CANA I
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;
and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus was called,
and his disciples, to the marriage.
S. John II, 1.
Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that we thy servants may
enjoy constant health of body and mind, and by the glorious
intercession of blessed Mary, ever a virgin, be delivered
from all temporal afflictions, and come to those joys that
are eternal. Through.
Having received, O Lord, what is to advance our salvation;
grant we may always be protected by the patronage of blessed
Mary, ever a virgin, in whose honor we have offered this
sacrifice to thy majesty. Through.
Old Catholic.
"There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was
there." To S. John Blessed Mary is ever the "mother of Jesus." He never
calls her by her name in any mention of her. Jesus who loved him and
whom he loved and loves always with consuming passion, held the
foreground of his consciousness; all other persons are known through
their relation to Him. As he is writing his Gospel-story toward the end
of his life, the Blessed Virgin has long been gone to join her Son in
the place of perfect love. We cannot conceive of her living long on
earth after His Ascension. Her "conversation" would in a special way be
"in heaven." Whatever the time she remained here awaiting the will of
God for her, we may be sure that the days she spent under the protection
of S. John were wonderful days for him, wherein their communing would
have been the continual lifting of their hearts and souls to Him, Child
and Friend, who is also God enthroned at the Right Hand of the Father.
It is not unlikely that the marvellous spiritual maturity of which we
are conscious in the writings of S. John was aided in its unfolding by
the intimacy of his relations with S. Mary. But always she remained to
him what she was because of what Jesus was; she remained to the end "the
mother of Jesus."
Here at the marriage of Cana the way in which she is mentioned suggests
that she was staying in the house where the marriage was celebrated: she
was simply there; Jesus and the disciples were called, invited, to the
wedding. Some relationship, it has been suggested, between S. Mary and
the bride or groom led to her presence in the house. That however is
mere conjecture. The marriage in any case was a wonderful one, for both
Jesus and Mary were there. It was therefore the ideal of all weddings
which seem to lack the true note of the new matrimony which springs from
the Incarnation if they take place without such guests. As in
imagination we follow Mary as she goes quietly about the house, which
like her own was a home of the poor, helping in the arrangements of the
wedding, one cannot help recalling many weddings with which one has had
something to do, and in the arrangements of which we cannot think of
Mary as having any part. They were the arrangements of the weddings of
Christians, and the weddings took place in a Christian church; but
neither is Mary there nor Jesus called. We are unable to think of Mary
as present amid the tumult of worldiness and frivolity, the endless
chatter over dress and decoration, which so commonly precedes the
celebration of a sacrament which is the symbol of "the mystical union
that there is betwixt Christ and His Church." That deep piety which puts
God and God's will before all else would strike a jarring note here,
where the dominant note is still the pagan note of the decking of the
slave for her new master. It is perhaps not without significance of the
direction of the movement of the modern mind that the protests of the
emancipated woman are against the Christian, not the pagan elements in
matrimony: she tends to regard marriage as a state of temporary luxury
rather than the perfect union of two souls in Christ. Clearly in
marriages which are regarded as purely temporary engagements, dependent
on the will of the parties for their continuance, there is no place for
the mother of Jesus. The purity that emanates from her will be a silent
but keenly felt criticism on the whole conception underlying a vast
number of modern marriages. Even as I write I read that in a certain
great city in the United States the number of divorces granted was one
fourth of the number of the marriages celebrated.
Clearly at marriages which are surrounded with this atmosphere of
paganism, be they celebrated where they may, there is no place for the
Blessed Mother; and neither is Jesus called. His priest, unfortunately,
is often called, and dares celebrate a sacrament which in the
circumstances he can hardly help feeling is a sacrilege. There are many
cases in which what purports to be Christian marriage is between those
who are not Christians, or of whom only one is a Christian in any
complete sense. One hears frequently of the sacrament of matrimony being
celebrated when only one of the parties is baptised. It is of course
possible for any priest to act on the authority conferred upon him by
the state and in his capacity as a state official perform marriages
between those whom the state authorises to be married: but why do it
under the character of a priest? or why throw about the ceremony the
suggestions of a sacrament?
If Jesus is really to be called to a marriage, it means that the
preparations for the marriage will be largely spiritual. The parties to
the marriage will approach the marriage through other sacraments. They
will both be members of the Church of God by baptism; and they will be,
or look forward to becoming, communicants. They will prepare for the
sacrament of matrimony by receiving the sacrament of penance, and
receiving the communion. What better preparation for starting a new
life, for setting out to create a new family in the Kingdom of God, a
family in which the ideals of the life at Nazareth are to be the ruling
ideals, than that cleansing of soul that fits them for the beginning of
a new life? A priest has great joy when he knows that those who are
kneeling before him to receive the nuptial blessing are souls pure in
God's sight, dwellings ready and adorned for the coming of Christ.
For it is the normal and fitting crown of the ceremonies of marriage
that Jesus be there, that the Holy Mass be celebrated and that those who
have just been indissolubly united may as their first act partake of the
Bread of Heaven which giveth life to the world. I myself would rather
not be asked to celebrate a wedding unless it is to be approached with
the purity of Mary, and sealed by the partaking of Jesus. It is so great
and wonderful a thing, this sacrament of matrimony. Here are two human
beings setting out to fulfil the vocation of man to build up the Kingdom
of God, to set up a new hearth where the love of God may be manifest and
where children may be trained in the knowledge and love of God; where
the life of Christ may find contact with human life and through it
manifest God to the world--how wonderful and beautiful and holy all
that is! And then to remember what commonly takes place is to be
overcome with a sense of what must be the pain of God's heart.
We go back to look into the home where Mary seems to be directing the
arrangements of the wedding feast. It was a poor home and not much could
be provided; the wine, so essential to the feast, failed. What was to be
done? To whom would Mary look? She could have no money to buy wine. One
feels that after Joseph's death she had come more and more to look to
Jesus for help of all sorts. The deepening of their mutual love, the
completeness of their understanding, would make this the natural thing.
S. Mary feels that if there is any help in these embarrassing
circumstances, any way of sparing the feelings of the bridegroom, Jesus
will know it and help. There is no doubt in her mind; but the certainty
that He can help. So she turns to Him with her "they have no wine." The
words as we read them contain at once an appeal and a suggestion: an
appeal for help, advice, guidance, with the hint that Jesus can
effectually help if He will. It is not as some have rather crudely
thought a suggestion that He perform a miracle, but the appeal of one
who has learned to have unlimited trust in Him.
The reply of our Lord cannot fail to shock the English reader; and the
very nature of the shock ought to indicate that there is something wrong
with the translation. The words sound brusque and ill-mannered; and our
Lord was never that nor could be, least of all to His blessed Mother.
The dictionaries all tell us that the word translated woman is quite as
well translated lady, in the sense of mistress or house mother. There is
really a shade of meaning that we have no word for. Perhaps we best
understand what it is that is missed if we recall the fact that when our
Lord addressed S. Mary from the Cross He used the same word: "Woman,
behold thy son." In such circumstances we understand that the word on
our Lord's lips is a word of infinite tenderness. I do not believe that
we could do better than to translate it mother. We might paraphrase our
Lord's saying thus: "Mother, we are both concerned with the trouble of
these friends; but do not be anxious; I will act when the time comes."
His words are perfectly simple and courteous, though they do, no doubt,
suggest that her anxiety is unnecessary and that He will act in due
time. If we are to understand that our Lady was suggesting that He
perform a miracle, then He certainly yielded to her intercession.
Indeed, this short aside in the rejoicing of the marriage celebration is
suggestive of wide reaches of thought. It suggests, which concerns us
most here, something of the mode of prayer. Prayer is not a force
exercised upon God, it is an aspiration that He answers or not as He
sees fit, according as He sees our needs to be: and if He answers, He
answers in His own way and at His own time--when His hour is come. The
intercession of the saints, and of the highest saint of all, the holy
Mother, must thus be conceived as aspiration not as force. We hardly
need to remind ourselves that Blessed Mary though the highest of
creatures is still a creature and infinitely removed from the uncreated
God. When we think of her prayers or the prayers of the saints as having
"influence" or "power" with God, we must remember the limitations of
human language. It is quite possible through inaccurate use of language
to create the impression that we believe the prayers of the saints to be
prevailing with God because of some peculiar spiritual energy that
belongs to them, or, still worse, because we regard them as a sort of
court favourites who have special influence and can get things done that
ordinary people cannot. We need only to state the supposition to see
that we do not mean it. When we think what we mean by the influence of
the prayers of the saints, of their prevailingness with God, we know
that we mean that the superior value of the prayers of the saints is due
to the superior nature of their spiritual insight, to their better
understanding of the mind and purpose of God. Blessed Mary is our most
powerful intercessor because by her perfect sanctity she understands God
better than any one else. No educated Christian believes that she can
persuade God to change His mind or alter His judgment, or that she or
any saint would for a moment want to do so. Nor do we who cry for aid in
the end want any other aid than aid to see God's will and power to do
it: we have no wish or hope to impose our will on God. Prayer is
aspiration, the seeking for understanding, the submitting our desires to
the love of God; and the prayer of the saints helps us because they are
our brothers and sisters, of the same household, and join with us in the
offering of ourselves to God that we may know and do His holy will. And
we can see here in this incident at Cana the whole mode of prayer. There
is the just implied suggestion of the need, the hint of her own thought
about the matter, in the way in which S. Mary presents the case to
Jesus. There is the divine method which approves the end sought but
reserves the time and method of fulfilling it to the "hour" which the
divine wisdom approves. There is the ideal Christian attitude which
accepts the divine will perfectly, and says to the servants: "Whatsoever
he saith unto you, do it."
