In another post, I told you about the Jewish Mama who built a mosque just to annoy her neighbours, but of course, I haven’t forgotten that most Jewish of mamas, Mary, or Our Lady, who’s real life remains much of a mystery, but there were tantalising traces of the real woman everywhere, like a familiar face that you catch sight of out of the corner of your eye, and is then gone when you turn to look.

One such place was Cana. We whizzed through Cana, where in his first miracle,  Jesus produced the best quality of wine because his Mum told him to. Think about it, he would have got his taste for really good wine from Mary, who else? I have to thank our tour guide for that insight, when she remarked that the women would also have been imbibing freely at the wedding!

All of us ask God for all kinds of things for our kids, what does Mary ask of her Son? To fix the wine problem at a wedding in another town where the guzzling guests have drunk up all the wine too early, neither does she bat an eyelid as Jesus’ response of almost “Awww Mummmm”, you can almost see him rolling his eyes in mock horror, she knows that he will do what she says!

(See the official version John 2:1-11)

So there are many sides to Mary. I was sorry to have missed her in Cana.