Daily Inspiration Quote by Thomas Keneally

The drama here isn’t in the piety; it’s in the anticlimax. Keneally frames a near-ordination the way a novelist frames a plot that almost resolves: “very close,” “delighted,” “last step” - a neat, ascending ladder of certainty. Then the trapdoor opens: “But then it all fell apart.” The bluntness of that final clause is doing heavy lifting. No theology, no ornate justification, just collapse. It’s the sound of a story refusing to become a testimony.

The specific intent feels less like confession than calibration. Keneally is placing his authority in a paradox: he knows the inside of the Church well enough to have nearly belonged to it officially, yet he’s also defined by the exit ramp. That near-miss becomes a credential in two directions at once. It signals seriousness (this wasn’t adolescent dabbling), while also protecting him from being read as a spokesman for doctrine.

Subtext: vocation and authorship are competing callings, and the “fell apart” suggests more than personal doubt. In mid-20th-century Catholic culture, especially in Australia, priesthood carried social gravity and a ready-made identity. Walking away wasn’t just changing careers; it was renegotiating family expectations, institutional authority, and a whole moral architecture. By keeping the cause offstage, Keneally invites the listener to focus on the rupture itself - the moment when a life that seemed scripted suddenly becomes, fittingly, material.