Water Poured into Wine at Mass
Mar
8
Written by:
Sunday, March 08, 2009
2nd Sunday of Lent
March 8, 2009
By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbles himself to share in our humanity
Every gesture the priest uses during mass has a purpose; many have several meanings. One such action is during the offertory, when the priest pours a bit of water into the cup of wine and prays the words in italics above. What does this mean?
In the early church, wine was always cut with water in order to make it drinkable and to reduce the alcohol content. This was how this gesture initially entered the mass. Jesus himself would probably have diluted the wine used at Passover with water. Later, like so many other traditions we have as Catholics, the mingling of the water and wine would take on a much deeper symbolic significance, which is why this gesture is still incorporated into the Mass.
We can begin to penetrate the deep mystery represented here by listening to the words the priest prays inaudibly while pouring a bit of water into the unconsecrated wine: By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.
Christ is symbolized by the wine that will be consecrated and will become his precious blood. The water that is mixed with the wine represents our own humanity, which Jesus assumed when he was born in Bethlehem. In the person of Christ, humanity and divinity, Absolute Divinity and utter humility are fused together forever, and there will be no undoing, any more than the priest can later remove the water from the wine.
Incredibly, we too, share in Christ's divinity through our faith. This is why Jesus wished us to eat his body and drink his blood in the Eucharist, so that we might be united with him on the cross. The Mass enables us to share in the same cup that he offered the apostles at the last supper. He wished that we would share in his own death on the cross by consuming his body and blood, so that we would be raised with him at Easter.
Unlike the water mixed with wine, our personalities are not "dissolved" nor our uniqueness lost at death. Rather, faith tells us that our mortality will be consumed by his immortality. Because our humanity is forever mixed with Christ's divinity, through faith in him we can live forever with him and this is the profound meaning of the simple gesture of water mingled with wine.
Father Gary