Flannery on Lies and Catholic Cocooning
Flannery O'Connor had a Mass prayed in her honor last evening at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. I was in the third pew back with no one in front, her book of letters at my side. I have looked forward to this particular Mass, as I know it will cement our friendship between the other world and this. I prayed extra hard begging her to help me.
She has written letters to a friend who converted to Catholicism and then five years later left the Church. This was in the early 1960's. But they remained friends. So I know Flannery understands how this is even more than she did when alive. She sees the Big Picture now. I am convinced she will help me in my decision and dilemma.
Already I have thought about her Catholic faith and strength while alive. She lived on the family farm outside Milledgeville, GA, with her widowed mother and some farm hands and her peacocks, ducks, chickens, and two swans. She liked fowl. She wrote daily, fiction with strong Catholic theological themes. She never swerved from Catholicism, but she died in 1964 and didn't go through "the aftermath" of Vatican II--which I think has been confused with the confusion of the 1960's and '70's (and '80's and '90's, if we're being unveiled and truthful).
I believe that Flannery can help me in learning how to live in a Catholic cocoon. In one of her letters she said she was as much a hermit writer as anything else. She suffered and died from Lupus at age 39. She didn't complain much at all in her letters, and she just kept writing great and astounding fiction--dealing full-force with evil and grotesque characters, which is apropos to our human condition, is it not?
In one letter, she commented about truth in particular. One farm hand had gone off for a week on a binge, but returned with quite a twist in the tale. Flannery's mother had a way of being direct yet clever in response. Flannery wrote of the incident:
Around here it is not a matter of finding the truth but of deciding which lie you live with better.
I do believe that Flannery has helped me already in how to deal with living as a devout, practicing Catholic--but living in a cocoon with this very view of truth. Yes, I must accept that those in charge of the inculturated Church today have come to think they must decide which lie to live with better.
In a Catholic cocoon, one does not have to live with lies at all, thankfully. But one has to learn to look out into the world and see others, yes even striving Catholics of all layers, having to live with lies for whatever reasons they think they must.
She has written letters to a friend who converted to Catholicism and then five years later left the Church. This was in the early 1960's. But they remained friends. So I know Flannery understands how this is even more than she did when alive. She sees the Big Picture now. I am convinced she will help me in my decision and dilemma.
Already I have thought about her Catholic faith and strength while alive. She lived on the family farm outside Milledgeville, GA, with her widowed mother and some farm hands and her peacocks, ducks, chickens, and two swans. She liked fowl. She wrote daily, fiction with strong Catholic theological themes. She never swerved from Catholicism, but she died in 1964 and didn't go through "the aftermath" of Vatican II--which I think has been confused with the confusion of the 1960's and '70's (and '80's and '90's, if we're being unveiled and truthful).
I believe that Flannery can help me in learning how to live in a Catholic cocoon. In one of her letters she said she was as much a hermit writer as anything else. She suffered and died from Lupus at age 39. She didn't complain much at all in her letters, and she just kept writing great and astounding fiction--dealing full-force with evil and grotesque characters, which is apropos to our human condition, is it not?
In one letter, she commented about truth in particular. One farm hand had gone off for a week on a binge, but returned with quite a twist in the tale. Flannery's mother had a way of being direct yet clever in response. Flannery wrote of the incident:
Around here it is not a matter of finding the truth but of deciding which lie you live with better.
I do believe that Flannery has helped me already in how to deal with living as a devout, practicing Catholic--but living in a cocoon with this very view of truth. Yes, I must accept that those in charge of the inculturated Church today have come to think they must decide which lie to live with better.
In a Catholic cocoon, one does not have to live with lies at all, thankfully. But one has to learn to look out into the world and see others, yes even striving Catholics of all layers, having to live with lies for whatever reasons they think they must.
posted by The Catholic Hermit | 12:15 PM
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