We said yesterday that there's a three-fold division in Aquinas' sacramental thinking.

This is based on the typical medieval schema. The Sacrament and Tantam are the signs of a given

sacrament, water poured over the baby's head or bread and wine in the case of the Eucharist.

The rest of sacramentum is like the first proper effect. In this case, the transubstantiated host and chalice.

And then there's the second proper effect, which is the grace of the Eucharist in the life of the church, which we're going to look at.

Yesterday we alluded briefly, we spent just a very brief amount of time on the first of those three, the sacrament

and tantum, the signs themselves, why is it appropriate that God uses bread and wine? And we said

there are lots of reasons of fittingness, biblical fittingness, and I didn't even give you all

the things he says, because he talks about how bread is the food that's the most sustaining, it's a staple

like rice. Rice and bread are

staples. They're sustaining their most fundamental.

Wine is what's most joyous

and celebratory, so the Eucharist is both

what's most fundamental and what's most

ultimate. So, you know, Aquinas writes a lot

about the signs, but we just

kind of ran through it,

partly because if you reread it,

question 74 is pretty accessible.

I mean, you can kind of work through that kind of stuff.

But really harder is question 75 on now what we're going to do today,

the rest at Sacramento.

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