"They have no wine": S. Mary's word expresses the present weakness of
humanity, Man is born in sin, that is, out of union with God. That hoary
statement of dogmatic theology seems to stir the wrath of the modern
mind more than any other dogma of the Christian Faith, except it be the
dogma of eternal punishment. It is rather an amusing phenomenon that
those who have no visible basis for pride are likely to be the most
consumed with it. The pride of Diogenes was visible through the holes in
his carpet; the pride of liberalism is visible in its irritability
whenever the subject of sin, especially original sin, is mentioned. Yet
the very complacency of liberalism about the perfection of man, is but
another evidence (if we needed another) of his inherent sinfulness, his
weakness in the face of moral ideals. If we confess our sins we are on
the way to forgiveness; but if we say that we have no sin the truth is
not in us.
This boasting of capacity to be pure and strong without God,
theologically the Pelagian heresy, is sufficiently answered by a
cursory view of what humanity has done and does do. Even where the
Christian religion has been accepted the accomplishment is hardly ground
for boasting. The plain fact is (and you may account for it how you
like, it remains in any case a fact) that human beings are terribly weak
in the face of moral and spiritual ideals. They are not sufficiently
drawn by them to overcome the tendency of their nature toward a quite
opposite set of ideals. We do run easily and spontaneously after ideals
which the calm and enlightened judgment of the race, whether Christian
or non-Christian, has continuously disapproved. We know that Buddha and
Mahomet and Confucius would repudiate Paris and Berlin and New York and
London with the same certainty if not with the same energy as Christ. We
live in a time when a decisive public opinion gets its way; and
therefore we are quite safe in saying that the misery and sin which go
unchecked in the very centres of modern civilisation exist and continue
because there is no decided public opinion against them.
All attempts at reform which are merely attempts to reform machinery are
futile, they can produce only passing and superficial results. There is
only one medicine for the disease of the world, and that medicine is the
Blood of Christ. Ultimately, one believes, that will be applied; but
evidently it will not be applied in any broad way as a social treatment
till all the quack remedies have demonstrated their uselessness. The
last two centuries have been the flowering time of quacks. The mere
history of their theories fills volumes. Our own time shows no decline
in productiveness, nor decline in hopefulness in the efficacy of the
last remedy to bid for support. But the time of disillusionment must
some time come.
When that time comes all men will lift their eyes, as individual men
have always lifted them, up to the hills whence cometh their help.
Except they had kept their eyes so resolutely fastened on the earth at
their feet they would have seen, what has always been visible to those
who lift up their eyes, a crucified Figure on the one supreme hill of
earth,--the hill called Calvary. There "one Figure stands, with
outstretched hands" saying, with inextinguishable optimism, the
indestructible optimism of God, "and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all
men unto me."
What in the end will prevail with them, what will make them turn to the
Tree which is for the healing of the nations, is the perception that in
it is the remedy for the weakness that they have either sought to heal
by other means, or have resolutely denied to exist at all. There are men
whose wills are so strong that even in the grip of some serious disease
they will long go on about their business asserting that there is
nothing the matter with them and overcoming bodily pain and weakness by
sheer will power; but the end comes finally with a collapse that is
perhaps beyond remedy. We live in a society which has the same
characteristics, but it may be that it will see its state and turn to
healing. For God cannot heal except with our co-operation. Christ pleads
from the Cross, but he can do no more. He will not submit to our tests;
He will not come down that we may believe in Him. We must come to Him,
laying aside all our pride and self-will, and kneel by the Cross to
ask His help.
We know, do we not? that that is the law for the individual; that we
found the meaning of Christ, and what He can do in life, when we laid
aside pride and self-will and humbly asked help and pardon. It may be
that we resisted a long while, struggling against the pull of the divine
magnet; but if we have attained to spiritual peace it is because the
Cross won, because we found ourselves kneeling at the feet of Jesus.
Perhaps we have not got there yet, but are only on the way. Perhaps our
religion as yet is a formality and not a devotion. Perhaps our pride
still struggles against the Catholic practice of religion. Then why not
give way now, to-night? Let Mary take you and lead you to Jesus. She
will bring you to him with her half-suggestion, half-prayer: "He has no
wine." He has got to the end of his strength, and he has found the
weariness of self, he is ready for healing. O my divine Son, is not this
your opportunity, your "hour"?
