111. s. 272; Hill, Sermons (III/7), 300; PL 38.1247. (continued)
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 231
So if it's you that are the body of Christ and its members, it's the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the Lord's table; what you receive is the mystery that means you. It is to what you are that you reply Amen, and by so replying you express your assent. What you hear, you see, is The Body of Christ, and you answer, Amen. So be a member of the body of Christ, in order to make that Amen true.111
The Christian's Eucharistic "Amen" corroborates his or her free membership in the Christus totus. The Amen we utter in fact is a sign of our dignity in Christ, the affirmation of our adoption and recognition of the great ransom paid for us in the body and blood which are available only in the sacrament of the altar.112
Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to illuminate the process by which creaturely sanctification can take place only as a process realized in the church of Christ. Only here can both the Son and the Spirit transform creatures: the Son through his sacraments and the Spirit through enabling true charity. As we saw in chapter 3 deification is possible only through the flesh of the enfleshed Son. While explicit language of deificare and its cognates is never used apart from the incarnation, chapter 5 argued that one of the conditions for a human person to become a homo spiritualis is that he or she be incorporated into and guided by God's church. In this way, we can say that Christian deification is always communal and sacramental for Augustine. The filial life of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit must be communicated to their created members. The lives of the divine persons must somehow be extended to the lives of rational creatures, and for this end God founded a collective body of praise beginning with the good angels. The church is thus the place where God gathers in his elect and offers them a type of union available nowhere else.
111. s. 272; Hill, Sermons (III/7), 300; PL 38.1247. 112. Cf. en. Ps. 32, exp. 2.4.