A Memoir of Mary Ann Author:The Domincan Nuns of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, Flannery O'Connor From the introduction by Flannery O'Connor: "The story was as unfinished as the child's face. Both seemed to have been left, like creation on the seventh day, to be finished by others. The reader would have to make something of the story as Mary Ann had made something of her face. — She and the Sisters who had taught her had fashioned from her un... more »finished face the material of her death. The creative action of the Christian's life is to prepare for his death in Christ. It is a continuous action in which this world's goods are utilized to the fullest, both positive gifts and what Pere Teilhard de Chardin calls 'passive diminishments.' Mary Ann's diminishment was extreme, but she was equipped by natural intelligence and by a suitable education, not simply to endure it, but to build upon it. She was an extraordinarily rich little girl."« less