Water
Water symbolizes those who have come to Christ through the rite of baptism. Hence, water is a symbol which when writ large represents humanity within ritualistic expressions of Christian faith.
Wine
The most important of these Christian rituals is the rite of the sacrament. This is a rite observed by millions which involves drinking a sip of wine and eating a small bit of bread. The wine symbolizes the blood the Christ.
Dilution of the Wine
This ritual of the sacrament does not usually involves drinking wine in its purest state, however. Water is usually added to the wine because the wine alone is symbolic of the blood of Christ to a state that verges for some into the literal: it is not symbolic blood, but literally the blood of Christ. Water is therefore added to dilute the wine for symbolic reasons which transform the wine of the ritual from simply being the blood of Christ. Since water represents humanity and the blood divinity, the mingling of this dilution becomes the symbol of humans attaining oneself with Christ and sharing His divinity.
Bread
The bread in this sacramental rite is the symbol of Christ’s flesh. The symbolism here is gruesome enough to be easily misunderstood, but it is easily explained. The idea of eating the body or the flesh of Christ symbolically through consumption of the bread is actually more related to the literal bread than the symbolic flesh. One cannot live without bread (food) physically speaking and this ritual’s symbolism is the assertion that one cannot live eternally without consuming the belief in Jesus as lord and savior.
Article 9
Within the context of all this devotion to the symbolism of the sacrament, it is exceedingly ironic than entire section of Summa Theologica is devoted to the issue of the suitability of symbolism for expressing articles of faith. Objection 1 ends with the following assertion: “Therefore it was unlawful to make a symbol as a rule of faith, after the Holy Writ had once been published.” The rest of Article 9 proceeds to thoroughly debate the issue of symbolism as expressions of articles of faith.
