I have always been fascinated by the Gospel’s story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). And that’s not just because of my love for good wines (especially the robust red ones from my native Sicily) but also for the very joyful and humane image that this Gospel scene evokes.
More recently, Pope Francis has used that same very powerful and familiar image of wine to speak about faith and religion in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium
Proclaiming the Gospel message to different cultures also involves proclaiming it to professional, scientific and academic circles. This means an encounter between faith, reason and the sciences with a view to developing new approaches and arguments on the issue of credibility, a creative apologetics which would encourage greater openness to the Gospel on the part of all. When certain categories of reason and the sciences are taken up into the proclamation of the message, these categories then become tools of evangelization; water is changed into wine. Whatever is taken up is not just redeemed, but becomes an instrument of the Spirit for enlightening and renewing the world.
Evangelii Gaudium 132
For a very long time I have been intrigued by this encounter between faith, reason and science because of my Christian faith and my scientific formation and work. I have always been persuaded that there is no conflict between good science and good faith. Rather, I am more and more convinced that at their interface lies a great source of cultural and spiritual energy that is much needed in our contemporary society. Depriving ourselves of one or the other will result in an inexcusable impoverishment of our culture.
The scientific work itself is based on the fact that when we do investigate reality we expect to find in it order and patterns, rather than chaos. This to me is already a sort of pointer towards a presence. In the words of one of my intellectual heros C .S . Lewis
Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator
C.S. Lewis, Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.
Therefore, in my opinion, the unraveling of the intricate workings of Nature, before any technological potential application, has per se a strong spiritual dimension. With this I am not advocating any sort of science-driven Christian apologetic. As a scientist myself I simply draw from my modest experience of continually wondering at the marvels of creation which very often square with my experience as a believer.
Pope Francis’s invitation to take up scientific and rational categories as a tool to make the message of the Gospel known in our contemporary society makes a lot of sense to me. Indeed, the water of science is transformed into the wine of discovering a greater narrative of a Universe that is sustained by love. In the poetic verses of G. M. Hopkins a ‘…world (that) is charged with the grandeur of God‘
Water & Wine 