Jesus loves to have us bring one another to Him. It is so obviously the
response to His Spirit, that carrying out of His teaching, so to love
the brother that we may bring him to the healing of the Cross. To care
for the spiritual needs of the brother is a real ministry: it is an
extension of Christ in us that clothes us with the power to aid other
souls in work or prayer. What a beautiful picture of this work there is
in the Gospel of St. John. "And there were certain Greeks among them
that came up to worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip,
which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we
would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and
Philip tell Jesus." And this work of presenting souls to Jesus which is
so clearly one of our chief privileges, how should not that be also the
privilege of all the saints, and especially of the Holy Mother? Blessed
Mary, we may be sure, delights in leading souls who so hesitatingly come
to her, to the presence of her Son,--just presenting them in their need
and with her prayer, which is all the plea that is needed to attract the
love and mercy of Jesus. "Why not," ask certain people who have not
thought out the meaning of Catholic dogma, "why not go at once to our
Lord; why go in this roundabout way?" Why not? Because of our human
qualities. Because we need company and sympathy. For the same reason
precisely that makes us ask one another's prayers here. "The Father
Himself loveth you." Why in this roundabout way ask me to pray? You do
not come to me because you lack faith in God or in God's love; you come
to me because you feel, if only implicitly, that in the Body of Christ
association in love and sympathy and work is a high privilege, and that
it is God's will that we should work together and "bear one another's
burdens." And the frontiers of the Kingdom of God are not the frontiers
of the Church Militant, and its citizens are not only the citizens of
the Church here below, but--we believe in the Communion of saints.
The hour of God strikes for any soul when that soul yields to
prevenient grace and places itself utterly at the disposal of God,
confiding wholly in His divine wisdom. When our Lord had answered His
Blessed Mother she turned away satisfied. She did not have to concern
herself any further; it was now in Jesus' hands to provide as He would.
It remained but to see that His will should be carried out when He
made it known.
Submission is a difficult attitude to acquire; but it is such a happy
attitude when once one has acquired it. The critics of it wholly mistake
it and confound it with fatalism. It is not fatalism, or passive
acquiescence in another's will--a will that we have no part in forming
and cannot reject. Submission is the acceptance of God's will as the
expression of the highest wisdom for us. It is not true that we have no
part in forming it; it is at any time an expression of God's will for us
which is determined by the way in which we hitherto have corresponded to
that will. Submission means that we have put ourselves in a position of
active co-operation with that will, that we have made it ours: because
it is the expression of a divine wisdom and love we make it wholly ours.
And we have found in the acceptance of it not bondage but liberty. It is
wonderful how our preconceived notion of God and religion vanishes
before the first gleams of experience. To the unregenerate the service
of God is utter bondage; to the regenerate it is perfect freedom. And
the difference seems to be accounted for by the reversal of ideals, by a
new direction of affections. "I will run the way of thy commandments,
when thou hast set my heart at liberty,"
A true conversion is, perhaps, signified, more than in any other way, by
the liberty of the heart,--by this change in the object of our love.
That has been the constant exhortation to us, to love that which is
worthy of love. "Set your affection on things above." "Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world." And we, loving the
world and the things that are in the world, listen impatiently. But
there is no possibility of a sincere conversion without a change of
love. "A change of heart" conversion is often called, and so inevitably
it is. And as we go through our self-examination one of the most
profitable questions we can ask is, "What do I love?" That will commonly
tell the whole story of the life, for "where a man's treasure is, there
will his heart be also."
Richard Rolle said: "Truly he who is stirred with busy love, and is
continually with Jesu in thought, full soon perceives his own faults,
the which correcting, henceforward he is ware of them; and so he brings
righteousness busily to birth, until he is led to God and may sit with
heavenly citizens in everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in
conscience and is steadfast in all good ways the which is never noyed
with worldly heaviness nor gladdened with vainglory."
CANA I
O Glorious Lady, throned in light,
Sublime above the starry height,
Whose arms thine own creator pressed,
A Suckling at thy sacred breast.
Through the dear Blossom of thy womb,
Thou changest hapless Eva's doom;
Through thee to contrite souls is given
An opening to their home in heaven.
Thou art the great King's Portal bright,
The shining Gate of living light;
Come then, ye ransomed nations, sing
The Life Divine 'twas hers to bring.
Mother of Love and Mercy mild,
Mother of graces undefiled.
Drive back the foe, and to thy Son
Lead thou our souls when life is done.
All glory be to thee, O Lord,
A Virgin's Son, by all adored,
With Sire and Spirit, Three in One,
While everlasting ages run.
PART TWO