THE MOTHER OF JESUS WAS THERE (Cana 2022)

In the past I have identified with the stone jars of Cana but this time I feel them, feel that I am one of them – stone dry and empty. For weeks now I have been flat. Mostly because of Eugene, his sickness and death. Him, and the fact that he is the second one of us to die in the space of ten months.

We had his funeral during the week – a funeral of reception, vigil and three requiem Masses, each one beautiful in its way, beautifully paced. Measured in the best sense. Without drama but filled with love, respect, admiration, tears. Memory shared.

I had the privilege of leading one of the Masses and preaching. It was during this that I felt flat, dry, and empty and, looking back on the recording, I see this as a fact and not just as a feeling. And yet, one of our men in Texas after seeing the Mass online wrote, “thank you for a great homily at Eugene’s Mass. You were exceptional…” I do not recognize what he experienced or how. But I pondered it and asked God what it meant.

So, as I am praying with the Gospel of Cana, it dawns on me that the Mass for Eugene might have been or was in some way a Cana moment. It’s as if the Mother of Jesus recognized what was going on in me and she might have said to Jesus, “Eamonn is flat, dry and empty. He has no wine.” As if He took that and gave it to others for them to taste and in the tasting of the Word it was changed, became something exceptional. It became the “best wine!” What I had, what I gave, what I spoke was what it was – flat, dry, empty. But by the grace of God, it became something else for some of those who heard it, for Mike in faraway Texas.

Here we are presented with Mary at the forefront of a human and spiritual experience, her role as intercessor most clearly expressed. This is not the sentimental invention of the Church. It is the Gospel itself, the Word of God that places her in this prominent position. And it is very interesting that she is the first named guest of the wedding. “There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The Mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited…”

It is she who notices that there is a problem, and she brings it to the attention of Jesus so that He can, will, should do something about. She does not tell Him what to do and it is not she who works the miracle. It is Jesus alone who works the miracle, but Mary is given a significant role in bringing it about.

It is a reminder of the activity of the Mother of Jesus in our lives and it is a guarantee that when we have recourse to her then something will happen, something will be changed as a result. The people at the wedding did not expect the change that took place; we often do not expect a change, but something is changed in the encounter with Mary that leads to Jesus. It may not be the change we expect, may not even be the change that we want but it will happen, and it will be for the best.

Going back to praying with Scripture! Many people have difficulty with the Old Testament, finding it hard to understand, being put off by the amount of violence we encounter in it, and it is sometimes suggested that it has no place in our Mass. I’ve been praying about this too and what has come to mind is that the Old Testament is the Word of God and like all the Word of God it can only be really understood under the light of the Holy Spirit, and it would be a mistake to dismiss the Old Testament.

A nun I met many years ago told me that the great love of her life was reading the Bible every day. Then she lost her sight and, rather than complaining about it, she asked God to help her “hear” a Word, even in the most difficult and obscure Old Testament readings, every time the Scripture was read at Mass. And that’s what happened for her. The living Word came to her through the whole of Scripture without exception because she prayed for it and was open to it.

There are two parallel tellings of the history of salvation. One is the history written in the books of the Old Testament and the other is in the Genealogy of Jesus that we have in the Gospels. The Genealogy is long and at first seems to be no more than a tedious list of names but on reflection it tells something especially important and unique about Christianity. From the Fall in Eden until His birth in Bethlehem the reality of Jesus is hidden but present in an ancestry that is often very good and sometimes very wicked. The Messiah could have appeared on earth in all His purity, but He chose to come from a flawed ancestry, into a flawed humanity that needed saving. This is how redemption takes place.

And so, throughout the Word of the Old Testament which tells of a flawed humanity with a sometimes-flawed understanding of who God is, the true God is present and often hidden to remind us that He is to be found in the most appalling of human situations, that redemption is possible for the most appalling of human beings. God has always been the suffering Servant in the midst of human suffering but, like in the Prophecy of Isaiah, we avert our gaze from that aspect of who God is because we cannot understand or bear it. When we approach it in the light of the Holy Spirit then we can bear to gaze on what is ugly and see through it to the beauty of its redemption in Jesus. When we turn away, close our ears and hearts to what we do not understand, then we miss something very precious, the very core of Wisdom itself.