The wedding feast of Cana
Have you ever counted the number of weddings you have been
to? I am guessing I must have been to
40. I know some priests who have performed 30 weddings in one year! That’s a
lot of turkey and ham!
What wedding –besides perhaps your own – stands out for
you, and why?
All of us have been to weddings - after all the money and
preparation, and things can still go wrong!
Today is the story of a wedding where everything could have
gone terribly wrong for the wedding couple – running out of alcohol was not as
tragic as here maybe! Weddings in Israel went on for days. But a shortage of wine available was considered
also a lack of generosity, as well as lack of planning, and a lack of
celebratory joy. It would be the talk of the place for ever more, besmirching
the family name and honour of the couple and the miracle would spare them a
lifetime of pointing gossipy fingers.
The famous story of Our Lord changing of water into wine is
one of the most well known public miracles of Jesus – it was also Jesus’ first
miraculous sign recorded. It needs little explanation or elaboration. It is the
first time that Jesus’ mercy is appealed to – and by Mary - on behalf of
perhaps her extended family. But what is memorable is that there was wine in
abundance – 900 litre bottles worth! Enough for everyone in the congregation to
take at least three bottles home each.
This miracle has never been duplicated – and nobody as far as
I know has ever tried to explain it away – there is no natural explanation. How
could you explain it?
Our Lady is observant and quickly and calmly comes to the
rescue averting disaster. Very few people were actually in the know that there
was a problem, and guests would have thought nothing unusual about the filling
of the stone water jars for washing of arms and hands. I am not a wine
connoisseur – but I have often been fascinated that some people taste a sample of wine from the waiter.
It does symbolise a couple of things and one is God’s love in
abundance for His people. Also Christ
describes Himself as the bridegroom – and we are is people, his Church, are the
bride. Heaven is described in parables as compared to a wedding feast to which
all are invited but for which all must be found worthy. The wine (and water
added) remind us of Cana and at Mass becomes the Blood of Christ.
Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!
So the wedding at Cana speaks and points to a much deeper
truth – that we are invited to heaven, to the heavenly banquet or supper.
There are other elements in the imagery of Cana that are worth pondering:
The
next time we see the cruets of water and wine, let us recall Cana, but also
that the great wondrous miracle at Cana is surpassed by the sacrament of the
wine becoming the blood of Christ.
‘The hour’ that finally came was the Passion, and John was
one of those asked to ‘watch one hour with me’. John later with Mary heard
those words ‘woman’ and witnessed too the flow of blood and water at the hour
of Christ’s death on Calvary, prefigured by the water and wine at Cana. The
marriage of the Lamb was now complete.
Juat as we may receive an invitation to a wedding accompanied by a set of directions on a map to the church or hotel with which we may not be familiar, we prepare ourselves in advance to be at the wedding in good time. How do we get to the wedding feast of
heaven pre-figured too at Cana? What directions are we to follow to get there?
Simply, by following what Mary tells us – her
new extended family, and her servants, repeating her last recorded words in the Gospel at a wedding
feast
DO WHATEVER HE TELLS YOU!
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