How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Sweet Patria, always her religion was so important."
"Always?" the woman says, just the slightest challenge in her voice.
"Always," Dedé affirms, used to this fixed, monolithic language around interviewers and mythologizers of her sisters. "Well, almost always." (1.1.31-33)
Patria is the character most strongly related to religion and the church, because she has been "good" and devoted to the church since childhood. That "almost" always introduces a doubt in her faithfulness though. It foreshadows not only her decision not to be a nun, but also the loss of faith that she experiences after the death of her baby.
Quote #2
"Padre Ignacio says fortunes are for those without faith." (1.1.56)
When Papá begins predicting all of his daughters' futures, Mamá grows uncomfortable. She blames her unease on the church's teachings; the priest says that fortunes are bad news. But perhaps she doesn't like what the predictions themselves are saying: that Dedé will outlive all of her family.
Quote #3
Looking back, she thinks, Ay, Mamá, ease up a little on those commandments. Work out the Christian math of how you give a little and you get it back a hundredfold. (1.1.56)
When Dedé remembers her mother's rigid faith, scolding her father, she thinks that their marriage might have gone a little bit better if her mother had used religion not to be strict but rather to be generous with love. In many ways that "Christian math" is the logic that leads Patria to the revolution.