They Have No Wine
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? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
John 2, 3-5
You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit.
Ephesians 3, 2
Grace originates from God. Still our Creator and Giver of life desires that we who are faithful to him should mediate and share the abundance of grace which we have received, proportionate to the measure of our spiritual gifts and charity, with others for their spiritual benefit. St. Paul teaches us that we have been called by God to be stewards of his grace. He exemplified what he means in his apostolic ministry. The apostle helped save many souls as a co-worker with God (1 Cor 3:9). He served our Lord by mediating his grace to others through his prayers and sacrifices as a witness for Christ through the exercise of his divine office (Phil 1: 3-5). Indeed, the apostle believed he made up what was lacking in our Lord’s afflictions in his own (Col 1: 24) as a human instrument of divine grace.
As the founder of the Christian theology of human mediation in God’s plan of salvation, Paul naturally asked other Christians to pray for him so that he would receive the graces he vitally needed to faithfully fulfill his apostolic mission (Eph 6: 18-20). He placed all his hope in their prayers confident that our Lord would hear them and bestow the graces he so earnestly sought or wished would increase. Our Lord and Saviour desires that we assist him in saving souls by actively participating in his own mediation and sacrifice now that Christ alone has redeemed the world and reconciled humankind with the Father. All the people of the world form one human family as children of God the Father, who has commanded us to love one another. Thus, in a true spirit of charity, we are called to perform spiritual works of mercy on behalf of each other, that through our prayers and sacrifices offered up in love we may obtain actual graces for each other according to our spiritual needs already known to our heavenly Father.
If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation.
2 Corinthians 1, 6
It is right that I should think this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart, you who are all partakers of my grace.
Philippians 1, 7
It is certainly true that our Lord Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and humankind (1 Tim 2:5), by which St. Paul means that only He could redeem the world and reconcile the human race with the Father in strict justice (meritum condigno) by atoning for the sins of the world through the shedding and offering of his precious blood as both sacrificial victim and high priest. However, our Lord’s principal mediation in his humanity does not necessarily preclude our human mediation by right of friendship with God (meritum congruo) in and through Christ through our intercessory prayers and sacrificial acts of mercy offered up to God for the salvation of the human race (1 Tim 2: 1-4). In other words, the apostle is not attempting to emphasize that Jesus Christ is the only mediator in his humanity in the divine work of salvation. Exegete Manuel Miguens has pointed out for the sake of clearing up any misunderstanding of the scriptural text (notably among Protestants) that v. 5 should be translated from the original Greek to read: There is one and the same God for all, and there is one and the same mediator for all. It is Christ alone who has served as a ransom for all of us with his sacred blood as the sacrificial paschal Lamb of God (v.6). God’s merciful love and benevolence, and the redemptive mediation of God’s Only-begotten Son, are offered for the entire world, for both Jew and Gentile alike.
In v. 5, the Greek word for “one” is heis. St. Paul would have been inconsistent in his theology of human mediation if he had chosen the word monos instead. The latter Greek word “signifies ‘only’ in the sense of exclusive uniqueness”, whereas the former “denotes a sameness of function”. Thus the apostle could not possibly have intended to instruct his disciple on what would have proved incongruent with his theological framework, that there is numerically one mediator in the economy of salvation. In fact, in his epistles, St. Paul teaches us that there are three types of mediators: priestly (Aaron-Christ), covenantal (Moses-Jesus), and factual (Abraham-Paul). Human beings are not passive spectators in God’s work of salvation, but rather participants in the divine economy in and through the divine Person Jesus Christ in his humanity. As factual mediators, they serve as physical channels of divine grace, which is dispensed to the human family of God the Father. By the merits of Christ’s precious blood, all the faithful are called to actively participate in our Lord’s principal mediation for the salvation of souls through prayer and sacrifice that merit the application of God’s grace. The Gospel of St. John implicitly reveals that the Blessed Virgin Mary serves our Lord as a factual mediator and dispensatrix of divine grace for the spiritual benefit of humankind by prayerfully interceding before her Son on behalf of all in association with him.
“Through her, the long warfare waged with the Creator has been ended. Through her, the reconciliation between us and him was ratified. Grace and peace was granted us, so that men and angels are united in the same choir, and we, who had been deserving of disdain, have become sons of God. From her we have harvested the grape of life; from her we have cultivated the seed of immortality. For our sake she became Mediatrix of all blessings; in her God became man, and man became God.”
