Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  FATHER ELIJAH

  An Apocalypse

  MICHAEL D. O’BRIEN

  FATHER ELIJAH

  An Apocalypse

  IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

  Cover art by Michael D. O’Brien

  David Schäfer’s Vision

  Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

  © 1996 Ignatius Press, San Francisco

  All rights reserved

  ISBN 978-0-89870-690-1 (PB)

  ISBN 978-0-89870-580-5 (HB)

  ISBN 978-1-68149-172-1 (EB)

  Library of Congress catalogue number 95-79950

  Printed in the United States of America

  Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death. . . .

  (Revelation 3:2)

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1. Carmel

  2. Rome

  3. The Vatican

  4. Assisi

  5. Ruth

  6. Naples

  7. Isola di Capri

  8. Rome

  9. Rome

  10. Warsaw

  11. The Confession

  12. Another Confession

  13. The Conference

  14. Rome

  15. Rome

  16. Foligno

  17. Rome

  18. Advent

  19. In Pectore

  20. Capri

  21. Panaya Kapulu

  22. Apokalypsis

  Endnotes

  Acknowledgments

  I am indebted to the Polish Canadian poet Christopher Zakrzewski for his translations of The Crimean Sonnets by Adam Mickiewicz, for permission to quote from them in Father Elijah, and for his editorial assistance. I am also most grateful to Marc Sebanc, translator, essayist, and novelist, for his wise insights and honesty. Above all, I wish to thank my wife, Sheila, whose editorial sense is unsurpassed, and whose patience as I stare glassy-eyed over many a meal will one day be rewarded.

  Introduction

  An apocalypse is a work of literature dealing with the end of human history. For millennia apocalypses of various sorts have arisen throughout the world in the cultural life of many peoples and religions. They are generated by philosophical speculation, by visions of the future, or by inarticulate longings and apprehensions, and not infrequently by the abiding human passion for what J. R. R. Tolkien called “sub-creation”. These poems, epics, fantasies, myths, and prophetic works bear a common witness to man’s transient state upon the earth. Man is a stranger and sojourner. His existence is inexpressibly beautiful—and dangerous. It is fraught with mysteries that beg to be deciphered. The Greek word apokalypsis means an uncovering, or revealing. Through such revelations man gazes into the panorama of human history in search of the key to his identity, in search of permanence and completion.

  Perhaps the worst of the “demythologizing” so endemic to our times is the message that the stories of the Christian Faith are merely our version of universal “myths”. It is suggested that many cultures have produced tales about a hero who is killed and then returns to life; many more have imagined a cataclysm that will occur at the end of history. G. K. Chesterton once wrote that the demythologizers’ position really adds up to this: since a truth has impressed itself deeply in the imagination of a vast number of ancient peoples, therefore it simply cannot be true. He pointed out that the demythologizer has failed to examine the most important consideration of all: that people of various times and places may have been informed at an intuitive level of actual events that would one day take place in history; that in their inner longings there was a glimmer of light, a presentiment, a yearning forward through the medium of art toward the fullness of Truth that would one day be made flesh in the Incarnation. Saint John’s Revelation is an apocalypse of a higher order. It is genuine prophecy in the sense that it is not merely a work of foretelling, but is a communication from the Lord of history Himself. It is an exhortation, an encouragement, a teaching vehicle, and a vision of actual events that will one day occur.

  As the drama of our century speeds toward some unknown climax, numerous speculations arise and new attention is given to John’s Apocalypse, stimulating a plethora of interpretation. One school of thought has it that the book refers solely to John’s own time; another asserts that it is exclusively a meditation on the end of things in some indeterminate future; still another believes that the book is a map of the Church’s history, unfolded in seven major epochs. A fourth interpretation, one favored by most of the Church Fathers, holds that it is a theological vision of a vast spiritual landscape, containing descriptions of the situation of the Church in John’s own time, and also the events that are to unfold at the end of time. For John, the “end times” begin with the Incarnation of Christ into the world, and there remains only a last battle through which the Church must pass.

  This, in my view, is the fullest and best interpretation, and it is the one I have followed in Father Elijah. The reader will encounter here an apocalypse in the old literary sense, but one that was written in the light of Christian revelation. It is a speculation, a work of fiction. It does not attempt to predict certain details of the final Apocalypse so much as to ask how human personality would respond under conditions of intolerable tension, in a moral climate that grows steadily chillier, in a spiritual state of constantly shifting horizons. The near future holds for us many possible variations on the apocalyptic theme, some more dire than others. I have presented only one scenario. And yet, the central character is plunged into a dilemma that would face him in any apocalypse. He finds himself within the events that are unfolding, and thus he is faced with the problem of perception: how to see the hidden structure of his chaotic times, how to step outside it and to view it objectively while remaining within it as a participant, as an agent for the good.

