The two great sacraments are baptism and the Eucharist. On these two sacraments depends our whole salvation, for in them is recapitulated the complete theandric dispensation. The sacrament of baptism is the beginning of man s deification and regeneration in Christ. Baptism is the rebirth of man into the life of God. Christ has become his adopted father and man as taken on Christ.
Baptism foreshadows the eschatology of the last day.
The resurrection of the soul takes place in the present life and as such precedes the resurrection of the body, which will take place on the last day. In the sacrament of the Eucharist man is united with the flesh of Christ and becomes one body with him. This communion is a foreshadowing of the life to come. Man s deification is not simply a gift to be conferred in the future but a living reality in present existence. The deification of the flesh happens repeated in the sacrament of the body of Christ.