Flannery O’Connor on the Glorified Body

From 1955 until her death, Flannery O’Connor maintained a correspondence with Betty Hester, a personal friend with whom she discussed various issues including God, the Church and theology. The following quotation is from a letter to Hester written days before O’Connor’s passing at the age of 41, on August 3, 1964.

For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, [and] destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified.

— Flannery O’Connor

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St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. [and so to renew the world.]