1 Cor. 15:45-49
The Mass
Godfrey Diekmann, OSB
A Christian is a person who has been given a Share in the Divinity of Jesus Christ and whose nature is no longer solely Human but is now, like Jesus and through Jesus, God/Human.
Only three people have been BORN with the nature of God/Human. Jesus and His Mother Mary, both of whom were also CONCEIVED as God/Human (but not in the same way), and Jesus' cousin John, who was not conceived as God/Human but who ACQUIRED the nature of God/Human while in his mother, Elizabeth's, womb when she had a visit from Mary when she was expecting Jesus.
Jesus was conceived as God/Human in the manner of Himself as God creating and taking upon Himself the new nature of God/Human. His Mother Mary was conceived as God/Human in the manner of (the most appropriate) one of us receiving a Share in the Divinity of her Son, Jesus Christ. She is the Perfect Christian.
Every one of us can also ACQUIRE the nature of God/Human by "freely choosing" to accept our Share in the Divinity of Jesus Christ through the method given to us by Him, Baptism.
In particular, I would draw your attention to two passages which I now quote here.
Firstly,
The charter of our adoption is properly recorded by St. Paul (Romans 8; Ephesians 1; Galatians 4); St. John (Prologue and I Epistle 1, 3); St. Peter (I Epistle 1); and St. James (I Epistle 1). According to these several passages we are begotten, born of God. He is our Father, but in such wise that we may call ourselves, and truly are, His children, the members of His family, brothers of Jesus Christ with whom we partake of the Divine Nature and claim a share in the heavenly heritage. This divine filiation, together with the right of co-heritage, finds its source in God's own will and graceful condescension.
and secondly,
In spite of all the catechetic and polemic uses to which the Fathers put this dogma, they left it in no clearer light than did their predecessors, the inspired writers of the distant past. The patristic sayings, like those of Holy Scripture, afford precious data for the framing of a theory, but that theory itself is the work of later ages.
If the notion of sanctifying grace as the supernatural life of the soul is now clear, we are in a position to understand another idea which is part and parcel of that "mature Catholicism" described in the previous chapter. This is the idea of the "Mystical Body of Christ". We must understand that it is only through the Mystical Body that we acquire our personal share in the divine life; and that it is within the Mystical Body that our personal activities in the supernatural order can come to fruition.
'Christian, remember your baptism'. (1997 address from Fr. Godfrey Diekmann)
Diekmann says hold fast to hope. (Vatican II figure Godfrey Diekmann)
and the following Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII -
It seems extraordinary that a Dogmatic definition of such a pivotal issue remains outstanding.