When one conjures up images of the Roman Catholic Church, the symbols most likely to be recalled are those of incense, chanting and bells. Other associative elements might be of religious admonitions proclaimed by mean-spirited nuns who taught in local parochial schools. Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" plays upon Catholic symbolism, reaching to use rituals and symbols to convey the author's strong Catholic convictions. In William S. Doxley's essay titled "A Dissenting Opinion of Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find," he states that "this idea of 'grace' stems from her Catholic view, which largely explains the grandmother's death (after receiving grace!), for Miss O'Connor states, 'I'm a born Catholic and death has always been brother to my imagination. I can't image a story that doesn't properly end in it or in it's foreshadowing.'" O'Connor continues, "It is one of the functions of the Church to transmit the prophetic vision that is good for all time, and when the novelist has this as part of his own vision, he has a powerful extension of sight".
             In the critical essay by Matthew Fike titled "The Timothy Allusion in 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'", the author explores the spiritual significance of O'Connor's allusion to St. Paul's epistles to Timothy. The family stops at Red Sammy Butt's place, "'The Tower', for barbecued sandwiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy"
             (330). Towards the end of the story, the grandmother says, "if you would pray", the old lady said, "Jesus would help you." (336) St. Paul urges prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1-7. Another writer, Hallman B. Bryant, wrote in "Re
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