(Editor: The Month of October is dedicated to Mary and the Rosary)
“God doesn’t hear me, He hasn’t answered my prayer…” this is a common doubt and refrain among the faithful. It is also one of the easiest methods ha-satan (“the satan”) uses to create a rift between us and Abba, Father. So what happens when we think God doesn’t even answer some of our prayers, how do we find the confidence that we can “get an answer” for the most important, most challenging moments of our lives?
The historical and spiritual significance of the Wedding at Cana
In the Talmud, wine is not only a symbol of joy and happiness but also a sign of the couple’s new life together. The Talmud also states that wine is a symbol of the Torah. Wine, in the Jewish tradition, is closely associated with the Sabbath, it marks the boundary lines and separates the holiness of the Holy Day from the secular character of the ordinary day.
In the Bible, God often described His relationship with His people as a marriage. He was the husband and His people were His bride. God expected His people to be devoted to Him alone and in His eyes having other gods (literal or metaphorical i.e. money) was forbidden. To Him, it was like adultery. In short, Marriage is very similar to the Sabbath. Both are covenantal, reciprocal love relationships.
Mother Mary teaches us How to Pray at Cana
On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you”
John 2:1-5
This passage is often taken to ascribe Mother Mary with a role as our intercessor and indeed she is. Just like our own earthly mothers, Mary is that gentle voice who intercedes for us with our Father. However, the Wedding at Cana has even more significance than most of us realise: it is a physical representation of the spiritual mechanisms which demonstrates our Father’s literal relationship with us, His children.
The Wedding at Cana demonstrates three key guidelines on how and what to pray: First, it makes us aware that before we ask/inform the Lord that we have a problem, He (and the servants He designates) already know. Second, contrary to popular belief, Mary does not make a request or supplication. Our mother simply states what the problem is, “they have no wine.” Finally, the Queen of Heaven demonstrates faith when she says, “do whatever he tells you”. Mary doesn’t assume Jesus will answer. She knows He will and what she makes clear is that she does not know what He will answer, hence “whatever he tells you”.
Read also:
Mary: The Mother God gives the world
The Rosary: A powerful weapon against evil
The power of the Hail Mary
Mary casts light on “Unanswered Prayer”
The problem with “unanswered prayer” is that we often provide God our “suggested solution” in prayer and supplication but these are born of our mortal perspectives. Our omnipotent and omniscient Father takes a macro-perspective over the issues and challenges we face in the grand scheme of our lives and the grand plan. So, when we ask God to answer our prayers and look for His response in our suggested solutions, more often than not, we miss the forest for the trees while we are looking out things to happen as we imagine, missing that God has answered our prayer in a way that we did not expect. In essence, Mary shows us that preferred format to prayer is simply to state the problem aka “they have no wine” rather than provide a solution for God to follow.
Most importantly, our mother is emblematic of that fourth line in the Pater Noster, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” – When Mary tells the servant to “do whatever He tells you” – she is in effect, asking you to listen to God and to be executors of His will on earth as it is in heaven. Hence, one needs to have biblical fearlessness in whatever the Lord wills for us.
Mom at the dinner table, undoing the knots of our lives
I sat on a bench outside of The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, looking at the placid waters. Rosary in hand, and at the time, a printed sheet with the Novena to Mary, the Undoer of Knots, I prayed for a very personal, seemingly impossible intention.
On the next day, I took up the beads again, and the next day and the next. Soon, nine days had passed and then months passed before I realised that the seemingly impossible situation, had been reversed since the day I first prayed the rosary. When we pray the rosary, it is akin to a conversation with our mother at the dinner table. When we pray the Rosary daily, imagine the power of seeking advice and good counsel daily from the one human the devil fears.
According to Italian exorcist Fr. Sante Babolin, “while I was insistently invoking the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the devil answered me: ‘I can’t stand That One (Mary) any more and neither can I stand you any more.’”
Famed exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth confirmed this reality in his dialogues with the devil, where the devil said to him, “I am more afraid when you say the Madonna’s name, because I am more humiliated by being beaten by a simple creature, than by Him.”
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel”
A prayer during exorcism refers to a prophecy foretold in Genesis 3:15
During the Rite of Exorcism the priest will pray, “The glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, commands you; she who by her humility and from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception crushed your proud head.” [check out the full read over at Aleteia]
“There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot solve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Sister Lucia of Fatima
Through the Rosary, we get to live the life and trials of not only our Lord, but the spiritual journey of our mother from Annunciation (her fiat “let it be done to me as You will) to her Saviour and Son’s crucifixion (“a sword will pierce your heart”) and resurrection and eventually, her crowning as the Queen of Heaven. The Rosary is more than a devotion to Our Lady. By reflecting on Our Most Holy Mother’s experiences and the life of Jesus, we become more like the woman who bore all things for the sake of obedience to God’s will.
During Pope Francis’s general audience address in the library of the Apostolic Palace on 18 November 2020, the Pope pointed to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model of prayer that transforms restlessness into openness to God’s will. At the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary rejected fear with a prayerful “yes,” even though she likely sensed that this would bring her tremendously difficult trials, how many more warriors for God would Satan fear if we all could be more like Mary, full of grace?
