From the Providence Journal:

In a season when newly minted college graduates are frequently encouraged to "dream big" and to think of wealth, power and success, the graduation speaker at Providence College's commencement Sunday cautioned graduates not to believe that any of those things will make them happy.

Addressing the school's 1,088 graduates and others in the Dunkin' Donuts Center, the Very Rev. Robert Barron, who founded the "Word on Fire" global media ministry, said inside every individual there is a "holy longing" that can only be satisfied by being filled with God and giving one's life away for the sake of the other.

"So here is the formula," he told the graduates. "If you want to be happy, contrive to make your life a gift."

Now that we’re at the halfway mark of the Year of Faith, I thought that the time might be right to introduce Word on Fire readers to an artist who incarnates the Year of Faith both in his art and in his person: Matt Maher. If you’ve never heard of him, I’d be willing to bet that you’ve at least heard his music, either on the radio or at Mass – “Your Grace is Enough” is a pseudo-classic and his settings for the new translation of the Roman Missal are sung in parishes every weekend.    

Many folks want to categorize Maher as a Christian artist, but in the spirit of Flannery O’Connor, I want to say that such a description is inadequate and inaccurate. Maher is an unapologetic Catholic Christian, but he is also an exceptional artist, and the title “Christian Artist” often calls into question, intentionally or not, the quality of the art.  O’Connor liked to say that she was an artist who was Catholic. I’d like to say the same about Maher.  

Last week Maher released “All The People Said Amen,” a collection of thirteen songs – some old and some new, some live and some in-studio – that in an a little over an hour’s time will have you clapping your hands, pumping your fist, bowing your head, stomping your feet, belting out epic choruses, and whispering humble prayers. Drivers beware.  

The album opens with the title track, which works as an invitation and offers understanding and hope to the listener: “You are not alone, if you are lonely/ When you’re afraid, you’re not the only/ We’re all the same, in need of mercy/ To be forgiven and be free.” The chorus is big and fun, and it’s hard not to sing along, especially with the “Woah-oh-ohs.” Maher brings the song home with a very cool and convicted rendering of the Beatitudes...

The human body is an offer of Divine Grace. Sure, but this body? With its flaws and aches and less-than-perfect aesthetic value? Yup, that very one. Word on Fire contributor Ellyn von Huben draws upon the great lessons and legacy of Flannery O'Connor to illuminate just what it is about the body that works to reveal that most sacred gift.

Domestic violence is not entertaining.  And I don’t spend my time scanning news sites looking for more sadness than that which usually jumps out at me when I check the Chicago Tribune each morning.  But… there was an incident that caught my eye on a popular news/chat/gossip site a few days ago.  And my first response was to send it to a friend with the brief comment, “Hulga’s revenge?”

Flannery O’Connor fans know who Hulga is. A joyless woman, possessed of a degree in philosophy but little common sense, Hulga - née Joy - lost a leg in a childhood accident. She lives with her mother on the family farm, where her position is, in today’s parlance, resident “Debbie Downer.” In a tragi-comical turn of events, Hulga seduces a Bible salesman whom she takes to be an innocent rube, and instead winds up as his victim. The Bible salesman is not what he appeared to be and Hulga, in her haste to shame him, allows herself to be shamed. Not only is Hulga shamed, she is left in the loft of the barn while salesman takes quick leave of her – carrying her prosthetic leg as a trophy.  (This is better told by Flannery herself.  If you don’t have a copy of her collected works I would advise that you find one.  And make “Good Country People” one of your first choices.)

How could Hulga not come to mind when I read of a woman in South Carolina who stabbed her boyfriend and then threw his prosthetic leg into the yard to keep him from chasing her?  And this woman was thorough!  She didn’t just through his leg out in the yard; she tossed his spare leg, too. I wonder if any other fans of Flannery and “Good Country People” also saw it as some sort of turnabout on Hulga’s tale. (That is all I know of this sad story, except that it coincidentally took place in the south, reminding me of what the great author said about that, “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”)

The frailties of the human body show up frequently in Flannery’s work. As a Catholic, she knew the importance of the human body as being an offer of Divine Grace. Each human body. In the Resurrection, it will be our bodies, glorified, that will rise. God himself became human, incarnated in a body of flesh and blood – bones, tendons, corpuscles and muscles. It is easy to see to make a connection to the divine if one looks upon a body in its prime – adorable babies, Olympic athletes at the peak of their fitness, gorgeous women on the covers of popular magazines, men so good looking they must be deported...