Dry Cana Wine
(John 2: 10) - “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Why does the wedding wine at Cana run dry? Poor planning? Too many hefty drinkers? Or because everyone there preferred dry wine? (Sorry…bad pun.) Whatever the reason, it became a big concern not only to the bride and groom, but also to the blessed Mother, “they have no wine.” It most likely would have ruined their joyous occasion if it hadn’t been fixed. It might have even caused a marital argument.
It’s also what happens to all of us, when our own marital love runs dry. We often give our best ‘self’ and our intentional acts of love to our spouse early on in our marriage, but eventually it becomes sparse as we allow life to get in the way and we become complacent. Our ‘wine runs dry’ because we forget how to love, serve, and sacrifice for each other. We give our best in the beginning, but lose our marital fervor through our struggles, our lack of attention and lack of time for each other, our lack of patience or compassion with each other, and so on.
The sad part is that so many couples rarely pray together for their marriage, even as it is heading for ruin. We forget or don’t realize that Jesus, as well as His Blessed Mother, want our marriages to succeed even more than we do. Yet, Jesus won’t impose anything on us for which we don’t or refuse to ask.
I found, through the healing and rebuilding of my own marriage, that the best ‘wine’ doesn’t have to be just at the beginning of marriage when everything is fresh and new. I learned that through prayer, through asking God for His grace, and through personally utilizing that grace to make myself a better, more intentional, more attentive, and more compassionate husband and father, that my love for and relationship with my wife now, is exponentially better than it has ever been. I now taste a love that is deeper and richer than I could ever imagine, because God ‘jarred’ me out of my bad patterns and turned my water into wine.
ACTION STEP: This week, pray together as a couple and ask God for the grace to enliven your love and fervor for each other.