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Friends,
in today’s Gospel we read about the wedding at Cana. Jesus’ mother is
the first to speak in John’s telling of the story. “They have no wine.”
On the surface level, she is indeed commenting on a social disaster:
running out of wine at a party, and she is asking Jesus to do something
to make things better
But
let’s go deeper. Wine, in the Scriptures, is a symbol of the exuberance
and intoxication of the divine life. When God is in us, we are lifted
up, rendered joyful, transfigured. Therefore, when Mary says “they have
no more wine,” she is speaking of all of Israel and indeed all of the
human race. They have run out of the exuberance and joyfulness that
comes from union with God.
And
this is precisely why Jesus calls her “woman.” We can be easily misled
into thinking that he was being curt or disrespectful. But he was
addressing her with the title of Eve, the mother of all the living. Mary
is the representative here of suffering humanity, complaining to God
that the joy of life has run out.
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