I believe in you

You know the door to my very soul

You're the light in my deepest, darkest hour

You're my saviour when I fall

And you may not think I care for you

When you know down inside that I really do

And it's me you need to show

How deep is your love?

How deep is your love? How deep is your love?

I really mean to learn

'Cause we're livin' in a world of fools

Breakin' us down

When they all should let us be

We belong to you and me.

(Bee Gees - 1977)

At Lauds the other morning, I was intrigued by this verse from Psalm 42:8:

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your torrents,

and all your waves and breakers sweep over me."

Deep calls to deep. What is this Deep we speak of? In this Psalm, the writer is far from Jerusalem and is despondent that he is not able to experience the Divine Presence in the Temple. The image of torrents and breakers sweeping over him brings to mind the human experience of troubles seeming to come in waves, each problem calling the next problem; deep calling to deep.

Other takes are further suggested by the New Testament reading at Mass this morning from 1 Corinthians:

10 For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.

Meaning that the Holy Spirit, in perfect unity with the Father, knows all just as the Father knows all.

And,

16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

I, as a child of God, made in His image, am called into His perfect love as "Deep calls to deep", as Grace is always calling me even as the "torrents, and all your waves and breakers sweep over me."

Or, perhaps the “torrents”, and all your “waves and breakers sweeping over me” IS God's Grace because God's Grace is incomprehensible and overwhelming; violent and earth-shattering, for “Aslan is not a tame lion” (C.S. Lewis) and a shift to faith can be described as a "train wreck" where one comes to Jesus "openhanded and naked," amidst the "rubble of your world" losing everything one previously loved. (Rosaria Champagne Butterfield).

Deep calls to deep.

Just a few thoughts.

How Deep is Your Love?

I really mean to learn.

St. Flannery. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Unless you're Irish. Then maybe... And St. Mary is a crowded field. St. Mary Flannery anyone?

Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah,  Georgia on the Solemnity of the Annunciation. And like the Angel Gabriel, speaking to the Virgin Mary, boy, did she have a lot to say.

A dedicated writer, a great wit, a loyal friend; her stories, novels and Southern Gothic style continue to inspire, horrify and disturb readers more than 60 years after her sadly premature death in 1964 from lupus.

But her Catholic faith! Here is where her case for Sainthood truly lies. One of the most famous stories about her was when Mary McCarthy made an off-hand comment about the Eucharist:

“Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.”
At the end of a late-night dinner, Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor gave this singular reply to fellow writer Mary McCarthy, who’d just pronounced her thinking of the Eucharist as a symbol, and a pretty good one. “That was all the defense I was capable of,” O’Connor explains in her December 1955 letter to a good friend. “[B]ut I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

The Eucharist was the center of existence for her. What more did she need to say? Even during her years of suffering from lupus, the same debilitating disease that claimed her father, she continued attending daily Mass up until her death. She kept a wry wit about the whole fiasco quipping, "I seldom know in any given circumstances whether the Lord is giving me a reward or a punishment."

Her stories aren't for everyone. Her characters can be immoral, crude, violent, deformed, cruel, insane and downright evil. Her stories seldom have anything remotely resembling a "happy ending".

It took me some time to become "comfortable", if that's the word, with her troubling tales. After reading the wonderful biography, "Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor" by Brad Gooch, seeing the Ethan Hawke movie "Wildcat", and even asking Google and Grok to tell me what she was actually trying to say, it finally began to make sense.

"I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil."
Flannery wrote about Grace: hidden Grace, tenacious Grace, unavoidable Grace. Grace pursues her characters just as God pursues each one of us, even as each of us are generally running full speed in the opposite direction like Jonah. But, like Haze Motes in "Wise Blood", Grace ultimately catches up and floods our lives. Haze Motes, the founder and pastor of "The Church Without Jesus Christ", the unlikeliest of unlikeliest of converts, succumbs to Grace in the end.

Despite her reverence for and obedience to the Church and Her Sacraments, she had no naive ideas about the fallibility of the imperfect humans who make it up:

"I think most people come to the Church by means the Church does not allow, else there would be no need their getting to her at all. However, this is true inside as well, as the operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug."

My own journey to the Church 30 years ago is a prime example of this. Suffice it to say that becoming a Catholic back then was definitely not on my radar.

Throughout history, many of the greatest Saints came to the Church through the most unexpected circumstances. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most." Just like the Old Testament prophets, many Saints were not beloved or appreciated by the Church authorities at the time. Many were punished or disciplined. But all are retrospectively honored for their faith, holiness, examples and contributions.

Flannery O'Connor would have been 100 years-old in 2025. I believe it is time, when the Church claims to be in a period of Eucharistic revival, that we give this holy, faithful, brave, indomitable woman, who loved Jesus in the Eucharist above all things, the recognition she deserves.

Please join me in my efforts to prayerfully encourage Bishop Parkes in Savannah, Georgia to begin her beatification process:

MOST REVEREND
STEPHEN D. PARKES
CATHOLIC PASTORAL CENTER
2170 EAST VICTORY DRIVE
SAVANNAH, GA 31404-3918

Assistant to the Bishop

Maggie Blanc
Phone: 912-201-4126
mblanc@diosav.org