NIHIL OBSTAT:

John A. McMahon,

Censor Librorum

IMPRIMATUR:

Samuel Cardinal Stritch

Feast of Mary Immaculate

Aug. 22, 1952

A Grail Publication

The Grail Office St. Meinrad, Ind.

Copyright by St. Meinrad’s Abbey, Inc. 1952

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this is Cana

Our Lord made marriage a sacrament at that

wedding in Cana. Today Cana is one means,

and a potent one, of gratifying the hunger of

married people for teaching and inspiration

to help them live their vocation. It is concerned

with restoring the full stature of Christian mar-

ried life, with developing a thoroughly Christian

pattern for the twentieth century American home.

by Mr. and Mrs. John J. Farrell

O
nce there were two young lovers. They

were comely beyond description and a cer-

tain nobility, like a radiance, shone from them.

They looked at each other for a little while in

deepest admiration. Then he took her hand in

his ’and together they walked down a green path-

way. It was the world’s first wedding.

There were no bridesmaids, no families, no little

girls wide-eyed at the bride’s splendor. No wed-

ding guests save the great solemn beasts of the

forest as docile as lambs. The wedding music rose

in perfection out of the arching branches, which

bore as well the wedding feast.

No one was there except the bride and the

groom—and the Celebrant: He who had fash-

1



ioncd all this loveliness, who had made their souls

Godlike and destined them for paradise. He

blessed these two whom He loved so much and

said, "Increase and multiply and fill the earth,

and make it yours." His wedding gift to them

was dominion over the world.

Christ at Cana

Everyone knows what happened next; how,

in a terrible gamble, they lost that gift, lost their

Godlikeness, lost heaven. One thing remained,

though not in its original glory: their love and

its faculty of bringing forth new life.

Everyone knows too that a long time later an-

other young couple was being married. Their

circumstances were comfortable enough and a wed-

ding feast was being given in their honor. But

through some unfortunate miscalculation the wine

ran short.

Among the guests was a kind and solicitous

Lady. She called her Son aside and whispered

the difficulty to Him. Because He could not refuse

her, He made wine out of water, thus revealing

Himself to be not the humble carpenter everyone

took Him for, but the Son of that first Celebrant.

And He, too, brought a wedding present. He

brought this couple, and all who would follow

after them, what the world had longed for since

Eden: Divine Life, the lost Godlikeness. He

gave it, anticipating the perfect offering of Him-

self to His Father on the cross. He gave it in

other ways too, in a whole series of sacraments.

2



But that day He gave it in a particular way to

all who would marry in His name, to help them

reach the lost heritage which His death would

restore—heaven. That day He made marriage a
sacrament, a means to Godlikeness.

And for a long time married people made claim

on that gift, bringing Him into their common

life so that He could refashion it after His own.

They believed that marriage belonged to God,

that He had made it for one man and one woman,

that He had made it to people earth and heaven.

Cana Without Christ

But then, in an era of rebellion, men broke away

from His teaching and began to hold that the

Son of God had given no such gift, that marriage

was no more sacred than tilling the soil. People’s

good instincts, bred in the centuries of Christian

tradition, held back for a while the tidal wave of

this heresy. But inevitably it gathered force and

now, as we look around us, we can see that man

has once more thrown away a divine wedding gift.

Once the sacrament was lost, the divine helps

which it gave were lost and the sense of a sacred

vocation was lost too. Marriage has become a mere

civil contract, and not a very binding one at that.

It is small comfort to reflect that this deteri-

oration is worse in other lands. Here the law con-

siders a church wedding equivalent to the city

hall variety and does not require a separate civil

ceremony. Here too, most people seem to consider

a church wedding more really a wedding. These

3



facts probably indicate some lingering belief in

the religious character of marriage. But this al-

most unconscious respect is not enough, and it too

is fading.

At the same time other forces began pillaging

even the natural bonds of marriage. Not only

is the sacredness gone, but that natural love and

that natural fruitfulness which remained even after

Eden are likewise disappearing.

Among these forces were the Industrial Revolu-

tion which brought factories and offices and cities

and which completely changed the family’s way of

life; the emancipation of women which, though

basically good and just, took a wrong direction;

secularism or the divorce of God from life; selfish

individualism; materialism and the cult of pleasure.

