Father Elijah Quotes

“Man projects his wounds upon the world, my friend. He judges everything, and in the judging he reveals himself.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“The pain in itself is not joy. It is simply pain. But the meaning of the pain, that is joy.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“We must all make the mental leap from the pious histories we have read in the martyrologies to the reality of living flesh and blood. Our early martyrs were real men and women, with their own personalities, their flaws and their greatness. We are no different.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Así se prueba a un hombre. Si es honesto, intelectualmente hablando, reexamina sus opiniones y comienza de nuevo.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, El padre Elías (un apocalipsis)

“un hombre que ama puede ver cosas que los demás no ven. La fe abre puertas.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, El padre Elías (un apocalipsis)

“It is about a dragon and a prince and a princess.” “Oh, lovely! Does it end happily?” “Happily for the humans. Not so well for the dragon.” “Just as it should be. Commence.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Of course it's not right. The Cross isn't right. But our Lord took it and turned it into the great sign that the devil hates above all other signs. Each time we accept to bear that cross and be nailed to it, believing against all believing - when it's impossible any longer to believe because of our pain - that's when we defeat him. By the blood of the Lamb!”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Every sin is a choice to turn a miraculous being into an object for consumption. It flattens the human person, one’s self and one’s victim, into a one-dimensional universe.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“sweetness on the tongue and a promise of scent on the night air. It was sensual in the best meaning of that word, saturating every sense at once, so that the flesh was known, finally, as a thing of such goodness that man blessed his Creator from morning to night for having made him. Here in this medieval town where once an extraordinary little fellow had burst forth with songs to God, as a passionate lover speaks to his bride, here the restoration of man to his own true home was no longer the dream of saints. It was the wedding feast. It was a word made flesh.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Tell me, Anna, if man is capable of projecting his belief onto the cosmos, isn't it possible by the same token, that he can project his unbelief onto the cosmos?”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“His revulsion was overcome by love welling up within his heart.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“If I have taught you to carry the cross and to die on it, then I have taught you everything.”
― Michael O'Brien, Father Elijah: Eine Apokalypse

“There is no need for a doctor. But I would like to lie down for a while. I need to pray. The Eucharist is such a consolation to me. The Lord is so beautiful, so beautiful. He deserves so much more from us. We are so poor! Our little hearts are so poor! Love is not loved, Father Elijah. Love is not loved.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Love bursts forth from the springs of the heart as raw material. It takes many shapes. It asks us to go forth and die, over and over again. It always asks this terrible price. It wants our life—all of it. Then gives it back again.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Is it real hatred, Father?” said Elijah. “Anger is an emotion that can rise up in us for legitimate reasons. But it can become hatred if we refuse to forgive, if we desire vengeance. The sin is only in the will. What do we choose to do with our anger? We must convert these feelings. Pray for our enemies. Suffer in silence. When the time comes, you will speak the truth before your accusers, but you must do it without rancor. Offer your sufferings to the Lord. He will use them as a powerful weapon to confound the devices of the enemy. Believe in the ultimate victory, and then your pain will become joy.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“It is very hard. Man longs for a permanent home. But he does not know it until it is torn away from him.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Every sin is a choice to turn a miraculous being into an object for consumption. It flattens the human person, oneself and one’s victim, into a one-dimensional universe.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“No. In a sacramental confession, the penitent names his offenses because it is a way of taking responsibility for them before God and before man. He says, ‘I am a sinner. This is what I have done. I blame no one but myself. I ask to be pardoned and healed. I need a Savior.’ ”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“As a simple fact. Many people think they can postpone repentance till the end. This is an illusion. Most men die as they have lived. If death is sudden, there is no time for it. If it comes gradually, there is usually little energy for the revision of an entire way of being.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Because I thought that darkness had only one or two faces. It took me a long time to learn that it has many, and that its worst face masquerades as light.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“La nación más culta y religiosa de Europa permitió que lo impensable creciera en su seno.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, El padre Elías (un apocalipsis)

“Your namesake dwelt on this holy mountain three thousand years ago. He came here to listen for the voice of God.” Elijah waited, knowing there would be more forthcoming. The wind rummaged uneasily in the grape arbors. “He heard it in a gentle breeze, not in rushing about the world looking for projects. Our vocation is a call to listening. To adoration of the One who dwells among us. That is why you came here. That is why you were born.” Elijah”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Pax et Bonum!”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“You are a fertile God. Many seeds are dropped into the soil. Many do not sprout. Yet beneath the appearance of waste nothing is wasted, nothing lost. Giant trees crash to the forest floor, decompose, and become the soil out of which the saplings arise. Similarly, in human affairs, movements are created, rise, do Your work in the world, decline, go back into the soil, and provide the rich humus out of which new life springs. Generations come and go. Sun and rain, winter and summer, seed time and harvest. Always Your Word remains constant. Your people are called over and over, generation after generation, back into this constancy, back to this mysterious fluid stability—the only security worth having. Can You not waste a little more time on us?”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“I’m a great fan of Chesterton, you know. He once said that he became a Catholic because we’re the only religion that sees no contradiction between a pint, a pipe, and a cross.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Abstract academic discussions have a way of leaving their mark on entire civilizations, as the events of this century have proved all too well.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“The entire world is infected. This century has bludgeoned the perceptions of man with so much horror that the mind recoils. Evil of this magnitude shakes existence to its very core. One either believes or he doesn’t. We choose. My wife told me something surprising once. She knew many survivors of the Holocaust. She said that for some, their experience destroyed their faith in a good God. Others believed more deeply than ever.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

“Yes, the human race. It doesn't change much from people to people, nation to nation. Only the seasons and the themes of the struggle change.”
― Michael O'Brien, Father Elijah: Eine Apokalypse

“Man projects his wounds upon the world, my friend. He judges everything, and in the judging he reveals himself.”
― Michael O'Brien, Father Elijah: Eine Apokalypse

“If I were to make your voice shake the foundations of the earth like thunder, would they make themselves deafer in order not to hear?”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse