The wedding feast at Cana is not to be understood in isolation. It prefigures the paschal mystery especially the definitive and perfect manifestation of His glory in the resurrection. In the Gospel of St. John not just the resurrection but the entire paschal mystery - the passion, death and resurrection is called our Lord’s exaltation or being “lifted up.” Thus He is manifested as Lord God: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He” (= God, divine) (Jn 8:28). Cana is to be interpreted in the context of our Lord’s “hour,” the hour that had “not yet come”.
The first indication of this key to interpretation occurs in the opening and closing words of the story of Cana.: “and on the third day... He manifested His glory” (John 2:1,11), thus prefiguring the perfect manifestation of His glory in His “hour”. (In the Gospel of John, the first twelve chapters are called “the book of signs” while the rest is called “the book of the hour/ glory.” Thus chapter 13 begins with the hour and the book ends with resurrection in chapters 20-21.)
Wine as a symbol of the Holy Spirit
Confirming that Cana is a sign of Calvary, both stories have many details in common: on both occasions our Lord Jesus Christ addresses his mother most unusually as “woman”; on both occasions he speaks of his “hour”. The true hour of our Lord Jesus Christ is his passing from this world into the glory of the Father in his sacrificial death and resurrection, whence he sends the Holy Spirit. Our Lord’s giving up his human spirit in death on the cross signifies his giving to us his divine Spirit. In his first apparition to his disciples on the day of his resurrection , “he breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”(Jn 20:22).The very essence of the manifestation of our Lord’s glory is the coming of the Holy Spirit as the fruit of his being “lifted up” or glorification/exaltation/ going to the Father. For coming of the Holy Spirit is the proof that Jesus Christ is Lord God in the glory of God the Father (Jn 8:28; 20:28) and of his vindication as the Just one (15:26) and thus not a sinner as his enemies had thought.
The wine of Cana, therefore manifesting our Lord Jesus Christ’s glory, is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, who, as the fruit of our Lord Jesus Christ’ passing to the Father, glorifies our Lord by His coming. The Holy Spirit is the great eschatological gift. In the Eucharist, the sacrament of love at Calvary, the communication of the Holy Spirit begun in us in baptism is perfected. By the word of God and the sacrament of the Holy Communion ,the Holy Spirit transforms us into divine childhood. He empowers us and configures us to Christ in his paschal mystery. This action of the Holy Spirit is also symbolized by the change of water (the Old Law, the Old person) in to wine (a new person in Christ with the New Law of Love). The Holy Spirit is the new wine filled into the jars of our hearts.
The New Creation
Lord Jesus through his paschal mystery in his true hour inaugurates the “new creation,”- the eschatological era. The evangelist indicates this by fitting all the events leading up to the wedding of Cana into the seven days of a week(1:19-28.29.35.41.43;2:1) , the same seven-day framework used for the story of creation in Genesis 1. On the third day (Jn 2:1) or the seventh day, Lord Jesus manifests his glory at Cana, prefiguring his resurrection. Those six days outlined by John are a symbol of our Lord’s whole messianic work. Just as God had created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, so our Lord Jesus, by rising on the seventh day (after six days of his messianic work), inaugurates the ‘’new creation,” the restoration of all things. Thus Cana is the type (symbol) of our spiritual transformation by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, given as the fruit of this paschal mystery. We are transformed from water into wine. Moreover, the Holy Scriptures describe the eschatological kingdom as a banquet abounding in wine, grain and oil(Jeremiah 31:12). The sign at Cana signifies that , the bridegroom, inaugurates his kingdom in his “hour.” Its riches are dispensed to his bride , the church, in the Eucharistic banquet instituted at the last Supper. The wine of Cana, therefore, symbolizes the blood of our Lord Jesus under the transforming action of the Holy Spirit.
" This address takes us back to Genesis where the first Eve is called “woman” by God. Thus Mother Mary is the new Eve co-operating with the Saviour to crush the head of the serpent (3:15); she is the new Eve who co-operates to restore the Spirit of God lost by mankind when the first Eve used her influence in leading the first Adam to sin."
“ The mother of Jesus was there”
By saying “The mother of Jesus was there” at the outset of the Cana story, the evangelist shows that Mother Mary’s presence and action in this event is as of utmost importance as the miracle itself and an integral part of the “sign.” Her involvement here is a symbol of her involvement in the total messianic work of our Lord Jesus Christ. This idea is cleverly and literally presented by the evangelist by framing Mother Mary between the beginning and the end of the public ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ - at Cana and at the foot of the cross - only two presences in the whole Gospel of John.
“What is that to me and to you?”
The above question of our Lord amounts to saying,”Is this our primary work? My true concern will be accomplished during my hour.” In so saying, our Lord directs Mother Mary’s pondering heart towards an understanding of the part she is to play in his hour: his primary work of giving the spiritual wine- the Holy Spirit. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ goes on to perform the requested miracle to show that granting material needs is also his concern. as in the event of feeding the five thousand. To those who work for spiritual food are given their material food as well; just as at Cana, Lord Jesus gave the material wine to those who heeded mother Mary’s instructions “ do whatever He tells you”
The main point in Cana story, then, is Mother Mary’s influence in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a continuing influence. If Cana prefigures Calvary, then we may conclude that her motherly concern for the embarrassed couple at Cana was extended to all mankind on Calvary. There her presence is a request for the wine of the Holy Spirit for all of us: “They have no wine.”
“Woman”
This address takes us back to Genesis where the first Eve is called “woman” by God. Thus Mother Mary is the new Eve cooperating with the Saviour to crush the head of the serpent (3:15); she is the new Eve who co-operates to restore the Spirit of God lost by mankind when the first Eve used her influence in leading the first Adam to sin. Mother Mary is also the prototype of the people of God (the Church) in their cooperation with our Lord in continuing and completing the work of salvation, especially in the Eucharist.
Fr. Dunstan Welikadaarachchi,OMI,
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