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Maura McTighe
Heart of the Matter
Fr. Wathier
13 December 2017
Final Paper

Throughout this entire semester, we have been reading different novels

by inspirational Catholic people.  We have learned about their personal lives

and how it is reflected in their writings.  We have also learned about people the

students in the class thought were inspirational.  There was one thing that all

these admirable people had in common, they all related to the themes of the

course.  Although each person and novel had its own themes, there were three

overall themes that were found in every person and novel.  The overall themes

of this course were mediation, sacramentality, and communion.  

The themes in this course are very relevant to everything we talked

about.  The first theme is mediation.  Mediation is when God comes to us

through others.  An example of mediation is Jesus Christ.  Jesus was put on

Earth to preach the good news of God.  The next theme we learned was

sacramentality.  Sacramentality is an invisible sign of invisible grace.  Anything

could be an example of sacramentality if you make the connection to God in it.

The last theme of this course is communion.  Communion is when someone

strengthens their union with Christ or one of Christ’s followers.  An example of

Communion is coming together as a family through your shared religion.  

One theme that all of the novels shared with each other was the theme of

self-discovery.  In Flannery O’Connor’s short novel The Displaced Person, I

believe that Mrs. McIntyre ended up finding herself in this novel.  I think that
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Mrs. McIntyre was the one who found herself in this story because of the way

things ended.  After Mr. Guziac’s death, there was no one left to be with Mrs.

McIntyre.  She suffered from a breakdown.  She rarely has guests besides the

priest once a week.  I think that this shows the theme of self-discovery,

because of the fact she was left with no one.  I believe that since she was so

against ever having help from Mr. Guizac that this was kind of time for her to

find herself and connect herself with God.  I think that there are also examples

of the themes of the course in this situation.  I think that this could be an

example of both mediation and communion.  I think that this could be

mediation because the priest would come to her and visit and read the Bible to

her.  I think that this could also be communion because she strengthens her

bond with Christ, and she is finding herself and strengthening that bond.  

Another example of this is from Evelyn Waugh’s book Vile Bodies.  I

think out of the three novels, this was the most important lesson learned.  In

his novel, he related it to his own life experiences.  In the novel the main

characters we meet are a part of a group called the Bright Young Things.  The

motto of this group was something along the lines of “drinking rather than

thinking.”  These bright young things were mostly people with money and or

status who used a lot of drugs and drank a lot.  Waugh was considered to be a

part of this group in his youth.  But he ended up finding himself more and who

he truly wanted to be.  Like Waugh, these people had to get their lives together.

This theme goes more along with the author finding himself than the

characters in the novel.  I think that Waugh’s reasoning behind writing this
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novel was as a preview of what could have happened to him.  He discovered

himself more through this novel.  He discovered that if he did not change, he

could have ended up in a similar situation as any of his characters.  These

people in his novel were not even capable of keeping each other alive and well.

Through this novel, I think that Waugh showed communion.  Through his

conversion into the Catholic Church, he became a new person.  Although, his

years of abuse as a youth affected him later on in life, he still had time to bond

with Christ and make a strong connection.  

The last author we talked about in this class was Graham Greene.  In his

novel, The Power in the Glory, we meet the main character.  This character,

known as the whiskey priest, was not the best person to look up to, despite

being a priest.  This character was a prime example of the theme of self-

discovery.  When we first meet the priest, he was proud of being a priest so he

didn’t flee like the others.  Although he could seem honorable for doing that, he

wasn’t.  Yes performing priestly duties during this time could have gotten him

killed, but that was not the reason he refused to do them.  The whiskey priest

did not perform the actions because he didn’t feel it was necessary.  Later, as

the novel goes on the priest discovers himself more.  The priest was told that

he was not good enough to die a martyr and that he didn’t deserve to die one.  I

think that this was the turning point for the priest.  After this comment was

made, we found the priest putting aside his old habits and doing what a priest

needed to do.  Although some of his actions were still questionable, he was still

finding the good in himself.  The priest was helping others and finally doing
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priestly duties.  Towards the end of the novel we are told the views of the priest

dying from different perspectives.  I believe that the whiskey priest did end up

finding the true meaning of him being put on earth by God.  In my humble

opinion, I think that he did die a martyr because he did end up finding his true

self.  This is also an example of communion, because as mentioned earlier in

this paper, he was strengthening his bond with Christ while also finding

himself.  

Like the authors of the novels read in this class, many individuals from

our individual presentations different understanding of Catholicism reflected

their work and how they lived their lives.  Besides our authors, Clare Boothe

Luce, Vince Lombardi and Saint John Paul II were three influential stories that

talked about their understanding of Catholicism.  These people have used their

connections with God, to get to where they wanted and needed to be.  In some

way, mediation has affected the lives of all these people.  Through mediation of

some sort, they had communion by strengthening the bond with themselves,

one of Christ’s followers or with Christ himself.  

The first person I thought was affected by the mediation in their life was

Clare Luce Boothe.  I think that the first sign of mediation was when her

daughter passed away.  Shortly after the death she turned to find comfort.  She

ended up finding some sort of comfort from a priest.  This later lead to her

conversion.  Another example of mediation in her life was the impact that she

left on people.  I think that converting to Catholicism changed her life for the

better.  She left her previous passion of politics to do something she felt
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stronger about.  I think that mediation that affected her the most was the

message of her daughter’s death and getting comfort from the priest.  

The next person we talked about was Vince Lombardi.  Vince Lombardi is

well known for being the former head coach of the Green Bay Packers, but in

this situation that is not what he is known the best for.  I think that Lombardi

grew up with constant mediation around him.  In the presentation, we learned

that he was brought up with the 3 Fs.  The three Fs are faith, family and

football.  I think that this is mediation because his family and parents

engraved the importance of these in their life.  I think that this is an example of

receiving mediation.  But, he became the mediator of this message later on in

his life.  He expressed the importance of this to his teams later on in life when

he became a coach.  The importance of this example is the fact that his parents

stressed how important their faith was while growing up.  Then, he took that

message and stressed how important it was for his team to follow that model.  

The last person that had mediation as a huge part of their life was Saint

John Paul II.  I think that Saint John Paul II was the best example as a

mediator we learned about in this course. I think that he is the best example

because he was the Pope.  The Pope is the highest up mediator that the

Catholic Church has.  I think that through his life he realized that he was put

on this earth to be a mediator.  When he was in his twenties, he realized that

he was meant to be in the priesthood.  This was just the start of his life as a

mediator.  
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The last theme of this class was sacramentality.  Throughout the novels

and the individual presentations, we were finding examples of sacramentality.

Sacramentality was a hard thing to recognize in some of the situations, due to

the fact in different situations anything could have been sacramentality.  

In the Flannery O’Connor short stories there were many examples of

sacramentality.  One specific example was in her short story Parkers Back.  In

this story O’Connor describes a scene where the main character is going to get

a tattoo trying to make his wife happy again and love him more.  He thought

that since his wife was such a religious person, getting Christ’s face tattooed to

his back would make them happy with each other again.  This made him find

out more about himself, not bring him closer to his wife.  He finally realized

that the person he really didn’t know was himself.  He realized the agape that

God has for him and the agape he has for himself.  

In the novel, The Power and the Glory, there were also many signs of

sacramentality.  One example of sacramentality that is seen throughout the

entire novel is that there is still good even in the ugliest situations.  This was

prominent in the novel because there are many ugly situations that are

highlighted.  The whiskey priest seems to be in an ugly situation the entire

novel due to the fact all of the priests were being killed.  But, this showed us

that God is still present with us in the worst times.  I think that this was a very

important theme of the novel due to the fact that the priest was in a difficult

time the entire novel.  Another example was when the priest felt separated from
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God’s grace by mortal sin.  Although this is the opposite of the definition of

sacramentality, it still represents the meaning behind it in this novel.  He

noticed that he felt separated was the most important part of this novel.  

Throughout the entire semester, we have tied together connections made

between influential people, our novels, and the themes of the course.

Communion was shown in the novels through the common theme of self-

discovery. Mediation was shown through the conversions and finding

themselves in the Catholic Church and finding their voices. Sacramentality

was shown through the novels themselves. This course has taught me how to

make these connections and form stronger bonds with God through these

themes.