  The reader should be forewarned that this book is a novel of ideas. It does not proceed at the addictive pace of a television micro-drama, nor does it offer simplistic resolutions and false piety. It offers the Cross. It bears witness, I hope, to the ultimate victory of light.

  I

  Carmel

  Brother Ass found Father Elijah in the onion garden. The old monk was hoeing, sweating under his straw bonnet, and the young brother felt a moment of pity for him.

  “Father Prior wants you.”

  “Thank you, Brother.”

  “You’re to go right now, he says. Don’t worry about washing up. Come right away.” His words spilled out all ajumble, as they usually did. He was referred to as Brother Ass because of his simplicity and his preference for any household task that could be accomplished by beasts of burden. Elijah thought of him as the small one.

  “Hurry, hurry”, he nagged. His good eye was laughing; the other was scarred and set in a permanent wink. He was a Christian Palestinian, a gangly, uncomplicated boy who did not mind being insignificant.

  He was not held in esteem by most of the fathers and brothers. He was sloppy and forgot the Rule almost every day—although he was always sincerely repentant. Their attitude toward him was usually patient; at its worst, and then only rarely, it was condescending. Elijah liked him very much, and between them there was a sincere, if detached, affection.

  “I happen to know, Father, that a big telephone call came from Italy an hour ago. Brother Sylvester told me when we passed in the hall after prayers.”

  He clapped a hand over his mouth, and his one good eye contorted in shame.

  “I’m sure that you and Brother Sylvester didn’t mean to break the Silence”, said Elijah.

  “That’s right Father, we didn’t mean to break the Silence.”

  “And I’m sure that tomorrow you will remember to keep the Rule perfectly.”

  “Yes, tom
orrow I will keep the Rule perfectly.”

  “God sees your heart. He knows that you love Him.”

  The small one nodded emphatically.

  “When you are praying, when you are asking Him to remind you of things, please pray for me so that I may keep the Rule perfectly?”

  “I will, Father.”

  “I am grateful for your prayers.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  They parted in the hallway outside the prior’s office. The small one bustled off to the church where he would kneel before the Presence and ask pardon for yet another day in which he had failed to avoid transgression.

  Elijah knocked.

  The prior said, Enter. Elijah did so, and waited. The prior bid him be seated. He was a German. His high, domed forehead, solemn features, and thoughtful gray eyes rightly belonged in the face of a scholastic, perhaps a northern Benedictine. But Elijah had long ago learned not to judge by appearances. This prior in particular was not what he seemed. He stood by the window overlooking the Bay of Haifa, watching the sun fall into the sea.

  “It is most irregular, Father Elijah. I do not feel peace about it.”

  “About what, Father Prior?”

  “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 nodded.

  “As prior I have been given a grace of discernment for my spiritual sons. And I am distressed.”

  “Are you distressed about me?”

  “Excuse me, I have been talking without explaining. A telephone message came today. You are being called to Rome.”

  “Rome? But our house there is full to overflowing. We are practically empty here.”

  “You are not being called to the house in Rome. It’s to the Vatican.”

  “The Vatican?”

  “I spoke with a senior official in the Secretariat of State this afternoon. He sent the necessary documents by fax shortly afterward. The formal letter of instruction and the information for your flight. You are to meet with certain officials at the secretariat as soon as possible.”

  “Did he explain the purpose of the trip?”

  “Very little. You will be informed when you arrive.”

  “When do I leave?”

  “That is the part which surprises me. The man I spoke with expressed a certain urgency. You leave on the next flight from Ben Gurion. Everything has been arranged. Visa, tickets. Rome arranged the details directly with the Israelis.”

  “Surely he mentioned the purpose.”

  “Only that it pertains to archeology.”

  “Archeology?”

  “You have a longstanding interest in archeology do you not, Father?”

  “An amateur’s interest.”

  “You have published papers on biblical archeology in international journals.”

  “Yes, but they weren’t exceptional essays. Mere speculations. More a spirituality of biblical archeology than the strict science.”

  “They seem to have drawn the attention of the Vatican.”

  “There are no conferences on the subject in the near future. I don’t understand the urgency.”

  “Nor do I.” The prior stared at his desk.

  “How long will I be gone?”

  “The official didn’t want to say. He would tell me only that there is work which may demand your absence for a considerable length of time. He said that the duration of the mission was uncertain and that it was of the highest importance.”

  “What of my theology classes? Who will instruct the novices?”

  “Father John can take them.”

  “I was to preach the retreats at Bethlehem next week.”

  “I can take them.”

  Father Prior was a gifted preacher and much in demand. The two men sat in silence for some minutes, listening to the evening birds.

  “Can you tell me the source of your distress?”

  “I’m not sure. I sense that you are going into grave danger.”

