The prophet Habakkuk & the author Flannery ‘O Connor have a lot in common…

They were both deeply distraught about the tartufferie of God’s people. Violently they cried out against the violence of the sanctimonious societies surrounding them. They pummeled God with questions. Questions like, “How long shall you make me see consumeristic corruption in the church !?” And they received God’s strange reply, “Wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. I am sending you something even more bitter and violent !” And Habakkuk and Mary Flannery both accepted God’s reply, and said, “I have heard the report of You, and Your work, O LORD; and I do fear. In Wrath remember mercy.”

And that last line, that simple prayer, sums of the service of Habakkuk and Mary Flannery! “O Lord, in wrath remember mercy.”

Here is just one example of how Flannery ‘O Connor stewards the mystery of God’s mercy… An excerpt from one of her short stories: 

Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again, but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker, and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before, but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.

– Flannery O’ Connor