January 19, 2025
Dear St. Rita Families,
For three weeks in a row, we have been celebrating Our Lord’s revelation of Himself – the Epiphany, the Baptism of Our Lord, and this Sunday the Wedding Feast at Cana. Our Lord’s first public miracle was certainly going to draw some attention – he created between 120 and 180 gallons of wine…AFTER the first stash had already run out! This wasn’t a small wedding, and word was sure to spread quickly enough once people realized what happened.
But, as you can imagine, this moment wasn’t a publicity stunt, nor was Our Lord trying to encourage carousing and drunkenness, both of which are sins (and getting drunk is mortal sin). Our Lord is indicating, among other things, that His arrival on the scene is as a bridegroom coming to his wedding feast. You see, it was the bridegroom who was supposed to provide the wine, as evidenced by the actions of the steward of the feast. He, not knowing that the wine came from Jesus, went to the bridegroom and speaks to him about the new wine. Our Lord knew this, of course, and so He provides the best wine at this wedding feast in order to prefigure the wine that He is going to provide later.
But why it is wine? Wine, according to the Scriptures, brings joy to men’s hearts (cf. Ps 104:15). And further, the Book of Deuteronomy indicates that a newly married husband was exempt from military service for a year in order to bring joy to his wife (24:5). So, wine at a wedding feast is all about joy! Christ, in making this choice wine at Cana, is proclaiming that the coming of this Bridegroom is to bring joy to His Bride!
This motif – bringing joy to the bride – has plenty of applications in everyday life. Colloquially, people use phrases like, “Happy wife, happy life” or “Happy spouse, happy house,” but comments like these unfortunately can ring of a bit of cynicism if one is not careful. But they make us ask the important questions about finding joy, both in the context of marriage (or any vocation) and in the context of life.
The joy given by Christ the Bridegroom is a reminder that absolutely no earthly creation can bring us true joy. The joys of marriage and family life are real joys, but they are not always guaranteed, and they are not permanent, either. The same is true of priesthood or any other vocation. There are real earthly joys, but those joys are not the reason for the vocation. After all, it was the earthly marriage at Cana that ran out of wine, and it was Christ who stepped in for the save.
In other words, all earthly joy is subordinated to the joy of being a member of Christ’s Bride, the Church. Thus, if a husband wants to bring joy to his wife, he cannot just think of her earthly needs and desires. He certainly must do that, but in them he must also have her eternal joy in mind. It can be humbling for a husband to know and admit that he cannot fulfill all of his wife’s needs or desires. The same is true for a wife. Both must have the conviction, however, that the needs that God has placed within them, He also desires to fulfill.
Two last notes on the Wedding Feast at Cana. Following the chronology of the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the Wedding Feast at Cana happens on the 7th day – the day of rest. There is joy in the rest that God provides, and that which provides this joy does not violate the required rest. Likewise, the six stone jars that were filled with the water that became wine were used “for the Jewish rites of purification” (Jn 2:6). They were used for ritual cleansing, a prefiguration of Baptism. While the waters of Baptism cleanse us from sin, these waters receive their power from the Blood of Christ shed for us on the Cross. We have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, which Christ also gives to us in Sacramental sign. And what liquid does He use? Of course. Wine!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen