Flannery O’Connor Collection

by Robert Barron

Dig into the rich tradition of Catholic literature with these significant and influential books recommended by Bishop Barron. These titles have transformed cultures and have proven indispensable to those seeking to encounter God, as revealed in Jesus Christ through His Church. The books are each elegantly bound and include a ribbon bookmark and a foreword and charcoal sketch of the book's author by Bishop Barron! You will not only enrich your life with these works, you'll be proud to display these gorgeous editions in your home or office. "As becomes unmistakably clear as you read through this collection, Flannery O Connor was not only a masterful teller of tales; she was also one of the most perceptive literary theorists of the twentieth century. She once famously defined herself as a hillbilly Thomist, and the aesthetics of St. Thomas Aquinas do indeed inform the way she thought about her own work.

Genres: Fiction, Theology, Literature

447 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Bishop Robert Emmet Barron is an acclaimed author, speaker, and theologian. He is the former Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago and also is the founder of Word On Fire (www.WordOnFire.org).

Bishop Barron is the creator and host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking ten-part documentary series and study program about the Catholic faith. He is a passionate student of art, architecture, music and history, which he calls upon throughout his global travels in the making of the documentary.

Word On Fire programs are broadcast regularly on WGN America, Relevant Radio, CatholicTV, EWTN, the popular Word on Fire YouTube Channel, and the Word on Fire website, which offers daily blogs, articles, commentaries, and over ten years of weekly sermon podcasts. In 2010, Father Barron was the first priest to have a national show on a secular television network since the 1950s.

Fr. Barron received his Masters Degree in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC in 1982 and his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Institut Catholique in 1992. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1986 and has been a professor of systematic theology at the nation's largest Catholic seminary, the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary since 1992. He was visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame in 2002 and at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2007. He was also twice scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican.

In addition, Fr. Barron lectures extensively in the United States and abroad. Cardinal Francis George calls Fr. Barron “one of the Church’s best messengers.

Fr. Barron was baptized at Queen of All Saints Basilica in Chicago and grew up at St. John of the Cross parish in Western Springs, Illinois.
WordOnFire.org - Fr. Barron's website launched in 1999 and currently draws over 1 million visitors a year from every continent. Fr. Barron posts weekly video clips, commentaries and radio sermons and offers an audio archive of over 500 homilies. Podcasts of his sermons are widely used by tens of thousands of visitors each month.
TV - EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network) and CatholicTV broadcasts Fr. Barron's DVDs to a worldwide audience of over 150 million people.

Radio - Since 1999, Fr. Barron's weekly Word on Fire program has been broadcast in Chicago (WGN) and throughout the country (Relevant Radio - 950 AM Chicago) to 28 million listeners in 17 states. Fr. Barron also is a regular commentator on the "Busted Halo Show" on the Sirius satellite radio network based in New York.

DVDs - Fr. Barron's DVDs are used as powerful faith formation tools in universities, schools, churches and homes around the country. The series includes Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues; Faith Clips; Conversion: Following the Call of Christ; and Untold Blessing: Three Paths to Holiness.

YouTube - With over 180 online video commentaries by Fr. Barron, over 1 million viewers worldwide have made him the most popular of any evangelist on YouTube. These frequent, high-quality productions include brief and lively theological reviews of contemporary culture, including movies such as No Country for Old Men, Apocalypto, and The Departed, a three-part critical review of Christopher Hitchen's book God is Not Great, The Discovery Channel's The Jesus Tomb, the HBO series "The Sopranos", "Rome" and more.

Missions - MISSION CHICAGO features evangelization lectures by Fr. Barron at the behest of Cardinal George. These special missions and presentations throughout the Archdiocese are centered in downtown Chicago and attract business, civic, and cultural leaders.
Books - His numerous books and essays serve as critical educational and inspirational tools for seminarians, priests, parishioners and young people worldwide. His published works are also central to the numerous retreats, workshop and talks that h

Reviews

[Andrew Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to change my rating. The workings of grace in her short stories are really unexpected and coming from dark places but highlights the power of God over all, drawing men back to himself from even the worst places. And the way Word on Fire curated this letters, essays, and stories help deepen your understanding

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a good collection, a mix of O'Connor's short stories, one novel, and several letters, speeches, and essays. I'd never really run across O'Connor before and felt this was a good introduction. I can see how she takes her place among the great American fiction writers, but honestly, her style isn't much for me. Her fiction strikes me as dull-meets-shocking, which is perhaps what she is going for, shaking her characters and her audience out of their funk. What really interested me was the non-fiction part of the collection. I gained an impression of O'Connor as an unusually perceptive, sardonic, and intelligent person, someone who was very strong indeed. From this, I would be more interested in reading more of her letters, speeches, and essays before I tracked down any more of her fiction. A good read nonetheless, and for those who thrive on her style of fiction, probably a very excellent one.

