The Miracle at Cana

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The Mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited” (John 2:1-2).

In another translation it says, “The Mother of Jesus was invited, and Jesus and his disciples were also there.” It sort of puts it the opposite way.

One commentator suggested that Jesus and His disciples had all gatecrashed the party, that Our Lady was the one who was really invited.

And we're told they ran out of wine since the wine provided for the feast had all been used. “The mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus said, “Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not yet come’” (John 2:3-4).

This wedding took place in Cana, just a short distance from Nazareth, where Our Lady lived. There might have been people who were friends or relatives, doing different things, involved in different ways. Our Lady could have been very close to them and she could have been helping with the preparation of this modest celebration.

It was customary for the women who knew the family to help in the preparation of all that was needed for the feast. Possibly she was there helping out in this way.

The feast began and, either through lack of foresight or because there was an unexpectedly large number of guests, possibly all those disciples, the wine ran out. Our Lady, who was helping, realizes that the wine is running out.

We see a lot about friendship in this detail of Our Lady. She's not just there with her sleeves rolled up, saying, ‘It's my day out, I'm here to have a good time,’ concerned with her own enjoyment.

She has a certain antenna, she has a certain eye for how the feast is going. She's walking in the shoes of the main organizers, she's watching their back.

This is real friendship. Being concerned about the deeper realities, having that sensitivity for the people around us, that they are not hurt or offended or let down in any way.

We see the depth of Our Lady's friendship and the refinement of her friendship—something we could all try to imitate in our own personal friends.

She knows that Our Lord has just begun His public life, preaching and fulfilling His ministry. She knows this better than anyone else.

And then we're told she goes to Him. She's going to ask Our Lord to do something that she will never ask Him to do again for the rest of her life. She asks Him to work a miracle.

Again we see the depth of Our Lady's friendship, how far she's willing to go for her friends. She could have looked for other solutions. She could have gone down the road and bought some wine, or she could have sent somebody else out, maybe the servants, to do it, but all that would have drawn attention to the problem.

But she doesn't want to upset the apple cart or embarrass her friends in any way. There's nothing that she's not willing to do. She's willing to move mountains, she's willing to ask for miracles. She's willing to ask for the great refinement and loyalty of Our Lady.

She goes to Our Lord with great faith and says four simple words, “They have no wine.” It should be recorded well in history that the one thing that the Mother of God asked for at Cana and Galilee was alcohol.

Anyone who tries to tell us that alcohol is wrong, or alcohol is bad—we can tell them that the Mother of God asked for alcohol. You see, everything that God has created is good.

If men use those things for wrong purposes, then that's what makes it bad. But we use the good things that God has created to give Him glory, to thank Him.

God has created many good things. And if God has created these many good things, it's because He wants us to use them and to enjoy them, and to give Him thanks and glory for those things.

In the offering of these simple words, Our Lady teaches us how to pray. She doesn't ask Him for anything. She just points to a need.

She points to the need, to the place where the miracle needs to happen. Our Lady teaches us that when we go before Our God needing things, we just need to point out to Our Lord that this is needed, that is needed, and leave the rest to Him.

Her statement is full of confidence, full of peace and serenity. Our Lady doesn't put her hands on her hips and say, ‘Look now, I'm your mother and I've never asked you for anything before in your life, so don't you dare refuse me, or there's going to be trouble around here.’

Our Lady doesn't talk like that to her Son. She talks with great refinement and great respect, as though she's very aware that in some ways she's out of line.

She asks Him to work a miracle. And she knows that this is way over and above and beyond what He’s come for. She risks a ‘no.’ She risks being denied.

That’s what seems to happen. Our Lord said to her, “Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

The Hebrew word “hour” is very much a loaded word. Our Lord is going to use it very much in His Passion. Whenever Our Lord uses the word, it refers to the hour of the Redemption.

Later on, after the Last Supper, He's going to say, “Now has the hour come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). He's going to say to His Heavenly Father, “Lord, save me from this hour” (cf. John 12:27).

Those are the very deep meanings, very redemptive meanings. But here at the very beginning of His public life, Our Lord uses this term.

He doesn't address Our Lady as Mom or Mommy or Mother, but “Woman,” rather distant. Our Lady comes to Him as His Mother, and He seems to remind her that she's not just His Mother; she's also His creation. He created her.

And she's asking Him to do something that is out of the natural order, way above and beyond what might be expected from her role as a mother, to work this very supernatural reality.

It looks as though Our Lord is going to refuse Our Lady what she asked for, what she tells Him about. But Our Lady knows the heart of her Son very well, and she behaves as though He acceded to her petition immediately, as though He said to her, ‘OK, fine, it's a deal. You just go to the servants and tell them these particular words, and I'll be along shortly, and I'll work the miracle.’ That's, of course, not what He said to her.

