The Wedding at Cana via Fr. Barron

I have posted several quotes and commentaries on The Priority of Christ by Fr. Robert Barron.  Indeed, I think this holy priest is a modern day Fulton Sheen.  As a final tribute to this text, a book well worth your time, I wanted to give a synopsis of his take on the Wedding at Cana.  It was one that I had not heard before.  I will give citations for direction quotes, but please understand that the entirety of this post comes from Fr. Barron’s work - none of it is my own.

Throughout the Old Testament, the wedding motif is used to describe the relationship between God and his chosen people.  Indeed, all of Scripture from Genesis through Revelation is a great love story that culminates in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  It is no surprise, then, that the first public sign of Jesus takes place at a wedding feast: Jesus is the incarnation of the marriage between God and man, both in his relationship to us and in his hypostatic union, the two of which are intimately related.

The Johannine narrative begins with an elegant code:  “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee ... “ (John 2:1).  Fr. Barron deciphers this code:

“Throughout the Gospel, te hemera te trite (on the third day) is the expression for the day of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.  More to the point, this marriage feast takes place in Cana of Galilee, and Galilee, in the symbolic system of John, is the country of resurrection, that place where Jesus would meet his friends after Easter.  Therefore, this story must be read through the lens of the resurrection, which is to say, the act by which God in an unprecedented and unsurpassable was gathered humanity to himself and inaugurated the process of the universal fathering (‘Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died,’ (1 Cor. 15:20).  The wedding feast of Cana and the wedding feast of the resurrection will stand in one another’s hermeneutical light” (Priority of Christ, 73).

The Lord brought with him to the wedding some disciples and his mother.  The presence of the disciples is important as it indicates that the gathering of his people has already begun even before his first public act.  Mary is a “rich and multivalent symbolic figure” in the New Testament.  She is a spokesperson for ancient Israel when she utters her Magnificat.  She is the symbolic embodiment of the faithful and patient Israel in he exile to and return from Egypt, “recapitulating the journey of Israel from slavery to freedom.”  But in John’s Gospel, she is above all mother, “the physical mother of Jesus and, through him, the mother of all who would come to new life in him” (73).

Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar comments that Mary effectively awaken the messianic consciousness of Jesus by recalling the saving events of Israel to her son.  Thus, in the Cana narrative, she represents the hope and longing of Israel (the chosen people) for union with God.

The wedding story kicks off with the tragedy of a depleted supply of wine.  “With the wine depleted, the spirit of conviviality would dissipate, the celebration would wind down quickly, and the hosts, as well as the bride and groom, would be profoundly embarrassed” (73).  The wine, which changes and uplifts the consciousness, is representative of the Spirit of God which gives divine life and enlightens the heart.

“It [the Spirit of God represented by the wine] is the elixir that makes of human life a communal celebration; it is the condition for the possibility of the gathering.  To be in sin is nothing other than to be sundered from that source and hence to fall into a depression of the spirit, a listlessness and loneliness.  When Mary quietly suggests to Jesus that the wedding party has run out of wine, she is ancient Israel speaking to its God, reminding him that the people have run out of joy, purpose, and connection to one another, that they have become dry bones with no life.  She is taking up the lament of so many of the Hebrew prophets and sages: ‘How long, O Lord?’” (74).

What follows is most puzzling.  Jesus seems to respond without interest in “fixing” the problem.  In a near rebuke of his mother, he says, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?  My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).  His address of “woman” should not, however, be seen as a sign of disrespect.  In the Old Testament, Eve is presented as the woman par excellence, and so here Mary is presented as the same: a new Eve.  As such, she is the representative of all humanity, the humanity with whom God is seeking union.  This is precisely why Pope John Paul II referred to woman as the “archetype of humanity.”  This archetypal presentation is all the more fitting in the presence of the nuptial backdrop at Cana.

Once we understand all of this, it becomes even more puzzling to ponder Jesus’s seemingly off-putting remark.