The pressure of all these was especially felt in

our country where they were part of the evolving

life of a new land. Today statistics tell the sad

story: twenty-five per cent of all marriages end

4



in divorce; couples have an average of 2.5 chil-

dren; for the first time in history over half the

working women in the labor force are wives;

family responsibility in educating children is

shunted to agencies outside the home; we have

the highest percentage of juvenile delinquency of

any civilized nation in the world. Catholic mar-

riages, immersed in this tradition, have been seri-

ously affected.

Sex vs. Love

Such are the results. Those broad, general

causes have seeped into our individual lives in a

number of ways. First, we have forgotten what

love is. "To have and to hold from this day for-

ward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health, until death do us part,”

says the wedding promise. Until all of us under-

stand what that means we will not know how to

love, no matter how much our hearts may throb.

Instead of love, with the sex faculty as one

means of expressing it, we have sex divorced from

love. But sex, when it is not an echo of all of

love, is no more than a physical function which

can never satisfy the heart of man. Nevertheless

it is sex as the only expression of love which is

being sold to people in every imaginable way:

in radio and newsprint and literature and tele-

vision and photography and art, and even in

marriage counseling.

Not only has sex been separated from love, but

woman from womanhood and man from man-

5



hood. In justice, woman did need emancipation,

but the misdirection which that emancipation took

in education and industry and politics has pro-

duced a different kind of woman, one untrained

in the gentle, loving, compassionate, self-giving

qualities to fulfill her destiny as the helpmate of

man and the mother of the living. And likewise

with man. Those aggressive and competitive char-

acteristics which were to serve his role as husband

and father have been wrongly developed and even

perverted toward material success and possessions

alone, estranging him from his role of maker

and father.

Marriage vs. Parenthood

In this whole process of divide and conquer,

wherein love and sex have been separated, woman

defeminized and man dehumanized, the final stroke

is to divorce marriage from parenthood. People

marry, not to increase and multiply, but to seize

at pleasure, as long as it lasts. The child is al-

most the accident, seldom the purpose of their

union. The marriage is not a union at all, really,

but a 50-50 proposition where each, remaining

independent, contributes only what he knows he

can get back out of the investment.

Thus psychologically and physiologically the

children of Adam and Eve are being steadily un-

fitted for the realization of even the natural goods

of marriage. And it seems that the result of taking

marriage away from God could hardly have been

otherwise.

6



The totality of marriage has somehow to be

restored. Married couples and those about to

marry need to see that totality. They need to see

their natural union ordained to parenthood. They

also need to see their supernatural union, their

sacrament, their vocation. They need to see their

married life in relationship to the life of Christ,

their offering to God through each other in rela-

tionship to His offering in the Mass, their union

in the light of His union with the Church.

They are to show forth God’s glory as spouses

and parents. That is their vocation. It is hus-

band and wife, as mother and father, that they

7



are to prove themselves good and faithful servants

worthy to enter into the joys of the Lord. They

have to be dedicated, have to envision everything

in this vocation as sacred because of their sacra-

ment. They have to find their way back to the

meaning of Cana.

The Restoration

Within the Church strong reassertions of the

sacred character and divine institution of marriage

are leading the way: the encyclicals and addresses

of Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Pius XII on the mind

of God regarding marriage; the statements of the

Bishops of the United States, calling people to

the full Christian vision of the home; and the

welling up within the Mystical Body of services

and movements dedicated to marriage and the

family.

Notable among the latter is the Cana Conference

which has been developed and spread by married

couples. Cana is one means, and a potent one,

of gratifying the hunger of married people for

teaching and inspiration to help them live their

vocation. It is concerned with restoring the full

stature of Christian married life, with developing

a thoroughly Christian pattern for the 20th Cen-

tury American home.

It grew out of the "Family Renewal Days” be-

gun in New York by Rev. John Delaney, S.J. In

1944 a Chicago couple who had read about those

first "Family Renewal Days” invited Father De-

8



laney there and persuaded a number of other

couples to attend.

To all of them it was a rich and significant ex-

perience. They knelt side by side and recited

Mass with him. After breakfast he gave two con-

ferences, followed by dinner, another conference,

and a round table discussion. At the end of the

day came Benediction and renewal of the mar-

riage vows, a fairly widespread practice now, but

unique then. The couples spent the day together

as spouses, receiving inspiration not so much for

individual holiness but for cooperative holiness

in marriage.

The substance of the talks and the very special

spirit which permeated the whole day affected

every one of them. Some had been married many

years, had grown children. A few were newly

married. Others were in between. It would have

been hard to find a group of more happily mar-

ried couples, more exemplary husbands and wives.

