However, it is the starting point and subsequent Communions can, if we cooperate with the Sanctifying Grace it gives us, make us more Christlike as we continue to live the Sacramental life.
Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ: to them that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness are given us through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.
4 By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.
Several readers above (including myself) come to the same conclusion that the author is conflating communion with full theosis at several points in the article.
Is this an error on the part of the readers, or the writer?
If several people in a room hear you say something you didn't intend, it doesn't indicate that you believe what they heard, but it may mean you could have communicated your thoughts a little more clearly so people aren't easily left with false impressions.
I personally think what Ratzinger wrote is mostly pretty good, but it would be much better if he had qualified his statements more clearly to contrast this (partial, progressive) transformation with a complete one. At no point in the article does Ratzinger firmly emphasize that this transformation is partial, or a gradual progression. Several statements leave the reader with the opposite impression.
I don't think for a second that Ratzinger believes communion brings us to full theosis -- but I think his writing unfortunately leaves the reader with some false impressions and ideas. It is important to express these things very clearly, to avoid confusion.
It just needs to be cleaned up a little. With more clear qualifications of his statements, it would be in the same spirit of as the writings of the holy fathers.
"Of course, Card Ratzinger did not say what Kosta reread him to have said. No Catholic ever thought First Comunion/Eucharist immediately transformed us into Christ-like beings."
Now you see, I read him to be saying just that, as did Kosta and Mount Athos at a minimum saw how his writing could be read that way. To tell you the truth, my reading was influenced no doubt by what the nuns taught us as children back in the pre Vatican II days. I remember Sister Mary Whoever telling us that after communion our souls were perfectly white and that if we got hit by a bus crossing the street after Mass, we'd go straight to heaven. Of course, we were maybe 8 years old and she was no theologian, but it appears that at least the image stuck in one little Greek boy.
I see your point about the rejection of grace; that's Orthodox and I had always assumed that an "orthodox belief" in the nature of the Eucharist was necessary for its salvic properties to be efficacious (otherwise "unworthy" reception?).
What about +Ratzinger's comments on the Eucharist as "the" or "a" defining element of the Church, and is he using the term the same way Father Thomas is, which is to say expansively?
+Ratzinger says "It is not we who assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become in a certain way “conformed to Christ”, as Paul says, members of his body, one in him."
So, according to the Roman Catholic Church, we misteriously "become" like Christ when we take the Divine Gifts (besides, the RCs partake only of the Body)? Is this something permanent? Does it last one second, five minutes, until you get to the car after church, or what? How long are we made "Christ-like"?
Assimilating into Christ is our hope, which, by definition, is faith [Heb 11:1], not an act of instant transformation. We are told to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect [Mt 5:48], which in the original Greek is a future imperative and not something that happens now. The Eucharist helps us along, it feeds our souls as it purifies us, unclean beings, and relieves our soul from burden of our transgressions, lest it be tarnished forever by them, just as the soap cleans our bodies and prevents them from becoming diseased. It wipes clean our errors, for we know that no sooner have we taken the Divine Gifts we will commit sin again. It is sustenance, our spiritual staple which, like food, helps us grow into mature and healthy beings.
At the moment of consecration, the bread and wine attain the state of pristine cleanliness that only His Body and Blood can have and therefore become His Body and Blood. Nothing else is like it. Nothing.
That's why the Novus Ordo habit of dropping the host into someone's hands before it is consumed is an unthinkable act of desecration, but given that our understanding of the Eucharist seems light years apart, you will no doubt call this observation an "error" as well.
Transformation into a Christ-like being is a life-long process. It cannot be attained instantly and permanently by taking a spiritual "pill." It's a life style in faith and constant prayer, constant confession, constant repentance, constant asking for forgiveness, and constant awareness that as long as we live on earth we will have the propensity to sin and shut out God.