St. John Damascene, Homily 2 on the Dormition 16 [ante. A.D 749]
In the narrative of the wedding feast at Cana, St. John, whose theology is the deepest and most symbolic among the gospel writers, allegorically characterizes our Blessed Mother as universal Mediatrix of the human race, who serves to prayerfully intercede for us between God and humankind for the dispensation of divine grace in our lives. The story is constructed to convey, however implicitly, the revelation of mysterious divine truths. One significant fact that the evangelist is affirming and bearing witness to figuratively is the traditional belief of the nascent Church in Mary’s pre-eminent moral participation in her divine Son’s mediation: the belief that all of the graces originating from God for our salvation, in view of the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, must necessarily pass through her in virtue of the Divine Maternity. He is acknowledging that Jesus never intended to act alone in the work of salvation, but rather desired that his mother work together with him in a subordinate but dispositive manner for the application of divine grace ever since she freely consented to be his mother.
In the gospel narrative, Mary is portrayed as a type of advocate to the children of God, whose supplication is causative of the dispensation of divine grace. It is Jesus who primarily acts as a physical instrument of God’s grace, by performing a miracle, but only after he is solicited by his mother. Thus Mary’s active participation in her Son’s work is presented as necessary and perpetual by divine decree. Christ alone mediates on our behalf insofar as no human creature can intercede together with him in co-ordination with his merits. The merits of our Blessed Mother’s powerful intercessory role remain subordinate to and dependent on those of her divine Son by virtue of his divine nature. Yet, in the order of grace, Mary holds a principal position among all the saints as universal Mediatrix and Dispensatrix of grace by virtue of her divine motherhood and free collaboration with the Holy Spirit in the salvific Incarnation event. Through Mary’s mediation, in the capacity of the handmaid of our heavenly Father and spouse of the Holy Spririt, our Lord and Saviour came into the world to save us from the stain of original sin and our personal sins. No other saint is responsible in and through Christ for having brought the Source of all grace into the world, so it is only fitting that the Mother of our Lord should serve as the pre-eminent and most influential channel of divine grace through her constant advocacy and intercession until the end of this age. This divine truth is underscored by the fact that no miracle of our Lord is recorded in Scripture to have been solicited through the mediation of any of the apostles. Mary’s mediatory prerogatives in the order of redemption far excel those of all the saints and the righteous faithful combined, for her participation in the story of salvation belongs to the hypostatic order : a personal union with the tripersonal God and an intimate involvement in the common divine activity of the Holy Trinity made manifest in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This truth was tacitly acknowledged by the archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation: “Hail, O highly favored daughter. The Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28).
“Mary, the holy Virgin, is truly great before God and men. For how shall we not proclaim her great, who held within her the uncontainable One, whom neither heaven nor earth can contain?”
St. Epiphanius, Panarion 30:31 [ante A.D. 403]
The Gospel of John allegorically presents Mary as our spiritual mother and advocate, the maternal one who is concerned for the salvation of souls by the dispensation of divine grace through the merits of the precious blood of Christ. Christians who read the narrative of the wedding feast in the purely literal and historical senses fail to grasp this underlying meaning of the text. They erroneously perceive this occasion in the life of Jesus as nothing more than a mundane human event which our Lord takes advantage of to initially manifest his divine power before beginning to teach. For them Mary’s involvement is purely coincidental, she just happening to be there at the time when the wine ran out to her dismay. There is nothing symbolic about her presence at the wedding feast, which requires her being there, since it is a family affair. The evangelist, however, is more concerned with the divinely mysterious than he is with what appears to be only incidental. He refers to Mary and relates the dialogue she has with her Son for a reason, constructing it in a way that clearly illustrates her active and effective role in our Lord’s first miracle. John had to include Mary when he wrote this passage, for it was obvious to him through the prompting of the Holy Spirit that it was divinely providential she be there with her Son to solicit him on behalf of the guests. What really transpired at the wedding feast became clear to him in a symbolic way some time after Pentecost. The fact remains that the mother of our Lord could have directly approached the chief steward or the bride and groom if she were merely anxious about replenishing the wine for the guests. But instead, as the author of this gospel notes, Mary goes straight to her Son and informs him of what has unfortunately happened: “They have no wine.” Upon reflection, this turn of events must have wielded a great impression on John, enabling him to better perceive the close assosciation between the Mother and the Son in God’s work of salvation. By the time John wrote his gospel, he could draw from the nascent Marian tradition of his time in full appreciation of the divine truth, that it is first and foremost through the faith and love of the Mother that humankind receives the favours and blessings of the Son.
