My hour has not yet come.
What was the hour that had not yet come? It was the hour when Jesus would have be arrested and put to death.
So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come (see John 7:30).
These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come (see John 8:20).
He recognized the hour as the time when his own life would be offered like a grain of wheat. It was an hour so momentous that a human temptation would have been for Jesus to ask the Father to spare him from it. But Jesus recognized that it was to fulfill that hour that he had come. It was precisely in being lifted up that he would draw all people to himself (see John 12:27).
If Jesus considered the Paschal mystery to be his hour a fair question would be what that had to do with a wedding at Cana. What was the connection between this wedding and the sacrifice of the lamb of God?
No more shall people call you “Forsaken, “
or your land “Desolate, “
but you shall be called “My Delight, “
and your land “Espoused.”
Jesus came to fulfill the promise of God to be the bridegroom of his people. He came to a people who did not experience that closeness to their God, who had long known only the forsakenness and desolation that were symptoms of the disease of sin. It was not a lack of desire on God's part that was at fault. Their hearts were not truly free for to enter the relationship which God himself desired to have with them. They proved this by turning back again and again to idolatry, to the ways of the surrounding nations, which God himself often compared to harlotry through the message of his prophets (see Ezekiel 16:26).
The true wedding banquet was that of the lamb of God. The true wine was the blood he shed to save us. The celebration couldn't begin until the new wine of his Precious Blood was outpoured. When the temple veil was torn it was not simply a barrier to the nations being removed. It was the veil of the bride, her true face long hidden by sin, finally being lifted.
Jesus saw all of the rich symbolism of a wedding in the banquet at Cana. It was not yet time for his own hour, and therefore not time for the true wine to be made available to the nations. It was not to the point symbolically for the bridegroom to offer wine that was not a fruit of sacrifice, as if the feast could have been given without the Cross.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me?
Mary brought the request about this wine on specific people, arising from the concrete circumstances of their lives, to Jesus because she had a deep sympathy with those who lacked what they needed for their celebration. She saw in that lack a symptom of all of the futility of sin, just once more when Israel would feel forsaken and desolate. And she knew that it was something that the heart of Jesus could not simply ignore.
Do whatever he tells you.
Mary opened the door for those at Cana to experience by faith and obedience that which they could not experience definitively until the age of the Church. Even we in that age still need faith and obedience to taste and see the gift we have been given, to pierce the veil of appearances and discover in the mass the feast of heaven and earth. At the center of it all, for those at Cana and for us, is the hour of Jesus, for that hour itself is the source of every grace and blessing. It was in his hour that he definitively and permanently espoused himself to his people and gave them the Holy Spirit as a wedding gift.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
At Cana they tasted the blessings of the hour by a faith that anticipated it. At mass we receive those blessings by a faith that actually participates in it, a faith to which the hour of sacrifice is itself mysteriously made present. It is a wedding chalice from which we drink. Just as Mary advocated to help those at Cana receive the fruit of the hour even before it had come so she is willing to advocate for us to receive all that Jesus desires to give us, the many blessings of a life of union with the bridegroom, the sacred gifts of the wedding feast of the lamb. We can experience the life that hour unlocked.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him (see John 4:23).
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live (see John 5:25).
We can see in some of the promises of the hour that there is still a sense of 'not yet' that we must face. The wedding feast has begun, but it is still somewhat hidden. Sickness, suffering, and death still occur. The wedding banquet does not seem like a place in which we can as yet find unshakable and lasting joy. And while this is inevitably true to some degree as the Church continues her pilgrimage through time, imitating Jesus, carrying her own cross, it is also true that Mary is still the one who can convince Jesus to make more and more of the 'not yet' present for us. The people at Cana were able to taste the messianic age before it was inaugurated. Mary's intercession can allow us to taste the fullness of the kingdom, the joy, the healing, and the fullness of the risen life even here and now, even in this valley of tears.
Mary prays for us. Let us bring our concerns to her, our lack of joy, our need for more of the Holy Spirit. She and her Son both desire that as we receive the Body and Blood of the true wedding feast that we hear, deep in our hearts, the bridegroom call us "My Delight" and "Espoused". Let us ask for that and then listen to hear it.
Worship the LORD in holy attire.
Tremble before him, all the earth;
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