For me, some of the more memorable bits she offers:

"the operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug." (p 27)

"only when the natural world is seen as good does evil become intelligible as a destructive force and a necessary result of our freedom." (p 33)

"At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily." (p 34)

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally." (p 64)

"In most English classes the short story has become a kind of literary specimen to be dissected...something has gone wrong in the process when, for so many students, the story becomes simply a problem to be solved, something which you evaporate to get Instant Enlightenment." (p 67)

"She had never given much thought to the devil for she felt that religion was essentially for those people who didn't have the brains to avoid evil without it. For people like herself, for people of gumption, it was a social occasion providing the opportunity to sing; but if she had ever given it much thought, she would have considered the devil the head of it and God the hanger-on." (p 85)

"The isolated imagination is easily corrupted by theory..." (p 375)

"An identity is not to be found on the surface; it is not accessible to the poll-taker; it is not something that can become a cliche. It is not made from the mean average or the typical, but from the hidden and often the most extreme. It is not made from what passes, but from those qualities that endure, regardless of what passes, because they are related to the truth." (p 377)

"The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location." (p 378)

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful...Human nature is so faulty that it can resist any amount of grace and most of the time it does." (p 400)

[Jonah Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection was my introduction to Flannery O'Connor. It isn't my introduction to Gothic literature, which I seem to greatly appreciate (Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights are two of my favorite English novels), but it is my first real foray into the Southern Gothic genre. I am so glad that I got this one. I very much enjoyed the stories, but I fell in love because of the letters and essays. Some of them make Flannery seem a bit snobbish, but then again I am absolutely a snob myself. I'm not sure I even fully understand the impact she leaves on me. No author or intellectual in my (very limited) experience so far has managed to find a balance between the Catholic and Southern identities that I have been so desperately trying to find for myself, until Flannery O'Connor. I believe I will read as many of the rest of her works as I can get my hands on this summer, and I will revisit them in future summers. Rosary, iced tea, and pipe tobacco will be necessary.

In terms of this volume itself, it's plainly beautiful. It feels great to hold in the hands or lap, it rests very comfortably opened on a desk, the binding is lovely, and the ribbon is a perfect length. I'm the sort of fussy person whose enjoyment of a particular book is largely contingent on the sensory aspects of the volume: it has to look good to my eyes and feel good in my hands. (I especially love Word on Fire for this reason. Bishop Barron understands people like me.) I am so pleased with the organization of stories, letters, and essays. I sometimes struggle to understand short stories, so O'Connor's own explanations and direct thoughts were lovely to have. While the stories are obviously the foundation of the collection and the main reason anyone would buy it, some of these letters/essays are absolute gems, and O'Connor's tone is so refreshingly light in many of them that they wonderfully balance the darkness of the stories.

[Virginia Hickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first experience with short stories. Who would have known how impactful a story can be in 20 pages? The life-like but foreign to me southern characters, dramatic reversals, and shock of the 'grotesque' - these elements left O'Connor's stories echoing in my mind long after I finished. The impact was much longer than the time it took to read.

This collection is artfully arranged. At first her stories shocked me, but after each one came a different assortment of letters, essays, and lectures in which she explains her thought process and what she was getting at, or gives more insight into who she was as a person. This added context illuminates the purpose of O'Connor's stories, moving the "odd breakthrough of grace in even the most hopeless situations" into sharper relief.

Something interesting I noticed was how frequently in her essays she felt the need to defend her style. It seemed as though she was pushing back against the sentiment that a Catholic writer shouldn't write about how life as it truly is, of people as they truly are - and instead should concern herself with life as it out to be, with goodness, writing about the ideal. I even found myself "should-ing" her at different points, "A Christian writer shouldn't say that! We shouldn't write about stuff like this!" but she eventually won me over with her explanations. It is in the darkness that the grace of God cuts through most clearly, and rock-bottom is where we often are the most receptive.

I loved this collection, and it opened me up to a new genre that I have never given a second thought to before! Will be taking the rest of my thoughts to my blog lol.

[Matt Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flannery O'Connor's writing may be an acquired taste. It takes a little bit of time to see where she's going with things; the turn of events in her stories can come quick upon one not astutely reading her prose. She doesn't need a full guide to help one through her writings, but a good introduction certainly helps put one in the right frame of mind to read her writing.

That she happens to be a favorite of one Most. Rev. Robert Barron, Bishop of Winona-Rochester, MN and founder of Word of Fire Catholic Ministries, explains in part why this collection exists. It's a selected reader of Flannery O'Connor's work: 7 short stories and the novel The Violent Bear It Away are matched with her letters and writing meant to illuminate the spiritual concerns she bore through her writing.

Despite only having heard a snippet of her recorded voice, I couldn't help but have it in mind as I read. There's a directness in her voice that led me to read these stories with a matter-of-fact mindset, fiction though they may be. (It did help that A Good Man is Hard to Find was one of the stories, and that is the clip of sound lodged in my head.) That lead me to read this with a bit of more of a reflective stance than I may have otherwise.

All that said, this is a book assembled and edited with a bend toward evangelization. It serves a good taste of what she is about. Those looking for a broader overview of Flannery O'Connor's work would do well to read her Complete Stories and other full length novels.

[Garrett Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the quality of the fiction itself to be very inconsistent. For example, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is, of course, a masterpiece, but I didn’t think “The Violent Bear it Away” was a particularly engaging read. What I did love, and what made the collection very enjoyable, were the essays and letters that it included. Meditations on the nature of fiction writing, the acceptance of grace in novels, and the interplay of O’Connor’s Catholicism and her writing were profoundly stimulating, and as good a reason as any to get the collection.

[Forest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had never read Flannery O'Connor before this book and was blown away especially after finishing "The Violent Bear It Away." Her Southern Gothic style is really a lost medium today. We need more regional writers who are intimately tied to a sense of place and reflect a real and substantial culture. Her short stories are riveting, and her prose is excellent.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging reading for me. Enjoyed her letters and the insights she shared about faith.

[Mary Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the stories a lot. Flannery died way to young. She was a serious Catholic.