Gospel for the Day: The Wedding at Cana

I sometimes have these imaginative prayers that takes quite a while to resolve themselves. A meditation on the Wedding at Cana is one of them.

I ended up playing the role of the head waiter during my imaginative prayer on this passage. I dutifully note that the wine was running out so I start putting into place mechanisms to make sure the wine lasts until the week-long party is over. So there I am instructing the other waiters on what to do. For example, get people drunk so that they don't notice the wine we were serving was diluted.

As I'm hurrying along stretching our wine supply Jesus publicly hollers out to me "By whose authority do you do these things?" And that stops me in my tracks. I didn't know what to say. Honestly, I was irritated. I was head waiter, after all. It was my job. For a guest like Jesus to humiliate me like that seemed inappropriate to say the least. And I didn't know what the proper response was for several years.

After what must have been 15 years, the imaginative prayer finally continued and resolved itself. Jesus hollers out to me "By whose authority do you do these things?" And then he whispers in my ear, "Tama na yan, inaagawan mo ako ng eksena" (Stop what you're doing. You're stealing the limelight from me)

Only then did I understand that the proper response was to lay down my waiter's apron and laugh.