We are overdue for a little Flannery around here so here’s an excerpt from her letter to Janet McKane on June 30, 1963, found in Letters of Flannery O’Connor: The Habit of Being:
I guess what you say about suffering being a shared experience with Christ is true, but then it should also be true of every experience that is not sinful. I meant that say, joy, may be a redemptive experience itself and not just the fruit of one. Perhaps however joy is the outgrowth of suffering in a special way.
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Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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