If Jesus is really to be called to a marriage, it means that the preparations for the marriage will be largely spiritual.  The parties to the marriage will approach the marriage through other sacraments.  They will both be members of the Church of God by baptism; and they will be, or look forward to becoming, communicants.  They will prepare for the sacrament of matrimony by receiving the sacrament of penance, and receiving the communion.  What better preparation for starting a new life, for setting out to create a new family in the Kingdom of God, a family in which the ideals of the life at Nazareth are to be the ruling ideals, than that cleansing of soul that fits them for the beginning of a new life?  A priest has great joy when he knows that those who are kneeling before him to receive the nuptial blessing are souls pure in God’s sight, dwellings ready and adorned for the coming of Christ.

For it is the normal and fitting crown of the ceremonies of marriage that Jesus be there, that the Holy Mass be celebrated and that those who have just been indissolubly united may as their first act partake of the Bread of Heaven which giveth life to the world.  I myself would rather not be asked to celebrate a wedding unless it is to be approached with the purity of Mary, and sealed by the partaking of Jesus.  It is so great and wonderful a thing, this sacrament of matrimony.  Here are two human beings setting out to fulfil the vocation of man to build up the Kingdom of God, to set up a new hearth where the love of God may be manifest and where children may be trained in the knowledge and love of God; where the life of Christ may find contact with human life and through it manifest God to the world—­how wonderful and beautiful and holy all that is!  And then to remember what commonly takes place is to be overcome with a sense of what must be the pain of God’s heart.

We go back to look into the home where Mary seems to be directing the arrangements of the wedding feast.  It was a poor home and not much could be provided; the wine, so essential to the feast, failed.  What was to be done?  To whom would Mary look?  She could have no money to buy wine.  One feels that after Joseph’s death she had come more and more to look to Jesus for help of all sorts.  The deepening of their mutual love, the completeness of their understanding, would make this the natural thing.  S. Mary feels that if there is any help in these embarrassing circumstances, any way of sparing the feelings of the bridegroom, Jesus will know it and help.  There is no doubt in her mind; but the certainty that He can help.  So she turns to Him with her “they have no wine.”  The words as we read them contain at once an appeal and a suggestion:  an appeal for help, advice, guidance, with the hint that Jesus can effectually help if He will.  It is not as some have rather crudely thought a suggestion that He perform a miracle, but the appeal of one who has learned to have unlimited trust in Him.