TRILOGY: Bk I, Ch 37 (Jackass for the Hour)

Non valet argumentum

Don Hash was standing high up on top of the statue of Giordano Bruno, one foot on the shoulder, one foot on his head. He had said that Father Alexámenos was innocent of all charges, and was now making a point of crushing with his heel the head of the symbol of all heretics, Giordano Bruno.

“Allah alone is divine,” said Shaykh al-Hasan, only to be immediately drowned out by shouts of agreement: “Allāhu akbar! Allāhu akbar!” The Shaykh put up his hands, indicating he wanted silence. Those who were chanting obeyed so abruptly that the muffled ‘noise’ of the gently falling ash was at first shocking, then sickening. “Allah is too holy to come among us like some Christ!” he continued with his ashen voice of contempt, making those who were ready to chant anything at the slightest provocation again erupt into “Allāhu akbar! Allāhu akbar!” Lifting his hands again for silence, the Ambassador continued. “This priest of Christ whom you see is no servant of that minor prophet! Instead, this priest is the wilful whore of Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations. He is ancient Jerusalem becoming one flesh with false mythological gods on top of the Tower of Babel, thinking he can thus do battle against Islam, submitting to our sacred violence while remaining an infidel, a loser. He knows that a death is necessary in this very hour; all know I can and will enforce this because of the blasphemy against Allah. This priest’s attempt to fight violence with the violence of such an infidel is not a sacred suicide of submission to Allah. In the face of our coercion, his attempt is merely the weakness of laying down his life that another might live. Folly! He will not truly submit to Allah, and so he is happy to ride on the blasphemous, scarlet beast, Imperial Rome, the corrupt West, the puppet of the great Dragon, the ancient Serpent, the Devil, Satan, the Deceiver of the whole world. He pretends to drink from the Holy Grail, but he, as an infidel, is drunk on the blood of so-called saints and martyrs, a cup of abomination and impurity. He represents the military of the entire western world, which comes to imprison us, to torture us, to show us their perversion and kill us with snakes.” Then, raising his voice more forcefully, he continued: “Where? Where will this whore of a priest find four pious men to testify that he was raped against his will while they stood by and did nothing but watch?” mocked Shaykh al-Hasan, citing the horrific, hypocritical law of Sharia, as if it were good. He concluded his diatribe screaming his last words: “He is possessed by Satan. He deserves to burn!” Just as he said this, the match he had lit burnt down to his fingers, causing him to curse himself.

Shaykh al-Hasan knew that the demonic imagery he evoked was particularly offensive to the Rabbi, who, ignoring don Hash, started to repeat the ‘blasphemies’ against Allah that Father Alexámenos had spoken in the plane and which had been replayed during the trial. The Ambassador turned to Rabbi Shelomoh and continued, easily shouting down the older man. “You, Rabbi, are the adulterer who escaped when the Pharisees and scribes dragged the woman caught in adultery before Christ to have her stoned to death. That adulterer was one of those Jewish leaders who threw down their stones, admitting that they were all adulterers. They came to watch her die, like you’ve come here now to watch this adulterer die. Hah! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, always playing the whore, the whore of pagan Babylon. When will you come to know that Allah is the only One there is?” The Rabbi was too upset to respond, much to the entertainment of the Ambassador and the Muslims in the crowd, who began to chant: “There is no god but Allah! Muhammad is the prophet of Allah! There is no god but Allah! Muhammad is the prophet of Allah!”

Turning to Pope Tsur-Ēzer, Shaykh al-Hasan was ecstatic as he continued describing his vision. Motioning for silence, he declared: “You, Pope of iniquity and losers, are now put to the test as was Christ. Whatever you answer, you and your Church are damned to hell. What are you going to do, Holy Father? Will you simply say that we should agree to disagree, saying that we should all just be nice, for we are all nice anyway?”

“That all-too-common caricature of the Church is…” began Pope Tsur-Ēzer, unsuccessfully trying to interrupt.