But Our Lady functions as though that's what He said. She goes to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).

In our own personal prayer as we begin this new year, we could try to hear those same words of Our Lady telling us whatever it is the Holy Spirit is saying to you in your heart and your soul as you look to this new year, in your Christian vocation, in your apostolate, in your mission, in your professional work, in your family life. Just do “whatever he tells you.”

Put one foot in front of the other. Be very obedient, very docile. Let God work miracles in you and through you, because God wants to work many miracles in this world, among our friends—bringing them back to the faith, to the sacraments, helping them to discover what this world and this life is all about.

But we have to let ourselves be used as instruments to listen to Our Father God and see what it is that Our Lord is saying to us at this moment in time.

And just like Our Lady was very attentive to the needs of the wedding feast, then we know that she's all the more attentive to all of our needs, more attentive than any of the mothers on this earth have ever been or ever could be.

Our Mother is watching out for us in all things. At the Cross, Our Lord is also going to use that word, “Woman, behold your child. … Son, behold your mother” (cf. John 19:26-27). “Woman…”

He's also telling her to do whatever He tells her. Our Lady is always looking at us. The miracle takes place because Our Lady interceded. It happens only because of Her statement, Her petition. If Our Lady hadn't said anything, possibly the miracle might never have taken place.

“Why do the prayers of Our Lady have such effectiveness before God? The prayers of the saints are prayers of servants, whereas those of Our Lady are the prayers of a Mother. It's from there that they receive their effectiveness and their authoritative character.

“Because the love of Our Lord for His Mother is limitless, she cannot ask for anything” or even just [indicate] that she needs something “without that being heard” (Alphonsus Liguori, Abbreviated Sermons).

She goes before Him, and she goes before Him without having been asked. The distressed couple don't come to her and say, ‘Can you go to your son and see if he can do something? Get us out of this fix?’ It's all the initiative of Our Lady.

Mary, help us to have that same discretion, that same attentiveness, that refinement, not to wait to be asked to do things, but to be proactive in our workplace, in our family, in our marriage, in our professional work.

St. Alphonsus Liguori says, “Above all, Mary's heart, which never fails to have pity on the unfortunate, impelled her to take upon herself the task of intercessor and to beg her Son for the miracle, even though nobody had asked her to. … If Our Lady acted in this way without being asked, how would it have been if they had asked?” (ibid.).

What would we not receive if we persist in turning to her again and again?

Mother, may I discover you again in a new way in this new year, with a greater childlike spirit, so that from the moment I get up in the morning to the moment I go to bed at night, I turn to you and ask you for all the little things that I need or things that are needed around me, or those that my friends or my siblings or acquaintances need.

John Paul II says, “‘Virgin most powerful.’ This is the name Christian piety has given to Our Mother Mary, because her Son is God and cannot refuse her anything” (cf. John Paul II, Homily, October 21, 1979).

It's a rather beautiful title that we address Our Lady in the Litany of Our Lady: “Virgin most powerful.” There's nothing that she can't do. There's no mountain that she can't move. There's nothing that she can't obtain from her Son.

She's always aware of our spiritual and material needs. She desires even more than we do that we wouldn't cease imploring her intervention before God on our behalf. “Never was it known that anyone who fled your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unheeded” (Prayer, The Memorare).

Sometimes we are so needy and yet so slow to ask. It may be that we show little trust, little patience, when what we ask for seems long in coming.

Mother, I should turn to you more frequently. Help me to find you more often in my ordinary day.

Look at your image occasionally, to take out my Rosary beads, to remember the Angelus, to remember you at the moment I wake up in the morning and the moment I go to bed at night. Help me to put more trust in my petitions, knowing that you'll always obtain for us all that we need most.

The Lord says, “If you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” (Matt. 7:11).

It's a beautiful word: “more.” Just think back over the last few weeks, all that good parents have done to try and give their children the best, or Father Christmas or Santa Claus. If parents do things like that, how much more will Our Mother in Heaven be willing to gain good things for us?

She obtained from her Son wine that was not absolutely necessary. If the wine had run out, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But yet, in that small thing, she's willing to find a solution for all those urgent needs that we may have.

St. Josemaría says in The Forge, “I want, Lord, to abandon the care of all my affairs into your generous hands. Our Mother—your Mother—will have let you hear those words, now as in Cana: ‘They have none.’ I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you, Jesus. I want nothing for myself; it's for them” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 807).

Our Lady doesn't ask for wine for herself. She doesn't say, ‘I have no wine. My glass is empty. This is why I came here.’ She says, “They have no wine.”

Our Lord will listen to our petitions all the more when we ask things for other people. We solve all our own problems by thinking about other people.

Our Lord turned the water into wine (John 2:6-10). This very normal, ordinary, naturally occurring substance, He turned it into a treasure.

Our work too can be turned into something of great value: when we finish our work well, when we pay attention to it, when we fulfill little details, when we double-check that it's well done.

Our Lord can take this human reality that we try to produce every day and lift it up to make it something of great importance. In Cana in Galilee, there is shown to Our Lord just one concrete aspect of human need—apparently a tiny one, and of little importance. “They have no wine.” But it has great symbolic value. It's coming to the aid of human needs.

It means that when we bring those needs in the radius of Christ's messianic mission and selfific power, great things can happen.

John Paul II says, “Mary places herself between her son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. In her position as mother, she puts herself ‘in the middle,’ that is to say she acts as a mediatrix, not as an outsider. … She knows that in this way, she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she ‘has the right’ to do so” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Redemptoris Mater, Point 21, March 25, 1987).

There is a story told that Our Lord told St. Peter to keep the gates of heaven very tightly closed, to be very selective in the people that he allowed into heaven, make sure that they have their passport or their visa or whatever. And He went away and He came back after some time and He found that heaven was full of people.

He went to St. Peter and said, ‘I thought I told you to be very selective in who you allowed in, to keep the gates tightly closed.’ St. Peter said, ‘Yes Lord, that's what I did. Every time I closed the gates, your mother keeps opening the windows.’ Our Lady is there interceding for people.

Our Lady said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). And they obeyed readily and efficiently. They filled “six stone jars standing there for the Jewish rites of purification,” as Our Lord had told them to (John 2:6-7).

They obeyed readily and efficiently. They didn't know that a great miracle was going to take place. They didn't know the greatness of the task that they were involved in. They were just human instruments, just doing what they were told.

Sometimes in life and in society we are just like those simple, humble instruments. But it's very important that we do what we are told.

We try to listen to what the Church tells us, or what we are told in Confession, in spiritual direction, or what the Holy Spirit says to us in our spiritual reading or in our prayer, so that we make sure we do whatever we are told.

Sometimes it's very simple. Sometimes it can be very important. St. John points out that “they filled them to the brim.” They don't just half-fill them or do them any old way.

It's a message that when we fulfill our professional tasks, we also have to try and “fulfill them to the brim,” to go the extra mile, to take care of our service orientation, because all professional work is a service, taking care of our clients, our customers, our students, and double-checking that the problems are solved.

That teacher that I mentioned in the last meditation, who, after his death in the last few weeks, all sorts of beautiful things have been written about him—you can certainly say that in his professional work as a teacher with each student, he “filled them to the brim,” fulfilled his professional tasks in a very loving and attentive way, a very professional way.

“The Lord says to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the steward of the feast’” (John 2:8). And the wine is better than any other wine that the men have ever drunk, so much so that the [steward] says, “You have kept the best wine until now” (John 2:10).

Normally people give the best wine in the beginning, and when everybody has drunk a lot, they bring out the second-rate stuff, but “you have kept the best wine until now.”

Our lives, perhaps like the water, were flat. They were without the ferment of purpose until Our Lord came into our life. And we see this great transforming effect in our life, in our work, in our sorrows, and in our joys. Even death is different beside Christ. He changes everything, turns the water into wine.

Our Lord does want us to carry out our duties right up to the top, to the brim, finishing things off well so that He can work a miracle. He may be depending on that human effort, on that concern, on that care for detail, on the things we do, on fulfilling our duties, to work the miracles.

And those miracles may be miracles in souls, in minds, in hearts. They may be miracles that will transform the whole of society.

If everybody in the whole of society, in schools, hospitals, homes, universities, factories, were to do everything with human perfection and a Christian spirit, then we might find a completely different world. Our Lord will turn our efforts and our work, which otherwise might remain supernaturally sterile, into the most exquisite of wines.

And if we start this new year, we can have a great faith and trust in God, and optimism. He's going to do all of this with our human cooperation, and then the world can be a wedding feast, a more worthy dwelling place for mankind in which the presence of Jesus and Mary will imprint a special delight.

We're all called to the eternal wedding feast. John Paul II liked to say that marriage in this world is a preparation for marriage in the next. If something goes wrong in this world, in our marriage, it can be a preparation for marriage in the next, the Cross. Some of that eternal wedding feast—God wants us to savor a little bit of it here.

Our Lord says, “Fill the jars with water” (John 2:7). We shouldn't let routine, our impatience, our laziness, cause us to only half-fulfill our daily duties. St. Josemaría used to teach that “every little act that we do can be done with love” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 813). Opening a door, closing a window. “A little act, done for love, is worth so much!” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 814).

Our Lord also could have performed a miracle with empty jars. He didn't need the jars to be filled, or He didn't need them to be filled to the brim.

But He wanted men to cooperate. He wanted the cooperation of those servants. In the same way He wants our cooperation to work all the miracles that He wants to work in the world, He wanted them to cooperate with their effort, with all the means that they have.

Lord, teach me to use all the human things that you've given me in my work, in my home, the transmission of virtues to other people. Help me to use all the means so that you can work the great miracles that you want to work in me and through me, even when it might seem that the means are very paltry, very few, very insufficient.

While all this is happening, Our Lady just says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). And then, you get the impression she goes back to her place with peace and serenity.

She's not turning her head every five minutes to see if Jesus has gone to the servants, or to see if the jars are full, or to see if something is happening as a fruit of all of her actions and efforts.

She's not frustrated, anxious, nervous. She's peaceful, serene, abandoned, carrying on with the duty of the feast as though nothing was wrong, as though nobody knows what's taking place under the table.

We could also think in this parable of the generosity of Our Lord. He also always gives us more than we ask Him for.

If you look back over the last twelve months, all the graces that God has given to you in your life, spiritual graces, help in your professional work, things that are worked out, our health, our ability to see, to hear, to solve problems, new things we have learned in the course of the last twelve months, and in particular, He grants us these things when we ask for them through Our Lady. She takes it upon herself to unravel our prayers.

There was a parish priest once who saw a little four-year-old girl coming in to pray in the church beside her kindergarten school.

Every day at a certain break time, she stood in front of the image of Our Lady and her lips were moving. He noticed this little four-year-old and her lips moving, and he got very curious.

After a while he went to her and said, “What prayers do you say to Our Lady?” He was a bit surprised that this little girl would know any prayers.

And she said, “Oh, I don't know any prayers. So I just come here and I recite the alphabet. And I tell Our Lady, ‘You arrange the letters in the way that you want.’” And that was her prayer.

She let Our Lady unravel her prayers. We can let Our Lady unravel our petitions if they're somewhat tangled up. Very often, that's what mothers do; they undo the knots or they undo the tangles. They solve the problems.

Our Lady grants us, through her Son, much more than we ask for, just as He did at the wedding feast at Cana. It was a super-abundance.

We can have great confidence that Our Lord is going to allow us to participate also in that super abundance. We might not see it at this particular moment in time. But when time passes, we look back over a year, over ten years, we begin to realize all the things that God has done in our life, the miracles He's worked, how I happen to be in this particular place at this particular point in time, a whole series of coincidences that worked out. This is just the grace of God working in our life.

An ordinary wine would have been enough, even an inferior one to the one that had already been served, and possibly a much smaller quantity would have been sufficient. But Our Lord really outdoes Himself in generosity.

St. John is particularly interested in emphasizing that it was a matter of “six stone jars…each holding twenty or thirty gallons” (John 2:6). It's an awful lot of wine.

He wants to show how abundant the gift was, just as when He tells us about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. There were twelve baskets filled with the fragments that were left over. It was a superabundance (John 6:12-13). It was the best wine.

Our Lord wants to live in our lives and gives us more and better than we deserve, because also, He wants to demand more from us. “Those to whom much has been given, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48).

We begin to appreciate the gifts that God has given to us. We can come to realize, ‘Maybe I'm one of those people to whom God “has given five talents” (Matt. 25:14-30).

So I better take care. I better make sure that I render “five talents more” and set about it as one of the goals of my life, to learn new things, to be a better instrument, to be more holy, to be more in the state of grace, so that Our Lord can use me as a better instrument.

The Book of Isaiah says, “You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed ‘Forsaken,’ and your land shall be no more termed ‘Desolate.’ But you shall be called, ‘My delight is in her’ and your land, ‘Married’; for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married.

“For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isa. 62:3-5).

It's the joy, the intimacy, that God wants to have with each one of us. We can be sure in our spiritual life in this coming year when Our Lord has many little miracles that He wants to work, our progress in virtue, our deeper desires for personal holiness, our apostolic vision as we look around us and see the fishing that God wants us to do. And all that has to start with a new intimacy with Him.

Those first disciples that were with Our Lord on this occasion, and St. John was one of them—they were amazed. Amazed enough for John to include all the details of this miracle in his Gospel: the first miracle that Our Lord was to work.

This miracle helped them to take a step forward in their newly-found faith. Our Lord confirms them in their faith as He does with each one of us who follow Him.

Those words of Our Lady, the last words that she said in the whole of the Gospel: “Do whatever he tells you”—there could be no better words, no more profitable advice. that Our Lady could give to each one of us.

Mary, may you help us also, always to be doing whatever He tells us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF