Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, Manhattan
Second Sunday after Epiphany, Extraordinary Form
January 20, 2019
Rom 12:6-16, Jn 2:1-11
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
Marriage in Jesus’ Saving Plans
Today we participate liturgically in the most famous wedding of all time, because of who was on the guest list. We meditate on this scene every Thursday as we pray the second Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary. Often we pray about what it reveals about the sacrament of marriage and how Jesus takes the “water” of the institution of marriage from the beginning with Adam and Eve and raised it to the “wine” of a sacramental encounter with him: how Christ brings the marriage between a Christian man and woman into the marriage between Christ and the Church in fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied with words we ponder every Christmas: “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you, and as a Bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.” This is what Pope Francis spoke about this morning in his Angelus meditation to the tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square. “It’s no accident,” he said, “that placed at the beginning of Jesus’ public life is a nuptial ceremony, because in Him God has married humanity. This is the Good News, even if those who invited Him didn’t know yet that the Son of God was seated at their table and that He is the true Groom. In fact, the whole mystery of the sign of Cana is founded on the presence of this Divine Groom, Jesus, who … manifests Himself as the Groom of the People of God … and reveals to us the depth of the relationship that unites us to Him [in] a new Covenant of Love.” The wedding feast of Cana was an implicit revelation not merely of Jesus’ miraculous power, but his spousal love, the nuptial intention of his incarnation, even though none, except Mary, would have caught it at the time.
The Triple Epiphany
We ponder the Wedding Feast of Cana soon after the celebration of the Christmas Season not only because Jesus’ miracle was one of the principal events that inaugurated Jesus’ public ministry, but also because in the Church’s liturgical history, Jesus’ Epiphany was linked to two other Epiphanies: the Epiphany at the Jordan and the Epiphany at Cana, where Jesus’ glory was revealed. The ancient antiphon for Vespers on the Solemnity of Epiphany, for example, has always linked the three events. But I’ve always liked to look at what happened in Cana as a triple-epiphany in itself, an epiphany that is meant to show us how to live in the ordinary time of Christian life: It reveals something about the Blessed Mother, something key about Jesus beyond his power, and something about what our response is meant to be to Jesus and his mother. Today I’d like to focus with you on this triple epiphany.
The Epiphany of Mary’s Maternal Intercession
First, this scene reveals a beautiful characteristic of the mercy of the Blessed Mother. Ancient Jewish wedding celebrations, like the one taking place in Cana, would last eight straight days. There were three sumptuous meals a day. Wine was served throughout the octave. It was the generally the happiest celebration in the life of Jews, which is why Jesus often returned to the image of a wedding banquet to describe the joys of heaven. Rather than leaving on a honeymoon, the couple would remain, reigning so to speak as king and queen over the celebrations. We can only imagine how embarrassing it would be today if, at a wedding reception, the banquet hall ran out of food or beverages early in the celebration. Even though most people would sympathize with the couple and blame the banquet facility, it would still be terribly embarrassing for the family. In the ancient world, it would be incalculably more so, because the family itself threw the reception. If they ran out of supplies, especially with days to go during the reception, if they had to serve only water, it would have been an embarrassment that likely would never have been forgotten.
Mary was at the wedding and noticed the impending catastrophe. Before the wine steward caught on to the predicament, before the couple did, before even the mother of the bride had noticed, Mary saw the problem. The reason why there was no wine left was probably because the others were drinking so much that they just weren’t paying attention. Mary’s love made her notice the details that others were missing. To remedy the problem, she went to her Son. She didn’t twist His arm. She didn’t try to persuade Him that, even though it wasn’t His “hour” for working public miracles (because that would inexorably precipitate the Cross), He should act. She simply said, “They have no wine!,” confident that her Son, even though he didn’t think the timing was appropriate, would out of merciful love miraculously intervene. She knew he loved that couple even more than she did.
The episode reveals two things about Mary’s merciful intercession.
First, Mary seeks to solve problems by bringing them to her divine Son. Some of our Protestant brothers and sisters say that Catholics shouldn’t pray to Mary because, as St. Paul writes, Christ is our sole mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5). They say we should eliminate the “middle woman” and bring all our needs directly to the Lord. Well, there’s obviously nothing wrong with praying directly to Jesus, but at the same time, Mary’s intercession is no threat to Christ’s power; in fact, it reveals Christ’s power, because it depends entirely on Christ’s power. In the ancient icons, like in the apse of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, she is always seated on her Son’s throne, invited by him — veni, electa mea, sede ad thronum meum say the words in the open book Jesus is holding in that famous image: “Come, my chosen one, sit on my throne”— because all of her intercession totally depends on him. Mary cannot work miracles on her own. Any time she acts, she acts through her Son. When we pray to her, we ask her to bring our needs to her Son, just like she brought the need of the couple in Cana.
Second, Mary often acts, like she did in Cana, before we even know we have a problem. She recognizes that one of us may have a really tough week in store and she’s already interceding for the help we’ll need to cope. She foresees that some of us will have severe temptations and she has already sprung into action. She sees that some of us will have financial or health difficulties and she’s getting involved before we even ask her. She grasps that several of us will need a good confession, and she’s intervening for a priest to be there. Her mercy looks out and acts out of love before we’re often aware that we are in need.
Jesus himself wills that we have this type of relationship with the mother his Father in heaven chose for him and he from the cross chose for us. Like I presume some of you have during this difficult last year, I have been praying through In Sinu Iesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart: The Dialogue of a Priest of Prayer, published by someone who attends this Mass, which details what Jesus, credibly in my opinion, seems to be indicating to an anonymous Benedictine priest about the way he seeks to have us respond to the scandal. It’s striking how essential to Jesus it is that priests and the entire Church entrust ourselves anew and more profoundly than ever before to his Mother. Jesus tells the priest in those interior locutions and through him us, “My Mother will give you the direction you need. … She will rectify the things that are not as they should be and show you how to use your energy, your time, and the talents I have given you. Take her as your Mother and Teacher, and do not be afraid to consult her even in little things. Nothing escapes the loving attention of her Heart. Trust her with all the details of your life and you will see that she is present to you, as she was to Saint John, and that nothing of what you live, or suffer, or fear, is foreign to her. …My Mother will show herself a Mother to you.”
Jesus’ vicar on earth emphasized the same type of entrustment this morning in his Angelus meditation. “When we are in difficult situations, when problems come that we don’t know how to resolve, when we often feel anxiety and anguish, when we lack joy, we should go to Our Lady and say: ‘We don’t have wine. The wine is finished. Look how I am. Look at my heart. Look at my soul.’ We must say it to ourMother and she will go to Jesus to say: ‘Look at him, look at her: he or she doesn’t have wine.’ And then She will turn to us and say: ‘Do whatever He tells you.’”
We should have every confidence that Mary, our Mother, is looking down on all of us with maternal love and similarly interceding for us with her Son right now, even if we do not know what we need.
The Epiphany of Jesus’ Redemptive Modus Operandi
Beyond the epiphany of Mary’s merciful intercession, the miracle at the wedding of Cana also reveals something stunning about the way Christ exercises his merciful power. He acts at his mother’s behest and anticipates the time of his own suffering. And he acts in a particular way. Christ was and is the creator of the Universe. He formed the oceans with just a word. He could have easily filled those six empty thirty-gallon water jugs with wine through just a thought, or a syllable, or an Arthur Fonzarelli-like snap of his finger. He could have in an instant created thousands of such jugs on the spot filled with cognac or champagne or anything he wanted. But he didn’t act that way. Instead he turned to the servants there and said, “Fill the jars with water.” He wanted to involve them in his miracle.
That’s the way he normally chooses to act. We see the same modus operandi later with the miraculous feeding of the five thousand men (Jn 6). He who had created all the fruit and vegetables, all the beasts wild and tame, all the fish of the sea, could have easily fed the crowd by creating out of nothing a sumptuous meal. But he didn’t. He asked his disciples what they had to feed the crowd, and all they had were the five loaves and two fish that a young boy was offering. Jesus took that meager gift and multiplied it to feed the crowd. He wanted to involve his creatures’ contributions in his efforts. We see this same principle at work in the celebration of the Eucharist. Jesus could have easily established the Eucharist to be celebrated with the raw materials of grain and grapes he created and have turned those elements into his sacred body and blood. But he didn’t. He started with bread and wine, because he wanted to incorporate us into this greatest miracle of all. During the offertory in the new rite, based on an ancient Jewish prayer, the priest recalls this cooperation, praying, “Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation, for through your goodness we have this bread to offer, fruit of the earth and the work of human hands” and later, “through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and the work of human hands.” These — God’s goodness and the human contribution together — the priest prays “will become for us the Bread of life … [and] our spiritual drink.” The central point is that Christ could do it all; he certainly doesn’t need us. But he wants to include us in his saving work. He who created us without our consent, as St. Augustine once said, doesn’t want to save us without our consent, and he doesn’t want to save others without our cooperation. That’s the second epiphany we encounter today.
The Epiphany of God’s Response to our Collaboration
The third is how we’re called to respond to Jesus’ inclusion of us in his saving work. St. John tells us simply that when the servants had received Mary’s instruction to do whatever Jesus told them and when they had heard Jesus’ imperative to fill the jars with water, “they filled them to the brim.” Those five words conceal an awful lot of effort. In the ancient world, there were no hoses tied to water pipes to fill the jars. The only place they could get water to fill them was the central well in Cana. Because the jars were made of stone, they would have been extremely heaven to carry to the well; filled with 30 gallons of water, which would weigh another 250 pounds (one gallon = 8.35 lbs), they would have been impossible to bring back. The only way they could have been filled would have been by taking little leather or ceramic water containers back and forth to the well. If we imagine that there were five servants, each with a hefty two gallon container in each hand, it would have meant that they would have had to have made nine trips back and forth to the Cana well to get enough water. That would have been grueling exercise even for those who were fit and strong. Yet they filled the 30-gallon water jars to the point of overflowing. They zealously did their part and Jesus used their efforts as the raw material for his incredible miracle. And what a miracle it was! Jesus converted all 180 gallons of water into wine in a way that made the wine steward himself take notice.
We’re used to looking at wine in 750 milliliter bottles. I’ve been to Cana many times. Last February, when I was leading the pilgrimage of the Leonine Fellowship — I see two Leonine Fellows here! — the Palestinian Christian guide shared his thoughts about Cana and asked aloud, “Can you imagine how many bottles of wine that must have been?” As a former math Olympiad competitor in Massachusetts, I couldn’t let the question remain rhetorical. So I led the pilgrims in a little math, something that isn’t a bad wake-me-up exercise for us on a Sunday morning: 180 gallons times 3.8 liters per gallon is 684 liters; poured in 750 milliliter bottles, that would be 912 bottles! Think about that for a moment. That’s the equivalent of 76 cases of wine. No wedding, even for eight days, could ever consume that much. But just like Jesus worked the miracle of the multiplication of five loves and two loaves and left 12 wicker baskets full of fragments, one for each of the apostles, so Jesus worked this miracle as a sign of what he himself does when we cooperate. In response to the servants’ generosity, his generosity is even greater. That’s something that should inspire us to be just as enthusiastic and zealous in our correspondence to the Lord’s including us in his saving plan as they were in Cana. Not only are we called to drink the “best wine” of all, flowing from his open side, but also to help others become inebriated by that same divine wine.
St. Paul is talking about this in today’s epistle. He tells us to use or “exercise,” all of the gifts God has given us, whether prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, generosity, diligence, to “serve the Lord.” “To serve the Lord,” as Pope Francis said this morning, “means to listen to His word and to put it into practice.” The “Christian program of life,” he said, is to act on “the simple and essential recommendation of Jesus’ mother” to do whatever the Lord says and use our gifts in his service to co-redeem with him. The greatest gift of all we’ve received, St. Paul implies today in the epistle, is the full outpouring of the Lord’s love: that’s why he calls us to let our love be sincere, to love one another in mutual affection, to love those who are weeping and rejoicing, to love those who are lowly, to love even those who have made themselves our persecutors. He wants us to love them with the abundant love with which God has loved us first, to love with all the zeal of the servants in Cana. If we do, we can be totally confident that we will see even greater signs.
The Connection between Cana and the Eucharist
As we come to Mass today, we know that Mary is praying for us and advising each of us to do whatever her Son tells us. The world lacks in so many places the “new wine” of faith that Jesus gives. True joy is being sucked out of life. So many rituals and ceremonies ring hollow. Jesus wants to incorporate us in his helping people to see that there is something far greater than even their great human pleasures, a better wine that they await and for which he’s made them to thirst. And it’s at Mass that Jesus seeks to strengthen us for that mission not by turning water into great wine for an eight-day feast, but turning bread and wine in to his own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, to strengthen us, and through us others, to come to the eternal Banquet. The miracle at the wedding feast of Cana was a prelude to this greatest miracle of all. We follow Mary’s command to do whatever Christ tells us by doing this in memory of him. And we come here seeking to allow him to fill us to the brim with his grace and love, so that being so transformed by this spousal union with him, we made go out to bring everyone to the feast that will last into eternity.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us exercise them: if prophecy, in proportion to the faith; if ministry, in ministering; if one is a teacher, in teaching; if one exhorts, in exhortation; if one contributes, in generosity; if one is over others, with diligence; if one does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute (you), bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.
The continuation of the Gospel according to St. John
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” (And) Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.