Expecting her Son to perform his first miracle, Mary faithfully approached him with her concern for the guests by tacitly making the request that would ultimately lead to the shedding of his most precious blood for the salvation of the world. Here we must note the rich symbolism that exists in the circumstance of the lack of wine, without which there could be no complete wedding feast. The natural elements of wine and blood significantly merge at our Lord’s last paschal meal with the apostles on the eve of his redemptive passion and death. Allegorically the wedding feast at Cana represents the eschatological wedding feast of the Lamb, which is made possible only by the merits of our Lord’s precious blood. This narrative foreshadows the eventual crucifixion and death of Jesus, a pivotal event in salvation history, in which Mary has had an essential role to perform in association with her Son. Our Blessed Lady did mediate on behalf of the human race by freely consenting to become the mother of our Lord and Saviour, and she continued to make intercession for us by encouraging her Son to begin his divine mission for the salvation of all souls. In the words of John Damascene: In her God became man, and man became God.
The first miracle that Jesus had ever performed inaugurated his three year public ministry on earth under the shadow of the cross. After Mary had solicited her Son, knowing full well that he was about to do something more than extraordinary, she said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” In union with the Holy Spirit, in the name of God the Father, the Mother consciously let go of the Son and offered him to the world for the spiritual benefit of all. Father and Mother together in close collaboration sent their divine Son into the world to preach the good news and to heal the blind and cure the lame in the shadow of the cross. Mary could very well have pictured our Lord’s Last Supper on Holy Thursday when she requested him to cater to the need of the guests and satisfy their want. She knew very well that the replenishing of wine was not the primary object of her intercession. Nor would her petition be finally honoured at Cana among the wedding guests. Mary was fully aware, through the gift of knowledge she had received from the Holy Spirit, that her petition would not merely settle some immediate temporal problem but, moreover, would lead to the resolution of something immeasurably far more urgent and greater in the spiritual order of human existence.
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, “Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Matthew 26, 27-28
Mary advised the servants right after she and Jesus together had acknowledged the will of the Father – that the hour had indeed arrived for our Lord to face his pending passion and death by beginning his public ministry with a divine miracle. The Mother spoke to them confidently knowing that her solicitousness (factual mediation) for the guests heralded the dawn or imminent application of the new dispensation of divine saving grace for the entire world. As God’s chief steward, our Blessed Lady has managed the distribution of the grace of salvation made substantial in the precious blood of Christ. Through Mary’s compassionate mediation, the water has been changed into wine and the wine into blood for the eternal wellbeing of all who wish to partake of the fruit of the vine. Hence, John the evangelist is teaching us something very important about our Blessed Mother that was already understood by the Christians of the nascent church in Palestine long before he wrote this gospel narrative: Mary’s essential role in the economy of salvation is the physical channeling and distribution of divine grace to the entire world in and through her divine Son. In Heaven she prays for us all, just as solicitously as she petitioned Jesus on behalf of the guests at the wedding feast at Cana. The apostle wishes to assure us that our Lord intentionally waited for his mother to solicit him; he deliberately refrained from performing his first and most important miracle without her involvement, just as he willed to establish his Church on the foundation of the apostles.
“O Virgin all holy, he who has said of you all that is honourable and glorious has not sinned against the truth, but remains unequal to your merit. Look down upon us from above and be propitious to us. Lead us in peace and having brought us without shame to the throne of judgment, grant us a place at the right hand of your Son, that we may borne off to heaven and sing with angels to the uncreated, consubstantial Trinity.”
St. Basil of Seleucia, PG 85: 452 [ante A.D. 459]
Of all human creatures Mary was certainly granted the most vital mediatory role to play in the history of salvation (which helped make the intercessory roles of all of Christ’s followers possible) by being given the offer of conceiving and bearing the Lamb of God – who takes away the sins of the world - and accepting it in faith working through love. On the principles of grace and charity she merited the honour of becoming universal Mediatrix of grace par excellence of us all, subordinate only to Christ on account of his divinity while participating with him in his sacred humanity. Because of the measure of Mary’s faith and love, in her union with the Trinity, and the practical results of her virtues in the order of redemption, her prayers in Heaven are the most influential and efficacious among all the righteous even when combined. Divine grace is never denied those who sincerely petition the Mother of our Lord in good faith. And their prayers are certainly answered, in accord with the will of God, for the sake of the Mother above all else because of the Son’s love for her. John’s narrative depicts the sublime quality of the correspondence between the Son and the Mother in their relation to each other in God’s plan of salvation and the dispensation of the Father’s saving grace. Fortunately for us and our salvation, Mary’s concern did affect Jesus by serving as a heavenly call to him to start his public ministry and end it with the shedding of his precious blood on the cross.
“I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.”
Matthew 26, 29
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready. Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.
Revelation 19, 7, 9
“With the Mediator you are the Mediatrix of the entire world.”
St. Ephraem of Syria, Syri opera graeca et latine, v. 3 [A.D. 373]
{On the eve of Holy Thursday}
Pax Christu
J.A.
