"They have no wine" (John 2:3)
I have been thinking since the weekend about Sunday's gospel on the wedding feast of Cana. It is one of the few times we hear of Our Lady being present in the adult life of Jesus, and certainly the most dialogue that we get from her. And what dialogue!
What does she mean when she turns to Jesus and says, They have no wine"? The plain meaning is that the wedding guests had drunk the feast dry of course. Yet Our Lord's reply, however, suggests another level of meaning, understood by both of them: Woman, why turn to me? My hour has not yet come. Woman, as we know, is a little like the French expression 'Madame'; it is a title of honour. But what about My hour has not yet come? Clearly, He is not talking about the wine, as she appeared to be. But when we read the next verse, we understand that she knew perfectly what He meant: The mother said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you." Mary and Jesus move thereby between different levels of meaning in their own conversation. It is in fact a moment of intimate exchange for them and insight for us. This is what happens when a saint's heart (Mary's) is so deeply fused to God's will (her Son's) that the communion between them tells its own tale.
We owe this gospel anecdote to the observant St John who was present at the wedding feast. Marvellously, he was close enough to hear this dialogue, or one of the interlocutors repeated it to him later on. Many years ago someone of my acquaintance used to say mischievously that this scene was all about wine, women and song! Let me see, however, if I can remember why.
Wine - because its meaning in this scene is both about our physical and spiritual needs. The wedding hosts physically lacked wine, and Mary was kind enough to notice their embarrassment. What then is the spiritual meaning of wine? We can only grasp that when we note the meaning of Jesus' 'hour': the appointed hour of His sufferings, the hour he remarks upon on the night of Holy Thursday, the hour of darkness but also the hour of redemption. If what the wedding guests lack is what Jesus can obtain in His hour, then the spiritual meaning of the wine is grace and salvation; its meaning is the work of love and the fruit of love, for God so loved the world....
The COLW prayer after Holy Communion turns this fusion of wine and eternal love into an act of love returned:
May COLW be a little grapevine in your pure hands to quench the thirst of Jesus
In this image Mary helps us return the eternal love (shown to us by God) into a love that returns to God. It is symbolized in this prayer by the fruit of the vine which itself will be taken by Jesus at the Last Supper to become the sacramental sign of His precious blood.
Woman - because grace, salvation and love - as well as the wine! - are secured when Mary tells the servants at the feast: Do whatever He tells you. I wonder if these are about the only words Mary ever addresses to any servant of Christ. As we would say these days: Just do it! Or to put it another way: fiat - let it be so. When we utter the summary of the COLW charism Mary teach us always to say yes to the Lord we are in effect saying: Mary, take us always to Cana to serve the Lord. To which she no doubt replies: Do whatever He tells you. If you have not done so already, do read Sioster Catherine's essay on Mary in the Carmelite tradition via this link.
Song - admittedly there is no song explicitly mentioned in this gospel. The only recorded time in the gospel that Jesus sang is on Holy Thursday when He and the disciplines walked from the Upper Room to Gesthemane. And yet I can only imagine this scene being full of song. It's a Jewish wedding after all! But not only that. Song is one of the age old human expressions of celebration: it is a sign of deep joy. It is also - and let's be plain about this - one of the notable signs that people have been drinking. Nobody who hears singing late at night in the street would think that the singers had just been downing lemonade or Earl Grey tea. Is it irreverent to think of Jesus facilitating a boozy wedding feast? No doubt some would think it is. Yet Providence could easily have arranged for it to be the food, not the wine, that failed in Cana, and Jesus could have rustled up a magnificent feast, as He does later in the gospel.
Here again, however, we should reflect on the spiritual meaning of this beautiful episode. Jesus provides the wine - the love, the grace, the salvation - and we can only imagine the rousing choruses that broke out when that excellent wine was shared around. The wine - the love, the grace, the salvation - produces its effects in the hearts of the guests, and filled now with joy, the guests could only have responded accordingly. In the Gregorian chant setting of the Communion verse of this day - which uses the steward's words to the bridegroom: You have kept the best wine till now - the music leaps around when the steward speaks, as if he too is already showing the inebriating effects of the excellent wine. Is this not because - as Josef Pieper so excellently observed (echoing the Fathers of the Church) - only the lover sings?
The conclusion, therefore, is simple. If we wish, like the disciples, to be taken to the eternal banquet, we had best look like we have a taste for wine (love and salvation), "woman" (Mary's obedience) and song (the return of love for love received). Indeed, we should indulge as frequently as we can!
PS The acquaintance who inspired this reflection lost his way very badly; I can only surmise it was because he did not follow his own advice about wine, woman and song. Please pray for Ben.
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