Joe O’Leary – Mary at Cana: A Meditation

The first woman to appear in John’s Gospel makes her entry so modestly and unassumingly that she might seem insignificant: “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’”

But this entry is beautifully timed, like those moments at the opera when a great diva steps quietly from the wings and sparks clamorous applause. “On the third day” of course is a charged expression in its own right, linked with God’s gracious restoration of Israel (Hosea 6:2: ”After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up”) and with the Resurrection of Jesus (referred to shortly afterword in 2:22). But in the seven-day scheme of John 1:19ff., this is the concluding and climactic day:

1. John the Baptist, in Bethany across the Jordan, questioned by people sent from Jerusalem by the Pharisees. (1:19-28)
2. John sees Jesus and bears witness to him. (1:29-34)
3. At John’s indication two of his disciples follow Jesus: “What do you seek?” ”Rabbi, where do you dwell?” “Come and see.” (1:35-39)
4. One of the disciples, Andrew, introduces his brother Peter to Jesus. “You shall be called Cephas.” (1:40-42)
5. Jesus goes to Galilee, finds Philip of Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter. Philip brings Nathaniel to Jesus, who promises him a vision of his glory: “you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (1:43-51)
6. No events.
7. Wedding at Cana in Galilee.

Mary is the first person to be mentioned in this pericope: “And the mother of Jesus was there.” Only subsequently do we read that “Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.” Subtly the narration places Mary in the commanding role. When the wine runs out, she takes the initiative, saying to her son: “They have no wine.” Along with “Do whatever he tells you” (2:5) these are the only words spoken by Mary in this Gospel. We can read deep significance into them. First of all, the words reveal her compassion and care, which takes note of apparently minor matters. Just the same down-to-earth daily empathy is seen in her visit to Elizabeth in Luke 1:39-56. Contrary to centuries of vinophobic Christian puritanism, the Hebrew world of the Bible regards wine as one of God’s choicest gifts. Mary is distressed that the wedding guests are not enjoying the happy day, since an essential component is lacking.

But as so often with the delicate Johannine symbolism, the wine has a wider meaning than this. Like Nicodemus despairing of being born anew, and like the flustered Samaritan lady, and like the paralytic lingering helplessly for long years in the porticos of the healing pool, the wine-deprived guests are experiencing a significant lack. Their lives have lost flavour and bounce. Everything may seem to them “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable” and Mary is sensitive to how much they are missing. Christians will later turn to her as “our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” She brings the therapy of maternal sweetness, dulcedo, which is always wholesome and welcome even if bureaucratic planners might be inclined to dismiss it as icing on the cake (as if icing were not of the essence of wedding-cakes). The most gracious one, kekharitômenê (Lk 1:28), does not view human existence and human suffering in crass material terms or as problems to be expeditiously solved. She seeks to restore the dimension of sweetness to our lives and our relationships and to embody that sweetness in her own person.

In the first two days of the week now finished we heard the Baptist speak of water (1:26, 31, 33) and point to Christ as one who baptises with the Holy Spirit. In the Prologue there was a contrast between the Law given through Moses and the “grace and truth” that came to be through Christ (1:17). The six ceremonial jars of water (2:6) now similarly contrast with the wine that miraculously flows from them: the old is good and essential, but the new is marked by a wondrous excess, a burst of joy.

Cana is located close to Sepphoris, a pagan city associated with the cult of the wine-god Dionysos. See Seán Freyne, “Dionysos and Herakles in Galilee: The Sepphoris mosaic in context,” in Douglas R. Edwards, ed., “Religion and Society in Roman Palestine” (Routledge, 2004). The new wine is a fulfilment not only for Israel but for the whole surrounding “pagan” world. The reader cannot forget the opening lines of the Gospel, presenting the Logos as a kind of great bowl from which a cornucopia of blessings flows down, Life and Light (1:4) filling all creatures, visiting the cosmos and enlightening every human being (1:9-10), and then visiting his beloved people (1:11-13), and finally (1:14) the wonder of the Incarnation (in which Mary is the human being most crucially involved). The glory of the Logos fills the entire universe, even though his incarnate glory is revealed in so lowly a gesture as serving wine to a wedding-party.

“Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come” (2:4). The implication is that Mary got Jesus to jump-start his mission, to end his hidden life and step forth, revealing his glory before the cosmos. One might dare to say that she gives birth to him again, this time as the fully mature man, ready to embark on his great saving work. Jesus’s words sound like a refusal, but Mary knows that he accepts her request, as her confident instruction to the servants show. Likewise, the word “Woman” (“gunai”) sounds like a gruff dismissal. But this first woman in the Gospel may recall the first woman in the Bible, alternately referred to as “gunaika” and “gunê” in Gen 2:22-24; 3:1-2, 4, 6, 8, 12-13, 15-17, and who is finally named by Adam as Life (Zôê) because she is “the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:24). Mary is “our life” because her primary name is “mother” and she is in a new sense “the mother of all the living.”

A visionary is said to have asked the Blessed Virgin what her favourite title was and to have received the reply: “Mater admirabilis.” The Litany of Loreto (1587) has 11 other maternal titles: Sancta Dei Genitrix, Mater Christi, Mater divinæ gratiæ, Mater purissima, Mater castissima, Mater inviolata, Mater intemerata, Mater amabilis, Mater boni consilii, Mater Creatoris, Mater Salvatoris; Paul VI added Mater Ecclesiae at Vatican II in 1964; it was used by his predecessor St Ambrose of Milan, as Hugo Rahner had discovered. Pope Francis added the titles Mater misericordiae and Mater spei in June 2020 (along with Solacium migrantium). Mater misericordiae is early medieval and is found in the Salve Regina; see John C. Cavadini, “Mater Misericordiae: Mary, Mother of Mercy,” Church Life Journal, 2 May 2024.

The wide-spreading tree of Mariology comes from the tiny mustard-seed of her rare New Testament appearances. John’s laconic narration of the Cana miracle (in contrast to the prolixity of much later Marian discourse) seems to show an awareness that merely to mention her name and one or two of her words and actions, placing them in a judicious light, was sufficient to convey all the singular majesty of her personality, which has lodged deep in the church’s imagination and memory from the very start.

Holy Mother of God,

pray for us.

Holy Virgin of virgins,

pray for us.

Mother of Christ,

pray for us.

Mother of divine grace,

pray for us.

Mother most pure,

pray for us.

Mother most chaste,

pray for us.

Mother inviolate,

pray for us.

Mother undefiled,

pray for us.

Mother most amiable,

pray for us.

Mother most admirable,

pray for us.

Mother of good counsel,

pray for us.

Mother of our Creator,

pray for us.

Mother of our Saviour,

pray for us.