The Ministry of Jesus Christ: Marriage at Cana

On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast." So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now." This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him. - John 2:1-11

At a marriage feast at Cana, at which our Lord, His holy Mother and His disciples were present, the wine runs short and our Lady calls the attention of Jesus to the want. At first he seems to rebuke her, but at her bidding He turns six jars of water into the choicest wine. She notices their perplexity and hastens to relieve it.

Observe our Lady's thoughtful charity, and her distress at the distress of the entertainers. Her sympathy is not only with what men consider great troubles. Every little inconvenience and annoyance that befalls the friends of Jesus Christ touches her immaculate heart. Learn hence to extend your sympathy to every form of trouble that others suffer.

Our Lord at first receives the request of His holy Mother with apparent refusal. He pretends that He is not going to grant it. But He is only pretending. So, too, He sometimes pretends to be deaf to the prayers of his faithful servants. They ask, and ask apparently in vain. But it is only that He may be more generous in the end and may reward their perseverance with graces and gifts that they would not have earned had they been heard at first.

The wine that our Lord creates is so delicious and superior to what they had had before, that the bridegroom is astonished. He need not have wondered. Christ keeps His best gifts to the last. At first trouble, suffering, anxiety; at last peace, joy, happiness, delight. All this, too, even here, to those who are very faithful to God's grace, and how much more in Heaven!

- taken from The Ministry of Jesus Christ: Short Meditations on the Public Life of Our Lord, by Father Richard Frederick Clarke, SJ