Francie’s Catholicism in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: An Extract

 Betty Smith’s great classic, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is one of my favourite books, and I read it practically every year. It’s really quite an anti-Catholic book, but in this passage she describes the beauty of Catholicism exquisitely:

“Francie believed with all her heart that the altar was Calvary and that again Jesus was offered

up as a sacrifice. As she listened to the consecrations, one for His Body and one for His Blood,

she believed that the words of the priest were a sword which mystically separated the Blood

from the Body. And she knew, without knowing how to explain why, that Jesus was entirely

present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the wine in the golden chalice and in the bread on

the golden plate.

"It's a beautiful religion," she mused, "and I wish I understood it more. No. I don't want to

understand it all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery, like God Himself is a mystery.

Sometimes I say I don't believe in God. But I only say that when I'm mad at Him ... Because I do!

I do! I believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I'm a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in

awhile and I grumble when, at confession, I get a heavy penance for something I couldn't help

doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I'll never be anything else.

"Of course, I didn't ask to be born a Catholic no more than I asked to be born an American. But

I'm glad it turned out that I'm both these things."

The priest ascended the curved steps to the pulpit. "Your prayers are requested," intoned his

magnificent voice, "for the repose of the soul of John Nolan."

"Nolan ... Nolan ..." sighed the echoes of the vaulted ceiling.With a sound like an anguished whisper, nearly a thousand people knelt to pray briefly for the

soul of a man only a dozen of them had known. Francie began the prayer for the souls in

Purgatory.

Good Jesus, Whose loving heart was ever troubled by the sorrows of others, look with pity on

the soulof our dear one in Purgatory. Oh You, Who loved Your own, hear mycry for mercy.” 

Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Perenial Library, Harpers & Row, New York, 1943, 1947, 255. Retrieved from Internet Archive website