“In that case, you, Pope of the followers of Satan,” continued Shaykh al-Hasan, “you will be held to be a merely politically correct leader even by your own infidels. You will be held to be one who goes along with Islam even while not professing faith in Allah. But we will reject you as deserving of death.”

“I will never…” Pope Tsur-Ēzer began to exclaim, only to be cut off again.

“Perhaps you will say, instead, that this priest, this whore of Babylon should die, for no one should blaspheme the One God? In that case, you should also be put to death as a blasphemer, for you still do not submit to Allah, and are a dangerous hypocrite. How long will you waver, making a policy of never being a father. If Jesus is God, follow Him. If Allah is – and Allah is – then you are to submit. Jesus is dead. Submit to Allah!” Shaykh al-Hasan lit a match.

The Holy Father saw the flame flare up from the match, which the Ambassador of Arāk was now holding up for all to see. As an answer to Shaykh al-Hasan, the Pontiff lunged toward the pile of logs before the soldiers realised what was happening. They soon grabbed the old Pontiff and held on to him. The Pope knew that trying to stop Shaykh al-Hasan directly would only buy a few seconds of delay, but if he tried to take don Hash’s place, perhaps he, at least, could be a good Shepherd, saving don Hash’s life, and setting a good example as any father should do, the very example both Father Alexámenos and don Hash were willing to give by the grace of God, the Charity of Christ Jesus. “If anyone must die, it must be the Father of the Family,” Pope Tsur-Ēzer said, struggling uselessly. He stressed each word: “The Holy Father must be a Shepherd in the Faith after Christ’s Heart, not a hireling watching the death of his children in the Faith. I must take his place.” When he finished saying these things he stopped struggling altogether, completely relaxing his muscles, though with tactical intent.

The words of the Pontiff were not expected. They were outside of Shaykh al-Hasan’s ideological categories. He had presented other options. He had not been able to understand the real meaning of the story of the adulterous woman in the Gospel of John, though he knew the story well, for it was often quietly discussed whenever a woman was accused of adultery and was to be stoned to death in various Islamic countries. But Shaykh al-Hasan could now see that the Pontiff had imitated Jesus, whose response to the Pharisees about not stoning the adulteress was justified by laying down His own life in vicarious atonement, taking her place.

The next match had already burnt down, and the Ambassador of Arāk cursed himself, shaking it out, staring at its smoke. He threw it down as if it were something horrible in itself, a representation of his own soul. Yet, without thinking, he took out a fresh match, looking at it intently, aware of what it could do as a preemptive answer to the Pontiff’s words, but seeing something else, as if transported in time. For just an instant, he saw the white-hot furnace of the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who had ordered it to be heated seven times more than usual. He saw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the blazing, fiery furnace, the servants of the Most High God, untouched by destruction within the flames, with a fourth Person, the Son of God, in their midst. In that instant, Shaykh al-Hasan knew that any flame he might start that day would not burn Father Alexámenos, don Hash or Pope Tsur-Ēzer with the fires of hell, but would only give them an occasion to walk in the presence of God, in the midst of the flames of purifying and vivifying Charity.

The Holy Father did not see the soul of the Ambassador of Arāk, only that a fresh match had appeared in the hand of the would-be assassin. The soldiers hadn’t let the Pope go, but they had loosened their grip out of respect. The Pontiff broke free from the soldiers and, busy with this, didn’t see that Shaykh al-Hasan had just dropped to his knees and was now looking to the heavens, saying, hardly loud enough for himself to hear, “How many young people I have prepared to be suicide bombers, and now… My God… Why has it taken me so long to know you?”

Pope Tsur-Ēzer moved closer to the place of execution. The struggle was, for him, one of universal significance. It was what he had the privilege of doing if the worst came to the worst.

“Tsur-Ēzer… No!” shouted Rabbi Shelomoh, cut to the quick of his soul at having witnessed what was happening to Shaykh al-Hasan, and what his friend, the Holy Father, was doing in sacrificing himself, passing his litmus test of the Faith.

