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    Excerpt From 'A Prayer Journal' by Flannery O'Connor

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    OnPointRadio
    Excerpted from A PRAYER JOURNAL by Flannery O’Connor, published in November 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2013 by the Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust. All rights reserved.

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Excerpt From 'A Prayer Journal' by Flannery O'Connor

    Uploaded by

    OnPointRadio
    10K views4 pages
    Excerpted from A PRAYER JOURNAL by Flannery O’Connor, published in November 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2013 by the Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust. All rights reserved.

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    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

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    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

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    Excerpted from A PRAYER JOURNAL by Flannery O’Connor, published in November 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2013 by the Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust. All rights reserved.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    10K views4 pages

    Excerpt From 'A Prayer Journal' by Flannery O'Connor

    Uploaded by

    OnPointRadio
    Excerpted from A PRAYER JOURNAL by Flannery O’Connor, published in November 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2013 by the Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust. All rights reserved.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    The writer is struggling with fully connecting with and loving God. They feel limited by their intellect and want help clearing their mind and strengthening their faith.

    The writer feels distant from God and wants help pushing aside their 'self' that gets in the way of knowing God. They want a 'less frenzied' kind of prayer and spiritual trust, rather than being eagar for what they want.

    The writer asks God for help knowing their Father's will, having a clear understanding of it, and being able to bend their will to follow it. They also want Christian principles to permeate their writing.

    [UNDATED ENTRIES]

    [. . .]* effort at artistry in this rather than thinking of You and feeling inspired with the love I wish I had. Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earths shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside. I want very much to succeed in the world with what I want to do. I have prayed to You about this with my mind and my nerves on it and strung my nerves into a tension over it and said, oh God please, and I must, and please, please. I have not asked You, I feel, in the
    *The opening pages of the journal appear to have been lost.

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    right way. Let me henceforth ask you with resignation that not being or meant to be a slacking up in prayer but a less frenzied kindrealizing that the frenzy is caused by an eagerness for what I want and not a spiritual trust. I do not wish to presume. I want to love. Oh God please make my mind clear. Please make it clean. I ask You for a greater love for my holy Mother and I ask her for a greater love for You. Please help me to get down under things and nd where You are. I do not mean to deny the traditional prayers I have said all my life; but I have been saying them and not feeling them. My attention is always very fugitive. This way I have it every instant. I can feel a warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You. Please do not let the explanations of the psychologists about this make it turn suddenly cold. My intellect is so limited, Lord, that I can only trust in You to preserve me as I should be. Please help all the ones I love to be free from their suffering. Please forgive me.

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    My dear God, I am impressed with how much I have to be thankful for in a material sense; and in a spiritual sense I have the opportunity of being even more fortunate. But it seems apparent to me that I am not translating this opportunity into fact. You say, dear God, to ask for grace and it will be given. I ask for it. I realize that there is more to it than thatthat I have to behave like I want it. Not those who say, Lord, Lord, but those who do the Will of My Father. Please help me to know the will of my Fathernot a scrupulous nervousness nor yet a lax presumption but a clear, reasonable knowledge; and after this give me a strong Will to be able to bend it to the Will of the Father. Please let Christian principles permeate my writing and please let there be enough of my writing (published) for Christian principles to permeate. I dread, Oh Lord, losing my faith. My mind is not strong. It is a prey to all sorts of intellectual quackery. I do not want it to be fear which keeps me in the church. I dont want to be

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    a coward, staying with You because I fear hell. I should reason that if I fear hell, I can be assured of the author of it. But learned people can analyze for me why I fear hell and their implication is that there is no hell. But I believe in hell. Hell seems a great deal more feasible to my weak mind than heaven. No doubt because hell is a more earthly-seeming thing. I can fancy the tortures of the damned but I cannot imagine the disembodied souls hanging in a crystal for all eternity praising God. It is natural that I should not imagine this. If we could accurately map heaven some of our up-&-coming scientists would begin drawing blueprints for its improvement, and the bourgeois would sell guides 10 the copy to all over 65. But I do not mean to be clever although I do mean to be clever on 2nd thought and like to be clever & want to be considered so. But the point more specically here is, I dont want to fear to be out, I want to love to be in; I dont want to believe in hell but in heaven. Stating this does me no good. It is a matter of the gift of grace. Help me to feel that I will give up every earthly thing for this. I do not mean becoming a nun.

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