John Nejman October 4, 1999 The Power and Glory writing assignment “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.(Matthew 26:41) These words of Jesus are thematic in both the novel, The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, and the poem, “Batter my heart, three-personed God”, by John Donne. Both the whiskey priest and the speaker of the poem are involved in a battle between their sinful flesh and their spirit, which seeks the Divine. They also admit their sin and commit themselves to God. In both the novel and the poem, the authors use similar paradoxes to describe the character’s relationship with God while the search for holiness takes each on a different path. The speaker