John Colet on the Sacraments

On the spiritual contemplation of the sacred Chrism.

GOD is in Christ, Christ in the sacraments, the sacraments in men, for their temporal death here, that men by those same sacraments may be initiated in Christ and God, for their eternal life.  Every descent of the divinity is for the ascent of humanity: every descent is for mortification, that there may be a resurrection to life.  God was made man, that he might die for men, and ordain sacraments of mortification for them that believe in him; mortification, I say, of faithful men, that they may live immortally in God.  All the sacraments, as Dionysius the Areopagite teaches, work our assimilation to God; and this cannot be, unless at the same time they work our mortification in ourselves, that God may live in us.  In the sacraments therefore we ourselves die, that Christ may live in us.

Through death we pass to life; through the death of death, that is, to the life of life.  Through sacraments of mortification, in all of which there is the death and cross of Christ, we pass to Christ himself the giver of life; that in them we being crucified, dead, and "buried with Christ," may stand forth purified, illumined and perfected in him; rising again, as it were from the dead, living in Christ, purified by his sacraments, in which is the virtue of the death and cross of Christ; by which sacraments we "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts," (Gal. v. 24.) that the virtue of the Spirit may live in us.  All things were first in Christ, and from him come all things to us.  In him is humility, death, sanctification of himself, an ensample to others, that they may die righteous.  In St. John he says, "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." (I Joh. xvii. 9) He, the holy one, sanctified others, that they, being holy, might sanctify yet others: he gave an ensample of holiness to men.  From him flow all things, which are previously in himself.  He, being purified, makes pure; being sanctified, he sanctifies; being perfected, he makes perfect.  He is our Telete, that is, our sanctification and perfection.  Since the Chrism makes perfect, it was therefore called Telete by our forefathers.  Extreme Unction is the consummation of our Christianity.  In anointing there is an emblem of Christianizing: from the fulness of anointing, Jesus is called Christ; in whom all that are his are anointed.

— John Colet (1467-1519), Two Treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius (J. H. Lupton, tr.; London: Bell and Daldy, 1869), 'On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy', Chapter IV, Part III.

Colet, famous Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, was one of the leading Renaissance humanists in England, and a correspondent of Erasmus; in this commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, he demonstrates at once his belonging to the mainstream of mediæval European theological piety, which delighted in the works of the Areopagite (St Albert the Great and St Thomas Aquinas both wrote commentaries on the same), and his deep appreciation of the sacraments as God's works in Christ to divinize man.

Today He is Reborn in the Sacraments

My dirty little secret: I've gone back to using the modern Divine Office for the last week or so (but did Epiphany according to the Breviary).  It's the shape of things to come – I'll be joining friends of mine for Lauds and Compline according to the modern Liturgy of the Hours on a regular basis once I get back to Perth from holidays.  When I can, I mix and match the parts in Latin and English, since I have both the Latin original and the English version of the Office.

Anyhow, frankly it's nice to return to what I've been used to (and a great reduction in time and effort, which sounds bad!), despite the great appeal and attraction of the '62 Breviary, which I've treasured over the past three months.  I always knew this would happen, because there was no way with full time work I'd be able to keep it up anyhow.

One joy has been getting back to the Patristic gems in the Office: Friday's passage taken from Sermon 100, on the Epiphany, by St Maximus of Turin, contained the pregnant phrase [Dominus] hodie renatus est sacramentis ("today he [the Lord] is reborn in the sacraments"): this is said in reference to the Theophany, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, whereby He, the Holy One, sanctified the waters and made them fit for the later administration of baptism to all who shall come to believe; but in a deeper sense Christ is reborn in all the sacraments – for the purpose, the final cause of them all is the engendering of Christ in those who receive them in faith, that the Christus totus, Christ, Head and members, be built up, that Christ may be all in all and the Divine Image restored in man, that the last Adam may bear the likeness of the first Adam, that man may be Christified and made sharer in the Divine Nature.  For only if Christ be born in us and live in us and depart not from us are we redeemed and saved.