Yet all of them came away with an entirely new

perspective.

Impelled by a desire not only to realize the

newly found ideal in their own married lives, but

to give other couples an opportunity for the same

inspiration and direction, a number of the couples

began working together. Some of them, includ-

ing those already working in Catholic Action,

were acutely aware of the need. They, and the

priests who had come in contact with the idea

saw the possibilities of these days set aside for

husbands and wives.

9



The Name “Cana”

Among the priests was Rev. Edward Dowling,

S.J., of St. Louis. One of his many contributions

was a name—Cana Conferences. "Why not call
them Cana Conferences?” he suggested. "Our

Lord made marriage a sacrament at that wedding

in Cana. He showed for all time how close hus-

bands and wives were to His Heart.”

And so, gradually, Cana came into being. Two

elements hastened its growth. One was the vast

sacrifice of time and energy the couples were

willing to make. The other was the wisdom and

vision of the priests who became interested. There

was, from the start, an extraordinary spirit of

cooperation between the priests and the couples.

Both were convinced that the movement, while

under the authority and direction of the clergy,

had to be deeply rooted in the couples themselves.

The work of organizing and promoting Confer-

ences was a job for laymen. It was much easier

and much better for couples to reach other couples.

And the counsel of couples was needed in de-

veloping the content of those Conferences, if they

were to answer the needs and be suited to the

mentality of married people. Couples instinctively

saw that the privilege and responsibility of work-

ing for the renewal of Christian marriage was

their own.

Little by little, then, people began to hear about

Cana. It wasn’t easy at first to persuade them to

give up a Sunday’s outing or ball game. They

10



resented the notion that they had anything to

learn about marriage. They would protest, "Were

not having any trouble. Why should we go?”

It took a while to establish the fact that Cana was

not a clinic for bad marriages. Even though the

wives might be willing enough, the husbands

usually resisted manfully. Once they came, though,

suspicion and apathy vanished in the pleasant

informality of the day, and those same couples

who came reluctantly caught the spirit and were

soon doing their bit to promote the Conferences.

Approval

Chicago’s Chancellor, Rt. Rev. Msgr. E. M.

Burke, J.C.D., whose responsibility for the Mar-

riage Court predisposed him to look with interest

on any movement to improve marriage, kept in

close touch with the work. And then, in 1946,

when the lay committee petitioned for a full-

time priest director, His Eminence Cardinal Stritch

signified his confidence in Cana’s positive, con-

structive effort by creating the post of Cana Direc-

tor and naming Reverend John
J.

Egan to fill it.

Under Father Egan’s direction, lay iniative has

been further developed. The original lay advisory

panel has evolved into an executive board working

with the director to formulate and execute policy.

This Board has set up thirteen districts in the Arch-

diocese so that district chairmen, under the direc-

tion of three division chairmen, can assist parish

committees in arranging Conferences. Because

of differences in facilities, the Board has altered

11



the traditional Cana day time schedule in some

cases to answer the needs of individual parishes.

And as problems facing married couples shift from

year to year, it recommends new emphasis or new

applications of the basic content material. On the

more mundane side, it has set up an auditing

system to meet Cana’s budget problems.

Meanwhile, Cana took hold in St. Louis, Hart-

ford, Washington, Peoria. Other areas soon fol-

lowed. In November of 1947 the Bishops of the

United States voiced approval of the work. Their

1949 statement on the family urged that Cana

be promoted and encouraged. A survey taken in

1950 shows 88 dioceses having Cana Conferences.

Articles about Cana have appeared in American,

Italian, German, French, and English periodicals.

Cana has sprung up in China, India, England,

South America, the Philippines, Alaska, Japan,

New Zealand, South Africa, Australia. Recogniz-

ing Cana’s valuable contribution to the family,

the National Catholic Welfare Conference, through

its Family Life Bureau, has given it much assist-

ance.

Everywhere the story has been the same. Couples

were hungry for exactly the message that Cana was

bringing them. They were, most of them, rea-

sonably satisfied with their state of life. But, for

lack of inspiration and direction, they were large-

ly missing its real riches, so thoroughly had secu-

lar habits and attitudes permeated their marriage

and family life.

Cana, with its unique spirit, with its perspective

12



on the sacrament and vocation of marriage, showed

them that it was their means of sanctification;

it showed them how to change their sights, how to

begin realizing the potential that is in their

sacrament. And the almost standard reaction was,

"If only we could have had this long ago!”

