They Have No Wine

If this computer doesn't stop giving me a headache and testing my patience to the limit ......... Anyway, here's a new blog.

Yesterday was the second Sunday after Epiphany.  We have gone from the birth of Our Lord, His circumcision, presentation in the Temple, Epiphany or introduction to gentiles in the form of the Magi, to his subjecting Himself in humility to Mary and Joseph. Now we come to  His first miracle, the changing of water into wine, the beginning of His public life. This was the first manifestation of His Divinity. The apostles still didn't really "believe" up to this point. (Our liturgical year is progressing steadily toward Lent, with the Gospels preparing us for Calvary).

Moreover Cana confirms the sanctity of marriage.  St. Augustine says, "Having been invited to the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, our Lord attended, that being alone the author of the sacrament of Matrimony, He might confirm conjugal chastity."  It is also seen as a sign that confirms the unity of Christ with His Church (a marriage). The changing of water into wine is also a "type" or prefiguring, of the act completed in the Mass, the changing of water and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity.

It is interesting to note that the Epistle chosen for the second Sunday after Epiphany is that of Paul to the Romans 12: 6-16, making it known that he, Paul, was apostle to the gentiles, and that Christ had come to redeem, not only the Jews, but all mankind.

In the Gospel, John 2: 1-11, Christ's actions rise above the natural.  And once again, he "subjects" Himself to His human Mother. St. Ambrose says, "In our Lord Jesus, we must take account of two births, the one by which He is begotten of the Father and the other by which He is born of a mother; the first wholly divine, while by the second, He humbles Himself to take our nature and our griefs......" He tells her that His time is not yet come; but she knows, as a Mother knows, that He will do as she asks. She simply tells the waiters, "Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye." As she was responsible for bringing the Son of God, in flesh, into the world, she was also, we can say, responsible for setting Him on the final road to our salvation by  launching His public life.

People have said that Our Lord rebuked Mary by saying, "Woman, what is that to Me and to thee?" - that the wine had run out. He uses that term more than once, even from the cross. "Woman, behold your son," when He gives her to humanity through the Apostle, John, to be our spiritual Mother.  It is anything but a rebuke. The first  woman, Eve, led to our downfall. This woman, Mary, is the second Eve, leading, through Her Son, the Son of God, to our redemption. Christ does not use the term lightly. He always has a purpose in the vocabulary He chooses.

Our weekly bulletin, as is usual, has a page with "Reflections from the Fathers of the Church.  This one is from a sermon by St. John Chrysostom (the Golden Mouth), Patriarch of Constantinople, in the Eastern Church, who died in the year 407 A.D.

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   It is no light subject that we must speak of today. For when the Mother of Jesus said, they have no wine, Christ answered: Woman, what is that to Me, and to thee? My hour is not yet come. When He had thus answered her, He did that which his Mother wished. This, no less than what was said previously, is something we must consider. Therefore, calling on His name Who wrought the miracle, let us seek to understand it.

   Not here alone do we find this saying: My hour is not yet come; for the Evangelist says in a subsequent chapter, that they could not lay hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come. And again, and no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come; and again: Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son (John: 8:20; 7:30; 17:1). I have gathered these sayings from the whole Gospel, that I may give a common explanation to all of them. What is this explanation? Not because He was subject to the needs of the times, or because He was governed by the hour, did Christ say: My hour is not yet come: Must the Maker observe the times, and the Creator the years and the ages He made
   By these words He desires to make plain that He does all things at a fitting time; not doing all things at once, lest the order of things might appear confused if He did not bring forth each single happening at its due moment, but should as it were commingle all things....

   Christ therefore was not subject to the necessity of the times and hours, since it was He, as their Creator, Who laid down their order. But John here speaks of Christ as saying, My hour is not yet come, meaning that He was not yet known to His Disciples. For even after He had wrought many miracles, the Evangelist could still say of His brethren: for neither did His brethren believe in Him  (John 7:5).....

   And why, you will ask, after He said, My hour is not yet come, and had seemed to refuse her, did He then do what His Mother said? So that those who withstood Him, and believed that He was subject to the hour, might be shown that He was subject neither to time nor the hour. For if He were subject to the hour, how could He do this; seeing that the fitting hour had not yet come? He did it also to honor His Mother, lest He seem to contradict her, and shame before all present the Mother who had borne Him. For she had brought the waiters to Him.
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    And the Gospel ends, "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee; and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him."

1/16/12