The Epiphany of Water into Wine

If you haven’t noticed, I have a hard time resisting the sonnets of Fr. Malcolm Guite, the Anglican priest-poet whose works “sound the seasons” of the Christian Year. During this Epiphany season, our lectionary immerses us in the life and work of Jesus Christ: his baptism, his Transfiguration, and in the case of this Sunday’s Gospel reading, his first sign at a wedding in Cana. As Fr. Chase wrote last week, “Epiphany is a season about learning new and profound things about Jesus.” As we immerse ourselves in the Story of Jesus—of which we, his Church, are a vital part—we are changed. In Christ Jesus, we are made people who “may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth” (Collect of the Day for the Second Sunday of Epiphany). It is my prayer for you that Fr. Guite’s sonnet on the Wedding at Cana inclines your hearts toward Jesus, that we may know, worship, and obey him to the ends of the earth.

Here’s an epiphany to have and hold,
A truth that you can taste upon the tongue,
No distant shrines and canopies of gold
Or ladders to be clambered rung by rung,
But here and now, amidst your daily  living,
Where you can taste and touch and feel and see,
The spring of love, the fount of all forgiving,
Flows when you need it, rich, abundant, free.

Better than waters of some outer weeping,
That leave you still with all your hidden sin,
Here is a vintage richer for the keeping
That works its transformation from within.
‘What price?’ you ask me, as we raise the glass,
‘It cost our Saviour everything he has.’

In Christ,

Bree Snow
Minister of Formation and Catechesis

Still life with wine decanter, bread and glasses  – François Barraud, c. 1930.
Coninx Museum – Public domain.