Jim Curley of Bethune Catholic recently re-read Great Expectations, the classic Dickens work described by Chesterton as a “study in human weakness and the slow human surrender.” Jim writes of the remarkable impact the book, with the help of grace, had in his life:
"Early in the book when Pip is still a boy and first meets the beautiful Estella his life is changed forever. Her beauty, combined with her contempt for his lowliness (destined to become a blacksmith) forever changes his life - making him dissatisfied forever with what he was content with before. Pip recognizes this change-but seemingly can't do anything about it - even if makes him miserable.Everyone has moments or events that change their lives for better or worse. Sometimes we can point to the moment like Pip could. Sometimes we can't. My reading (and subsequent re-reading) of Great Expectations was such a live-changing experience for me - and as I recall, it was intimately tied in with my Confirmation.
I was doing Confirmation prep with an Opus Dei priest when I was in 7th grade. This was the first real Catholic experience/community I had outside the home (I went to Catholic school - but it was the 70's). I picked up Great Expectations around this time for some reason (probably I had some idea I was educating myself with classics or some other pompous idea - I was that kind of kid). I absolutely hated it and finished it only because it was against my principles to do otherwise. (And I probably didn't want to admit I hated Dickens.)
I was then confirmed later that year, and within days of my Confirmation I felt the urge to read Great Expectations again - a strange sentiment indeed. Yet when I read it again, I identified with the ungratefulness of Pip towards those who really loved him. That was me. I have always thought that it was the grace of Confirmation that helped me to see myself more clearly through, of all things, Great Expectations.
It did change my life (or philosophy) in a practical way. While I still had (and have) my faults, ungratefulness is usually no longer one of them. It is hard to explain clearly, but the change in me had to do with being grateful to God and my parents, (and to others, but especially them) and making a promise that I would never turn my back on them (God and my parents) no matter their (my parents) faults -not that they had too many as their love and gift to me overrides everything else. And I promised that I would never ignore them, no matter what else was going on in my life. (True to form, no matter how far I have strayed in the past during different parts of my life, I always have kept a daily connection with God out of this obligation (even if it seemed hypocritical at the time) - which He has used to keep track of me.)
I can clearly remember the revelation in my own mind during that second reading of GE. I remember wanting to weep over my own sins - this had never happened before."
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