Flannery O’Connor, My Spiritual Mentor

Katie Fitzgerald reflects on the ways the life and writings of Catholic author Flannery O’Connor have influenced her spiritual life.

My Spiritual Mentor

While I have my share of favorite saints, the Catholic woman who has been most like a spiritual mentor to me is not a canonized saint, but 20th century American writer Flannery O’Connor, whose one hundredth birthday would have been March 25, 2025.

At first glance, Flannery, who died long before I was born, and I seem to have little in common. While I’m a 42-year-old wife and mother of five, Flannery was single all her life, never had children, and died before the age of 40. I’m originally a Northerner, and I now live 300 miles away from my hometown, while Flannery was a born and bred Southerner who, except for brief sojourns to New York and Iowa, lived on her Georgia farm for her entire adulthood.

Even as writers, we are quite different. I write short-story romances and nonfiction articles about Catholicism, while Flannery wrote short stories that were often dark, disturbing, and difficult to understand, as well as essays that were more academic in nature.

Still, ever since reading my first Flannery O’Connor short story, “Good Country People,” as a high-school senior, I have been drawn to this unusual woman’s unique imagination and worldview. Specifically, I appreciate that Flannery is direct, unapologetic, and honest about her devotion to the Catholic faith. I’m also drawn to her spirit of perseverance in the face of serious setbacks and to her clever sense of humor.

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Flannery’s Writings

The Habit of Being, which is a large collection of Flannery’s letters, gives a lot of insight into what the writer was like as a friend, as a daughter, and as a person. It’s amazing to see the way she defended her beliefs to those who challenged them and encouraged friends who wanted to convert. I also admire the way she accepted the physical suffering brought about by lupus, the condition which limited her mobility and eventually took her life. Despite painful symptoms and equally painful treatments, she maintained her sense of humor and doggedly pursued her work as a writer.

Also interesting to me is the strained, yet loving, relationship Flannery had with her mother, Regina. Letters about how they got along (or sometimes didn’t) in their home together over the years highlight a lot of the challenges of family life, and show how charity and laughter serve to smooth over many difficulties.

By contrast with the letters, Flannery’s Prayer Journal gives us insight into her interior life. This is a slim volume that packs a punch. In these writings, Flannery reflects on her weaknesses and failings as a Catholic, as well as the doubts and fears that sometimes overtook her. (Wildcat, Ethan Hawke’s excellent film about Flannery, dramatizes the content of this journal beautifully, in one of the most memorable scenes in the whole movie.)

These vulnerable journal entries show her turning again and again to Jesus, even when it’s difficult for her, and even when she’s sure she’s doing everything wrong. Contrasting the private journal with the public persona in her letters really gets to the heart of who Flannery was as a Catholic woman. She was both outwardly bold and inwardly uncertain.

Following Flannery’s Example

In my life as a mom, I can relate to these two aspects of Flannery’s faith life. In teaching my kids about the Eucharist, I love to repeat the famous anecdote in which Flannery was heard to say, “If the Eucharist is a symbol, to hell with it.” I appreciate the blunt, almost shocking way she expresses how important it is to recognize the Real Presence. I am inspired by her no-nonsense attitude and her all-or-nothing understanding of this belief.

On the flip side, I can also understand her feelings of inadequacy as I think about the weaknesses in my prayer life. I admire that Flannery never gave up trying to live out her faith to the fullest. Her unwavering willingness to lean on Jesus is really beautiful and makes me want to strive for the same attitude.

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Flannery O’Connor had a short life, and a shorter writing career, but she has had lasting impacts on American literature, on Catholic literature, and on me. If you have not yet read her work, I highly recommend starting with her non-fiction writings, either the letters, the prayer journal, or Mystery and Manners, which posthumously collected her essays and speeches.

Whether her fiction resonates with you is a matter of taste, but there is so much we can learn from her day-to-day life as a Catholic woman and from her staunch beliefs in what our faith teaches. I pray that Flannery’s soul is in heaven, and that following her example, I one day will be too.

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