<![CDATA[Catechists carry demanding educational, liturgical, administrative, and relational responsibilities in Catholic communities. When these duties accumulate without adequate recovery, support, or boundaries, ministry may involve emotional exhaustion, spiritual dryness, and loss of meaning. This study explores how five catechists from parishes in the Archdiocese of Medan described such experiences and examines the Elijah narrative in 1 Kings 18-19 as a theological lens for pastoral reflection. The qualitative study has a phenomenological orientation and uses written WhatsApp interview responses concerning causes, feelings, signs, and responses to burnout. Analysis involved repeated reading, identification of meaning units, initial coding, cross-case comparison, and clustering into four themes: ministry overload and eroded boundaries; spiritual disconnection within continued service; emotional, cognitive, relational, and bodily spillover; and recovery through rest, support, renewed spiritual practice, and limits on ministry. Although experiences varied, the shared pattern concerned an imbalance between sustained pastoral demands and recovery resources. Elijah is used as a dialogical rather than diagnostic framework. The narrative illuminates exhaustion and restoration without treating Elijah and contemporary catechists as empirically identical. Because the small dataset does not establish saturation, prevalence, or clinical diagnosis, conclusions are limited to these five accounts. The study recommends workload review, protected rest, confidential accompaniment, peer support, and professional referral when distress persists]]>