The Pontiff – no longer obstructed by the soldiers who were happy enough to see him burn as well – turned to Rabbi Shelomoh and – not seeing Shaykh al-Hasan – said, “If ‘Never again!’ means anything at all, my friend, the usual damage control, the hiding of the fulness of Truth and Charity must stop now. It is the resurrection of the Child-Sacrifice of Our Heavenly Father, the Messiah, secundum carnem, according to the flesh, which is pushing me to do this.” The Pontiff could not have imagined not doing this. His being sifted as wheat did not refer to dying himself, but to the anxiety of presenting the fulness of the Truth about the Child-Sacrifice of God, knowing that this might bring violence upon God’s children. But this anxiety had not been holy, for it betrayed a lack of trust in God, and it had needed to be purged.

The Holy Father turned to start climbing the logs, commanding don Hash to get down. As he did so, the Ambassador of Arāk came to himself and shouted, “Tsur-Ēzer… No!”

The Pope stopped; Shaykh al-Hasan had converted. Don Hash was already climbing down.

The Rabbi noted the irony of the speech of Shaykh al-Hasan being turned upon himself, and said, “Your words and example, Holy Father, and the conversion of this… this…”

“…son of the Most High?” asked don Hash – who had been quick to join them – referring, with this completion of a sentence, to the Ambassador of Arāk and his conversion.

“Yes, don Hash, a son of the Most High,” said Shelomoh ben Yitshaq, who held out his hand to the Ambassador to help him to his feet.

“Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! May Jesus Christ be praised!” said the Rabbi to all those around him.

“Blessed be the name!” they all replied, including the Ambassador and the Pontiff.

“As I was saying, Holy Father,” continued the Rabbi, “all of this ‘richiama le anime ad una più alta visione della vita riaffermando indomita la rinascente fede dei Padri.’ The mercy of the Child-Sacrifice of Jesus, a Jew, now makes sense to me. It is His Charity which is present in our midst. The Name we praise is the Son of the Most High. Salvation is from the Jews.”

The Muslims who had been chanting in the crowd could not understand what they were seeing. They could not hear everything, but it was clear that both their Shaykh and the Rabbi had converted. They were paralysed with this sudden turn of events. But this would not last for long.

The Rabbi – facing Father Alexámenos and don Hash – apologised: “When we were by the river, next to the Synagogue, I asked you both the question of Peter to Christ, “Quo vadis?” which Peter asked Christ when Peter was fleeing his own crucifixion in Rome. Christ responded that He was on His way into Rome to be crucified a second time, in Peter, of course, so that Peter would, in this way, help to complete what was lacking to the sufferings of the Body of Christ. You have to know that when I asked you that, I thought none of you really believed your professed faith about sacrifice. Now I know that you both do, including the one I now call…” The Rabbi turned to his childhood friend, now the Bishop of Rome, and continued: “including the one I now call my Pope, my Holy Father.”

When the Holy Father heard him, he was amazed, and said to those around him, “Truly I say to you, rarely among Catholics have I found such assent to the Faith.”

“But I still do not understand your trust in me,” said the Ambassador to don Hash, for he was clearly shaken amidst his new found Faith. “You provided the matches.”

“Up to now, someone had to die. The omnia parata rule of heretics would have been enforced by yourself and the Italian State,” replied don Hash. “Better myself than Alexámenos. I didn’t trust you, Ambassador; our Lord has entrusted Himself to both of us, wanting to make of us a new creation as brothers in Himself. He died and rose for us both… You are to be my brother in Baptism. Whatever God provides or permits is for the good. It had to be. He provides the flames of Charity. But I’m happy you saw this sooner rather than later!”

“You are both my brothers,” said Shelomoh.

As he said this, don Hash was abruptly, almost violently grabbed and brought away by a soldier to the far side of the Campo, to the corner of the Cancelleria and the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso. He explained that he had to get don Hash further away from the fire, drenched in fuel as he was. It took them many minutes to work through the dense crowd. As don Hash looked up at the travertine stone of the immense façade of the building, he exulted in the greatness of God, of Christ Jesus, happier – blessed even – than he had ever been in his life, his heart on fire, asking the Lord silently, “Who would I be, the one burnt or the one lighting the fire?”