Cana’s message progresses from the natural to

the supernatural. It takes first the two individuals,

the man and the woman, and shows those natural

characteristics with which God has endowed each

for the completion and fulfillment of the other.

Because the union of marriage is partly a union

of minds and wills, it demands an understanding

and appreciation of the basic nature and role of

each partner. The radical difference in the destiny

of man as the head and woman as the heart of

marriage has largely disappeared. Without that

essential distinction there is competition instead of

cooperation, a psychic splitting apart of two minds

and hearts which pledged to become one. With

it comes an admiration for manliness and woman-

13



liness in all their mystery which leads man and

wife to reverence and complete one another, to

become like the warp and woof of a fabric.

The union of marriage is also a union of bodies,

to which the union of minds and wills con-

tributes a great deal. Here, too, failures abound,

failures rooted in the lack of Christian attitudes.

We have had generations of parents who couldn’t
talk to their children about love and sex, a world

which can and does talk to them in a variety of

ways about sex, and religious precepts for the

married which have been limited to the uninspiring

terms of rights ?nd duties.

Cana performs a very simple, but a much needed

service in giving couples the full Christian view

of their physical union as a natural and a super-

natural act which has the immense dignity of

continuing God’s creation, and is a proper source

of mutual joy, a loving gift of themselves to

which God’s gift of increase is added.

The union of marriage is a union of minds,

wills, and bodies. But it is more than the sum

of these, for there is that other element, the

supernatural bond of the sacrament through which

the couple is united not only to one another but

to Christ. Cana achieves its full impact as it

tells couples to draw upon the treasury of sacra-

mental grace which is theirs, to use the specific

helps provided by a loving God from the moment

of marriage, so that through their sacrament and

vocation they may worship Him and come to

life everlasting.

14



Priests and Cana

This is the message of Cana. Its effectiveness

is very dependent upon its priest conductors, who

must not only love the family but know the

fabric of everyday family life.

Not only have these priests grown close to

the people, but they have also made it their re-

sponsibility to meet periodically with one another

for an exchange of ideas and methods, in a con-

stant effort to improve their work. The first

manual on the Cana Conferences, which has

served as a guide for starting Cana in many new

areas, grew out of one of their study weeks, fol-

lowed recently by a second volume.

Lay Initiative

Cana has developed best where it has been

an independent organization and where couples

themselves have taken the initiative of planning

the day, recruiting husbands and wives, procuring

the conductor. Though it began on a regional

basis when it was virtually unknown and had to

draw on several parishes for attendance, it has

since become most productive within the individual

parish where a lay committee, with the pastor’s

encouragement and the help of district chairmen,

plans and makes all arrangements. The general

practice has been to keep the groups fairly small,

twenty-five to thirty couples, having as many Con-

ferences as necessary to accommodate all the

couples in the parish. Smaller groups are more

15



informal; the couples become friendly with each

other, and the group discussion is better.

In addition to the Husband-Wife Conference

described, there are further ones on such subjects

as the Parent-Child relationship, social attitudes

in the home, the family and the Mass. Father

Delaney summed up the reason when he told those

first groups:

"We all know the value of getting off once in

a while to think things over, reviewing and re-

newing ideals. Priests, seminarians, nuns, brothers,

the Pope himself, make retreats once a year.

Why? Because selfishness, routineness and care-

lessness can creep into their lives despite all the

spiritual helps they have. So, too, in marriage.

Selfishness, impatience, differences of opinion, tak-

ing things for granted, carelessness, loss of the

sense of the dignity of marriage—all these can
and do creep in insidiously before their danger

is recognized. Husbands and wives need a day

of renewal together. Marriage is a perfect shar-

ing; husbands and wives must rise together to

a greater sense of dedication, responsibility, giv-

ing.”

How effective?

Until Cana Conferences spread further and be-

come more deeply imbedded in the experience of

the average couple it will not be possible to cite

statistics on their effect in preventing marriage

failures. Up to now Cana has largely reached

people who were not in danger of winding up in

16



the marriage court—which is not to say they would
have aspired to any great happiness or holiness

without Cana. But there are other observable

results over and above the changed attitudes to-

ward marriage. Cana has brought about an intensi-

fication of spirituality within the home, has

brought priests and people closer together, has

given an appreciation of the importance of the

spiritual well-being of each family to the whole

of the Mystical Body, increased interest in the

parish as the focus of their lives, has deepened

the association between Catholic couples with its

resultant sense of moral support. It has reached

people who do not make retreats. And as it

spreads it is beginning to reach lax Catholics and

invalid marriages.

