99. s. 229.1; Hill, Sermons (III/6), 265; emphasis mine.
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 225 ally eaten, spiritually drunk in very truth."98 The sacraments are neither magic nor instantly transformative. They must be received in a spirit of truth, lived out in the spirit of love.
We again see how the Spirit unites believers to the body of Christ. Having just seen how the major ecclesial construct for Augustine is the "whole Christ," this should not surprise us. The "whole Christ" is constituted by the spiritual incorporation of the saints into the perfect humanity of the mediator Jesus Christ and thus brought into contact with living divinity. The conuersio of all creation becomes the communio of the faithful as Christ draws them into his own sacrifice, not as mere spectators but as participants in this supreme act of worship: "because he also suffered for us, he also presented us in this sacrament with his body and blood, and this is what he even made us ourselves into as well."99 Through the Eucharistic sacrifice, Christ continues to be with his faithful on earth, thus uniting them to his offering of self to the Father and even, as Augustine stresses, make the Father into his own self.
In fact, Augustine sees the same unity between the Father and the Son in the union between the Son's sacred flesh and its recipient. Interpreting John 6:57 Eucharistically, he argues that the life that the Father gives the Son is transmitted from the Son to those who approach his body and blood. Christ is thus depicted as saying:
That I may live because of the Father, that is, that I may refer my life to that so much greater one, my emptying in which he sent me effected that, but that anyone may live because of me, his participation by eating me effects that. And so I live, humbled, because of the Father; he (i.e., the recipient), elevated, lives because of me.100
98. s. 131.1; Hill, Sermons (III/4), 316–17: "Manduca uitam, bibe uitam, habebis uitam et integra est uita. Tunc autem hoc erit, id est, uita unicuique erit corpus et sanguis Christi: si quod in sacramento uisibiliter sumitur, in ipsa ueritate spiritualiter manducetur, spiritualiter bibatur."; PL 28.729.
99. s. 229.1; Hill, Sermons (III/6), 265; emphasis mine. 100. Jo. eu. tr. 26.19; Rettig, Tractates, 2.275.