Libero, from Le Rinascite, had been quietly observing the proceedings. Now he also understood, and turned to make his way through the crowd and down Via del Pellegrino alongside the Cancelleria, wanting to fetch something from his shop to give to this group to which he felt he now belonged. He finally understood what it meant to be a Jackass.

The Holy Father, however, was not paying attention to them in the least, for there were other sheep who needed attention. Cardinal Fidèle, in his wheelchair, was just about to move out of the perimeter of the metal fencing on the far side of the statue, though he was still within sight.

“Not so fast, Fidèle,” shouted the Pontiff. “We are not finished here yet.”

Cardinal Fidèle stopped dead, hesitated for some seconds, then spun the wheelchair around and started to come back, stopping by the logs near the transcript of the American’s trial, which he, and then, Polycarp, had placed under one of the logs. He responded, “Your Holiness is correct, as usual.” He then reached into his cassock and pulled out a lighter he had been using to light the sanctuary lamps in his chapel at San Calisto whenever visitors came. He lit it, and moved it toward the paper underneath the fuel soaked logs. Even before the flame reached the paper, the entire pile of logs instantaneously burst into flame with such force that the poorly piled logs shifted, collapsing upon themselves even as Cardinal Fidèle in his wheelchair was blown some metres away from the logs themselves. All of the windows of the buildings in the Campo had been blown out by the momentary, expansive force of all the high-octane fuel igniting. The flames reached high above the surrounding buildings, including the Cancelleria of San Lorenzo in Damaso, and could be seen over the buildings from Piazza Navona, the Casa del Clero, San Calisto, Castel Sant’Angelo and the Vatican. The little smoke there was, however, shot back down to the piazza, rejected by the heavens. The Cardinal was on fire, as he intended, having despaired of the evil of his life even as he watched the scene of Charity and unity unfold.

Father Alexámenos had recovered from his fall down the pile of logs, and had already been running toward the Cardinal the moment he saw the lighter appear, knowing what was going to happen. Although he was also knocked to the ground by the force of the blast, he was quickly running again. It took, it seemed to him, an eternity to put out the flames burning the Prelate, for although he successfully smothered them, he had not been able to do so before being hurt himself. In the last seconds of smothering these flames, Carpe Diem had joined Father Alexámenos, helping to put out the flames, giving the pain from the flames no importance at all. None was severely burnt. Father Alexámenos rose and was about to help Cardinal Fidèle to his feet, but the Prelate jumped up without any help, as if he wasn’t the aged man in a wheelchair they had seen moments before. Pope Tsur-Ēzer, Shelomoh and al-Hasan joined them, along with padre Emet, who had been assisting the Carmelites and, then, those at Mater Ecclesiae Convent. They then saw the eyes of the Prelate. They were burning, but not with any earthly flames. Shelomoh stepped back, not used to such a sight. Carpe Diem, instead, went to look for don Hash.

“Contra Caritatem et Veritatem, contra Christum non valet argumentum,” the Pontiff told Cardinal Fidèle as a way to begin the exorcism, knowing that the Prelate, with his great intelligence that lacked wisdom, left himself open to thinking there is an argument against Charity and Truth, against Christ, the diabolical argument which is the hate-filled rejection of free will.

The evil spirit in Cardinal Fidèle reacted terribly, shouting with a demonic voice, “Non serviam! I will not serve!” Never taking his eyes off Pope Tsur-Ēzer, Cardinal Fidèle walked slowly backward toward the towering flames, whose heat was increasing as the logs began to burn, not just the fuel. The others grabbed his arms to stop him, but could not fight the unnatural strength of the otherwise frail Prelate. The Pope then spoke the exorcism he intended to use before the Cardinal began to back away: “In the name of Jesus Christ, and by the merits of His Immaculate Mother… Begone Satan, to the everlasting hell prepared for you and your followers!”

The effect was immediate. The Cardinal fell to the ground, exhausted and in pain. All this left him a shambles of regret. “Your Holiness,” he said, “how is it that you could trust Hash to do the right thing, to act out of Charity? What was it that you said to him in the Paul VI Audience Hall when he knelt before you, before you gave him a blessing? What is the answer to relativism?”