The Conferences seem to generate a desire to go

further. In some dioceses this has led to the forma-

tion of Cana Clubs where small groups of couples

and a chaplain meet to discuss the application of

the general principles to specific situations in their

family life. In other dioceses the Christian Family

Movement which works through the specialized

Catholic Action technique to rechristianize the en-

vironment in which families live and work, pro-

vides the ideal medium.

Cana itself is limited, however, to the Confer-

ence, whose purpose is to help form and strengthen

the inner life of the family, building up the proper

relationship between husband and wife, parents

and children, the family and God. Its primary

concern is with making the home, in the words

17



of the Bishops, a "shrine of fidelity, a place

where God is the unseen Host.”

Pre-Cana Work

In the very early days of Cana, some of the

couples, who were members of specialized Cath-

olic Action groups, saw the need for similar Con-

ferences for engaged couples. Together with their

chaplains, they developed the Pre-Cana Confer-

ence.

The Pre-Cana series as it exists in several dio-

ceses, consists of a Sunday afternoon session fol-

lowed by three evening meetings. The opening

and closing Conferences are given by the priest-

conductor. His subject matter is essentially the

same as that presented at the first Cana Confer-

ence (the meaning of love, the union of minds,

wills, and bodies; the sacrament and vocation

of marriage) except that the emphasis and ap-

plication differ, as dictated by the needs of couples

not yet married. The necessity of thinking and

praying together about their new life, working

toward it, learning how to love generously, all

these form part of it, together with an explana-

tion of the Canon Law on marriage, the liturgy

of the wedding, the necessity of being spiritually

prepared for the reception of the Sacrament of

Matrimony.

Experience Speaks

One session is addressed by a married couple

who provide, out of their own experience, a

picture of the gradual adjustments in marriage

18



which lead to unity and stability. These couples

who speak have several years of marriage behind

them and are parents of growing families. Many

of them have seen military service, have coped

with the housing problem, lived with in-laws,

been in financial straits. They are very familiar

with the problems which are plaguing couples

marrying today. Their enthusiasm, conviction,

courage, their faith in each other and trust in

God’s providence are the qualities which impress

the younger couples, build up their confidence,

help them come to grips with their apprehensions

about marriage, the war, finances, parenthood.

Another session is addressed by a doctor whose

task, like the priest’s and the couple’s, is partly

one of re-education and partly one of inspiration.

He must help the young people shed their false

notions about sex and see it as the Church sees

it. He must indicate that their physical relation-

ship, predominant though it may appear in pros-

pect, is only a part of marriage, interdependent

with all the other parts, that it is and will al-

ways remain generative. He speaks, not from an

isolated knowledge of the body and its functions

but rather from the body-mind viewpoint. Be-

cause he is a doctor, the young people do not

hesitate to press on him a variety of honest queries.

New Light on Love

Both the married couple and the doctor throw

light from different directions on the basic prin-

ciples which the priest has already set forth. It

19



is not that they contribute new elements but that,

drawing upon their own background, they are

able to reinforce what the priest has said, give

concrete examples of dogma embracing life, show

how love is expressed in a multitude of attitudes

and deeds. They, like the priests in the work,

meet regularly in a constant effort to improve

their contribution.

Pre-Cana has the immense advantage of reach-

ing young couples at the time when they are

most receptive, most anxious to learn; during the

engagement period their good will, their response

to instruction and inspiration are at a high point.

They have come willingly and in increasing

numbers to Pre-Cana. And some of them have

broken their engagements, realizing that by the

standards they have learned, this particular mar-

riage could not work.

Pre-marriage instruction is essentially a parochial

responsibility; it is a responsibility which has

weighed heavily on many parish priests because

their other pressing responsibilities have made it

nearly impossible to do justice to the work. They

have welcomed the Conferences, recognizing them

as an aid to fulfilling a pastor’s obligation to his

flock.

It has been said that there is enough sanctify-

ing power in the sacramental state of marriage

to fill our land with saints. But couples will not

begin to find that sanctifying power until they

know and love their vocation. To give them

that knowledge and inspiration is the aim of Cana.

20



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