Today’s gospel is a personal favorite of mine and one that has been given added exposure due to its inclusion among the new Luminous Mysteries of the rosary formulated by Pope John Paul II. We also have a more frequent reading of it during nuptial Masses now due to the revised lectionary.

Featured in this richly meaningful episode of the gospel, is the mediating role of Holy Mary. I suppose that this passage would not rate too high with our non-Catholic brethren who have left Mary out in their concern to maintain direct access to Jesus in prayer. What should not escape one’s attention, however, is that Mary’s effective influence over Jesus is due to Her privileged status in being mother, Mother of our Lord. If some Christians do not honor Her as Mother, it is easy to see why they would be puzzled over the prominence She has with us Catholics.

Certainly, there are other persons who appear in the gospels requesting Jesus’ help (think, for example, of the centurion petitioning Him to cure his servant). The surprising difference here is that our Lord clearly states His intention, not to begin His miracle-working yet. Once He has stated that, however, there is no more need for pleading on Mary’s part (as there was, for example, in the continuing requests by the Canaanite woman). The Blessed Mother merely makes her mind known to Jesus, and is then assured that He will follow through: "Do whatever he tells you."

Notice how Mary takes the servants’ distress to heart and then presents it to our Lord. This is how we often view the Blessed Mother’s mediation: as the one who takes our petitions, the desires of our hearts, and presents them to Jesus. Saint Louis de Montfort wrote about her intercession in this same sense, when he compared it to a peasant who wanted to give an apple as a gift to his king. In order for his gift to become worthy of a king, the queen had to receive it first, clean it, and put it on a gold platter. The Blessed Mother purifies our prayers by Her merits, places our petitions on the gold platter of Her Immaculate Heart, and then brings them to Her Son. Our poor ‘gifts,’ our requests, assume a wholly different aspect when presented by Mary, whose purity and intensity are so wonderfully attractive to Jesus. Catholics would then agree with the common wisdom that in order to ‘get somewhere’ it’s not what you know but who you know: Catholics know Mary. But we should not end our story here. For our Blessed Mother asks of us something in return: "Do whatever He tells you." I would not say that Her is a gift with a string attached, as they say, but that She does expect us "to become worthy of the promises of Christ" through obeying God’s will.

But, lest we have too narrow an understanding of Mary’s mediation as someone who obtains what we of ourselves cannot, we need to complement this scriptural passage at the early part of Saint John’s Gospel, with another put towards its close. This is the sorrowful mediation of Mary at the foot of the cross, where Her helpfulness to us is more hidden and difficult to grasp. There her union, her bond, with Her Son is never so strong. It is at that moment of His redemption that She is given by Him to us, and specifically as a Mother: "Behold your Mother." If She is not our physical Mother (and that She is not), then She must be our Mother in another non-physical sense, as Mother of divine grace. She is not only meant for us as a "request winner" to Jesus, but to bring us God’s grace, the divine life–not that God needed Her to do this; but the fact is that this is what He chose to do.

And then, after our Lord’s death, the soldier’s lance pierces the Heart of Christ. Since He had at that moment already expired, this wound was not felt by Him, but it did pass into His Mother, fulfilling the old prophecy that had been made about Her: "a sword shall pierce your own soul." Mary, in a mystical way–but not in a physical way–is slain with Jesus on Calvary, and the grace of redemption won for us by Him is also won by Her, even though in a secondary sense.

Holy Mary’s motherhood toward us is the greatest instance of Her mediating. We go to Her not only because we can win God’s hearing for this thing and for that through Her, but because She brings us grace, faith, and the love of God. With the heart of Jesus pierced, blood and water flowed out, symbols of the Eucharistic blood and the waters of baptism. With the soul of Mary pierced, the love and obedient attention She has for God, her fullness of grace is also mediated and conferred upon us–all in a measure, more or less depending on our cooperation.

When you pray those new Luminous Mysteries of the rosary, think of the miracle at Cana not only as the change from water into wine at the request of Mary, but the change that happened in you from hell-bound damnation to the heaven-bound grace that was obtained for you through the cooperative mediation of the one we call our Blessed Mother.