The Wedding Festivities at Cana

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter V: The Wedding Festivities at Cana

John ii. 1-11

Left with these five disciples Jesus kept on along the road northwards.  Without any train or beasts of burden, they were able to make their camp at Sichem on the first night, taking En-Gannim for the second; and from this point, after crossing the plain of Esdralon, they soon reached Nazareth.  On their arrival they did not find Mary; for "on the third day there was a wedding celebration at Cana of Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there." As He also was invited to take part in their merry-makings, Jesus, in company with His disciples, pushed onwards to Cana that same evening.  It was just at the hour when the ceremonies of the marriage were about to commence, and the Lord, on His arrival, could assist as a guest at the most brilliant spectacle of all, the procession formed by the bridal couple, surrounded by the whole family.4  Sacred writers allude so often to the nuptial festivals, that it would suffice merely to collect the words in which they have referred to them, in order to restore for us the bright pageant which was enacted before the eyes of Jesus.

The bride's preparations for this great today were matters of the weightiest moment.  From the instant she stepped from her perfumed bath, she shed around her such a wealth of fragrance that Solomon compares her, wrapped in her long veils, to a cloud of incense floating over the earth.  These veils are a distinctive feature of the betrothed maiden; not only covering the head, but enwreathing the whole body, and concealing from sight the white and gold-embroidered robe, her jewels, the virgin's girdle, (which no one might unclasp save only the joyous spouse), and the crown of myrtle that encircled her brow.

The young maid, thus attired at the hands of her girl companions, awaited the arrival of the bridal retinue.  By her side the paranymph, or bridesmaid, kept watch with the ten virgins, who must needs accompany her with lamps in their hands.  It was generally at a late hour that the cry rang out: "Behold the bridegroom is here!  Come ye out to meet him!" In those lovely nights of the Orient, which well-nigh surpassed anything our days can boast in the way of soft splendour and delicious balminess, the procession advances, led first by a troupe of singers, their voices mingling with the notes of the flute and a clash of tambourines; while, last of all, comes the bridegroom, gorgeously clad, his forehead wreathed with a golden turban entwined with myrtle and rose.  About him march his ten friends, called "Sons of the Groom," holding palm branches in their hands; while his kinsmen, acting as his escort, bear lighted torches, and the daughters of Israel greet him on every hand with their laughing compliments.  The bridegroom and his companions enter within the dwelling of the young maiden, and, taking her by the hand, he leads her toward the threshold; and here he receives the tables of stone on which is inscribed the dowry; whereupon, in merry marching train, the guests retrace their way back to the house of the fortunate youth.

The Bride and Groom. J-J Tissot.

A banquet is there made ready, which always lasted for many a long an hour, enlivened by the gay enigmas and bright sallies of wit.  A whole week, sometimes even two, slipped by amid such rejoicings; and so, to put somewhat of a check on this immoderate joy, and to recall their minds to thoughts of graver things, it was the custom from time to time, for someone to shatter the wine glasses of the happy pair.  This was indeed to show forth in action that thought of the ancient mime:

"Fortuna  vitrea est, tum quum spendet frangitur."5
(Fortune is of glass; she glitters just at the moment of breaking)

Toute notre félicité,
Sujette à l'instabilité,
En moins de rien tombe par terre:
Et comme elle a l'éclat du verre,
Elle en a la fragilité!


(All our happiness,
Suffering from instability,
In an instant may come down to earth;
And just as it has the sparkle of glass,
It also has its fragility!)

In the time of Jesus, were there the same symbolic rites performed which today are peculiar to Jewish marriages, beside the ceremonies already mentioned, — the long white napkins stretched over the head of the newly wed, who sit with their hands clasped under the veil, while the ring is slipped on the finger of the bride in token of their indissoluble union.  The sacred writings make no mention of these; they only tell how the guests conduct the lady to the nuptial chamber, where her couch was set in state beneath the canopy, sometimes even, (if we make credit Jewish authorities), under a bower of blossoms.

Such were some of the ceremonies at which Jesus was a guest upon "that evening of the third day." In this instance the pomp and splendour were indeed have a somewhat modest degree; for everything seems to indicate that the family which had bidden Jesus as one of their friends was of as humble as station as He: the fact of the wine having given out so early in the feasting; the air of authority with which Mary, the wife of a carpenter, gives her orders; the respect shown her Son, who is invited, although at the time absent from home.  The apparent luxury in the details of the banquet do not really contradict this conclusion; for everything which they might stand in need of, ornaments, rich furnishings, service of all kinds, these even the poorest people could always borrow of their neighbours.

