Our Mediator

It is a great question among men, whether man can be mortal and blessed. Some, taking the humbler view of his condition, have denied that he is capable of blessedness so long as he continues in this mortal life. Others, again, have spurned this idea, and have been bold enough to maintain that, even though mortal, men may be blessed by attaining wisdom. But if this be the case, why are not these wise men constituted mediators between miserable mortals and the blessed immortals, since they have blessedness in common with the latter, and mortality in common with the former? Certainly, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what more miserable than envy?), but seek with all their might to help miserable mortals on to blessedness, so that after death they may become immortal, and be associated with the blessed and immortal angels.

But if, as is much more probable and credible, it must be that all men, so long as they are mortal, are also miserable. Therefore, we must seek a mediator who is not only man, but also God. Through the interposition of His blessed mortality, He may bring men out of their mortal misery to a blessed immortality. In this mediator two things are requisite, that He become mortal, and that He do not continue mortal. He did become mortal, not rendering the divinity of the Word infirm, but assuming the infirmity of flesh. Neither did He continue mortal in the flesh, but raised it from the dead. It is the very fruit of His mediation that those, for the sake of whose redemption He became the Mediator, should not abide eternally in bodily death... He had both a transient mortality and a permanent blessedness. In this way, He became assimilated to mortals, and translates them from mortality to that which is permanent.

St. Augustine
City of God. Book 9. Ch14-15

Carlos J. Medina