Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by Michael D. O'Brien

(San Francisco: Ignatius, 1998), 597

"God sees your heart. He knows that you love Him." (16, cf. Jn-21-Jn-21)
"Man projects his wounds upon the world, my friend. He judges everything, and in the judging he reveals himself." (21)
"I'm afraid the unspeakable has become the ordinary, old boy." (34)
"The assault is underway on every level of society. I think the noisiest of the attacks are the least dangerous." (53)
"But he considered himself useful to God only to the degree that he had given away his life and to the degree that he had built a life of prayer on the foundation of self-abandonment. He was a monk. He praised God and he interceded to Him for mankind." (59)
"Modern man could not presently endure this knowledge. he suffers from the major disease of our century, a kind of absolute despair. As a result, he would simply ignore the truth or reject it out of hand...Despair drives modern man to these solutions." (61)
"The quality of the messenger is an essential aspect of the message." (67)
"The Billy the Kid routine. You'd be surprised at how useful it is. When people think one is an ambitious fool, they tend to say all sorts of things in front of you, revealing themselves, where they're at, and where they're bound." (70)
Spiritual Disciplines: "The Lord will strengthen you. Spend much time before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Bask in the radiance of the tabernacle. Tomorrow before breakfast we will say Mass in the chapel, hidden from the eyes of the curious." "Is there anything else I should do?" "Fast a little, if you like. Remember that obedience is the great fast. Practice interior mortifications frequently throughout the days that you are with us. It is better than giving up a chocolate bar." Father Matteo smiled gently. "Should I read?" "Read Matthew 24, and anything else in Scripture the Holy Spirit prompts you to read. I suggest that you keep your mind free. Be still. Wait for God." (81)
Fasting: "If I don't eat tonight I'll be stronger than if I had eaten." (85)
"Spiritual warfare for Christ beings with victory over one's self." (87)
"Once again I tell you, I have seen more wondrous things than that. But I will add what St. Bonaventure once wrote about this incident. He said, 'I know not which I ought to wonder at, such a cure or such a kiss.'" Elijah nodded. Bonaventure's insight was the concise summation of the whole problem. Which was the greater miracle, the suspension of natural law for the sake of physical healing, or the conversion of the human heart by absolute love? (88)
"God frequently leads the soul to a rather insignificant chore. If the soul if faithful to it, he leads him on to other tasks. He begins with the particular and consummates the work in the universal." (89)
★ visit with Don Matteo (100-110)
Suffering: "The pain in itself is not joy. It is simply pain. But the meaning of the pain, that is joy." (108)
"You want glorious victories with your sword; most of all, you want victories over your personal weaknesses and faults." "What's wrong with that?" "It is a good desire, but it can also be a kind of idealism masking Pride." (122, cf. 2 Cor-12)
Cardinal Newman's sermon's on the Antichrist, cf. ~Parochial and Plain Sermons (177)
"I am of the opinion that when one gets to know a housewife, any housewife, one finds that she is never ordinary." (223)
Some Reading Quotes: "I put good books into the hands of people. Perhaps good thoughts are born in their minds." (255)
"I have heard many thousands of sacramental confessions in my life. There is nothing I haven't heard." "You are beyond shock?" "I won't say that. It is possible that man can devise new forms of violation. But the essential sin remains more or less the same. Each of us, including the best of men, is tempted to make himself into God. The murderer makes himself master over life and death; the thief over material goods, the tyrant over man's freedom, the occultist over spiritual powers, the adulterer over love, and so on." (268)
End justifies the means: "We must do whatever is possible without going beyond the boundaries of the divine principles. We cannot take up the weapons of evil in order to defeat evil. To do so, even in the defense of good, would be to be doubly defeated. I believe that is Satan's ultimate objective. Why would a fallen angel want to kill six million, or sixty or a hundred million, or even the whole human race? What would that prove? That he is bad? He already knows that, and God knows it too. No, the prize he is after is no less than to seduce all mankind into his rebellion. And to do it in the name of the good. That would be his masterstroke." (298)
"In every person's soul there is an icon of what he is meant to be." (305)
"A man is what he loves. A man is what he will live for and die for." (403)
"It's interesting the way the most simple minds, and the finest, eventually go back to the Church." (408)
"St. Joseph too -small, hidden man from the least of villages -he contained the heart of a true father and made it possible for a new world to come into being. Joseph-fosterfather to a fatherless world, living icon of the Father." (566)
"You'd be amazed at how many honest criminals there are in here. They're as guilty as sin and admit it, which is a better way of life than the folks outside who are guilty and think they're innocent. We're all criminals at heart, even those of us who are innocent, technically speaking. Cain and Abel- you know the story." (571)

Topic: Apocalyptic literature

Source: ?, Dolores

Bibliography

I Promessi Sposi—The Bethrothed by Manzoni (359)
The Crimean Sonnets by Adam Mickiewicz (361)

New Words

Created: 2022-05-10-Tue
Updated: 2023-03-06-Mon