The Holy Father knew that if the Cardinal had to ask, he could hardly be told. He had to come to know the answer, which was staring him in the face. Yet, since being told the answer can be an occasion for coming to do just this, the Holy Father began by saying, “It was only a blessing which I spoke. It is not so much that I trusted Hash or Emet or Alexámenos. It is Christ Whom I trust in them. The way out of the tyranny of relativism is…”

“But the way everything worked out here today seems to have all depended on me,” interrupted the Ambassador of Arāk, uninterested in the philosophical problems of the Cardinal, and continuing to worry about how to trust in God. “I might not have seen the Charity that I saw here today,” he said, “and things for all of you might have been much different.”

Some of the media were filming the conversation from the level of the pavement, so that it appeared as if the sky itself was filled with the towering flames behind them. It was not Saint Michael sheathing his sword that was to be seen in the flames, but rather the statue of Giordano Bruno burning, with the sword of the Ambassador lodged in its neck. With the flames rising so high into the sky, it was truly a nauseating sight. “Look, it’s Teilhard,” shouted a bystander, pointing at the statue’s face. And, in fact, the flames made the Dominican of past centuries look like he was reincarnated as the evolutionary pantheist Jesuit of modernist times, de Chardin, who was buried in, of all places, the C.I.A., the Culinary Institute of America.

“Even if you, al-Hasan, had not now become a believer,” replied the Holy Father, “things would not necessarily have been different, for even if we had all been put to death, is it not true that this fidelity of ours in the grace of God would have been an occasion of grace for the conversion of many, including you? All things work for the good of those who believe. We must only be faithful by trusting in God’s grace. This is impossible for us without grace. This is how we are sifted like wheat. We die to ourselves and live for Him. The Lord gives strength. The crucifixion of Christ, the Child-Sacrifice of our Heavenly Father, is not a useless failure.”

“The sifting of wheat speaks of the Eucharist, and of the Cross,” asserted al-Hasan. “It was only at the moment of Christ’s death that the centurion said, Truly, this was the Son of God. Only because of seeing the wounds on the risen Body of Christ was the Apostle Thomas able to say My Lord and my God.”

“I see you know our Scriptures well,” said Shelomoh ben Yitshaq. But the Cardinal was thinking of his empty tabernacle in his apartment at San Calisto, and of his own empty heart.

“I think I know the Scriptures more than you, Rabbi,” said al-Hasan with friendly competition. “I have simply avoided believing. I thought it to be too inconvenient. But even more than that, I went out of my way to persecute God’s children…” He stopped, overcome with emotion.

The two clasped hands in friendship, then turned to the Holy Father, and asked, “When?”

The Pope replied, “Tomorrow night, during the Easter Vigil at Saint Peter’s Basilica, you will be baptised with water, confirmed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and receive the Most Blessed Sacrament. For now, let us begin the Liturgy of Good Friday. It is the Hour of Mercy. We will use the Basilica of San Lorenzo…”

They could no longer speak, for the crowd near the corner of the Campo, where don Hash had been taken, had begun shouting and shrieking. The soldier who had led don Hash away – the same one from the Circo Massimo who had caused them problems near the Synagogue – had started the death chant, “The blasphemy will not be forgotten! Burn the jackass! The hour has come!” He had already intended to do this in the Basilica itself, but when it was reported that no one had been seriously hurt in the fire at the statue, he started immediately. As many of the Muslims began to chant the death chant with him, the soldier took out a lighter he had used to light the fire in the Circo Massimo, and held it to the side of don Hash, who, instantly engulfed in the flames because of the fuel poured over him, then leaned against the travertine stone of the Cancelleria. He seemed to be looking right through the stone, right into the Basilica. He soon dropped to his knees, then, after some seconds, he fell face down onto the footpath, then over on his back. The flames reached high, and the smoke of the sacrifice seemed to enter the very heavens above. Unlike the case with Cardinal Fidèle, there was no way to help don Hash before he would be seriously burnt.

