Pointing toward the feast unending

In Nozze di Cana (The Wedding at Cana) the Venetian painter Paolo Veronese lets out all the stops. This is not simply a record of the historical event told in the second chapter of John’s Gospel. It’s a vision pointing toward the Ultimate Reality—the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Veronese seems to be saying, “The miracle of water into wine at Cana points toward what will one day be our all-in-all. An unending Feast of joy.” (And in the Gospel account, the reason that the maître of the feast is so surprised is that he tastes what is undoubtedly the best wine ever created—crafted instantaneously by the Vintner who invented grapes and fermentation!)

The massive canvas (almost 33 feet long) now occupies a place of honor in the Louvre Museum in Paris, but it was originally commissioned by the Order of Saint Benedict in Venice for the refectory (eating hall) designed by Andrea Palladio for the monastery of San Giorgio. Imagine taking your daily meals in a beautifully designed hall sporting this colossal image of joy and celebration with Christ at its center.

Veronese has painted three musicians in front of Jesus, and they are in fact portraits of three of Venice’s most admired artists, Jacopo Bassano, Tintoretto, and the greatest of the three, Titian—and beside him is the Venetian poet Pietro Aretino. All great men who nevertheless are mere entertainers at this joyous feast.

Yet Jesus and his mother Mary look on with a sad and wistful expression in their faces. Jesus has recently said to her, “Woman, what is this to you or to me? My hour has not yet come,” and she is aware, of course, that she is tacitly outing her son by requesting this public, dramatic miracle—an event that would hasten that “hour.” She is obedient to the Spirit of God, just as her Son is obedient to the hour of reckoning that will result in His arrest, mock trial, public humiliation, torture, and execution on trumped-up charges—a punishment of the most ignominious and agonizing kind.

But for now, there is feasting and joy and a barely contained, happy chaos—an adumbration of the final celebration at the end of time. It is worthwhile to meditate for a moment longer on the faces of Jesus and Mary—the central figures in this masterful composition—with all the sight lines converging on them. Mary looks inward, distracted, perhaps feeling the grief-to-come already dawning. Jesus looks out at us—His gaze direct as no other figure in this painting of so many faces and figures.

Veronese’s Nozze di Cana (with detail) Paolo Veronese

The Lord’s look is complex: sadness, resolution, even honest anxiety. He is human after all—and knowledge of His crucifixion hastening must have been deeply disturbing. The Gospels record how He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and supremely on Golgotha.

This massive celebratory work of art graced the daily lives of dedicated monks for centuries. The vigorous tumult of color, dynamic compositional elements, and so very many and varied figures constitute in themselves a celebration—a festival of art, music, and joy.

In his magisterial essay “The Relevance of the Beautiful,” the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer speaks about this experience of a special kind of time—festival time—in which all inhibitions are cast aside and everyone is invited to feast and revel. The origin of the word festival is the same as feast (the Old Latin festum) because to celebrate always involves a shared meal—a communion of souls admitting their need for sustenance; dependence upon the generous provision of their loving Creator who is in truth the true Master of the Feast.

Sociologists who have been studying American life over the past 40 years have reported a decline in affiliation and in conviviality—a gradual erosion of what Gadamer calls “festival time”—and the rise of private entertainment (via streaming of TV, movies, music, and video games). This doesn’t bode well for our sense of belonging and solidarity, and it points toward a loss of trust and fellow feeling among neighbors. The rise of suspicion, conspiracy theory, and deep mistrust is manifesting in hyperpartisan politics and the potentially dangerous divisions among us. And all of this is traceable at least in some degree to our inability to celebrate together.

Veronese’s Nozze di Cana points toward a potential solution: Trust God to provide. Even when the wine is exhausted and the food begins to disappear, the Lord is able to take what little we have—a few fish and loaves of bread—and turn that meager offering into a great communion. He is Himself the bread from heaven, and those who eat this bread will never be hungry again. Nozze di Cana calls us to let down our guard, trust God for provisions—both wine and daily bread—and lose ourselves in joy as our Lord and Maker joins us in the dance.