Jewish author and critic Cynthia Ozick describes literature's goal: "to light up the least grain of being, to show how it is concretely individual, particularized from any other." The Diary of a Country Priest sheds such light on one particular world, built around Christianity's call to love others and trust in the divine presence in history.
It was also the birth of important questions about the human condition.Ī close re-reading of The Diary undertaken for this essay reminded me of the critical ways in which fiction and poetry inform my theology. Reading Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, André Gide, and François Mauriac was a heavy load for a 20-something. I recall a pall descending on me that term, darkening otherwise cheerful days. These three words - "all is grace" - have echoed in my consciousness, prodding me to plumb the theological and spiritual meaning of the world's holiness - Incarnation - one third of an inseparable trinity of doctrines that includes creation and Holy Spirit.Īs a French major in college in the '60s, I first read The Diary in a course on 20th-century French literature. Such is the story of The Diary of a Country Priest ( Journal d'Un Curé de Campagne) written in 1936 by Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos. He takes his last breath in the dingy apartment of a seminary classmate and former priest, now fallen on hard times. This happens not long after being assigned to his first parish in Ambricourt, a forlorn parish in rural France. These are the final words of the Curé d'Ambricourt, a thirty-year-old priest, dying of stomach cancer. "Does it matter?" Grace is everywhere…" ( Qu'est-ce que cela fait? Tout est grâce). The Thomas More Press, 1983 (originally published 1936) Dianne Bergant and Michael Daley say, "can inspire, affirm, challenge, change, even disturb." Good books, as blog co-editors Congregation of St. Editor's note: "Take and Read" is a weekly blog that features a different contributor's reflections on a specific book that changed their lives.
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