This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
All Commentaries on John 2:11 Go To John 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
This beginning, &c.; glory, i.e, His Omnipotence and Divinity. And believed, i.e, their faith grew.
Beginning. From hence the Fathers gather passim that this miracle was absolutely the first which Christ publicly wrought. This is the refutation of the book on the "Infancy of the Saviour," condemned by Pope Gelasius, which was forged by the heretics; and in which it is related that Christ publicly wrought miracles when He was yet a boy. Yet there is no reason, says Maldonatus, against our thinking that Christ may have wrought miracles privately before, and may by them have assisted the poverty of His parents. It might seem as if His Mother, animated by the recollection of such, had here asked for, and expected, a similar miracle. But Christ could have relieved His Mother"s wants by some special providence short of a miracle.
You will ask why Christ willed this to be His first miracle? I reply, because it was especially appropriate to the time, the place, and the persons. For wine is the most noble beverage, which makes glad both God and man (Judges ix13). Wherefore Noah, immediately after the Deluge, discovered wine, and was a type of Christ here making wine. Again, Christ by this miracle showed that He is the self-same Being who, year by year, does the same thing in the vines by converting their watery sap into wine. "The only difference Isaiah ," as S. Chrysostom says, "that in the vine-tree He effects by a process extending over a considerable time what He did at the marriage in a moment." For what else is wine but water changed by the rays of the sun?
The symbolical reason Isaiah , because wine is the most fitting symbol of the grace, charity, devotion, fervour, strength, with which Christ endues His own. Whence S. Bernard says (in Sentent.), "The wine in the cup of God has a threefold colour. It is red in the longsuffering of the saints. This made Isaac glad in his sickness. It is white in the recompense of the just. With this was Noah inebriated. It is black and sour in the damnation of the wicked. Of this Jesus tasted, but would not drink."
Allegorically, the reason was because this marriage represented the marriage union of Christ with human nature, which took place in His Incarnation. Wherefore it was celebrated on the third day, that Isaiah , in the third stage of the world. For the first state was the law of nature, the second was the law of Moses, the third is the law of Christ. It was done in Galilee of the Gentiles, because Christ calls all the Gentiles to His marriage with our humanity. Also it was done in Cana of Galilee, i.e, in the transmigration of the possession, or the Christian people, which is Christ"s possession, bought with His own Blood, and therefore it passes from earth to heaven. In His possession Christ gives wine i.e, the doctrine and grace of the Gospel, which makes glad and inebriates the soul. Here also He changes wine into His Blood in the Eucharist.
Tropologically, the reason was that by these nuptials and by wine He signified the union, and as it were the marriage of our soul, through grace and charity, with God. The Mother of Jesus was there, that Isaiah , virginal chastity, and the simple faith of the disciples of Jesus, such faith as when humbly acknowledging the wine of our devotion and fervour is failing we entreat Him to bestow it upon us. Then He changes the insipidity of out soul into the good wine of His heavenly grace, by which we refresh and inebriate, not only ourselves, but others, and make them to glow with the love of God.
Analogically, the marriage of the Lamb will be perfected in heaven. There Christ will give us new wine and Divine nectar. He will inebriate us out of the fatness of the house of God, and will give us to drink of the torrent of His pleasures.
