I am a big fan of Flannery O’Connor. You may be too. Some of you may not be familiar with her and her works.
Flannery was a Savannah, Georgia native who wrote about Southern culture through the lens of being Catholic. She wrote mostly short stories and only two novels. Her writings were “in your face.” When criticized for the violence in her stories, she was known to say, “For the hard of hearing you have to yell.”
Her most famous novel is Wise Blood, written in 1952. The main character, Hazel Motes, created his own church and named it “The Church Without Christ.”
When I first read the story, I thought, “Boy, how crazy is that idea and I wonder where this will go?” As I continued, it wasn’t long before I saw where Flannery was leading her readers. Hazel’s church was nothing more than what our society has become: a church without Christ. Hazel also reflected what many churches then and now are feeding their flocks—ideas and programs and spiritual propaganda that are without Jesus Christ.
Flannery also wants us to see that our churches, our culture, and even our daily lives are often without Jesus Christ. It’s amazing that she was seeing all this back in 1952!
Now you might be thinking, “Okay Tommy, what’s your point?” (I sure hope you are saying that!)
While Flannery pointed out that the world has walked away from Jesus Christ, I want to point out the cure—a very specific cure. You know that Jesus Christ is the cure. You knew it before you read it. And if you and I do not live our lives reflecting Him in every environment we are in, then we risk becoming disciples of Hazel Motes’s “Church Without Christ.”
We Cursillistas are part of God’s cure! But we have to live with Jesus as the center of our lives and give that gift to others. That is when we will begin to have folks come back to “The Church WITH Christ” and begin to bring the world back to our Loving Lord.
De Colores!
Tommy Smith
Lay Coordinator / South Carolina Catholic Cursillo