 “The best explanation ... is that this is a narrative device that serves to highlight the importance of Jesus’s ‘hour’ and shows the relation between what he does at Cana and what will transpire in that hour.  Like the ‘third day,’ ‘hour’ is code for the Paschal Mystery, Jesus’s passage through death to life.  In that event, God will effect the perfect marriage between himself and the human race, for he will enter into the most intimate union with us, embracing even death itself and leading us into the bridal chamber of the divine life.  Thus, the exchange with Mary brings to our attention the ultimate purpose and correct symbolic setting for the action that Jesus will perform for the humble bride and groom at Cana” (74).

Without hesitation, Mary says to the helpers, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).  This is Israel speaking, and it indicates that the rift between God and man cannot be healed by human efforts.  “The proper attitude in the presence of the saving God is obedience and acquiescence, imitating his moves, responding to his commands, doing whatever he tells us” (75).

At this point, the saving actions of Jesus commence.  “Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons” (John 2:6).  The huge containers are purposed for religious rites, yet they are empty, and thereby they symbolize “the tiredness and uselessness of a religiosity unconnected to the divine Spirit” (75).  However, the jars are empty in a “hopeful” way, for they represent “the potential for life: in relation to God, human religiosity, indeed human being, is a passive receptacle, something waiting to be filled” (75).

At this point, Jesus accomplishes a pair of actions, one visible and the other invisible.  First, he tells the servants to fill the jars with water.  The divine giver is now initiating his response to the eager Israel, but the first thing he does is to give them the opportunity to contribute to the process of their vivification.

“Mind you, this is not in conflict with what [was] just specified concerning the attitude of total acquiescence, since he himself is giving, through his command, their very capacity to cooperate.  So the filling of the jars to the limit is symbolic of all that human agency - through the divine prompting and power - can bring to the task of cultivating human flourishing: art, music, science, technology, politics, spirituality” (75).

It seems to me that this is a scriptural description of grace-perfects-nature and of a freely offered grace that requires man’s personal acceptance, contrary to the Protestant concept of irresistible grace.  Of course, human cooperation is good and even necessary, but certainly not sufficient, for the problem (lack of wine) still persists.  All that the servants have offered is a copious amount of water.  “What they (Israel, the human race) require is not just the ordinary nourishment that water provides but rather intoxication, elevation, something greater” (75).

Jesus tells them, “Draw some out, and take it to the chief steward” (John 2:8).  The water, now become wine, is tasted and taken to the bride and groom.  Jesus has super-naturalized the natural, he has made the ordinary extraordinary.  “He has received what they gave him and has not negated it, but rather raised it to a new pitch of intensity” (75).  It was St. Augustine that commented how Jesus accelerates what nature accomplished on its own.  Water pours from the sky, is absorbed into the soil, gets taken up by the plant, which turns it into grape - all which gives rise, by the work of human hands, to wine.

“What is being hinted at in the Cana miracle is the elevation and expansion of human culture under the influence of the divine life.  Filled with God’s Spirit, architecture, art, science, politics, etc., become our very capacity to give, and then he gives further by transfiguring our gift to our greater benefit.  This miracle is hence a particularly apt iconic representation of divine-human coinherence” (76).

Of course, we mustn’t forget that the first veil over this great mystery in the Cana narrative is that the purpose of the water-turned-wine was to increase and prolong the celebration of a wedding.  Because of this miracle, a large number of people were able to stay around and celebrate with a couple who themselves has elected to form a deep bond of communion.

“Read symbolically, this wine is the divine Spirit which alone grounds authentic human coinherence.  When human solidarity is based upon something other than God’s love - mutual self-interest, political considerations, shared convictions, etc. - it will inevitably shake apart and dissolve.  Aristotle knew that a friendship endures only in the measure that both friends have commonly given themselves to a good that transcends them individually, and Augustine knew that people love each other most appropriately when they do so for the sake of God”  (76).

When human relationships find their source and summit in man’s relationship to God, true community can be formed.  Conversely, when God and man are married, human relationships are elevated and brought up into that divine-human relationship.  “This fully developed one-in-otherness is on iconic display in the story of the wedding at Cana” (76).