O'Brien on the art of abandonment to God

Best-selling Ignatius Press author Michael O'Brien is featured in a recent Western Catholic Reporter article, in which he talks about the joys and trials of being a Catholic artist:

Success in worldly terms, a published book, an art show, these are meaningless unless they are fruitful for other souls, unless one is totally abandoned to Christ," says novelist and painter Michael O'Brien.

"The key point is that this abandonment to divine providence is not negative, is not a void: it is in fact a love affair with God."

The author of A Cry of Stone, and the Children of the Last Days series, which includes the best-selling Father Elijah, said in an interview that his love affair with God began when he was 21 years old and had departed from his Catholic upbringing.

At the time, he'd been reading existentialist writers and experienced "an assault of total darkness, of total lostness," an attack he believes had a satanic, spiritual dimension.

Read the entire article here.