Nevertheless, Carpe Diem, who had just helped put out the flames on Cardinal Fidèle, wanted to repeat this for don Hash; he shouted, “Polycarp, carpe diem… don Hash, carpe diem… Jesus, carpe diem… Good heart! Ee-aagghh,” and then rushed toward don Hash. Some good hearted people rushed to pull him away before he was also hurt, but no one could stop Polycarp when he was determined to do something.

In those very seconds, Libero had returned from Le Rinascite with the tapestry depicting Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount. He threw the tapestry over don Hash and Polycarp, who had also started to burn. Polycarp was not seriously hurt. Afraid of the unfamiliar tapestry, he was able to quickly roll away, and was aided by some other bystanders, whose concern, however, made him all the more distressed. “Don Hash, carpe diem!” he cried repeatedly. Within seconds, Libero had smothered all the flames engulfing don Hash with the tapestry, which itself started to burn. Other bystanders still stamped out these flames while Libero loudly lamented the horrific burning of don Hash. He was still alive, but had gone into shock, and was now unconscious. His cassock and most of his clothes had been burnt off him. His face, with eyes fortunately shut, was unrecognisable.

The soldiers, most of whom were not Muslim, immediately arrested some they pretended might be involved in the display of ‘vigilantism’. They did this for the sake of appearance, for the sake of crowd control. They conveniently did not arrest the soldier who had set don Hash on fire, nor anyone who shouted at him the usual insults against priests: “Pretino, scarafaggio che sei!” and “Maledetto!” The incident was televised right around the world. The media, knocking people over to rush to the scene, could not help but televise what the Pope did when he arrived, making the Sign of the Cross in absolution over don Hash, and then asking for repentance from the would-be assassin, who had disappeared into the crowd. The Pontiff then asked for a spirit of forgiveness if the would-be assassin would manifest any kind of contrition. Pope Tsur-Ēzer then knelt next to don Hash, looking for any sign of life.

Libero rose to his feet, and then raised his voice, feeling a strength in himself which he had never know previously. He began to recite what he had learned by heart – after all these years – only since that Monday evening:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of the Heavens; blessed are those who are grieving, for they shall be consoled; blessed are those who are available to others in a friendly way, for they shall inherit the earth; blessed are those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for they shall be completely satisfied; blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God; blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of the Heavens…”

He only made it halfway through the last beatitude, for the words dramatically changed from third person to second person, and this took Libero off guard, even while he was speaking. Standing in front of don Hash, he eyed the crowd with intensity and continued:

“Blessed are you when, because of Me – says the Lord – they disparage you, persecute and speak every kind of evil against you, lying; rejoice and exult exceedingly, for your reward in the heavens is great… for just in this way did they persecute the prophets who were before you.”

As he was saying these things, Cardinal Fidèle made his way to those who were assisting Polycarp, giving them a sum of money, asking them to bring Polycarp to the address on the piece of paper he gave him, telling him that he would find his mother there.

Libero was not the only one to convert. Just as he repeated Christ’s praise for the great Jewish prophets, the apparition which the Holy Father had seen since Monsignor Sens was first infected with the virus – Saint Michael with sword drawn, surrounded by flames – was now seen by all, including those for whom the Archangel was Patron: the Italian police. Except for those with the Pope, most fell back in fright. Yet, they soon recognised that Saint Michael was sheathing his sword once again, which, as the Pontiff knew, had begun the previous night. The strength of the apparition was seen through the ashes coming from the fire in the Circo Massimo. Although this was a sign of hope for a peace that they did not yet understand, some looked upon the scene with horror. Like Attila the Hun, who died shortly after he saw this same scene filling the skies above Hadrian’s tomb when he was ready to attack Rome in the early 450’s A.D. – the reason why it was renamed Castel Sant’Angelo – both Archbishop Ahan and Cardinal de Colines died. Yet, these events had been an occasion of grace for Cardinals Francisco and Elzevir, as well as Cardinal Froben. They did not know, however, that conversion based on a vision is hardly a conversion. What was needed was evidence of the Charity which is the fruit of a conversion based on the Living Truth.

