Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

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.