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.
here 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.