Flannery O’Connor, from Inside Catholic’s Flannery Friday:
I guess what you say about suffering being a shared experience with Christ is true, but then it should also be true of every experience that is not sinful. I meant that say, joy, may be a redemptive experience itself and not just the fruit of one. Perhaps however joy is the outgrowth of suffering in a special way.
Where’s the perhaps–that joy can be redemptive–that it’s the outgrowth of suffering in a special way.
AMDG
Should have been a question mark there.
??????????????
AMDG
I guess if there’s a “perhaps” it’s whether it has to be that way. I mean, can you get there without going through suffering? In small and short-lived ways, I guess so.
Oh, now I see that the “perhaps” is hers and not yours. Busy day–more unobservant that usual. I’m thinking that she doesn’t mean that joy is ONLY the outgrowth of suffering, but that when it is, it’s special–before that word had so much negative baggage.
AMDG
Yeah, that’s more or less what I thought she meant, too.
Light On Dark Water 
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