Mary Makes A Friend Questions And Answers

[Algernon Alcala]

Itis possible she understood that Jesus had the power to do something, because she does tell the servants to do whatever he tells them to do. Still, there is no direct request by Mary, and it is evident that Mary does not know what Jesus might do, if anything. It is possible that Jesus could have gone and purchased wine from somewhere else to alleviate the shame of the family.

The family would definitely experience shame for running out of wine, so perhaps Mary was concerned for the honor of the family. This seems to be the most likely reason for why Mary would share this concern with Jesus.

While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Matthew 12:47-50

As Christ is an embodiment of something, that of God's self-proclamation and self-incarnation of His own saving power, Mary is also an embodiment of something, namely the human "yes" to God's will. As such, she is the primary intercessor of the Church to Christ.

Extrapolating a little: By her acceptance to receive God in her flesh, we acknowledge her mission as an intercessor (Queen among many) from God to man. And by her request at the wedding of Cana (which Jesus was undoubtedly waiting for), we acknowledge the validity of her mission as an intercessor from man to God.

There has been no traditional answer to this question that I'm aware of. All of the commentaries I'm familiar with echo the same sentiment: That it seems odd that she would expect Him to be able to do something about the lack of wine, even though supposedly, she had never seen Him work a miracle yet. All of the commentators seem to be scratching their heads asking the same question.

Given that, the only real answer we can give is "we don't know for sure." We can speculate, but Scripture gives no clear reason, and no major tradition or teaching has stepped forward with anything other than guesses.

They have no wine - Though the blessed virgin is supposed to have never seen her son work a miracle before this time, yet she seems to have expected him to do something extraordinary on this occasion; as, from her acquaintance with him, she must have formed some adequate idea of his power and goodness.

When they wanted wine - A marriage feast among the Jews was commonly observed for seven or eight days. It is not probable that there would be a want of wine at the marriage itself, and it is possible, therefore, that Jesus came there some time during the marriage feast.

John gives us a hint about the relationship of the families: ' On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.'

The obvious naive interpretation here is that Mary was a friend of the bride or the groom or their families or some combination of this, and that Jesus and his disciples were invited as a courtesy. I think she was most likely a friend of the mother of the bride as she has a roughly thirty year old son and the ages work out, and a female friend seems more likely than a male. Possibly a relative also, look at how many people of note in the Gospels are related, e.g. John the Baptist is Jesus' cousin and so on.

to amplify: If I wrote about a wedding in the early US, "Abigail Adams was there, and John Quincy Adams and his friends were also invited", wouldn't one's natural assumption be that Abigail is the primary guest and the others mentioned were invited because of her?

(Actually some of the other posters have inspired me to speculate what this might 'mean' for humanity if true - I think that the wedding feast might be like our little world, and that Jesus came here for Mary's sake, that without her Jesus would be doing other things. I think God has /plenty/ of worlds, universes, to take care of, and that if anything made him single out this world for special attention, it was Mary. The rest of us are just 'baggage', what God wanted from our universe was Mary - he conceived her as a perfect character (immaculately!) then I think the rest of our world is arranged around her.)

I see Mary as a close friend of the family pointing out a problem to Jesus, she is pointing it out BECAUSE it is her friends who have the problem. It's nothing to do with him in some sense but she is concerned for her friends. In particular the parents who are providing the refreshments might look bad and I think Mary felt for them.

What could he be teaching her? or us? I don't know but what I see here is that he is saying that he is detached from the situation, that the time hasn't come for him to interfere in human affairs. I'm reminded of stories about ascended beings in science fiction and the like. Jesus could solve this problem but he could solve /any/ human problem if what we (Catholics at least) believe about him is true - he could have the Romans leave Judea, he could make humans immortal, he could bring back unicorns and so on. But he doesn't work that way. People are free to do what they please and have to accept the consequences of their choices. It isn't time for him to fiddle things around and fix things, without being invited.

She doesn't tell Jesus "They have a problem, fix it." She doesn't say "make a miracle". If the childhood legends of Jesus are true she knows he can do miracles, certainly she knows he is special from what Gabriel told her! Plus he grew up with her, even if she has forgotten he is miraculous or divine, she knows he is a genius, he can figure out a solution that will save the day.

But he says 'My hour is not yet come.' I don't think his hour is set on a schedule, at least not one that she knows! It's sometime in the future, and she figures it out, because she is a genius also! Not surprising that she is no dummy.

She tells the servants, "Do what he tells you." And she sets the ball rolling for the rest of the story, his rise to fame and glory. She knows this is risky, but it is she who triggers his hour coming by telling the servants to obey him.

What can we learn from this? Again, I don't know, but to me the obvious thing is that Jesus leaves us to live life without interference until he is invited. Christians are like the servants whom Mary tells, "Do what he tells you" (she says something similar elsewhere to people in general but I haven't found it just now). Our job is to make the wedding nice for everyone, including non Christians, we are just the servants. Jesus can handle all the miraculous parts and can tell us the strategy but he allows us to help by fetching water to fill the jars and so on - he tells them to fill the jars with about 100 gallons of water, note that he doesn't just miracle that water in there. So there is plenty for us to do. I also think that whatever we do actually helps, sure He doesn't /need/ the help, he could just miracle away problems or fetch the water himself, but that's not the /optimal solution/, the optimal solutions involves us doing some of the work. I think that miraculous solutions are probably /just as much work/ as normal methods, or /more/, but since God does all the heavy lifting, we say "Oh that looks easy".

I don't see this but it sounds insightful. I feel it worked the other way around, that this was the first public miracle because of the situation, and that if it was "time for it" that just means that the overall storyline of the universe had a miracle-shaped space there. Hmm this makes a bit of sense. But my feeling is that we can study the actual storyline and learn more than by studying some screenplay formula that says "miracle at the end of act two" in general, which what I take "time for it" to mean. Apologies if I am missing the point.

Well fast forward to now, millions of deaths and many medical negligence cases later, the real truth is coming to light. I debate sepsis is an actual disease. Unlike heart disease, diabetes or cancer, sepsis is usually the result of something else, like a cut or scrape, surgeries or invasive devices. We are all at risk. Sepsis is a dire emergency that can kill the young or the old. It does not discriminate.

My mother passed on May 4th to sepsis. She was fine one day and the next in excruciating pain. Turns out a small cut she got on her knee when she fell got infected and that was enough to get it. The hardest part is how quickly it all happened. And how unexpected it all was.

6 years ago I was feeling bad like I had the flu. I went to my primary care doctor and he called an ambulance. 24 hours later I was in a coma that lasted 7 weeks during that time I developed ARDS a complication from sepsis. My blood pressure bottomed out and I was starved of Oxygen due to my lungs full of fluid. By some miracle I survived with serious damage to my body. I spent two years in speech therapy and occupational rehab. I was an engineer I went back to college at 46 graduated last year. I had to relearn most everything. Sepsis took my life and hit the reset button. I have huge memory gaps that have never came back sometimes I look at vacation pictures and I feel like I was photoshopped in. I had never heard of sepsis prior to this.

The question is How can a rip occur in a hospitalized patient to the point that within 2 days she was dead? No surgery. Free air and a rip in her bowel which put her into sepsis shock. How can this be determined to be a natural cause of death because she caught pneumonia AFTER being intubated. Grieving, disturbed and confused.

My mother passed away 29th august from sepsis shock her kidneys stop working she could not breath all from aspiration pneumonia she got a sore throat 3 days before she went to hospital on the night she went to hospital she had flu like systems rang the ambulance they took her to hospital 2 days later she was put in a unconscious state and died 3 days later we just fort she had a sore throat

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