A Costly Journey | Quote Series

Father Elijah: the Apocalypse is quite a masterpiece. It is of a time, though it was written more than 25 years ago, and the world has changed immensely since its publication. At the heart of this novel is a priest whose life journey launches him into a journey larger than himself. The novel references Lord of the Rings, and in a lot of ways, the main character is like Frodo. He willingly undertakes a costly journey in the hope that the world would be saved. Or rather that one man might be saved for the sake of the world.

The text is so rich that to choose one quote to expound on I find quite impossible. So I will take you through a few and my musings.

“Our vocation is a call of listening. To adoration of the One who dwells among us.”

Father Elijah is a priest, living out his calling at a monastery. As we read further, we explore his past lives (and there are many). He is not someone who ordinarily would have become a priest, and yet he was called. From the world, he was called into the monastery, into the heart of God, that he might pray, for the main work is prayer. To listen to the heart of his Beloved. If you are Catholic, the exploration of the experience of the Blessed Sacrament might prove familiar to you.

Related Post: lent, seasons, and risk

I’m afraid the unspeakable has become the ordinary, old boy.

Billy Stangsby

Billy, a dear old friend of Father Elijah, is a delight on the page. He is funny and he is faithful. As Father Elijah leaves the monastery in obedience to his prior, he is shocked at what the world has become. And we have grown numb to it, I know, but imagine spending years in a monastery and entering the world of laptops and cell phones and all the things that clutter the soul.

I’ve been rewatching season 5 of The Chosen (and it’s worth every second of rewatching!), and there’s the part where the Pharisees are asking Jesus for signs and wonders, which is ironic because he’s been healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, he even has raised the dead. There comes a point where you must decide what it will take for you to believe.

Why this persistent need for signs, wonders, anything other than the demands of raw, laborious, darkest faith?

Related Post: Fighting for faith on a winding path | quote series

Faith is not easy. I feel far removed from those who portray faith with ease. Jesus is utterly real and profoundly true, but there is a cost to following him. There is a cross to carry.

There is a secret smile on the face of God, Billy once told him.

And yet, one thing I haven’t quite come to terms with is the idea that God is joyful. (Isaiah says that Jesus is a man acquainted with grief) God laughs and is delighted. This is hard for me. Joy is easy when life is going well. Unfortunately life is rarely going so well. There are ups and downs to everyday life. To cultivate a sense of joy in the darkest moment, that is a true sense of faith. It doesn’t make sense and yet you hold firm.

Elijah had gradually learned to dig deep for the well of joy.

I fear that as I get older, I have perhaps made a home for my despair. And this is what endears Father Elijah to him. As a priest, he had to learn to make space for joy. He still stumbles and doubts and grieves. His grieving has made him tender to me. A life of deep faith, of following the whispers of God and the wisdom of faithful leaders does not cancel out life’s darkest moments. Faith doesn’t remove the pain, perhaps sometimes it dulls the ache, other times it complicates it. Father Elijah grieves AND turns to God. 

Related Post: finding my way back to joy

I know that some people believe that this era we’re in is normal, but I believe there is something unique about this moment in history (the novel posits its own theory, which is definitely worth considering). We’re constantly iterating new forms of technology, our work (for the most part) is mental labor as opposed to physical, we have access to so much abundance or to seeing the most abundant, and yet there’s a vague sense that something is not quite right.

C.S. Lewis called these people Late Western Man. They’re educated, affluent, restless, and unfulfilled.

I’m not sure where we are headed, but it seems to me to be unsustainable, for our earth, for our minds, for our souls.

And the Lamb overcame death.’ ‘Yes. But first He had to die.

In Father Elijah, we find a man compelled to follow the call of God and with this, there is a cost. To live out obedience to God, to go where He has you to go but where you wish not to, to bear wounds for Christ’s sake, to say yes to God—this indeed is a dying, a dying of self.

One of the verses that illustrate this is John 12:24 – if a wheat falls onto the ground and dies, it will bear much fruit.

I highly recommend you read Father Elijah: the Apocalype if you are a believer interested in Revelation, a Catholic wanting to be inspired by a priest, or if you’re at all curious about the novel.

Signing off,

Gigi