Isabella Douglas

9 February 2021

The Displaced Person

1.

In Michael Himes, The Mystery of Faith, we learn about a very important aspect

regarding the trinity. We discover, or are further introduced to mediation, sacramentality, and

communion when Himes discusses St. Augustine’s proposal to the three by saying, “From all

eternity God is the Lover who gives Godself away perfectly; and the Beloved who accepts being

loved and returns it perfectly; and the Love, the endless, perfect bond of mutual self-gift uniting

the Lover and Beloved” (Himes 8). This quote from Michael Himes is a great example of what

mediation, sacramentality, and communion are and how they all connect. What Himes does in

this quote is he uses specific wording to describe each of these terms. During the class

presentation, we learned further the words he uses to describe mediation, sacramentality, and

communion.

First, as we see in our presentation from class, when Himes says, “God is the lover who

gives Godself away perfectly”, and then says the lover “returns it perfectly”, he is laying down

the foundation for mediation (Himes 8). Mediation is God, the lover, giving Himself and His

complete love away to us, the beloved, and us giving God our love back to Him. When Himes

says, “the Beloved who accepts being loved”, we can see this as being sacramentality. This is

because sacramentality is, as quoted in the presentation, “Noticing, receiving, and celebrating the

mediation of God’s self-gift”(Himes and Osheim). When we talk about sacramentality we also

need to know that a large part of this is accepting how God is everywhere in creation. When
Himes says, “the endless, perfect bond of mutual self-gift uniting the Lover and Beloved”(Himes

8). Communion as described by the presentation is, “The union resulting from the mutual giving

and receiving of agape love”(Osheim). While these terms are important because they regard the

trinity and what is happening inside the trinity, we also should acknowledge how they apply

outside the trinity as well. One important word we can use to describe this is grace. This

especially applies to mediation. As Himes states, “When God chooses to give Godself outside

the Trinity, we speak about grace”(Himes 11). So we can connect this other key term to what we

have learned about mediation and understand how while mediation applies to what happens in

the trinity, it also applies to what happens outside.

So then there is the question of how these three terms connect. A good answer to this is

that they are connected through relation to the trinity. Like I mentioned before, while Himes is

using this quote to talk about the trinity, he is also mentioning how mediation, sacramentality,

and communion play a role, while not explicitly stating it in his writing. Another thing to

mention, is that these three terms connect when we discuss agape love, which Himes likes to

translate as “self-gift”(Himes 6). Agape love refers to love that is centered around friendship and

is about giving your whole self to the receiver. We can connect this to mediation, sacramentality,

and communion by looking again at what the terms mean, and then looking again at Himes

quote. Mediation is God giving his full love away to us, and us giving that love back to Him. Not

only that, but we also should acknowledge that mediation is the love we give to others as well,

and that love they give back to us. The love we give to others through mediation and the love

they give back can be acknowledged as agape love. Sacramentality is receiving God’s gift of

love and celebrating that gift. And finally, communion is giving and receiving agape love. These

three terms all have to do with agape love between us and God.
 Finally, there is another connection between the three terms that you have to look closely

at to find. For sacramentality, you need to focus on mediation, as that is God giving His love to

us. We acknowledge and accept His love, or his mediation. For communion, you need both

sacramentality and mediation to make it work. While many might not see that connection right

away when learning what these three terms mean, it is present when examining further, and

important. You simply cannot have just one or another, you need all of them as they work

together.

2.

When analyzing Himes quote which states, “The church’s role is not merely to tell us

about the mysteries of Christian faith; rather, living in the church is itself a mystery of the

Christian faith. Our capacity to live together as a community of people with mutual forgiveness

and deep concern for the well being of all members of the community and our desire to spread

that community to all our brothers and sisters are how we come to know what the word ‘God’

means”, we can look at some central ideas from the chapter and the rest of the book to get a

better understanding of what Himes is implying (Himes 45).

When thinking about what the word “God” means, we can look at a quote in another

chapter of Mystery of Faith where Himes states, “Consider this: In the classic Christian

definition of the meaning of the word “God,” we do not say that God is a lover. Nor do we say

that God is one who loves or experiences love or experiences love or possesses love. We say that

God is the peculiar kind of love known as agape, perfect self-gift”(Himes 7). What I believe

Himes is stating is that to know God, we must accept this agape love, and to share that love with

others. If we share agape love with others, God will be among us. Himes states, “Jesus tells his

hearers that if they love one another agapically, the Father and he will dwell in them”(Himes 8).
 To understand what Himes is implying with this quote, it is also important to understand

Himes central argument in this chapter. Himes starts off this chapter by acknowledging the

question that many christians and Catholics have which is, “why do we need a church?”(Himes

39). With this question, we get an understanding of what his central argument is which is why

we need a church. His first reason in summary, is best said when Himes states, “Christianity is a

report, a Gospel, ‘good news’, and news requires that someone bring the news to us. The first

reason that a community of persons is intrinsic to Christianity is that we need to hear the news

from someone else”(Himes 40). We need a church because we need to know the good news and

the best way for that to happen is for a community of believers to come together to share that

news.

The second reason Himes explains why we need a church centers around community,

which is a recurring word in the main quote we are analyzing. When Himes talks about

community, he explains how it is necessary in regards to the church and understanding what the

word God means. We are unable to fully understand God if we do not develop a sense of

community. In Mystery of Faith, Himes brings up the story of the Good Samaritan and how that

relates to how we need a sense of community to know God. Himes states, “Notice that at least

part of the parables point is that, if you think that worshiping God is more important than helping

your neighbor, you do not know what it means to worship God”(Himes 43). I believe Himes is

stating that helping your neighbor and being in community with one another is to love and

understand God. We can then relate this to reconciliation, and take into account what Himes

writes towards the end of his book. We tend to just believe that when we go to reconciliation, we

are only forgiven by God and are then brought back with God. However, when we go to

confession, we are not only to be reunited with God, but we are to be also reunited with our
community. This is perfectly summed when Himes says, “Thus, when we come to the sacrament

of reconciliation, we are not only reconciled with God but with the church, the rest of the

community”(Himes 82).