Shame and the Catechesis of Wine

Seeing as how I didn't even last a week at the  task of being an "occasional" blogger I have come into this here courtroom with a look of contrition (possibly even shame) on my face.  The judge asks me, "What have you been up to that has kept you from blogging?"  I really don't have a good excuse but I nervously open up my briefcase and I eyeball a paper I wrote for my Christian Worldview class at New Saint Andrews.  I look upon the title with what is probably too much pride, "A Comparison and Contrast of Antithetical Worldviews: The Drinking Habits of Secularists and Christians."  It crosses my mind to pull this paper from my briefcase and slap it down with a satisfying thud in front of the judge.  As if the sheer sound of said "thud" would explain everything.  Knowing this will probably be a futile gesture I sigh, flip through the paper, tear out a sheet, close my briefcase, bring my little sheet to the judge and say, "Here's what I got."

The Catechesis of Wine
“In meditating on Christ’s miracle of creating wine, Augustine lamented that we accept the normal creation of wine as any less miraculous, for even as water ‘turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the same Lord. It has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence.’” (Wilson and Jones, p.83) If a man who had never had any clue as to how wine was made were to sit and think about what he would expect if someone were to leave a vat of crushed grapes out in the open air for about two weeks, his first answer would most definitely not be, “Wine.” More likely his first word would be, “Yuck.” Or its equivalent. A man would no more expect wine from two week old, unpreserved crushed grapes than a man would expect a chicken to pop out of an egg if he weren’t so used to seeing it or hearing about it.

Of course the naturalist will swoop in and tell us that there is this natural process by which the natural sugar in grapes naturally transforms into natural alcohol.  It is called fermentation. This naturalist would likely be smug and say something like, “There, I have dispelled the mystery of grapes transforming into wine. Now we can put away all this silly superstitious talk of some Ultimate Being doing it.” To which a stout man ought to respond, “Sir, all respect, but you did nothing of the sort. All you did was describe what happens. You didn’t explain anything.” The naturalist may heave a great sigh and launch into a detailed explanation of the chemical processes involved in fermentation. After thirty minutes, the same stout man should restate, “Again, all respect but all you did still was describe what happened, just in fancier terms.” The naturalist in desperation may scream, “Don’t you see that it MUST happen! Natural Law demands it!” To which are stout man ought to chuckle, take a sip of his wine and ask, “Why?”