I suppose the answer one has to give is that no one understands; it is one of those mysteries of our faith. It is the greatest and the most profound mystery of our faith. It is in a caliber with the question of how can God, who is outside of time, is not bound by time, how can God who is infinite contain Himself in the finite? How can a God who is eternal, without beginning or end, become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, in time. In other words, how can the container be placed inside of the container? That is the question we are dealing with. To begin to describe how we look at that theologically--and it's good always that we have these kinds of basic questions to discuss, because they reinforce for us elements of our faith, and her question is an essential element of our faith, that gives us a deeper understanding and a deeper appreciation of our faith--to understand this we need to deal with certain philosophical points.

 The first point we need to deal with is how do I come to know something? In what way do we learn? Basically there are three ways in which each one of us learns. We learn by someone telling us that something is so, and we call that faith. We believe something because the person who tells us is a truthful person, one who would not lead us astray, who has a certain veracity or truthfulness. And through experience or simply because of who the person is we have come to have trust, confidence, faith in that person. Now when that knowledge that is given to us by faith is on a natural level, we call it natural faith. When it is a knowledge which is above nature, supernatural, "supra natura" in Latin, above the ordinary realm of human knowledge, we call that divine revelation, we call that divine faith. So the first way I know something is by someone who tells me something of which I say "This person is truthful, this person is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and therefore I accept it." And if you reflect on your own life, there are many things that we accept on natural faith. The photographer who went to the Fermi lab in Chicago at the event of the first splitting of the atom, said to Dr. Fermi, "Now Dr. Fermi, I would like to get three photographs. I would like to get a photograph of you holding the atom whole; I would like to have a photograph of you having a half of each atom in each palm after it has been split; and thirdly I would like to get a photograph of the process of splitting the atom." And Dr. Fermi said to the photographer, "I'm sorry; you won't see the atom. You'll have to take my word for it that it exists." That's faith.

 A second way that we learn is by experience. If I experience something then I know by experience. I don't know it because someone has told me that; I don't know it because I have reasoned it; I know it because I experienced it. If I get burned too many times by touching the burners on the electric stove in the Rectory, I am going to come to the conclusion eventually that when the sign says, "On" and the light is on, there's heat there. I learn it by experience.

Another way I can know something is by reason, and it's what Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's marvelous detective, refers to when he says, "The little gray cells work, I have to let the little gray cells work." We deduce or we induce something.

So keep in mind those three ways that we come to have knowledge, and all of us have knowledge in those three ways. Whether we think about it often, we acquire knowledge in those three ways.

Now another thing that we have to keep in mind is a very important philosophical point, what we call the difference between the accidents and the substance of things. There are in this church this morning on the floor of the nave four tables. There is one up here in front of Donald; there is one in the back behind Dan. There is one to the side of Herb and there is one in front of Herb. All four of those tables are of different sizes, different heights, different shapes, different colors, different wood. Each is of a distinct design. And yet there is something about each one of those that allows us to say, "That is a table." That is what we call "tableness," the essence of table--tableness. The accidents are the design, the wood, the color, the shape, the weight, whatever else is accidental. But still, if we take away or change those accidents, we can still recognize it as table, because it has the quality of tableness. Those are what we call the accidents. If I look at each one of you this morning, I see differences in clothing, shape, color, hair (or lack of hair), eyes, spectacles (or lack of spectacles), height, width, weight--these are accidents. And yet I look at each one of you and I say that each of you is a person, because you have the substance of personhood about you.

 Now let us go to the Eucharist: we come to know that Christ is present in the Eucharist, not because we experience it, not because we can reason it out. We come to know that Christ is present in the Eucharist because Christ reveals it to us. And the classic place in which He reveals it to us is in Chapter 6 of John's gospel: "I am the Bread of Life. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting. If you do not eat my flesh or do not drink my blood you shall not have life everlasting." And toward the end of that chapter 6, when people said, "This is a harsh teaching, who can accept it?"--and many walked away--Jesus did not run after them and say, "Come back, folks, you misunderstood me." They understood Him perfectly well, and He also knew and understood perfectly well that it was not an easy doctrine to accept. It had to be accepted on faith, on the fact that He was truthful, on the fact that you could have trust and confidence in Him, on the fact that He was the very source of life. That's how we know it, by faith.

 Now how do we try to describe what it is, or what happens? (And always remember that when we describe something that is based on faith, especially supernatural faith, we always fall short of the truth. I think one of the most surprising events for all of us is when we die and go to Heaven, and we find out God isn't the God that we created in our own image and likeness, that God is greater than we can imagine.) Now how do I try to explain it? Here I come to this philosophical difference between accidents and substance. The wafer of bread, or the various wafers of bread that are on the table to my right--they are of a certain size, of a certain weight, of a certain shape, and they are simply flour and water put together and baked.  (By the way, it's not an easy process to make an altar bread; I know, because for years I was the altar bread baker in the monastery, and you might think it would be the easiest thing to do, but it takes an awfully stupid man to make an altar wafer and to do it well.)  But the characteristics of the wafer--those are accidents. Theologically to explain how the Eucharist comes about, how Christ comes to be present in the Eucharist in what we call the matter of the Sacrament, is transubstantiation.  It is a word developed by the Church simply to say what it says--"trans" is Latin for "across"; "substantio" is substance. It means "a crossing over of substances." When the priest recites the words of consecration, the substance ceases to be bread (in the case of the Host), but becomes the body and blood of Jesus present in that bread, body and soul, humanity and divinity, body and blood--truly present there under the signs of that wafer of bread. The accidents remain the same, but our faith tells us that the substance changes. The accidents are still the accidents of bread, but our faith tells us that the substance, the breadness, ceases to be and the essence of Jesus, glorified, risen, humanity, divinity, body and soul, becomes present. And the same is true in the wine.

You may say, "How can that be?" That's where faith comes in. I can't tell you how that can be. All I can tell you is, I believe it. I believe it because Jesus says that is what happens: "Do this in remembrance of me."

It was a marvelous question that that young woman asked. It touches a deep truth of our faith, the most essential element of our faith, the greatest element of our faith. Without the Eucharist, what are we? If the Eucharist would cease to be, the whole nature of our faith, the whole nature of our church would change. That is why ordained priesthood is so essentially important to the Church. If you take away the ordained priesthood, we have no Eucharist. And just think what would happen if you come here Sunday morning and there is no Eucharist--only music, only words, only a homily. The greatest truth, the most profound Sacrament that we have is the Eucharist, because in the Eucharist God becomes present on our altars, and by partaking in that Eucharist He becomes present within us. Our bodies then become the Tabernacle where God in his Eucharistic presence, at least for a few minutes, resides. One can understand why Paul would say, "You must not desecrate the human body, because it is the temple of the Lord." Jesus in His Eucharistic presence, resides there, while His Eucharist presence remains.