in (one recently deceased) had been a priest. Furthermore, the girl that he has such intense feelings for (referred to in the story as Mangan's sister) cannot attend the bazaar like she would have wished to, on account of "a retreat that week in her convent." Religion then serves as a foundational aspect of life as Joyce presents it, though much of it is subtle, expressed largely in the background.

Meanwhile, we find the narrator sometimes expressing himself and his emotions through quasi-sacral terms. Thus, Joyce writes,

I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand.

His emotions are communicated here through the language and metaphor of religion and religious ritual. Later, he will endeavor to attend the bazaar and bring Mangan's sister back a gift (though it will prove in the end to be a deeply disappointing experience). There is a tension running throughout "Araby," by which the narrator finds himself consumed by the intensity of his emotions, even as the rest of the world around him would treat those emotions as trivial. Joyce's quasi-religious language helps serve to heighten that emotional intensity, and the tensions that result.

In James Joyce's short story "Araby," there is the strange mixture of the exotic with the bazaar along with implications of religious fervor mixed with innuendoes of sexual desire in the mind of the boy who is infatuated with his friend Mangan's sister.  In fact, the blind allegiance to religion that the Irish boy has and his blind allegiance to the girl mirror and foster each other.  All of these--the myth of the exotic and his blind allegiance to religion and to the girl--end in disillusionment.

From the beginning, religious imagery is interwoven into the story:  The Catholic school is mentioned and the neighborhood is reflective of an old church as the uninhabited house rises above the others like the belfry and the other houses "gaze at one another with brown imperturbable faces."  This use of brown by Joyce connotes rows of pews, and it also connotes the drab and stultifying lives of the Irish who follow the precept of the Churdh blindly.  (In Joyce's Stephen Hero, he refers to "one of those brown brick houses which seem the very incarnation of Irish paralysis.")  Behind the house is a wild garden with straggling bushes and a central apple tree, a garden suggestive of a thwarted Garden of Eden.  Likewise, the vision of Mangan's sister as having a halo of light behind her, like a saint or the Virgin Mary, is thrawted while the boy lies on the floor so that he can see Mangan's sister under the blind.

Yet, this illusive pure image of Mangan's sister accompanies the boy to where it is "the most hostile to romance."  When he goes to market with his aunt, for instance, the boy imagines himself on a quest for the holy grail,

I imagine that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes

as he carries the aunt's groceries. His body becomes like a harp, the heavenly instrument that is also symbolic of Ireland.  When Mangan's sister does speak to him, the boy again envisions her in the light as a virginal creature held captive "behind the railing" for him to worship.  As he looks over at the girl's house from the two-story empty house, the boy sees "nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination."

In his essay, Araby: A Quest for Meaning, John Freimarck writes,

The myth element enriches the story, but we are never really on the quest for the grail—we are in Dublin all the time with the psychologically accurate story of the growth of a romantic boy awakening to his sexuality, idealizing Mangan's sister and encountering frustration in the process.

The boy's idealization is religious, his disappointment and disillusionment are human; these are real.  He stands outside the bazaar, realizing his illusions, and his eyes "burned with anguish and anger."  The religious imagery mirrors the illusions of the relationship of the boy and girl that is no more exotic and romantic than the mundane bazaar.

There are two direct references to religion in James Joyce's "Araby." The first reference is to a priest who used to live in the unnamed narrator's house. The second way the unnamed narrator references religion is the way he talks about Mangan's sister, the object of his affection.

In the first two Dublinersstories, "The Sisters" and "An Encounter," references to priests are primarily negative. In this story, however, the reference to the priest is positive. This priest "left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister." References to priests in "The Sisters" and "An Encounter" focus on the strict religiousness of these men; in "Araby," the "very charitable" priest reads possibly anti-Catholic and secular books such as The Devout Communicant and Vidocq's The Memoirs. 

The second reference the unnamed narrator makes in the story is conflating Mangan's sister with religion. As if being a Christian crusader, he imagines himself bearing his "chalice safely through a throng of foes." In addition, her name "sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand." These ideas could both be seen as blasphemous in Dublin at the time "Araby" was published.

In his writings, Joyce is often extremely critical of the Catholic Church in Ireland, presenting its domination of Irish public life as chiefly responsible for the country's cultural and intellectual sterility. And in "Araby" it's no different. The unnamed narrator, like virtually everyone in this society, is a Roman Catholic. Wherever he goes and whatever he does he's surrounded by the symbols of the Church. The boy has been raised as a Catholic, goes to a Catholic school. His very language is steeped in religious imagery. It's notable that he refers to the object of his affections—Mangan's sister—as a "chalice." It's as if she's the Holy Grail, and he is her knightly protector.

The symbolism here is unavoidable. The narrator's putting of Mangan's sister on a pedestal diverts him from the truth, from the cold, harsh realties of life. It's only when he arrives at the bazaar too late that he's finally disabused of his fantasies. Joyce appears to be drawing a parallel here with the Catholic Church. As a staunch atheist, Joyce believes that the Church is leading people away from the truth, deliberately keeping them in a state of ignorance to consolidate its hold over them. On this reading, the childish fantasy life of the narrator is intended to represent what Joyce sees as the religious delusions under which the vast majority of Irish Catholics labor.