Posted on 12/05/2006 5:00:33 PM PST by NYer
A Catholic Church official seeking to provide wine for services and a scenic backdrop has planted a vineyard on three acres of a California diocese graveyard.
Robert Seelig, director of funeral and cemetery services for the Catholic Diocese of Oakland, California, is nurturing the grapes on a hill that is part of the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Hayward, California, near San Francisco.
"The concept was to use the vineyard as a form of landscape and the wine would just be a benefit," Seelig said. Any wine produced on the land would be used to celebrate Mass at local parishes, he said.
While planting so close to graves may appear odd to some, vineyards are mentioned in Scripture, and growing wine grapes on church land is in keeping with the history of winemaking in California, said the Rev. Mark Wiesner, a diocese spokesman.
The Catholic Church introduced wine-making to California, now world famous for its commercial wines. The state's first vineyards were planted in the late 1700s on the lands of Spanish missions.
This should satisfy the liberal catholics who believe in recycling; it also addresses conserving 'green space'. Who could ever have imagined that Uncle Bill would now be feeding next year's liturgical wine harvest :-)
LOL! Don't know if you ever read the Anne of Green Gables books, but there's a very funny scene where the new minister's children are gossiped about by the local biddies because they ate blackberries out of the graveyard . . .
Great books.
I like her Emily of New Moon books the best. Half autobiography, half wish-fulfillment, fairly dark, all good.
My cousin has moved his beehives to the edge of our family cemetery. I like to think of the bees zooming over and buzzing in the flowers.
Mrs VS
Imagine... your dust being used to make communion wine which is then transubstantiated into the body of Christ!
It's either really icky, or really wondrous, or maybe a little of both...
"It's either really icky, or really wondrous, or maybe a little of both..."
*shudder* This thought made my skin crawl at first. However, I'm like you...could actually be amazing!
excellent point. I think it wondrous and I am not a bit creeped-out about it
Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Psalm 104: 1, 14-15, 33, 35b
John 15:1 I am the true vine: and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3 Now you are clean, by reason of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me: and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine: you the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. 6 If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither: and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire: and he burneth. 7 If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will: and it shall be done unto you. 8 In this is my Father glorified: that you bring forth very much fruit and become my disciples.
Imagine... your dust being used to make communion wine which is then transubstantiated into the body of Christ!Your post is reminiscent of something that St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in his Letter to the Romans as he was being taken to Rome for martyrdom:
I am God's wheat, ground fine by the lion's teeth to be made purest bread for Christ.
Hey, great to "see" you, brother. I trust you are happy and having a Blessed Advent
I'm doing very well, thanks. Still getting settled in after our wedding, but we make a little progress almost every day. We're looking to forward to a happy Christmas, and wish you the same, with many blessings.
Grapes? What ever happened to pushing up daisies?
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