What religious qualities or elements emerge in the story a good man is hard to find?

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a deeply religious story about grace and redemption, written by a devout Catholic. It demonstrates O'Connor's belief that the Holy Spirit can break into the worst of situations. 

The story begins as a completely ordinary tale of a 1950s family going on a vacation. Bailey, the father, travels with his mother, known as the Grandmother, along with his wife and two children. The Grandmother can be difficult, and she demands a detour along a deserted dirt road through the woods, where she believes she can show her grandchildren an old Southern mansion.

Instead of the mansion, the family meets a killer, called the Misfit, and his gang. They systematically murder the family, until only the Grandmother is left.  Disoriented, terrified and desperate, she tries to appeal to the Misfit to spare her by telling him "Jesus will help you." Her words trigger a response in the Misfit, who has thought about Jesus' life and teachings. "Jesus thrown everything off balance," he says, going on to explain that "if He did what he said, there's nothing for you to do but throw everything away and follow him." However, he continues, if Jesus didn't do what he said (raise people from death), there's "no pleasure but meanness." Clearly, the Misfit has chosen the second path. Like most secular people, he won't believe in Jesus because he didn't see Jesus with his own eyes:"If I had of been there I would have known and wouldn't be like I am now," he says.

As the Misfit expresses his doubts, the Grandmother, a completely ordinary person, experiences an extraordinary moment of grace. She suddenly sees the Misfit, the man who has just murdered her entire family, as a full human being, worthy of love:"Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" she says to him. She reaches out a hand and tries to touch him to complete the connection. The Misfit springs back and shoots her.  

The Misfit murders the Grandmother, but he can't erase the moment of grace and connection between them--or the fact that she dies in a state of grace and redemption due to the extraordinary act of loving him, a killer, if only for a second. He can't even find the ordinary pleasure he usually has in killing people: "it's no real pleasure in life," he says, the last words of the story. Will he also be touched by God's grace? We don't know, but in O'Connor's universe, miracles are possible.