In the book, Sara describes herself as a “blue-state, secular intellectual, a lesbian, and a left-wing journalist” and has well documented her Atheist upbringing (Miles, iii). Her childhood and subsequent worldly travels, which has provided her with the opportunity to experience life from many different facets, and being intermingled with individuals from all ends of the socio-economic spectrum, has surely shaped her views of the church, religion, and the body of Christ. Whereas most individuals who were raised in a church setting are used to the strict formalities of rules and tradition, Miles seemingly holds no regard for following them, as religion and all that encompasses it had always been foreign to her.
As she did with her own life, Miles also takes a very liberal and unabashed approach to how she conducts herself in the church setting, specifically, when she first visited St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church. Miles described how she just wandered into liturgy, and decided to take part in communion as the “Body of Christ” was passed around (Miles, 57). In the …show more content…
The Catholic Church spells out clear and concise rules for taking part in communion. Rules which liberal, atheist Sara couldn’t have adhered to or even possibly known about when she took communion for the first time. One key requirement of communion is that all of those who are partaking in it must be in a state of grace, having confessed their recent sins to God (Miles, 76). We know that Sara wouldn’t have met this requirement, but it appears that she didn’t know it either. Furthermore, the Catholic Church describes mortal sins to include homosexuality and having sex outside of marriage-something that Sara had been involved in throughout her life and should, by technicalities, have prevented her from partaking in communion unless she had been