"The Sisters"

In the story "The Sisters," in the novel "The Dubliners" by James Joyce, one of the sisters speaks to the narrator and her aunt about a deceased priest they have been taking care of. The sister describes some memories of the priest, Father James Flynn, and about when he first started acting strange. "It was that chalice he broke," she remembers, "that was the beginning of it." A chalice is a cup that the communion wine is held and it is ironic that a priest would break a cup that holds "the blood of Christ." Although the chalice had nothing in it, it is suppose to contain the Holy Spirit and since Father Flynn dropped it, he subconsciously dropped his faith in God. In the story, it says that James felt guilty for dropping something that symbolizes Christ and that is so important to his faith. Due to Father Flynn's regret he began wandering around by himself and sneaking into the church at night, which demonstrates that James did not consciously intend to drop the chalice. Since he dropped the chalice, it symbolizes that he unconsciously no longer had faith in God and that his life-long occupation no longer seemed to have a foundation. Earlier in the novel, the main character has a flashback to when Father Flynn was explaining to her the Catholic faith and tried to get her to become more interested in her religion. Since James did not consciously believe in God this scene seems to have contradicted its purpose to the story, which demonstrates the irony of a priest unconsciously losing his faith. Therefore, the quote in this scene tells us that the author's intentions for the reader was to reconsider their attitudes of the priest from being dependable and trustworthy to being skeptical and deceitful.