Ave Maria Meditations
The marriage at Cana is a showing of the joy that Christ brought into the world. Here at His Mother’s request, our Lord worked his first public miracle. It is a delight to think that this first miracle was in no way connected with unhappiness. It was not healing sickness, forgiving sins, or raising the dead; it was simply giving joy, more joy, to people who were already rejoicing…
It is true that a change of heart is the only thing that can begin to bring happiness back into the world. It is true too that it is not in our own power or strength to change our own hearts, and what is needed is a miracle.
First of all what must this change really be like? It must be an absolute change, a change like that which happens to a piece of grey cloth dipped into a crimson dye, and dyed all through. The symbol of the wine at Cana is apt: wine restores vigor to an exhausted man, warms him all through, brings color back to his face, gives him courage, softens his heart, takes away his sense of insufficiency, and sets him free.
The joy of God is a wine that changes the drab, cold, colorless substance of human nature into the rich, crimson, warm vitality of supernatural life. It changes discouragement to hope, doubt to faith, it lights up the mind and in its light men see that the problems of the world today, which seemed insurmountable, are straws in the power of God, and in his name even a creature as little and weak as man can overcome them.
How can such a change of heart happen? Only by a miracle, it is true, and who can work such a miracle but Christ? When a man comes to this world with Christ in his heart, he too can work this miracle in Christ’s name…Love when it is joyful radiates, a few reflect its light, and the secret glory waxes into the world like morning into the sky.
+ Caryll Houselander
Our Lady: Causa Nostrae Laetitiae (Cause of Our Joy), pray for us!
