you.

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Like Jesus, we begin our relationship with Mary as children, but we are not to remain childish. To become a child in relation to Mary through consecration is in no way to remain infantile. Mary wants us to grow into the full maturity of Christ. But she is a strong mother. She knows why God allows his children to be tried and to suffer. She makes her children stand up, make choices without the guarantee of success or perfection. She inspires us to take action, she allows us to enjoy success, but she also lets us face difficulties, as well as to endure and learn from failure. She wants us to overcome fears, take up our cross daily, and abandon ourselves into our Father’s hands now and at the hour of our death.

When this good mother who carries you puts you down to make you walk, you will feel as though everything has been turned upside down. You may be tempted to think that she has abandoned you, but she hasn’t. She is helping you mature, but she hasn’t left you. Why do we not see Mary more visibly in the public ministry of Jesus? Was she out of the picture? No – she is there, we just don’t see. And that is the way you will feel when she’s making you mature through trials, difficulties, suffering, and loss. But she is there, with you. She is helping you be purified, forged through the dark fire.

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The Holy Spirit and Mary couldn’t spare Jesus of suffering, and they cannot spare us. We must experience the forge and purifying dark fire through which we are conformed to Christ. Yet we are never alone. “Mary is the Virgin who watches over beginnings, transitions, and crosses or spiritual dark nights of the soul,” Father Laurentin writes:

Let us then offer to Mary all our beginnings or commencements, the launching of our day or of our various projects and work. Let us confide these things to her, just as God confided himself to her to be able to receive his human life.

Let us also offer to Mary the transitions of our lives, the new and uncertain experiences, the crises, and even the great dramas and agitation of the life of the world that goes on around us in which we are involved and indeed tried in our hearts.

Let us offer to Mary especially our crises and transitions that turn out to be painful, for she is the Virgin of Golgotha…Sometimes she can lighten our cross for us, and sometimes she can even help us avoid it at least to some extent, although she generally does not just remove our crosses for us. She was unable to do anything about the Cross of her Son! What she does provide, as the cross presses down on us, though, is love, confidence, and peace; she provides an undefinable sweetness of hope that stays with us to the hour of our deaths.[1]

But we must cultivate an awareness of her presence so that when we’re in a storm, we know she’s there. Throughout the day, whenever you see a picture, statue or medal of Our Lady, let it me a reminder, she is present, she is with you, she will never leave you alone.

[1] Laurentin, The Meaning of Consecration Today, p. 166-167.