THEY HAVE NO WINE

A SERMON FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Today is the Second Sunday after Epiphany, and during these past two weeks we have been celebrating this great feast of Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the peoples of the world.

On January 6^th, the feast of Epiphany itself, we saw the three wise men processing to the stable of Bethlehem, bringing their gifts of homage, and worshiping the newborn Christ Child. The following Sunday we jumped forward 12 years to the time when Jesus, as a young boy, remained behind in Jerusalem, being lost and then found by his parents, conversing with the elders in the temple, being about “his father’s business.” This was his manifestation to the Jewish nation at the age of 12, and the Feast of the Holy Family.

The Gospel that day ended by setting the scene for the raising of the Christ Child in Nazareth, where, we are told, he was subject to Saints Mary and Joseph. From this idyllic picture of family life, we go forward from last Sunday to Friday, just two days ago, traveling forward in time for a period of 18 years in Christ’s life. The young child grows up. At some point his foster father St. Joseph passes on into eternity, and then on Friday, the Octave Day of the Epiphany we celebrated the Baptism of Christ, now a young man of 30. It is the beginning of Christ’s three years of ministry, during which he taught us by his parables, his actions, his miracles.

But before Christ began his public life of ministry, there was something he wanted to do first.  God had a plan.  What was it that Our Lord wanted to do first, before starting his public ministry? When he and his Mother were invited to a wedding feast at Cana, he had no intention of performing his first miracle, and starting his public ministry with the dramatic and miraculous changing of the water into wine. So what was it that he wanted to do first? I don’t know. It doesn’t say. We’ll not know that until we are in heaven. All we know is that his hour had “not yet come”. And this, then, is the greatest drama of today’s Gospel. Not that he changed water into wine—this was nothing to the almighty Word of God who had created an entire universe out of nothing. No, the great drama today is that this almighty God changed his plan at the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary his Mother.

It is difficult to know which is the more remarkable. The humility of the only-begotten Son of God who changed his plans at the behest of a mere mortal woman? Or the wonderful exaltation of this woman, this creature, who although made from dust and ashes, nevertheless was chosen to be Mother of God, and who could influence her Son so easily with the simple words “They have no wine”?

Both these aspects of today’s Gospel should be imprinted on our minds. Not just on our memory, that we may remember at all times the humility of Christ and the exaltation of his Blessed Mother. But also on our very being, so that we can barely take a breath without being mindful of Our Lady’s holy influence over her Son, the Son of God. With this in mind, we should never hesitate to ask her to intercede for us at the feet of her Son. He can refuse her nothing. And so we ask for everything. And “never was it known”, says the prayer, the Memorare, “that anyone who fled to her protection, implored her help, or sought her intercession, was left unaided.”

Today’s Gospel begins with the words: “There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there.” Note that the Gospel doesn’t tell us who was getting married. This was a very special wedding, but it wasn’t special because of the bride and groom who were getting married. We don’t know who they were. And we don't particularly care who they were. This is because they stand for all future Christian brides and bridegrooms. Their wedding was the very first wedding on which Our Lord was to bestow the graces of a sacrament. Yes, this wedding at Cana was the first marriage to be a sacrament. “And the Mother of Jesus was there.”

How important is it therefore, that you invite the Mother of Jesus into your own homes. That you make her a permanent guest in the bosom of your own family. The name of Mary should never be far from our lips, and the thought of her loving care should never be far from our minds. Remember what Father Peyton used to say, that the Family that prays together stays together. Pray the Rosary—Our Lady’s Rose Garden. Say the 150 Hail Marys of the Rosary together each week, calling on Our Lady to help you and your family, poor banished children of Eve, in this vale of tears. Let the joyful, the sorrowful, and the glorious events in the lives of Our Lord and his Blessed Mother become part of your own life, in your own joys, your sorrows, and your final end. Let the two guests of the Wedding Feast of Cana, Our Lord and his Mother, be guests in your home as you gather together in prayer. They should not be strangers but welcome friends, so that when the time comes for you to ask a favour of Our Lady, she will bestow a sweet smile on your prayer, and remind her Son that you have “no wine”, or whatever plight you happen to be in. And Our Lord, even though he may have been planning something altogether different for you, will do as she asks and grant the favour you so badly need.

One of the favours we are currently asking for is for the restoration of the unity of the Church. On Wednesday we shall begin the Chair of Unity Octave. Every day for a whole week, we recite special prayers after Mass for the unity of the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body. It should not surprise us that Divine Providence allows the Gospel of the Wedding Feast of Cana to fall so close to this octave where we pray for the Church and her unity. For what does St. Paul call the Church in his Epistle to the Ephesians? He calls the Church the Bride of Christ. It is as though Christ is espoused to the Church, and we are their children. Indeed we refer to the Church as our Holy Mother the Church. St. Paul says that the husband is the head of his wife just as Christ is head of the Church. As the Church is subject unto Christ, says St. Paul, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in all things.  And husbands, in return you must love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave up his life for it.

This analogy of Christ’s relationship with his Church as that of a husband to his wife is one which bears hearing on this Sunday of the Wedding Feast of Cana. Just as Our Lord’s Blessed Mother was present at the wedding feast, and just as she should be present in every home and family, so too is she present in the true Church of Christ. It is to Our Lady then that we must bring our prayers for unity, that schismatics, heretics, pagans, apostates, may return to Holy Mother Church. Once these people abandon the true Church of Christ, they water down the truth, to the point where all they have left is water. But let’s not forget that at Our Lady’s request, Christ turned water into wine.

And so, inspired by this confidence, as the Memorare reminds us, “we fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, our Mother.” It is not enough to drag our feet slowly to prayer. "We fly unto thee." It's not enough to give up a few reluctant minutes of our day to mutter through a few tired old incantations, without thought, or even worse, with our thoughts on our own distracted life, with its fears and pleasures. No, we must FLY to the Virgin of virgins, our Mother. Invite her as a guest into our homes, into our beloved Holy Mother Church, and then come before her presence with a song as it says in the psalms. Let us renew our loving confidence that she will intercede for our families, and for our separated brethren, and that her Divine Son will grant her the favours she asks for us. So let us kneel before her, sinful and sorrowful. She is the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and she will not despise our petitions, but in her mercy she will hear and answer us. Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.