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Mary at Cana

John & Pat Brewster

(Excerpted from 1980 May Worldwide Family Spirit magazine)

The Wedding Feast at Cana - so much fills our minds and hearts whenever we hear those words. During this month which in a special way has traditionally been hers, we would like to focus on just one aspect of Mary's part in all that happened on that day long ago. It deals with a quality of her life that we, as couples, can be touched by and grow from.

When we reflect on Mary at that celebration, we discover a woman who is so totally present to the people and the situation around her that she is among the first to notice that something has gone wrong. And that is a compelling, fruitful thing to reflect on. In flesh and blood terms, Mary lives what has been called the Sacrament of the Present Moment. The way she places herself so completely into whatever situation she finds herself in is a model for us as couples. There is only one place where we can meet Jesus — and that's in the present moment. The past is over and we are called to leave it to the mercy of God. The future is not yet here. We cannot live future moments until they become the present. It is in the here and now that Jesus invites us to union with Himself.

Some of us tend to be "planners" who live with much worry and thought about future possibilities. "What will we do if this program we're trying to set up doesn't work?", or, "How will we ever cope with our children when they hit their teen years?", or "What if we dialogue on a daily basis and someday run dry?", or, "What will I ever do if my spouse dies first?" Left unchecked, this sort of approach to life can sweep us past a thousand meeting places with Jesus as we lock our attention on situations that do not exist at all.

On the other hand, perhaps we tend to dwell upon the past in an unhealthy way. "If only we had said ," or, "If we had only handled the situation differently," or, "If only we had been more lenient (or strict) when our child was younger," or, "If only we had not lost our cool”. In our theatre of re-runs, we constantly relive the past and agonize about how things might have turned out differently if only we had said or done something else. The net result is usually sleepless nights and depressing days. We cannot relive the past and dwelling upon it that way will lead us to pass right by the Lord Who waits for us in this present moment.

Even to say "take it one day" at a time seems too big a chunk of time. Each day has thousands of unique moments where Jesus waits for us. Where is he? Jesus waits when you spot a dear couple you haven't seen in months at some gathering Jesus waits when someone disappoints you and fouls up all the wonderful plans you've spent so long in making. He waits as your son tells you about a dented fender on the family car. Jesus waits each time the telephone rings.

In all the moments of our lives He invites us to meet Him by responding in love to the persons and needs that share those moments. It is not a case that our living the Gospel is limited to the hours when work and daily routines are put aside… something like the idea that all day long I go to work and Pat is busy at home, but between 8:30PM and midnight is when we're called to serve others through our love expressed in various apostolates. The call to love has no time-outs. The outward circumstances are really irrelevant for there is not a single moment where the Lord does not invite us to come closer.

There are times when our feelings make us wish we lived on a remote island, just the two of us. Imagine how much easier it would be to listen and respond to God without all the complications and interruptions! Or else we think of how much better it would be if we could find that community of committed Christians where no one would throw roadblocks or obstacles in our paths, where everyone would think the way we do and where there would be constant encouragement and support. But even as we fantasize and dream and think how easy it would be to meet Jesus in those kinds of circumstances, in our hearts we know that we're exactly where Jesus is waiting for us in this moment. Maybe the other circumstances will be someday, but they are not now — and now is the only time we have with Him.

The Dutch priest and author, Henri Nouwen, relates a tale about meeting an old friend one day who said to him, "I had always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I discovered that my interruptions were my work." There's much wisdom in that comment.

It is rare to spend a day which unfolds exactly the way we had thought it would. Our carefully laid out plans and projections are constantly interrupted. When they are, we have a choice. We can fuss and fume and try to rearrange things so that once again we might have a life situation where we believe we can find God or else we can discover in the actual circumstances of each moment our God calling to us.

And when we respond to Him in this way, when we seek Him in the present moment as it is, we also build up the Body of Christ. We remember receiving a phone call one day telling us that a friend who lived in another state had died and was, in fact, being buried at the very time of the phone call. We were stunned by the news. In the midst of our shock, we tried to pray for him and his family, but there was that nagging feeling that we should be "doing" something more. Yet we couldn't even get in touch with the family at the moment. When the call had come we had been giving the garage its spring cleaning. It struck us that the will of God for us at that moment was to continue that messy job and try to put as much love as we could into it. Maybe it was time to fix the flat on one of the younger children's bikes and give that second grader a surprise when he came home from school that afternoon. Maybe we could make an extra effort to get the gardening tools and seed flats ready for some of the older children who were planning a backyard plot. So often we cannot seem to "do" anything for those who suffer at any given moment, but we can try to do what God seems to want from us during that moment and trust that Jesus will use that in some way within the unity of His Mystical Body to touch those beyond our physical reach.

It comes down to a willingness to plunge fully into the moment as it passes, and try to fulfill in that instant the will of God for us. Mary knew what it was to live the present moment —both at a party and at the foot of the cross. There is so much in that dimension of her life for us to meditate on and try to imitate in our own responses to the Lord.

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