“God” is Coming to My Home : Catholic Images and the Sacred in the Case of a Rural Village in Western Mexico

This paper aims to clarify the dynamic aspect of the sacred that the religious image is imbued with, focusing on a Catholic practice in a current rural village of western Mexico. In classical studies of the sacred, it has generally been considered disconnected from the profane and ambivalent. Other research has revealed the multi-layered nature of the sacred and its constructive aspect. In contrast, this paper will discuss a sacredness that arises from the interaction between human beings and objects, a sacredness that is both performative and intimate. Thus, this article will analyze practitioners’ everyday, contingent acts, free from formality. In conclusion, “the sacred” contains a part of the profane caused by the Catholic image going back and forth between the realms of “the sacred” and “the profane”.