Flannery O'Conner on Emotionally Satisfying Faith

Good words from more than 60 years ago by one of the great defenders of the faith.

“But I can never agree with you that the Incarnation, or any truth, has to satisfy emotionally to be right (and I would not agree that for the natural man the Incarnation does not satisfy emotionally). It does not satisfy emotionally for the person brought up under many forms of false intellectual discipline such as 19^th-century mechanism, for instance. Leaving the Incarnation aside, the very notion of God’s existence is not emotionally satisfactory anymore for great numbers of people, which does not mean that God ceases to exist. M. Sartre finds God emotionally unsatisfactory in the extreme, as do most of my friends of less stature than he. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. I believe that we are ultimately directed Godward but that this journey is often impeded by emotion.”

-       Flannery O'Conner in a letter to Betty Hester, September 6, 1955.[1]

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[1] http://theamericanreader.com/6-september-1955-flannery-oconnor/

Grace Changes Us

Another quote from Flannery O'Conner is instructive in her understanding of life.

There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. I believe that we are ultimately directed Godward but that this journey is often impeded by emotion.1

O'Conner knew of suffering; she was diagnosed with Lupus when she was 26 years old and died from complications of the disease at 39 years of age. Her novels tell stories of people who are changed by difficult circumstances in life.

However grotesque the setting, she tried to portray her characters as they might be touched by divine grace. This ruled out a sentimental understanding of the stories' violence, as of her own illness. O'Connor wrote: "Grace changes us and change is painful."2

1 Flannery O'Conner in a letter to Betty Hester, September 6, 1955. http://theamericanreader.com/6-september-1955-flannery-oconnor/
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannery_O'Connor

Laws of the Flesh and the Physical

In 1955, Flannery O'Conner1 said, "Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul."2 I wonder what she would say about the whole world today. 2014 is a time in which we are "post-everything." Many have given up on the Catholic Church, given up on Evangelicalism, given up on the Emergent Church, given up on logic, given up on science, given up on truth, given up on God. We go through the motions, looking like we are alive but the distinction between life and non-life is blurred. Consciousness is seen as a by-product of chemical and electrical processes. Is it any wonder the concept of zombies is enjoying a resurgence?

O'Conner shared her theological perspective on the laws of the flesh and the physical in a letter to her friend Betty Hester:

For you it may be a matter of not being able to accept what you call a suspension of the laws of the flesh and the physical, but for my part I think that when I know what the laws of the flesh and the physical really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws.3

Starting in July of 1955, O'Conner wrote a number of letters to Hester, a woman to whom she became a spiritual mentor. O'Conner was Hester's confirmation sponsor in the Catholic Church, continued to engage her in theological dialogue, and tried to sustain her friend's faith. When Hester later left the church in 1961, professing agnosticism, O'Conner is said to have been deeply disappointed.4



1 Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. Her pen name was Flannery O'Conner.
2 Flannery O'Conner in a letter to Betty Hester, September 6, 1955. http://theamericanreader.com/6-september-1955-flannery-oconnor/
3 Ibid.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Hester

Follow-Up to Truth

Leaving the Incarnation aside, the very notion of God’s existence is not emotionally satisfactory anymore for great numbers of people, which does not mean that God ceases to exist. M. Sartre finds God emotionally unsatisfactory in the extreme, as do most of my friends of less stature than he. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul. Flannery O'Conner in a letter to Betty Hester, September 6, 1955.1

1 http://theamericanreader.com/6-september-1955-flannery-oconnor/

Flannery O'Connor on Mystery

"I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.” - Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor wrote these words as our culture was just beginning to move to a greater degree of determinism. She died in 1964 and The Habit of Being was published in 1979.