In the Wilderness Quotes

“He was fully aware that what he’d seen was not something he’d seen through any inherent abilities of his own; light had streamed into him from outside, and he realized that he had called on auxiliary troops to fight this power, as well as for help from that source, which a man never seeks in vain when he wants to protect himself from the truth—and such help he had doubtless received. He also knew that, if at the time he’d been able to see clearly and understand fully what he had done, understand not only with his mind but also with his heart, then he should now be a despairing man. Yet he felt only relief, and the cold from his sopping wet clothes clung tightly to his body and calmed him, the way a wet sail will put out a fire.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“The only difference was that he had never considered calling any man who begged for his help either a friend or an equal. He had bestowed his gifts out of a sense of pity that was both lukewarm and arrogant. But the men who had taken him under their protection had embraced him like a younger brother who had come to them in his need. Humiliation fell upon Olav like a landslide; he was crushed and smothered beneath the rocks.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“Yet now he understood, at long last, that he had to choose. Not between God and one thing or another on this earth, not even his own mortal existence, but between God and himself.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“At first God had spoken to him face-to-face; that was on the night when he was about to lose Ingunn. At that moment, when he knew he was going to be left behind by his only friend, God had spoken to him from the forsaken place on the cross. On that night, when he felt as if he could have sweated blood from sorrow, God had appeared to him, drenched with the blood of His death throes, with His skin pierced, with the nails and the thorns, and He had spoken to Olav the way a friend speaks to a friend: Oh, all you who travel these roads, look over here and see if there exists any sorrow like my sorrow! And Olav had seen his sin and his sorrow like a bleeding gash on Christ’s bleeding shoulders. Yet he still hadn’t had the strength to go to Him.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“Olav was the only one in the church who didn’t dare go forward to receive communion. For years he had known that when he couldn’t refuse to receive the sacrament at Eastertime, he was behaving as Judas had done when he attended the Last Supper. When he was a child, Olav never could understand how Judas had dared; he must have realized that God knew what he’d done. Now Olav found himself in the same position as Judas Iscariot—he went about among his fellow Christians, and they considered him a good Christian, just as the apostles had still viewed Judas when they sat down at the table that evening. Yet the only thing Judas could think about was that in the midst of this group he was all alone with the one who knew of his betrayal.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“During the past years Olav’s thoughts had sometimes turned to the monastic life. If he joined a cloister, would that put an end to his difficulties? But he had never for a moment seriously believed it would. Whatever God might intend for him, Olav would probably not be called to become a monk. And he’d been given the most certain of signs that this was true, for it wasn’t the harshness of a cloistered life that deterred him. On the contrary. He had often longed to be released from everything a monk must forego, to bow to the discipline of strictures. Yet no man was capable of doing such unless God granted him particular mercy. By now Olav had wandered for so long as an exile at the borders of God’s merciful kingdom that he’d realized that once a man freely surrendered to God and accepted His will, then God’s power over him would know no bounds. And on those long sleepless nights Olav had often thought: now they are entering the chancel in the cloisters. Men and women are standing there to serve the Lord with their songs of praise, their prayers and thoughts, like guards surrounding a slumbering encampment. But it was everything included in the monastic rules that had been established for the ease and respite of man’s weak nature that Olav found himself unable to consider without antipathy: the shared life of the monks; the times for conversation when a monk had to display kindness and courtesy toward his fellows, whether he liked them or not, and whether he was inclined to speak or keep silent; and having to go out among strangers or serve at the cloister’s guesthouse whenever the prior asked a monk to do so, even when he might prefer to be alone. Olav had observed that it was the latter obligation that many monks had little desire to fulfill, even though they were otherwise good and pious men. They would behave in a sullen and obstinate manner toward strangers, and turn quarrelsome toward each other. That was no doubt a sign that such men were unsuited to life in a monastery. “The image of Christ can be carved just as beautifully from the wood of a spruce as from a linden tree.” That’s what Bishop Torfinn had once said when Arnvid spoke of his wish to be as calm and good-natured as Fat Asbjørn. The bishop then added, “Yet I have never heard that the Lord turned a spruce into a linden, presumably because that would be an unneeded miracle. With God’s mercy you can become as good a man as Asbjørn, though I doubt whether He will grant you the same nature as the fat monk.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“And Olav felt like a man who had returned home to his mother after long journeys that had brought him more losses and injuries than honors and gains. But now he was sitting with her, just the two of them, and listening to her wise counsel. “Though you may have failed at every effort you attempted, things are such that even the most wretched of men cannot lose a battle that hasn’t yet been fought.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“The words sounded a bit different from the way in which Norwegians pronounced the Latin, but not so much that he couldn’t recognize the passages that belonged to the attributes of the saints: Me exspectaverunt peccatores, ut pederent me: testimonia tua, Domine intellexi: omnis consummationis vidi finem: latum mandatum tuum nimis. Beati immaculati in via: qui ambulant in lege Domini.6”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads

“Olav was the first to remember to make the sign of the cross. In a low voice he began praying: “Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum . . .” “Opera manuum tuarum, Domine, ne despicias,” the beggars joined in, voicing the response along with his shipmates. “Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.”5 Olav and Galfrid gave alms to the beggars, who then hobbled off in different directions. It occurred to Olav that these were the first words he’d understood in this country: the prayer in Latin for the souls of these decapitated men.”
― Sigrid Undset, Olav Audunssøn: III. Crossroads