Douglas Hickey

When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” —John 2: 3-5, RSV

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Last month I was blessed to go on pilgrimage with our senior youth to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Walsingham is quite "high" church (at least by my reckoning). There are holy relics. There is sprinkling at the holy well. There is procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. And there are Shrine Prayers each night, which include praying the Rosary.

On a visceral level, I feel drawn to high church Anglicanism, but it's a second language to me. Before Walsingham, I had never prayed the Rosary.* But the day after we arrived, I went to Shrine Prayers, and the priest led us in the Luminous Mysteries,** the second of which is the Wedding at Cana.

I've been party to heated discussions about the Wedding at Cana before—what it means for Jesus to call his mother "Woman," whether this is offensive, and how to interpret his apparent rebuff of her request for help.

I want to leave all of that aside today. Because the thing that felt revelatory to me about praying the Luminous Mysteries is that the Rosary forefronts this wedding and what it represents (along with so much else in the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady) is a holy mystery to contemplate, not a problem text to (re)solve.

So in a spirit of prayerful contemplation, let us remember the wedding at Cana where, Mary, the Mother of God, moved by compassion, interceded with Jesus Christ on behalf of those in need, where she directed those around her to be obedient to the Son, and where Jesus honored his mother by performing the first miracle of his earthly ministry.

Grace and Peace,

—Douglas

*In true Dunning-Krueger fashion, prior to this trip, I wouldn't have known I hadn't prayed the Rosary, since I didn't understand the distinction between "the Rosary," a specific prayer not unlike "the Lord's Prayer," and "a rosary," a string of prayer beads one might use when praying the Rosary.

** The Mysteries of the Rosary are meditations on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary one contemplates while praying the Rosary. Traditionally there are three sets of mysteries: the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Glorious Mysteries. Pope John Paul II introduced a fourth set of mysteries, the Luminous Mysteries, in his apostolic letter ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE, which I think is worth reading in its entirety.