Paraclitus
Rarely is there a comparable beauty to seeing a couple, husband and wife, who are deeply in love with one another. Their bond of unity is inspiring, uplifting to the heart. At the wedding feast of Cana, Jesus and his disciples were present, as was his mother, Mary. Strangely, perhaps, the wedding couple are not even mentioned in the Gospel text. We know nothing of them. However, at the event of the first miracle of Jesus, we can see the work of love between Jesus and His Mother. The bond between them is so strong they know one another intimately. When the wine ran out, Mary knew she had no need to ask Jesus for His assistance. She merely states the fact and in such a way that Jesus knew well what she wanted of Him. Lovers can come to know one another in such an intimacy that their love for one another makes them equal.
Perhaps the one book in the Bible which has been commented on through the ages the most often, by both Jewish and Christian exegetes, is the ‘Song of Songs’. It has been viewed from different perspectives, but the mystics in the Catholic tradition generally see this book as a description of the relationship between God and the Church or between God and the human soul in communion with Him, despite the fact that God is never once mentioned! Perhaps we can see a parallel here between this and the wedding at Cana: The identity of the lovers is hidden. We are led into a mystery, the mystery of lovers. God is present in these mysteries, at Cana in the Person of Jesus, in the Song of Songs in the Person of the Bridegroom.
The beginning of the Song of Songs has the Bride saying to the Bridegroom: “Your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out…” The bond of love brings with it a joy much deeper than the gladness associated with wine. The Name of the Bridegroom, although hidden in mystery, signifies His Presence. At Cana, the miraculous wine signifies and points to the Presence of God, of Jesus, now hidden in the Mystery of the Precious Blood, the Holy Eucharist. We know how natural oil can seep deeply into the joints and parts of a mechanical device. The Supernatural Oil associated with the Name of the Bridegroom is the Person of the Holy Spirit with Whom we are anointed at our Baptism. St Bernard suggests that the reason why the dead body of Jesus was not anointed with oil is because it was to be His Mystical Body, the Church, which was going to receive the anointed oils of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus prays for the unity of His disciples and for all of us who now believe through their word. He does not mention explicitly here the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet He does, because the Bond of Love that Jesus prayed for comes about because He has made known to them, the Name of the Father, His Presence in Jesus, now drawing the disciples into this same Bond of Love. The Love here is identical to the Love with which the Father has loved the Son, which is in fact the Person of the Holy Spirit. Love makes lovers equal. The Father and the Son are equal. And their equality is another Divine Person, the Holy Spirit.
The one mystery above all which identifies the Catholic Church is the Holy Eucharist. This mystery is what makes the Church. It is a mystery of the most profound Love of God. We believe that Jesus has truly given us His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity, to us in this mystery of Communion. God loves us so much that He gave us His only Son, so that we could enter into a profound communion with Him in Person. This is more than a mere symbol. It is Real. Partaking of this Holy Communion enables us to enter this profound Communion with Him, in Person and with one another. This is the distinctive belief of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, separate from all other Christian denominations and separate from all other religions. We take Jesus at His Word when he said at the last supper “This is my Body … this is my Blood.” It has been the constant belief of the Church since the time of Jesus to the present day. We become friends of God in this Communion with him. As the early Christians explained it, God becomes one with us through Jesus becoming man so that we could become one with Him, truly through a sharing in His Body and Blood.
The marriage bond is the great sign we have in this life of this Divine Communion and thus marriage is sacred. Just as God has given Himself to us without reserve – He wants to marry us! – so the married couple should learn to be ‘gift’ to one another in a way that makes them equal. Loving is an art which can only be learned in fulfilling the Lord’s command: Love one another as I have loved you.” It is the Holy Spirit which enables us to grow in this art. Friendship love too is an art tested only in time. Aristotle described this kind of love as follows: ‘Another Hercules, another self’. The self is the soul. Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote that the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church. We could add that its Language of Love is the Sacred Liturgy. The Church, the Bride of the Lamb, in being formed into God’s Other Self, because it is One, Holy. It is being transformed into a Spotless Bride, whose Icon is Mary.
Lovers can know one another in equality when they can say: ‘I love the very ‘you’ within you’. Jesus invited the Apostles to a friendship unity with Him– ‘no longer do I call you servants but friends, because I have made known to you all that I have heard from My Father.’ We are friends of the Lord in so far as we obey His commandments, especially His Commandment of Love. And like the married couple deeply in love, it is the Unity of the Church with God we so long for that becomes the beautiful and visible sign of God’s Love on earth. This sign will only shine as a beacon of light for the world in so far as we live what we profess to believe.