Mary, who had preceded her Son to Cana, had betaken herself thither undoubtedly in order to lend her aid in the necessary preparations; thus she was able to notice how little wine her friends had to dispose of; and so too she was the first to perceive that it was falling short in the very middle of the repast.  It was the unlooked-for arrival of the five disciples which had brought down this disgrace upon the young couple; for, according to an ancient witness on this point, "it happened that the wine gave out in consequence of the great number of guests."

Mary was distressed, and by taking herself to Jesus:

"They have no wine," she said.

Used as she was to seeing her Son anticipate her least wishes, she continued to treat Him as she had always done hitherto, still bearing herself as a Mother who is all-powerful and always to be obeyed.

But now the times were changed.  In order to show Mary that He had ceased to belong to her, yet only that He might be entirely at the will of His Heavenly Father, Jesus refused to pay heed directly to her.

"Woman," He said to her, "what matters it to you and to Me?  My hour has not yet come."

This answer, which sounds so harshly to our ears, has not the same meaning in the Aramean tongue.  It is in frequent use among sacred writers, sometimes to denote a lively objection, sometimes only a simple dissent; both, however, were in perfect consonance with the forms of highest courtesy.  As for the title "Woman," that was, indeed, a term of respect.  In making use of it, Jesus surrendered filial homage to her, whom He loved beyond all other creatures, and whose prayer it cost Him so dear to deny.

And, furthermore, we must needs supply to this bare refusal some words which John Evangelist either did not hear, or at least has omitted to report; for we see in the sequel that the response of the Saviour, far from disheartening Mary, gave her yet fuller assurance.

On the instant she gave orders to the servants to hold themselves in readiness at His word:
"Anything that He may say to you, do it."

The Miracle at Cana. J-J Tissot.

They had not long to delay.  The last drops of wine had been poured out; there was nothing now left for the young couple except to make a humiliating avowal wall of their insufficient stores.  Now there were standing close at hand six great urns of stone, covered with branches, as is the custom in the East, in order to keep the water cool and fresh.  These vessels, each containing two or three firkins,9 were kept in readiness for the guests, who were required not only to wash their feet before touching the linen and drapery of their couches, but even during the meal frequently to purify their hands.  Already there had been many of these ablutions performed, and the urns were being rapidly emptied.  At a word from Jesus, the servants filled them with water to the brim.

"Draw out now," said the Lord, "and bear it to the Master of the Board." This was one of the guests, selected to preside over the feasting and to keep watch so that there might be nothing lacking.  The serving-men presented him with the drinking-cup.  He tasted the water changed to wine, without knowing whence it came.  Those who had drawn it out were not ignorant; but even so, the stupor that had fallen on them at sight of such a prodigy now enchained their tongues.

The master of the festal board called to the bridegroom:

"Every man," said he, " serves a good wine first, and when someone has over-drunk, then he serves up what is not so good.  But you, why, you have kept the best until this hour!"

This bantering allusion to drinkers who dull the edge of their taste by over-much indulgence, the familiar hint anent the usual excesses at other wedding banquets, where there is not, (just as here there was), permeating the feeling of all a sense of some Divine Influence present amongst them, all this shows that the supposition arrived at by the master of the entertainment was that the young host had wished to surprise the company agreeably.  But at once, to his amazement, the latter was made aware that a wondrous deeds had been accomplished.  His eyes turned to the servers, to Mary.  Then in a few words all was disclosed.  Jesus had performed His first Miracle.

He did it to console a few Galileans, whose very names still remain unknown, and in order to sanctify the bond of Marriage, which was to become, in His Church, a sacramental union.  He did it to teach the world, which gives its best of first and leaves the dregs at the bottom of the cup, that the Christ would not so deal with us, — that He would reserve for eternity that wine of the elect which will inebriate us with holy raptures.  And finally, He did it at the prayer of Mary, whose faith, thus tested by a first refusal, shone out in its strength only the more triumphantly.

"Here then took place," the Evangelist adds, "the first sign given by Jesus, being given at Cana in Galilee; and thus He manifested His Glory, and His disciples believed in Him." This word "sign" tells us what the Miracles of the Saviour were for John, — the manifestation left of His Divinity.  Elsewhere he goes so far as to call them the "works" of the Christ, as if prodigies were but the natural Attribute of Him, in Whom resideth almighty powers, and that the real miracle would be, not for God, whose name is Wonderful, to do wondrous things, but for Him not to do them.  And so the miracles which Jesus will work beneath our eyes should only be for us as signs and tokens, as the lustrous rays of His Divinity piercing through the veils of the flesh.  In those moments which will sometimes come upon us, when the humiliations of the Word Incarnate do well-nigh shake our faith, and force from us that cry of bewilderment: "Why, what is there Godlike in all this?" Then at once the answer should spring to our lips: "His Miracles declare His might; and in these flashes of power He stands forth revealed, as in the fierce white glare of the lightning, the almighty Son of God."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam