Take the Long Way Home

My last shift included some interesting examples.  One fellow, who I think was trying to flirt with me - in front of his wife and kids no less - insulted my vocabulary.  I told him that I *anticipated* his margarita would be ready soon.  He replied, “That’s a big word for you.”  Seriously?  I didn’t know how to respond.  “Do I look that stupid”, I wanted to say?  “Do YOU think that’s a big word, because I don’t.”  Of course I didn’t say those things.  I think I mumbled something about it not being that big of a word while walking away bewildered.

Then there was the mustard guy.  This guy, and there are lots of them, think that they are the only customers in the restaraunt.  Their needs must be taken care of immediately, regardless of who else might require my assistance.  It didn’t matter that I had 16 other guests who were all asking me for things - and before him, I might add - he wanted his extra side of mustard yesterday.  When he didn’t get it as quickly as he thought he should have, he followed me into the kitchen (where I was actually waiting for his mustard) and started screaming at me about his mustard.  Where was his mustard?  Why was it taking so long?  He was going to throw his hamburger in the trash now because it was no good without 6 tbs of mustard.  And he did.  He threw his burger and fries in the trash and demanded that his meal be free and that he get coupons for a free meal the next time he came in.  And he got it, because managers really have no choice but to give customers whatever they want, no matter how riduculous. 

Then the new manager messed up the order for one of my tables - twice.  And blamed me for it.  She rang it in the computer, and she told the cooks what to do, but it was my fault.  Clearly, my fault.

So what?  Why am I ranting about not being appreciated in the job that I chose to perform?  I chose that job because the hours work best for my family.  I chose it, even though I don’t like it.  Kind of like Jesus.  Jesus, the son of God himself, chose to shed all vestiges of his glory and come to earth and be a servant.  People treated him like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe.  His Father didn’t force  him to come to earth as a man, He chose it.  Freely chose to do it.  He served those who didn’t appreciate what he was doing.  They assumed that because he took a servile position he was beneath them.  But they were wrong.  Just like my customers are wrong about me.  They can’t see who I really am, what I am really worth.  The kicker is my knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to face their derision. 

Why can’t I be more like Jesus?  Why can’t I take the abuse and just serve?  Why do I crave recognition for my accomplishments?  Why do I want so badly for people to see me as deserving honor and respect?  I’m not talking about bowing down here, just an acknowledgement that I am an intelligent, worthwhile human being.  I think we all crave this because we are worthy of this.  We are made in the image of God.  We all have an inherrent dignity because of being human.  All of us. 

The hard truth is I am just as guilty as my customers.  I don’t always treat others the way I want to be treated.  As a Christian, as one bought with a price, as one who serves a God who serves, I should be willing, no anxious, to serve.  Without thanks, without accolades, just because I am imitating my master.  Yet at the same time, because I am a child of the Creator of the Universe I have a place of honor in this world (not to mention the next), even if no one recognizes it or understands it. 

What all this means, I don’t know.  I have no profound theological point to make.  It is merely my own musing.  Any thoughts of your own?
. 

I know my little blog has been sadly neglected for quite awhile and I can’t make any promises that I’ll have much time for it now, but I wanted to at least check in and let my few readers know what’s going on in my life. I think I mentioned that I’m going back to school. Well, it’s kicking my butt! I added up the time I’ve been spending on study and class and it boils down to having a full time job - 8+ hours a day plus some weekend time. Add that to my part time job, one husband, and two children and you get one stressed out little chickadee. I know that this probably describes most people’s lives, but I seem to be one of those folks that can only handle so much on her plate at one time or things get ugly! I have put this blog waaaay down on my list of priorities, below clean bathtubs and dusted lamps, and I’m rethinking the wisdom of that. My family would probably prefer to have clean bathtubs… what am I saying? I have boys, they have absolutely no appreciation for clean anything, not even socks! Anyway, I am going to make an attempt to post a little. Last year my Lenten resolution was to post at least three times a week. I think I will make the same resolution this year, only keeping it to once a week. It’s not that anything profound came out of last year’s posting (it was mostly just quotes from books, which were themselves quite profound), but I think the exercise will do me good.

I have always thought of this blog as a place to put my notes. Random thoughts that interested me, quotes and summaries of books, stories, etc. that would be easy for me to access later. Everything in one place so to speak. But lately a dear friend has been sending people to my blog. People who have questions about the Catholic Church, those who are maybe considering conversion, those who are convinced that we Catholics are going straight to hell in a hand basket, in other words, a variety of people that probably don’t care much about my book summaries and probably even less about my book quotes (although I will never, never stop posting those). I’m not sure that my blog answers any questions, unless of course you are looking to debunk the Dagon the Fish god myth, or need a good pithy look at indulgences. I’m not sure what direction this blog should take. I’m a pretty eclectic person in real life and so this blog will probably always reflect that, but I think that maybe I should post more about the life of a convert. This makes it a bit more personal, but I’ve always struggled to keep the personal out.

This friend of mine owns a fabulous Catholic book and gift store that brings in an interesting mix of people. She thinks I’m a lot smarter than I really am and her sending people she meets in her store to my blog is very humbling. It has also been a wake up call that I have something to say that others might find worthwhile. When I started this blog I never dreamed anyone would read it except for the group of women who “forced” me to start it in the first place. I still have a very small readership (I’m amazed that I have any considering how little I post!). I read their blogs when I started this odyssey of faith and it was very comforting to see that someone had walked this path before me and had survived. But I didn’t think past that.

Another happening that has me thinking contemplative, bloggy, thoughts is my recent appearance on Facebook. I have avoided it until now for many worries, none of which have come to fruition (my insecurities usually come to nothing but I can’t seem to escape them). Something that I didn’t expect - that my old friends would look me up; my old protestant friends. Those folks that knew me from my Calvinist days; those folks who have no idea that I’m now, gasp, a Catholic. I counted myself lucky that my conversion occurred in the midst of two different moves to two different states. That meant that I only had to tell my closest friends, and I knew that although they would think I was nuts they would still love me. Now for the first time, three years later, I’m face to face with the possibility that I’m going to have to stand before the firing squad that I thought I had escaped. Like my other insecurities this will probably amount to nothing too. But is has me thinking. It’s been awhile since I had to “explain myself”. Why did I make this momentous move? How has my life changed? How is it still changing? How has it affected my family? Would I do it again? Am I glad that it happened or do I wish that I was still ignorantly worshipping God the way I did for those good years before, the way my old friends still are? How is my relationship with God different now? For the past three years I have mostly talked about these things with other Catholics and the conversation is much different when you are addressing someone who you know already agrees with your ideas and your choices than with someone who vehemently disagrees.

So that’s where things stand. I have made no decisions, but I’m toying with ideas.

Deuteronomy 4:16-19
Be strictly on your guard, therefore, not to degrade yourselves by fashioning an idol to represent any figure, whether it be the form of a man or of a woman, of any animal on the earth or of any bird that flies in the sky, of anything that crawls on the ground or of any fish in the waters under the earth.  And when you look up to the heavens and behold the sun or the moon or any star among the heavenly hosts, do not be led astray into adoring them and serving them.  These the Lord your God has let fall to the lot of all other nations under the heavens

How does fashioning an idol in any of these forms degrade humanity?  Go back and look at the creation account in Genesis 1.  God creates the earth, the sun and moon, the land and sea creatures and birds and then he creates man.  He gives man dominion over all these other creations - so man rules, has power over, mastery of the earth, the sun and moon, the land and sea creatures and birds.  If man then fashions a “god” in any of these forms he is giving up his position of dominance and mastery and giving it to a subordinate!  He is making a “god” out of a subordinate creation!  Man, in the image of God, is given dominion and is told to conquer the earth and subdue it.  It is therefore degrading to man to be conquered by the creation that he supposed to subdue. 

Since we don’t typically make ourselves idols out of wood and stone we like to take these verses and think of the idols we have in our lives - money, success, people we love - we can turn pretty much anything into an idol.  We are told in the New Testament to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, put to death the deeds of the flesh, to be dead to sin and alive to Christ (there are many many more examples, but you get the picture).  We are to conquer and subdue sin in our lives (with the help of the Spirit of course).  When we allow a sin - pride, lust, greed, etc - to rule us and become our idol, we have degraded ourselves.  We have dominion and mastery through Christ! 

There is more that could be said, but I’m out of time!

So whenever I am told by others that my Rosary or my Divine Mercy Chaplet are vain and repititous words, I think of Joy, and I cling to my Rock.

I’ve been musing lately about my own spiritual life and what I have passed on to my children.  What have they learned from me?  Have they learned to pray and to trust in God, or have they learned to worry?  Have they learned contentment in all situations, or have they learned to complain and to want what they can’t have?  Have they learned to be still and listen to God, or have they learned to drown Him out with their own musings?  Have they learned to love God, or to merely put up with the knowledge that He exists and feel they might need to pacify Him at some point in their lives? 

I just read the book Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian (if you don’t have it run, don’t walk, to Amazon or HalfPrice Books, or whereever and buy it!).  There is a quote near the beginning that sums up exactly what I should have passed on to my children, and it brought me to tears with the knowledge that I haven’t done this…

“I have walked behind you on this ascent of Mt. Carmel.  You have taught me everything that a father could teach a son.” 

“If I have taught you to carry the cross and to die on it, then I have taught  you everything.  Have I taught  you this?”

The other day I was involved in a conversation about what is the best way to interpret Scripture. There are several theories, not all of which were discussed, but the main question was are the Scriptures meant to be taken literally or metaphorically? The answers usually vary, with the “fundamentalists” saying that Scripture should always be taken literally, and the “liberals” saying it should be taken as metaphor. In actuality most people fall somewhere in the middle of these two ideals.

This started me thinking - I’m full of opinions on this subject, as are most folks. But what does this mean for me personally when I read Scripture? Do I have to study ancient near eastern literature to better understand the form of the Old Testament? Do I have to be a Rabbinical scholar, or at least be familiar with how the Jews traditionally understood the Old Testament? What about the New? Do I need to spend some time figuring out textural criticism, so I can best decide which of the dozens of translations is the best? Does it matter that not every word is the same in the different texts? Did God give us a record that only the few can truly understand? I don’t think so. Although I see great value in all those areas I mentioned, and I’m glad that there are people out there doing all those things, so I can read their work and make some decisions for myself, but ultimately I think that the ancient church had the right idea. Assume that what is read is literal (at least in some sense), but that’s not all there is to it, there is a richer, deeper meaning there as well.

The ancient church Fathers referred to this as the different senses of Scripture. We can see a pretty good summary of their thoughts in the catechism (I am only including a very small section to discuss here, there is more before and after this section that I recommend looking at).

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”⁸³

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.⁸⁴

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.⁸⁵

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.⁸⁶

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.⁸⁷

They suggested that all Scripture has all four of these dimensions. It’s not always a question of which is it, physical or metaphorical, but what does God want me to learn through this account. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. I’m not suggesting that this answers all questions, nothing ever does.

All of this was in my mind during Mass on Sunday when the Gospel was read. If you’re not familiar with John chapter 9, then go on and read it! It’s about the man being born blind who was healed by Jesus. Pastors must love it when this reading comes around. Talk about a rich passage. You could preach a hundred sermons on this story and not repeat yourself once, there’s that many lessons in this one story!

But this is what jumped out at me about the reading: it’s the perfect illustration of the two types of interp - literal and metaphorical. I don’t even have to think about it because both senses are pointed out for us by Jesus himself in the story! So, now nobody can accuse me of overthinking the passage, right? Here’s how it plays out: Jesus physically and literally gives a blind man his sight. But Jesus uses the healing to point out how spiritually blind the Pharisees are. The blind man is given both kinds of sight - literal and metaphorical. He can literally see Jesus standing in front of him, but he can also “see” who Jesus really is - the Son of God. He has been given physical and spiritual sight. Both senses of Scripture right there in print for us. Not one interpretation or another, it’s both at the same time!

I honestly believe that this is how we should look at most Scriptures. They are not a riddle to be unlocked, they are not merely a literal rendition of history, they are not a metaphorical idea book. Scripture, the written word of God, is the revelation of Jesus, the living Word of God. We can see this on several levels, all of which are valid, and all of which depend on each other. It’s not a question of literal OR metaphorical, but literal AND metaphorical.

The other night a documentary came on PBS that I could’nt miss - it was on Mormonism.  I have a soft spot for Mormons.  They send those sweet little boys around to your house and ask if there is anything they can do for you.  Of course usually it’s me that does for them.  How can you turn them away?  They aren’t allowed to see their own mothers for two years!  They are only allowed to talk to them twice a year!  How can any mother of boys not invite them in for a drink of lemonade (it’s pretty hot where I live), or for supper?  Or buy them Christmas presents?  Okay, maybe I have gone a little overboard at times, but they break my heart.  I know that they are there to “convert” me, but I hope that they leave my city knowing that there is such a thing as a Catholic that loves God, and loves them. 

Anyway, back to the documentary…  I was curious about how PBS would present it.  Would they be cynical and mocking?  Would they include any evangelical balance, or only present it from the Mormon perspective?  I was quite impressed with it.  It felt as though they were trying to give it a fair shake.  There was a little history that they left out, and they didn’t delve very deep into Mormon theology, but overall it was a positive portrayal (I was pleased by this because I kept thinking, what would a documentary on Catholicism look like if done by PBS?  If they did it this way, I would be satisfied.  They wouldn’t have gotten it all right, but maybe they wouldn’t have gotten it all wrong either.).  One thing that I was moved by was some of the Mormon members recollections of “experiences” with God.  I have always been very cynical when it comes to religious experience.  In becoming Catholic I have had to expand my boundaries a bit.  I have become a bit more tolerant of “experience”, but I have certain lines that I refuse to cross and I’m happy to say that Catholicism has the same lines.  But I’m getting ahead of myself… 

In my limited exposure to Mormonism it seems to me that experience plays a big part in their faith.  I have been told by those sweet little Mormon missionaries that if I read the Book of Mormon the Spirit will let me know that it is true.  They insist that I will feel a “burning in the bosom” as I read.  They tell me of their own experiences, their “testimonies”, that are a huge part of the faith.  Mormons don’t go to “church”, they meet together on Sunday and listen to different folks giving their “testimonies”.  They share their “experiences” with each other as encourangement.  I’ve heard some ex Mormon’s say that it’s like peer pressure, if you don’t have a great testimony to share about how great God is and how much evidence there is that He is working in you that they felt the need to make stuff up, or not share any sufferings or trials they were going through.  It seems to me (looking in from the outside) that experience is everything to them.  The main tenets of their faith are built around the idea of revelation from God.  Ongoing revelation.  While we Catholics are restricted to the revelation of Christ and the revelation given to the original Apostles, the Mormon’s have modern revelation.  At least initially, this revelation took the form of visions.  Joseph Smith had visions of God where God told him what to believe.  Later, I’m not sure that these revelations were visions, but Joseph Smith believed that God spoke to Him.  It’s this idea of God speaking in visions that I want to focus on. 

There is plenty of evidence from Scripture that God does indeed speak to people in visions (no matter  how uncomfortable I am with that!).  In converting to Catholicism I had to come to grips with people today who have visions.  Our Lady of Guadeloupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Fatima, and don’t forget Padre Pio.  There’s the Immaculate Heart and the Divine Mercy.  Visions all!  So what makes these visions different from those of Joseph Smith?  How can I believe that God spoke to Saint Bernadette, but not to Joseph Smith?  The difference I believe is in the role of these visions.  For Joseph Smith the vision established a new religion (even if you believe that God was restoring an old religion, you have to accept that the revelations continued to change and evolve, establishing a set of principles and then revoking the same set while establishing a new set and on and on).  The visions and later revelations related to the core of the faith, they set the tenets of the faith.  They were establishing principles - I think it’s fair to say that the Mormon religion was founded on these visions.  While Catholic visions do not deal with the tenets of the faith.  They are not for the changing of doctrine or dogma.  In fact, if the vision suggests a change, then the vision is automatically declared not from God!  To be accepted by the Church, the vision must conform to dogma, not the other way around.  There is no such thing as “new revelation”, not in the same sense as the Mormon understanding.  When a Mormon prophet gets a revelation then a change or clarification on doctrine is immediate (I don’t mean it’s accomplished in 15 minutes, but it is imminent - Joseph Smith received a revelation about polygamy and it took him awhile to incorporate it but it happened within his lifetime.  When Brigham Young received the revelation telling him that polygamy was no longer appropriate, it too was incorporated within a short period of time.).  While after a Catholic vision much time passes before the Church will officially rule on whether they think it’s “valid” or not.  The reason behind this is the Church wants time to investigate.  They want to investigate the vision itself, the person having the vision, but most importantly they want to see what kind of fruit comes from the vision.  For a vision to be declared “valid” (or whatever the official terminology is) it must conform to Church dogma, and it must produce good fruit.  It takes a long time to see fruit, decades and decades sometimes.  And even when the Church makes her official pronouncement, it’s still considered to be a private revelation.  It’s  not binding on the Church as a whole.  All she says is that there is no harm in believing the vision, no harm in practicing whatever devotion it suggests.  But as a Catholic you don’t have to pay any attention to the vision at all! 

This does a cynical heart good to hear.  Although I’m coming around on believing in these things, I’m glad to know that my “authority” is not going to make any decisions based upon someone’s visions! 

When I was in college I was ridiculed for believing in God. The ironic part of this was that I didn’t live a “Christian” life, didn’t impose any kind of belief system on anyone else, so I don’t know why they cared. Why would my friends, and my professors feel the need to convince me of the absurdity of believing in any kind of divine being? I can’t answer that question, but the truth remains - they tried very hard to convince me to give up my faith in God. I looked for reasons to hang onto my faith (it seems strange to even call it “faith”, it was more like a comfortable belief that I’d had since childhood). I asked my Christian friends about why they believed, what defenses they had, etc. I wish I could say that I got answers. The truth is they didn’t have any. They had that same comfortable belief, the reliance on anectdotal promises, that seem to crumble at the feet of my “other” friends challenges. Was there a reasonable basis for belief in God? Was it all a matter of “faith”? That seemed to be the most common answer to my questions - “you must have faith”.  Faith in what?  If there is no rational basis for faith, doesn’t it just become wishing, make believe? How do you answer the legitimate questions from challengers? I finally found friends who could help me. Only, they weren’t the flesh and blood type of friends, they were long dead, but they had left me their thoughts in books. I fell in love with Francis Schaeffer, and through D.A. Carson, others who had thought through these issues. Then when I became Catholic and found Thomas Aquinas, J.H. Cardinal Newman (among many, many others), oh wow! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! None of these questions were new, people had been asking these same questions for centuries!  The problem I have now is that the average Christian isn’t all that familiar with the finer points of say, Aquinas, and if I happen to bring one up I usually get challenged by the very people I worked so hard to stay a part of!!! It seems most people are happier with plattitudes and anectodotes about God then what the greatest minds God has created have to say about Him. The irony of this really gets to me. It’s enough to make one want to climb into a cave and be a hermit - I think I understand those guys now. It seems no matter where I go, I will be challenged.  Why is this?

One of the first questions asked of me from my reformed brethren when they hear about my conversion to Catholicism is about the Eucharist.  “So, do you really believe that the bread and wine is actually Jesus’ body and blood?”  Interestingly, the reformed faith essentially defines the Lord’s Supper in negative terms.  They don’t just define what it is, they define what it is not.  According to the  Westminster Confession of Faith (http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/)  - whose catechism I had to memorize as a child btw – the Lord’s supper is NOT:

A sacrifice

To include adoration of the elements

Transubstantiation or consubstantiation

To be taken to those not able to attend the service

Able to take away sin

In fact transubstantiation is said to be repugnant to Scripture, common sense, and reason. That’s really what I want to talk about.   As far as Scripture goes, I think a cursory reading of John 6 is all that is needed (if Jesus is speaking symbolically about his body being eaten then he must have been referring to his crucifixion symbolically also – you can’t have it both ways!) “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”  But this is not really what the reformers argue with, they argue that no matter how much is seems that Jesus is speaking literally he can’t be because it defies reason.  But does it?  I was taught that transubstantiation was impossible because Jesus is in heaven (with his human body, remember) and he can’t be in more than one place at one time.  He can’t be in heaven, at the right hand of God, and on the altar at the same time. 

When I have questioned other Catholics about this philosophical dilemma, I invariably get the same answer – “that’s ridiculous, of course Jesus can be in more than one place at one time, he is God!”

I was happy to find that Thomas Aquinas doesn’t dismiss the question at all, in fact he agrees with me – Jesus cannot be in more than one place at the same time.  He deals with this apparent dilemma in his Summa Theologica.  Some years later at the Council of Trent the matter was put to rest when the Church officially took Aquinas’ position on the Eucharist.  In fact in the document of Trent is mentioned this “problem” of Jesus being in two places at once.  The council members didn’t say, “hey, the prots are being stupid, of course Jesus can be in two places at once.”  They acknowledged the seeming contradiction and impossibility of his human body being in more than one place at once and said that the problem was solved by Aquinas’ explanation of Jesus being “sacramentally” present  as well as “substantially” present, but not present in such a way as would be repugnant to his natural mode of existing.  So, what in the world does that mean?

To dialogue with Aquinas you need some definitions, so let’s start there.  He uses words that are not that familiar to most of us: substance, accidents, place, conversion, etc.  Now, I’m no expert and I’m sure that there is fault to be found in the way that I understand these terms, but give me a break, okay? 

Substance – this is basically the essence of something.  Take my desk for instance. 

Accidents – this is what something is made up of.  Take my desk again – wood and metal screws.  In the natural world, under natural causes, my desk can’t really be my desk anymore if you take away the wood and metal screws.  But think outside the box for a minute. Separate in your mind my desk (substance) from wood and metal (accidents).  The “deskness” of my desk can be thought of apart from what it’s made of.  This is the substance of my desk.

Conversion – we usually think of this as change (and usually in a spiritual sense), but Scholastically speaking conversion is different than change.  Conversion is more than change.  Conversion is the complete transition from one thing to another. For example when Jesus converted the water into wine – water was completely transformed into wine. One thing made totally into another thing (don’t you just love how scientific my terminology is?).  Both it’s substance and it’s accidents were converted (there is no ‘creation’ involved because the elements already exist). And this is where Transubstantiation starts to get sticky, because we can imagine total conversion – water becomes wine.  We get that it doesn’t happen naturally, but supernaturally, yet it’s still an easy thing to grasp.  But in transubstantiation the substance of bread and wine are converted into the substance of Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity, but the accidents are not so converted.  The accidents of bread remain (wheat and water), but the substance has changed.  “Bread” is gone, but wheat and water remain.  “Jesus” is now substantially present (his accidents are also present in a certain manner of speaking because of the natural combo of these things – but honestly, this is soooo over my head that I’m not going there other than just to state that it is so).  Again, this doesn’t happen naturally, but supernaturally.   God supernaturally converts the substance of bread into the substance of Jesus, but allows the accidents of wheat and water to remain (divorced from their substance).

Place is another tricky definition.  Matter can’t exist in more than one place at the same time.  My desk can’t be in my bedroom and also in my living room.  So how can Jesus (whose glorified human body is made up of matter – and don’t discount the importance of this – Jesus’ body must be a true body in all aspects or the Church’s definitions of his human nature become mixed up with previous heresies) be at the right hand of the Father in heaven (which Scripture tells us he is) and on the altar at the same time?  Aquinas tells us in the answer to objection 3 in question 75, article 1 (I can’t explain this in any other way but to quote him)

Reply to Objection 3. Christ’s body is not in this sacrament in the same way as a body is in a place, which by its dimensions is commensurate with the place; but in a special manner which is proper to this sacrament. Hence we say that Christ’s body is upon many altars, not as in different places, but “sacramentally”: and thereby we do not understand that Christ is there only as in a sign, although a sacrament is a kind of sign; but that Christ’s body is here after a fashion proper to this sacrament, as stated above.

I unfortunately can’t find a clearer definition of what he means here by “sacramentally” present. The Council of Trent uses the same terminology:

CHAPTER I
THE REAL PRESENCE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

First of all, the holy council teaches and openly and plainly professes that after the consecration of bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things. For there is no repugnance in this that our Savior sits always at the right hand of the Father in heaven[3] according to the natural mode of existing, and yet is in many other places sacramentally present to us in His own substance by a manner of existence which, though we can scarcely express in words, yet with our understanding illumined by faith, we can conceive and ought most firmly to believe ispossible to God.[4]

Soooo, Jesus is present in substance under the accidents of wheat and water, but not in a way that violates his very real, very true human nature.  I’ll never completely understand what this means, but I’m glad that the Church took the time to reason it out for me – just one of aspects that I love about my mother – the Church.  She never tells that I’m overthinking an issue, or that I lack faith.  She entertains my questions, takes me seriously, and does the best she can to answer in a way that encompasses both faith and reason.  I love my mama!