Where Water Becomes Wine: A Homily on the Sacrament of Marriage
We begin, as the Church always does, with the Word of God. And the Word has brought us to a wedding.
The first sign that Jesus performed, according to the Gospel of John, took place at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was there. His disciples were there. And when the wine ran out, Mary turned to her Son and said simply, "They don't have any wine." Jesus replied that his hour had not yet come. And yet he acted. He told the servants to fill six stone water jars to the brim, and when the master of the feast tasted what came out of those jars, he was astonished. What had been plain water was now the finest wine.
The Church has pondered this sign for two thousand years, and she has always seen in it something more than a miracle of hospitality. She has seen in it a revelation. Christ came to a wedding. He did not merely attend as a guest. He transformed it. He brought abundance where there was lack. He brought joy where there was embarrassment. He brought his glory into the ordinary human act of two people pledging their lives to one another. And the disciples, John tells us, believed in him.
This is where you stand today. You stand at the threshold of a sign.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, reaches for the most exalted language he can find to describe what marriage is. He calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, giving himself up for her. He calls wives and husbands alike to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then he quotes from the very beginning of Scripture, from Genesis: "A man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Then Paul adds a sentence that should stop every one of us in our tracks. He says, "This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church."
Do you hear what the Apostle is saying? He is saying that your marriage is not merely a legal arrangement or a social custom. It is not simply a celebration of affection, though affection is a beautiful gift. Your marriage is a sign, a sacrament, a visible and effective symbol of the invisible love between Christ and his Bride, the Church. The love you are pledging to one another today is meant to image the love that Christ has for every soul he has redeemed.
That is a staggering vocation. It is also a liberating one.
Consider what the love of Christ for the Church actually looks like. It is faithful when faithfulness is costly. It is self-giving rather than self-seeking. It endures. It forgives. It does not keep a record of wrongs. It lays down comfort, convenience, and pride for the sake of the beloved. Paul does not describe this love as a feeling that arrives and departs on its own schedule. He describes it as a commitment that shapes daily choices, a posture of the will oriented toward the good of the other.
This is what you are choosing today. You are choosing, before God and before this assembly, to love one another with that kind of love, not because you will always feel like it, not because the road ahead will always be smooth, but because you have been loved first by the One who is love himself. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that in the sacrament of Matrimony, Christ dwells with the spouses, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens. The grace of this sacrament is not a one-time gift given at the altar and then left behind. It is a living, renewable grace that the two of you draw upon every day, in the ordinary moments and in the hard ones.
Return for a moment to Cana. Notice that the servants had to fill the jars. They had to do the work of carrying water. The miracle did not happen in empty vessels. It happened in jars that were filled to the brim through human effort and human obedience. Your marriage will be like that. The grace of God is real and abundant. But it meets you in the daily acts of faithfulness: in the choice to speak kindly when you are tired, to forgive when you have been hurt, to pray together when the world presses in, to return again and again to the sacraments of the Church, to the Eucharist you are about to receive at this very altar, where Christ gives himself completely and calls you to do the same for one another.
In a few moments, you will exchange your consent, and in that exchange you will become ministers of this sacrament to each other. The Church will witness it. Heaven will witness it. And the Lord who turned water into wine at Cana will be present here, as he promised to be wherever two or three gather in his name, ready to bring abundance, ready to sustain what you are beginning.
So here is the charge I leave with you, and with all of us who love you and who witness this day. Fill the jars. Show up to the ordinary work of love with your whole heart. Receive the grace that is offered to you in this sacrament and in every sacrament. Let your marriage be a sign to the world of the faithfulness of God. And when the wine of your own strength runs low, and it will, turn to the One who is never depleted, and let him do what only he can do.
May the Lord who began this good work in you bring it to completion. May your home be a place of welcome, of mercy, and of joy. And may your love for one another, sustained by his grace, point everyone who knows you toward the love that will never end.
Sources Consulted
John 2:1-11, Christian Standard Bible, Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.
Ephesians 5:21-33, Christian Standard Bible, Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition, paragraphs 1601-1666, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 20, on Ephesians 5:22-33, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Volume 13.
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, paragraphs 47-52, 1965.
Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, paragraphs 11-13, Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, 1981.
Before preaching: verify every biblical reference, replace general language only with couple-approved details, and revise the message in your own Christian tradition and pastoral voice.