Drink l’chaim to life

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be found here.

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Today’s gospel (John 2: 1-11) gives us that classic gospel episode of the wedding at Cana. Mary, an honoured guest at the occasion, sees they have no wine. She and Jesus exchange remarks that indicate they had a shared understanding of the symbolism of both ‘wine’ and His ‘hour’ that John does not explain for the reader. Next, we hear Mary’s imperious command: do whatever He tells you. Hardly have the servants followed Jesus’ instructions than the feast is suddenly flowing with wine again, to the mystification of the caterers and the joy of the guests. It is a foreshadowing of the feast of the Lamb that St John will relate later in his Book of Revelation.

This episode is one of the few times we hear of Our Lady being present in the adult life of Jesus, and it is 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 suggests another level of meaning, understood by both of them: Woman, what does this have to do with 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: His 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 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, and these are the reasons why.

The wine in Cana evokes 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. And just as the juice of grapes comes flooding from the winepress, so the blood of Jesus will come flooding from the cross to shed His blessings far and wide.

After the wine of the scene, the Woman is of course Mary who 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.

Finally, in this scene, if we listen carefully, there is also song. 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 Gethsemane. And yet I can only imagine this scene in Cana being full of song: l'chaim, l'chaim to life! 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. Jesus too sings L'chaim to life: human and divine life.

The wine, Woman, and the song and thus all linked. At the request of the Woman, 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 vigorously when the steward speaks, as if he too is already showing the inebriating effects of the excellent wine. Is this not because, as St Augustine observes, 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 Benny.