  “In archeology?”

  “We have an extraordinary Pope, a man of the spirit, and heart and intellect—a saint. It has been centuries since we have been given such a shepherd. But he is surrounded by enemies. The Church is in crisis to her very foundations.”

  “Yes, bleeding from many wounds.”

  “The worst of these wounds have been inflicted by her own children. Rome is a troubled place right now. A place of shifting illusions.”

  “You spoke of danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “The spiritual kind. I tell you, I’m not at peace. I send you to Italy under obedience, for what does our life mean without obedience? Still, I know that I’m sending you into some form of peril.”

  “I’m not afraid of death.”

  “Death”, said the prior, sighing, “could be the least of dangers.”

  “May I speak plainly, as son to father?”

  “Of course you may. Do you think I fail to see the similarities between us? You are a convert from Judaism chosen by God to become a Carmelite priest—a branch pulled from the fire. And I, a refugee from German atheism. Both exiles who have come home. Brothers.”

  “I revere you as my father.”

  “Only three votes would have reversed the chairs in which we are sitting.”

  “The Holy Spirit chose you.”

  “And I wouldn’t be surprised if He chooses you at the next election. I would die in peace if this were so. But now I don’t think it will be.”

  Father Elijah looked at the prior quizzically. “No?”

  “Since the telephone call, I have been praying. And I hear a word that tells me you won’t return.”

  “If that is so, then I’m grieved. This is my only home. You are my friend.”

  “Friend. I treasure this word from you. Not good to have attachments, is it? But even here where we maintain universal charity, it is impossible not to see that certain ones are called to walk the same path.”

  “I have long walked behind you on this ascent of Mount Carmel. You have taught me everything a father could teach a son.”

  “If I have taught you to carry the cross and to die on it, then I have taught you everything. Have I taught you this?”

  “You have taught it to me from the very moment of my arrival.”

  “Do you know that when you first came here I thought you wouldn’t last. A Jew. A famous survivor of the Holocaust. A man powerful in Israel. How could a person like you accept becoming a hidden man of God? That is why I was so hard on you in the beginning.”

  “The brothers used to say that there was never a novice master as rigorous as you.”

  “The Prussian?”

  “You heard that? It wasn’t a charitable nickname.”

  “It was accurate. I had much to learn in those days. There were zones in my character where faith had not penetrated. Our century leaves its peculiar wounds in the soul, does it not?”

  “I often wondered if you were testing me.”

  “Yes, I tested you. It was something unresolved in me. I didn’t have enough faith to overcome ‘impossible cultural barriers’. I simply assumed that the Palestinian brothers would never accept you. I assumed that you were bringing into these poor walls the disease of famous men: pride, the destroyer of souls—and communities. I was wrong.”

  “You were right.”

  Father Prior looked at him steadily.

  “You were right because no man is exempt from that temptation. Everyone must wrestle with it, whatever form it takes. I wasn’t proud because I had been a minister of the government, nor because it was said that I would b
e prime minister one day. I wasn’t proud because of my books. I was proud because a secret gnawing ideal kept whispering within me, a voice that said I could save the world. That I could prevent another holocaust. I thought I was like God. A good, humble god, of course.”

  “Ah, Elijah,” said the prior, waving his hand as if to dismiss the thought, “you weren’t pulled from the fire for nothing.”

  “Fire is a test. It purifies or it destroys. It took years for me to throw off the thirst for vengeance disguised as justice. I was full of idealistic hatred—the worst kind.”

  “Your whole family was annihilated. How could you not hate us?”

  “I did for years. I became a cold, dead man. A shell. The mercy of God shattered it when I became a believer.”

  “But not everything is accomplished at one stroke.”

  “True. When I came to this house I brought the rage with me. Rage and indignation.”

  “I often wondered how you controlled your dislike of me?”

  “I didn’t want to dislike you. But the German accent. The mannerisms. It was too much for me.”

  “I know. We have never spoken of this, Father. But I remember the month and the year when you forgave everything, totally. Your eyes changed. Until then you had forgiven much, but not everything.”

  “You taught me this.”

  “I taught you this?”

  “Yes. You see, I knew that you knew my dislike. A lesser man than you would have become more severe or, worse, more kind. But you remained detached, and gradually I came to understand you. It took years to see it, and when I finally saw it, I knew the great act of charity you had made. You had resigned yourself to being forever the Teutonic despot in our eyes.”

  The prior replied: “Man projects his wounds upon the world, my friend. He judges everything, and in the judging he reveals himself. Some of my family were persecuted by Hitler, a few, a pitiful few. My uncle, a priest, was martyred in Dachau. But most of my relatives were complacent, asleep, or frightened. They collaborated with evil. Several were members of the Party. One of my cousins was in the SS. Quite a mixture, my family.”