A Temple of the Holy Ghost: Difference between revisions

The story is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl and involves a visit from a pair of her 14-year-old cousins, Roman Catholic convent school girls, who were recently lectured by the nuns about preserving their bodies as "temples of the holy ghost" in accordance with the [[Bible]] passage from {{bibleverse|1|Corinthians|6:19-20}}. The young girl's mother arranges for a pair of neighborhood boys who are training to be preachers to accompany the cousins to a fair. While picking up the girls, the boys are mildly ridiculed for their seemingly ignorant religious views. At the fair, the girls see a [[hermaphrodite]] displayed as a [[freak]], which they later describe to their younger cousin. The hermaphrodite explained that this was how God made her. The end of the story reflects upon the acceptance of God's will as in the case of the hermaphrodite.<ref>Margaret Earley Whitt, [http://books.google.com/books?id=z1bNLrMAbs4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Understanding Flannery O'Connor] (Univ of South Carolina Press, 1997)</ref>