Patria's Passion For Religion

“This particular girl had been enrolled in a convent until earlier that year. She was supposed to be a nun by now, but the communists had closed down all the catholic churches and convents.” ( Anh on his mother) pg.3

When she returned to America she needed to support her children so she opened a girl’s school in Boston, and made religion a part of the school. After a few years the archbishop asked Elizabeth to open a girls’ school in Emmitsburg, Maryland. This is when she decided to become a nun (1809). She didn’t go along, 2 of her daughters and sister-in-law came with here to start the school and they became the American Sisters of Charity and in 1810 Elizabeth become Mother Seton.

In the beginning of the book when Patria was young, she is described as and acts very religious. When Patria went to Sor Asuncion’s office, she thinks:

While the Mirabal family was thought to have been a loving family, Minerva’s father had a second family, because he wanted to have a boy. It took Minerva a while, but she was the first to acknowledge them. She eventually wanted to meet them, “I waited for things to settle down inside me. Then I said, ‘I want to meet them. They’re my sisters, after all’” (Alvarez 91). Minerva figured out that justice means justice for all, not just for those one likes. Minerva wanted to go to law school, but she had to face off against Trujillo. She decided to gamble with dice, “I can guess what he wants. But I’m so sure I can beat him now that I know his secret. ‘I’ll toss,’ I say” (Alvarez 115). Minerva was so sure of herself, so she just did a very risky move. Minerva, combined with her empowerment by knowing Trujillo’s secret, and knowing that she wants justice, combined, created a strong idealism for her to

This can be see when she “had seen the next best thing to Jesus, my earthly groom. The struggle was over, and I had my answer, though it was not the one I had assumed I would get” (48). At this point in Patria’s life, she first sets her eyes on Pedrito and immediately places him at a high pedestal within her heart. Alvarez specifically has Patria compare Pedrito to Jesus as this is foreshadowing her future mindset of slowly placing religion lower and lower within her commitments. Instead, she is prioritizing her marriage over her faith which is a polar opposite to her mindset a few years ago, once again showing a stark contrast in her reliance on religion. Pedrito’s mental state of grief after the miscarriage also had a large effect on Patrias decisions and attitude towards god. During her recovery, she “began coming back from the dead. What brought me back? It wasn’t God, no senor. It was

Some adults may live much of their lives with a literal faith. Stage three is group faith Young people start to value the importance of friendship and often come to view God as one who treats them much like a trusted companion. Stage four is person faith. People strengthen their faith by questioning earlier beliefs. Stage five is mystical faith. At this stage of faith the awareness of God’s inner presence leads one to become more aware that God also dwells in others. Interfaith dialogue now becomes not a threat but an opportunity for new understanding. Stage six is sacrificial faith. Jesus, Dorothy Day, and Archbishop Romero are examples of this sacrificial faith. Such people display radical and consistent commitment to the doing of God’s will that is uncompromised by concern for personal security.

religion at the beginning of the book. However, as the the revolution progresses, she starts to doubt her religion values toward the interpretation on the bible. An example would be “My faith was shifting,and I was afraid” . This means that her faith of what she did believe in originally was changing. Patria has used courage many times throughout the book. One moment in the book she used it is at the beginning of the book when she lost her baby as a stillborn. She used courage by taking that moment in life in going on and tried having more children. Another example of Patria have courage would be her father's death. That impacted Patria’s life just as it impacted her sisters, but Patria stayed strong and thought of the rest of her family and told

The Nun cares too much about her appearance and how other people think of her. Her desire to be well-mannered is not something a child of God is supposed to worry about during her time as a nun. Instead, the Nun should be spreading the words of God and inspiring other people to follow Christianity.Not only is the Nun obsessed with her appearance, she

The message of my work is to try and highlight the importance of showing how a person’s faith can have a positive and life-changing impact on their lives. I have done this by looking into the lives of two early Christian missionaries and portray how they would 've felt about their journeys, who they met and what they were teaching others. In doing so, I try to portray, to the best of my ability and knowledge, the apostle 's thoughts and just how strong their conviction and faith in God was.

Patria Mirabel has always seemed to put others needs before her own, seeking the approval of God and trying to follow in his will. Although she had some problems with her faith at times, she seemed to always be led to do what

Throughout the novel, Minerva makes sacrifices for the revolution that impact her family, the people she cares the most about. By becoming an active part in the revolution, Minerva puts her whole family and everyone else close to her in danger. As a result, she finds herself giving up her child to her older

She tells Minerva “It's a dirty business, you're right. That's why we women shouldn't get involved.” When it comes to the government, but Minerva disagress. Patria on the other hand, is the definition of a respectful, traditional woman. As the oldest she is like a motherly figure to the other girls. Patria is very religious, at one point she was considering in being a nun. “It started with Patria wanting to be a nun. Mama was all for having a religious in the family, but Papa did not approve in the least. More than once, he said that Patria as a nun would be a waste of a pretty girl.” (11) This was evident that regardless of what her father thought, Patria was passionate about her religion. Patria is also very tranquil about everything around her, to Minerva her father’s affair infuriates her, while Patria tries to comfort her mother and doesn’t judge her father. That is also something different about Patria; she has a lot of respect for her parents. (not sure how to go from here, should I explain how? Or include a quote.

Theme in “Defender of the Faith” can be interpreted in many varying ways, some of which are life-long lessons and others to the relation between faith and the individual.

"It is probable that ancestor worship is by all means the oldest stage of the belief in spiritual beings, and that from this belief originated the primitive conceptions of the state of man after death. Thence it comes that the oldest social divisions of mankind, the family and the gens, have doubtless originated with many peoples from the worship of ancestors (Stade 1888:406)."

Religion has been a powerful force in human history. Mankind has longed and searched for the answers to its purpose, the reason for being and the possibility of life after physical death. They reasoned that an afterlife would be a place of accounting and reckoning for the life they lived on earth. Religious belief systems seemed to give the answers as to how to prepare for the afterlife. Religion became the means of giving answers to those basic yet deep-seated questions of both life and death. Religion provided a format of rules and laws for conduct and treatment toward others based on the desires and wishes of a god or gods that people envisioned, imagined or invented. Religious belief systems have been a powerful force for good and bad...good in the sense that it provided a measure of individual behavior and order in society for the wellbeing of the whole, but bad in the sense that men of ambition who craved power and control over others would often use religion as a tool of manipulation and fear. A casual glance of history tells us that complete civilizations have been built, grown and maintained around elaborate religious systems, ancient Egypt being a prime example.