•••—•••—•••

The next night, most of those who were still alive and were physically able, both Jew and Gentile, believer and unbeliever, were to be found as close to Vatican City as they could get. The media, many of whom still did not understand the grandeur of the Easter Vigil, were making much fuss about all the security there was around Saint Peter’s Basilica. Many Muslims, however, were wanting to burn more than just don Hash. The media, ever sensationalistic, broadcast street interviews with Muslims who, even if they were alone, would start chanting their death chant with fists in the air, “The blasphemy will not be forgotten! Burn the jackass! The hour has come!”

The fire in Campo dei Fiori had now been reduced to a small hill of hotly burning embers, the flames of which were still reaching up from one to three metres, depending on the strength of the breeze in the Campo. The statue of Giordano Bruno had melted, and much of the pedestal had been broken apart in the heat of the flames during the past day. The sword was nowhere to be seen. The orange glow of the fire reflected off the continually falling ashes, and this glow could be seen from all over the city in the night skies, as could the much larger glow coming from the fire in the Circus Maximus. There was yet a third fire, small, seemingly insignificant, on the other side of the river, which had been lit in front of the obelisk in Piazza San Pietro. It was the new Fire, the Easter Fire, symbol of the resurrected Christ, whose Heart is on fire with Charity. Father Lia-Fail was tending the fire, just before the Easter Vigil began.

Pope Tsur-Ēzer, flooded with doubts, quietly asked him, “Did I do the right thing, Lia-Fail, in asking the Lord for the mercy of three days of pestilence – rather than three months of war or three years of famine?”

Father Lia-Fail stood up straight and pointed out the patches of sky glowing over Circo Massimo and Campo dei Fiori. He pedantically recounted how Saint Patrick had taken his life in his hands by being the first to light the new fire during the high festive days of pagan Eire. “Your Holiness,” he said, “Saint Patrick would have been the last to light a fire in these days, pointing out that these other fires only came about for a purification wrought by the mercy whose flames of Charity were already lit among us thousands of years ago.”

“I didn’t ask Saint Patrick,” said the Holy Father impatiently, “I asked someone called Lia-Fail, hoping that he would live up to his name.”

“Your Holiness, if I might speak freely…” Pope Tsur-Ēzer frowned in disapproval, for he always wanted honest answers.

Father Lia-Fail continued, saying, “It strikes me that the three days of pestilence you asked for was, unbeknownst to you, merely a preparation for another kind of purification; after all, what you were asking for was only half-way appreciative of the Hebrew Scriptures.”

The Jewish Pontiff just looked at him incredulously. “Go on,” he said, knowing he himself had solicited the comments. The Shephardic citizen of Israel, padre Emet, was with them, not saying anything, but hoping Father Lia-Fail would now say what he himself could not say only five weeks before, knowing that the Pontiff would have to learn the truth of the matter first hand.

“You were just under pressure,” continued Father Lia-Fail, “too close to it all. You were so proud of your Jewish heritage, and with good reason. But the Lord permitted you to choose rightly that which your fellow Jew, King Zedekiah, did not. The Church had to undergo a purification, learning humility by the grace of God, but there’s more to it than that.”

“Go on,” commanded the Pontiff.

“The Lord also let you bargain with Him in the same way King David did after the census he instigated. You did well to choose what you did. Many have learned what they needed to learn before going to their judgment, what they otherwise may have ignored to their own eternal peril. The Church has been purified of so many who were persecuting her from within. Many have converted, and are now serving the Lord instead of themselves. Michael has sheathed his sword, for the time-being. That is all true. But that is not the end of the story. In cannot be. To think so would be blasphemy, as if a bit of precipitated death could teach us anything more about the grave consequences of sin, more than having Christ Himself hang on the Cross, taking on what we deserve so that, in fulfilling all righteousness, He then has mercy on us, in that…”

“You are repeating the words of others. Tell me! Have I been so blind? I thought it was a good and holy thing to look at what was happening in the Hebrew Scriptures as a type of what was to come with Christ. Is that really such an evil reduction of the Faith of our Fathers? What more is to be said or done?”

