But now we face an amazing mystery. While there is no shadow of incorrectness in Our Lord’s reply, it is evident that He is reluctant to intervene. He states the reason, “My hour is not yet come.” By “hour” He meant the time of His mission. He was not due to begin it yet, but the lesson of His words is inescapable; definitely the fulfillment of her request would launch Him into that Hour, and soon into His Passion.
     Mary was equal in stature to that moment upon which the fate of the world depended. She was not as the ordinary mother, just blundering along out of good-natured pity for the wine-less guests. She knew the redemptive scheme and the drastic consequence of this miracle, described as the “beginning of miracles,” out of which would issue the others as water gushes from its spring. Yet knowing, she persisted.
     Imagine the Son and His Mother looking into each other’s eyes – the two noblest people that have ever lived, or could live! What she saw there told her what she wanted to know. She turned to the attendants and said’ “Do ye whatsoever He shall say to you.”
     Again I ask, where is the slighting, or the insult, or the refusal that (some non-Catholics) talk about? The essence of the transaction is that He did not wish to perform that miracle because. Like one link drawing another, it will automatically bring to pass the entire sequence of events which we will call His Mission. That first display of power will lead Him irresistibly to the cross and to the tomb. Did He fear that sequence? Most certainly that exquisitely constituted Man did. But that was not the reason for His reluctance, which lay in the fact that the time fixed by the Father had not yet arrived.
     What! Is there question of the Divine decree being modified to meet a wish ah His Mother’s? She was a strangely responsible agent in Redemption. Her will was operative at the Annunciation and on Calvary, and it is manifest that the same law touched this intermediate occasion. If Mary makes that request at Cana, it will surely advance His Hour. She does ask, and with simple sureness. But a deeper asking has issued from her than is on the surface if her words. She is the foretold woman who knows what she is asking for.

“Her lips have spoken in announcement.
She has pointed Him away to Tabor,
And unwound the roads His feet will take
Until they move from this place to the flags
Of Pilate’s floor. This is the gathering
Of crowds, the pain, the glory, the defeat,
The long inaugural of Calvary
And she has summoned it.”
The Woman Wrapped in Silence – Lynch

Next: “Fill the Water-pots with Water”