Receive what you are: Chrysostom and Augustine in 1662

A Twitter exchange today led to this article by Schmemann. Included in the article was a wonderful Chrysostom quote concerning the Eucharist: He mixed Himself with us and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head. This, of course, is also a repeated theme in Augustine : That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive - Sermon 227; And therefore receive and eat the body of Christ, yes, you that have become members of Christ in the body of Christ - Sermon 228b; What you receive is what you yourselves are, thanks to the grace by which you have been redee...