“Your Holiness… Were you truly Jewish before you became Catholic? You must know that…”

“You shall tell me later,” said the Pontiff. Padre Emet groaned in disappointment. “The whole world is with us for the Easter Vigil,” the Holy Father insisted. “Let us be going.”

“You have it now!” exclaimed Father Lia-Fail, referring to the citation of Christ’s words in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Arise! Let us be going!”

Pope Tsur-Ēzer stopped dead, looked at Father Lia-Fail, and, in a flash of insight, understood what he had already started to understand about being sifted as wheat. He repeated, “Arise! Let us be going!” This was too cryptic for padre Emet, and he resolved to push the Holy Father about the sin David committed, which had so long ago occasioned that choice between pestilence, war or famine.

The deacon, a convert from Chinese atheistic communism, presented the Pontiff with the Paschal Candle, similar to that used for the trial of Father Alexámenos. In the wax, the Holy Father inscribed the Cross, the letters Alpha and Omega, and the numbers of the year, saying, “Christus, heri et hodie / Principium et Finis / Alpha / et Omega / Ipsius sunt tempora / et sæcula / Ipsi gloria et imperium / per universa æternitatis sæcula. Amen.” Inserting beads of incense into the candle at the centre and ends of the inscribed Cross, he said, “Per sua santa vulnera / gloriosa / custodiat / et conservet nos / Christus Dominus. Amen.” Since the lit candle, symbolic of Christ’s life, was not snuffed out, but was burning brightly, the deacon, holding the candle high, led the procession into the Basilica singing, “Lumen Christi”, The Light of Christ. Five hundred thousand small candles had been prepared in the previous months, long before the trial. It was thought this would be enough for the crowds which had been consistently overflowing the piazza into the nearby streets. But this was not enough, especially not after the destruction brought about by the pandemic. The streets were packed to a radius of a kilometre and a half around the basilica. No one presumed to keep a candle for himself, but passed the candles originally lit from the Paschal candle to those further away. Rivers of fire wound their way through the streets, across the river, as far as the Cancelleria and the Campo dei Fiori, as if the fire of the Easter Candle reflected the flames they had seen in the skies surrounding Saint Michael the day before. Holy Mass was offered inside the Basilica, though this offered little respite from the ever-falling ash.

Father Alexámenos and Cardinal Fidèle were vested for the Mass, but had not joined in the procession. The Cardinal’s face and eyes were covered in bandages, though they were not very badly scorched. Father Alexámenos wanted to accompany Cardinal Fidèle. They were waiting underneath the baldachin of the Papal Altar. Don Hash could not be found. An ambulance had taken him away, but all the almost innumerable hospitals and clinics in the sprawling city were in complete disarray after the devastation of those days.

During the Mass, Shelomoh ben Yitshaq, after his Baptism, would stand next to them, holding the crosier of the Holy Father. When they finally entered the basilica, Shelomoh’s heart thrilled to the Exultet sung by the deacon, filled as the hymn was with references from the Hebrew Scriptures. He heard the readings as if for the first time, with their full significance. The Holy Father had ordered that the passages from Genesis and Exodus were to be chanted in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Eliyahu, who was also to be Baptised that night, was to stand next to Shelomoh after his own Baptism, also serving by holding the Pontiff’s triple tiara, which the Pope had resurrected on this occasion, wanting to speak of the priestly, prophetic and kingly roles of Christ, which it symbolised.

When the Gloria was intoned, the bells on the façade of the Basilica started to peal. The bells of many churches in Rome also started to ring. To accomplish this, some churches had to be broken into, for many of the priests had died in the past days, or were present at the Vigil. Very few lights were on in the Basilica since all power was coming from emergency generators.

The Gospel was chanted in Greek, Latin and – again at the instigation of the Holy Father – in Hebrew translation. The Holy Father sat down to begin his sermon.

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Chapter 38 coming soon…

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© 2007-2008 Renzo di Lorenzo — All rights reserved

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