FAUSTI - This story shows us "where dwells" the Lord and His Glory. In joy and love, not in the enclosure of the temple, reduced to a supermarket of the religious. This initial scene, like that of Baptism in the Synoptics, is intended to make us immediately understand that God is scandalously different from what we think. The first "sign" of the Son of God consists in adding more than 600 litres of wine to a banquet! What would the Baptist, the desert ascetic, have said? With all the problems of hunger that there are in the world, alcoholism aside, could not do something more useful and less useless? Also, why give wine and joy , instead of preaching abstinence and commitment? The third day is in the Gospels that of the Resurrection, of the definitive intervention of God. The wedding is the most beautiful image of the Covenant between God and His people, in a Love stronger than any infidelity and death itself. Cana recalls qanàh (to acquire), an allusion to the people that God has acquired. The Mother "was there". like the six hydrias of stone, made to contain that water that will become beautiful wine. She is called mother by the narrator and "woman" by Jesus. "Mother" indicates the relationship with the Son, to whom She gives her life, "woman" (bride) the relationship with the Bridegroom, from whose corresponding Love comes the life of the Son. If oil and bread are necessary to live, wine, which cheers up the heart of man (Ps 104:15), is that superfluous necessary to live happily. It is the image of the love between husband and wife, between Creator and creature, in which creation is accomplished and man passes from the sixth to the seventh day, to God himself, who is the thrill of love. Without this wine, man loses his identity, his resemblance to God. This beautiful wine is the one that makes man so beautiful. It is love. Love serves no purpose, but everything serves love, which is the very life of God and ours. "They have no more wine" is what the Mother says to Jesus. The simple observation is both request and expectation. In the marriage between God and man, wine was lacking from the beginning, with Adam. And even later, even before Moses came down from the mountain with the tables of the Covenant, the people had already broken it with the adoration of the golden calf (Ex 32). To love the Bridegroom is the great command which, according to the prophets, was never the virtue of the bride. Mary, with the Baptist and those who listen to him, represents Israel sighing for the new covenant, the new heart (Ez 36:22-32) and the promised blessings (Jer 33:14-26). "Six hydrias of stone were there" details are not superfluous. They are respectively a reference to the creation of man on the sixth day, to the law written on tablets of stone and to the rites it prescribes. Even the hydria are there, like the Mother of Jesus: "Every man first serves the beautiful wine" This happens in the world. Everything at the beginning is beautiful, drunk with life and love. Then everything ages and decays. The wine is becoming increasingly poor, it fails and the feast is over. Lucky who is stunned enough not to see more than much! "Instead, you have kept the beautiful wine until now." Creation is not a decay of the sixth day: it is a journey towards the feast of the seventh. The wedding gift is not only the first, but the beginning of the signs. All the others flow like a stream from this source: Jesus re-establishes the covenant and finally man obtains, thanks to Him, the "beautiful wine".
FAUSTI - This story shows us "where dwells" the Lord and His Glory. In joy and love, not in the enclosure of the temple, reduced to a supermarket of the religious.
RispondiEliminaThis initial scene, like that of Baptism in the Synoptics, is intended to make us immediately understand that God is scandalously different from what we think.
The first "sign" of the Son of God consists in adding more than 600 litres of wine to a banquet! What would the Baptist, the desert ascetic, have said? With all the problems of hunger that there are in the world, alcoholism aside, could not do something more useful and less useless?
Also, why give wine and joy , instead of preaching abstinence and commitment?
The third day is in the Gospels that of the Resurrection, of the definitive intervention of God.
The wedding is the most beautiful image of the Covenant between God and His people, in a Love stronger than any infidelity and death itself.
Cana recalls qanàh (to acquire), an allusion to the people that God has acquired.
The Mother "was there". like the six hydrias of stone, made to contain that water that will become beautiful wine. She is called mother by the narrator and "woman" by Jesus. "Mother" indicates the relationship with the Son, to whom She gives her life, "woman" (bride) the relationship with the Bridegroom, from whose corresponding Love comes the life of the Son. If oil and bread are necessary to live, wine, which cheers up the heart of man (Ps 104:15), is that superfluous necessary to live happily. It is the image of the love between husband and wife, between Creator and creature, in which creation is accomplished and man passes from the sixth to the seventh day, to God himself, who is the thrill of love. Without this wine, man loses his identity, his resemblance to God. This beautiful wine is the one that makes man so beautiful. It is love.
Love serves no purpose, but everything serves love, which is the very life of God and ours.
"They have no more wine" is what the Mother says to Jesus.
The simple observation is both request and expectation. In the marriage between God and man, wine was lacking from the beginning, with Adam. And even later, even before Moses came down from the mountain with the tables of the Covenant, the people had already broken it with the adoration of the golden calf (Ex 32).
To love the Bridegroom is the great command which, according to the prophets, was never the virtue of the bride.
Mary, with the Baptist and those who listen to him, represents Israel sighing for the new covenant, the new heart (Ez 36:22-32) and the promised blessings (Jer 33:14-26). "Six hydrias of stone were there" details are not superfluous. They are respectively a reference to the creation of man on the sixth day, to the law written on tablets of stone and to the rites it prescribes. Even the hydria are there, like the Mother of Jesus: "Every man first serves the beautiful wine" This happens in the world. Everything at the beginning is beautiful, drunk with life and love. Then everything ages and decays. The wine is becoming increasingly poor, it fails and the feast is over.
Lucky who is stunned enough not to see more than much!
"Instead, you have kept the beautiful wine until now."
Creation is not a decay of the sixth day: it is a journey towards the feast of the seventh.
The wedding gift is not only the first, but the beginning of the signs. All the others flow like a stream from this source: Jesus re-establishes the covenant and finally man obtains, thanks to Him, the "beautiful wine".