Mary’s Timing

Jesus says to Mary that His “hour” has not yet come. On an immediate level, this means that He does not simply act and decide by His own lights, but always in harmony with the Father’s will and always in terms of the Father’s plan. More particularly, the “hour” designates His glorification, which brings together His Cross, His Resurrection, and His presence throughout the world in word and sacrament. Jesus’ hour, the hour of His glory, begins at the moment of the Cross, and its historical setting is the moment when the Passover lambs are slaughtered - it is just then that Jesus, the true lamb, pours out His blood. His hour comes from God, but it is solidly situated in a precise historical context tied to a liturgical date - and just so it is the beginning of the new liturgy in “spirit and truth”. When at this juncture Jesus speaks to Mary of His hour, He is connecting the present moment with the mystery of the Cross interpreted as His glorification. This hour is not yet come; that was the first thing that had to be said. And yet Jesus has the power to anticipate this “hour” in a mysterious sign. This stamps the miracle of Cana as an anticipation of the hour, tying the two together intrinsically. How could we forget that this thrilling mystery of the anticipated hour continues to occur again and again? Just as at His mother’s request Jesus gives a sign that anticipates His hour, and at the same time directs our gaze toward it, so too He does the same thing ever anew in the Eucharist. Here, in response to the Church’s prayer, the Lord anticipates His return; He comes already now; He celebrates the marriage feast with us here and now. In so doing, He lifts us out of our own time toward the coming “hour”.