The Wedding at Cana in Galilee 19/1/25
One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
– ah, the sheer grace! –
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
– ah, the sheer grace! –
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything
with no other light or guide
than the One that burned in my heart.
This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
– him I knew so well –
there in a place where no one appeared.
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the Beloved into his Lover.
Upon my flowering breast,
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies. (St John of the Cross)
Quite some time ago I preached at the wedding of an old student of CoR. The young couple were devout Christians and so I thought I would admonish them to follow the teaching of St Paul and on their Honeymoon they would meditate on Marriage as being the symbol of the union which is betwixt Christ and hist Church. I could hardly keep my face straight as I waited in the hush that had fallen on the congregation and the wedding group alike before I said ‘Of course they will not. They will make love!’ that is why they were getting married and that is why they were asking the Church’s blessing. The purpose of a Christian marriage is to bless the sacrament that is already in the Lovers and to dedicate their union to God.
In today’s Gospel storey Jesus bears witness to the natural goodness of a couple committing themselves to each other in love. He has come into the world as the Word made flesh and he he gives his approval to the fleshly manifestations of love.
But the Gospel is also about divine Love. All present bear witness to this the first sign of the manifestation of his glory. Christ brings divine love into the world and this ‘new miracle of power divine’ asserts his authority as Lord of Creation. He comes into the world to bring peace and joy to heal and bless a broken world. He is the God of Love he wants to create men and women in his own image.
The heart of John’s Gospel is in the verses ‘God loved the worl so much that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’
Each soul encounters God in something like a marriage bond. It may not be an equal partnership but we are called to love him ‘oh dearly, dearly has he loved and we must love him too…’ I began with the poem by John of the Cross because of the intensity of the love language in it. The love of God is not just something for philosophers to theorise – it is about you and me and the rest of the world. I love my family and my friends, I love each of you and those loves are akin to my love for God. The ways in which I have learned to love individuals are only ways that I know so when I respond with ‘I love you’ to God I am loving him as a child of the human race, as the product of human intercourse, as the result of billions of years of evolution a citizen of the world that God loved so much. I love him in my humanity and his greatest Gift to me is to offer himself to me in his divine humanity:
And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine
God’s Presence and his very self
And essence all divine’
That gift is Jesus Christ and of that Essence we are about to be partakers in this thanksgiving feast.