2. PICTURE

Jesus and Mary

For the first 30 years of his life, Jesus lived at home in Nazareth, working in the carpenter’s shop with Joseph, his step-father.  The fact that Joseph was not at the wedding feast suggests that by then he had died and Mary was a widow, relying all the more on her Son for support and comfort.  How close Jesus and Mary must have been, how many joys and sorrows and concerns they must have shared and how well they knew each other.

And then Jesus started his public ministry and Mary had to let him go.  He had been away in the area to the north of the Lake of Galilee where John was baptising, and Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael had become his disciples.  But Mary hadn’t lost touch with Jesus and she must have looked forward with great joy at the thought of seeing him again when he returned to Galilee.  And the reunion took place at the marriage feast at Cana, to which Mary, Jesus and his disciples were invited.