Wine

I found a delightful paragraph of our Holy Father today while reading through some of his homilies from the past few years. We are rather fond of wine, and now we know why:

"The reading from the Prophet Isaiah and today's Gospel set before our eyes one of the great images of Sacred Scripture: the image of the vine. In Sacred Scripture, bread represents all that human beings need for their daily life. Water makes the earth fertile: it is the fundamental gift that makes life possible. Wine, on the other hand, expresses the excellence of creation and gives us the feast in which we go beyond the limits of our daily routine: Wine, the Psalm says, gladdens the heart. So it is that wine and with it the vine have also become images of the gift of love in which we can taste the savour of the Divine."

~ Homily of Pope Benedict XVI on the Opening Mass of the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (Sunday October 2, 2005).