Why the Water and Wine are Mixed Together at the Eucharist

I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed this, but at the Offertory, when I am preparing the elements for communion, I pour a little water into the wine; so in other words, the wine that we receive at communion is somewhat watered down. This part of the Offertory is called the “mingling,” and acolyte noticed it a few days ago and asked me what the reason was. So I thought I’d explain it here; because there is both a historical reason and a symbolic reason.

Historically, wine was always watered down in ancient times, for practical reasons. Not only was ancient wine very strong, and they wanted the supply to stretch a bit, but they also had this sense that the wine somehow purified the water, making that water safer to drink. So this is why the early Christians mixed water and wine together at the Eucharist.

But over time, this practice took on a symbolic meaning, representing what we call the “dual natures” of Christ. He is both fully God and fully Man, and over time, the wine came to symbolize his divine nature, and the water came to represent his human nature. Just as the wine and water were both poured into the chalice, so both natures of Christ are united in the one Person.

I say a prayer while I bless the water that reflects this: “O God, who didst wonderfully create (and yet more wonderfully renew) the dignity of the nature of man, grant unto us, through the mystery of this water and wine, that we may be sharers in his divinity who vouchsafed to be made partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

So you can see how this prayer talks about these two natures. Christ takes on our humanity so that we might take on his divinity; or as St. Irenaeus put it, “God became Man so that Man might become God.”

Perhaps you remember in the Gospels how when Christ was pierced with the spear, out from his side flowed both water and blood. The early Christians would have seen this detail from the Gospels as having eucharistic overtones, having seen the water and wine mixed together at the Eucharist on Sundays.

So if you ever notice that detail, as I pour water into wine, remember that Christ’s Blood of which we are partaking, is not only human and is not only divine, but is fully both, united together in the one Person.