Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>]

2015 Walker Percy Weekend - Facebook Page
The Walker Percy Weekend's Facebook page based somewhere on the web but hopefully not lost in its vast digital cosmos
https://www.facebook.com/walkerpercyweekend

Reading about the Percy weekend in St. Francisville was all fascinating, but what was the most fun for me to read were the Bruce Springsteen letter and comments from the above link. 

These are the things that I am talking about:

 1. It warmed me that someone expressed just the way I felt when the commenter expressed regret for not having written Percy while he was alive. It was only after I read all of the comments that I saw that it was I who said that. Ha.

2. This is from Springsteen's letter about Flannery O'Connor:

 A prime example of her faith: she was participating in a seminar with some modish ex-Catholics like Mary McCarthy. Mary, thinking to be generous toward the church, said something like: “Well, it is true, some of the Catholic rituals, like the Eucharist, are good symbols.” To which Flannery, who hadn’t said a word, responded with a single sentence: “I say that it it’s only a symbol, to hell with it.” You will recognize Flannery’s tone.

 I couldn't figure out what that meant and why she would say that, especially since the commenter said you can see O'Connor's tone there. I copied and pasted it to ask Catholic scholar, Carlos Eire what she meant.

Then I read---

3. Another comment corrected the quote to say "IF it's only a symbol, to hell with it." instead of "it it's". Ha again.  Now it makes sense. ( not to mention how easily my eye did not see that it and just read the phrase it's only a symbol.)

Janet Cantor