Jesus, Party Animal
[From The Sacred Heart, by Dietrich von Hildebrand, p. 124]
The first miracle of our Lord at the wedding of Cana is one of the three mysteries of the feast of Epiphany. The Gospel says: "He manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him." The Church sees in this miracle the manifestation of the divinity of Christ primarily. Yet, it also is a revelation of the boundless superabundance of divine love. The first miracle of Christ was neither the healing of the sick, nor the restoration of a natural good--like the sight to the blind--nor even an indispensable good like the multiplication of the loaves. The transmutation of water into wine was not an indispensable good either for the couple or for the wedding as such. It served merely to heighten the joy of the feast. It was not even absolutely lacking, but was only in insufficient quantity. Divine superabundance! Christ our Redeemer, who continually exhorts us to seek only the one thing necessary, manifesting such an interest in the wedding taking place in cloudless joy, that the bridegroom should not be humiliated or perturbed by the insufficiency of wine!
Divine, boundless superabundance of love! What an abyss separates it from the hard zeal of many pious people who are moved and interested only when either something vital to their neighbor's eternal welfare or at least some elementary indispensable good is at stake. That the wine was not sufficient for a wedding would strike those "pious souls" as a trifle not deserving their attention. They forget that the sublime words of St. Aloysius, Quid ad aeternitatem? "What is this to eternity?" should be applied to one's own person only, but never to one's neighbor.
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