Book Review: Seven Storey Mountain

For our Frassati Book club, I got to choose the book. It was actually the first book I got to choose! I chose The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. I chose it because I had bought it many years back but had never read it.  A friend of a friend recommended it highly. I also was intrigued about Thomas Merton after finishing the Catholicism series DVDs by Fr. Robert Barron (highly recommended).

Anyway, on to the review. I found it fantastic. It's the story of a man who grew from one pole of religion to another. He considered himself an atheist, a communist, and a fierce anti-Catholic at different points in his life. Then the truth hit him like a hammer. He became enraptured by Catholicism and the beauty found therin and decided to not just become a good Catholic, but a Saint. He realized his vocation was to the priesthood and the contemplative life. He eventually entered a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.

I really like his writing style. He's an excellent writer and a poet. I especially love reading about his deep spiritual experiences such as his first communion and his spiritual journey to Cuba (before communist rule). He's very well read and very well educated. His self-knowledge reminds me a lot of St. Augustine's confessions. How he searches deep within himself and the reasons why he did things or thought certain ways. It was also very interesting to me how he talked about World Wars I and II. He didn't say that certain politics, powers, etc caused these wars, he said that he caused them. His sins and the sins of others like them were what led to such atrocities. Even though he wasn't directly involved in the wars, he recognized what our collective sin is capable of doing if left unrepentant.

Father Elijah - An Apocalypse!

So I began reading this book called, "Father Elijah: An Apocalypse". It's a novel by Michael O'Brien (amazon link). It's one of the first real novels I've read in a long time and I am really enjoying it. It's the story of the end of times told through a very Catholic perspective. I'll admit that a long time ago (before I had fully entered the Catholic Church), I did read the 'Left Behind' series with my mom. This book blows that series out of the water.

The Left Behind series focuses on the tribulation period which follows the 'Rapture'. The only problem is that I've discovered that this isn't really accurate church teaching. The Rapture is a fairly new concept and is not discussed at all by the early church fathers. The theory actually dates to the early 1900s. It seems strange that for 1900 years no one mentions this, especially the people that Christ lived and spoke with. Read more about this topic here.

The book also makes me think of another book. A book I regret reading even more than the left behind series. The book was called, "The Davinci Code". I've since learned that this book has taken a lot of liberties and has fabricated a great deal of it's 'evidence' for Christ being a married man (read more here). The reason I mention it is because Father Elijah also has mentioned great works of art within it's narrative and it's an exciting story that makes me recall what it was like reading The Davinci Code for the first time.

Michael O'Brien weaves a beautiful tale of a Holocaust survivor who has become a Catholic monk who is chosen by the Pope to combat a rising world figure that the church has a grave suspicion is the Antichrist. It's a well told tale that focuses heavily on orthodox church teaching and weaves a lot of Father Elijah's history into the narrative. There's a particular scene of Father Elijah speaking with a particularly wicked man on his deathbed that kept me up for hours reading one night. It's a fairly thick book, but I think it's a fast read. I've only been reading for two weeks and I'm more than halfway through (and I'm a very slow reader).

If you're in the Baltimore area, we are meeting later this month to discuss this book through our Baltimore Frassati Fellowship book club. The facebook event is located here. Don't worry if you haven't read the book or haven't read all of it, we welcome everyone to listen to the discussion and help us pick future books.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!